When Apple builds a tablet, I will buy it. I want a great big, Apple PDA.
What part of GM do you work for?
It’s not about positioning so much as Apple not really seeming to care much about their products. Marketshare (and I’m suspicious of Apple’s numbers), even bouncing up or down a bit, means little. They’re not really growing their long-term base. And that ultimately spells trouble for the computer business. It either vanishes or becomes such a bit player that no one cares. Even today, Apple’s technology is coasting on memories of yesteryear. Their OS has advantages, but many more disadvatanges.
Of course, I despise Apple’s customers for getting on board with some of their new products. The Ipod was fine, btu it wasn’t anything special, and the Ipod shuffle was (a) a brilliant marketing move and (b) gobbled up by people who apparently thought they had a new feature. I can understand people buying an Ipod (though not when comapred the competition), but I can’t understand why anyone would by one because it has a random button.
“Better than Windows” is the advantage that trumps all others. 
Is it this guy?
Par-tay! Apple patents the rectangle! I think they’re onto something!
I especially like Fig 9, which demonstrates how the revolutionary new rectangle will be held. But make no mistake: the broken lines being shown (e.g. everything that’s not simply a rectangle) are not part of the design. They are for illustrative purposes only.
Another clue that they’re thinking about it. If you have Tiger, and a graphics card capable of Quartz Extreme, go to System Preferences, and hold down option while you click on “Displays”. You’ll get an extra pop-up menu that lets you rotate the display in 90 degree increments. Unfortunately, the mouse/trackpad axes do not rotate along with the display, making it really hard to move around.
(If you want to rotate back to normal, you have to quit System Preferences and open it again - for some reason the extra menu disappears when you rotate.)
That is not just a rectangle, it is a round cornered rectangle!
Apple also deserves some sort of award for the use of brevity in a patent application:
We claim the ornamental design for an electronic device, substantially as shown and described.
(plus some pictures)
Might be—though I thought I remembered the frankentablet having an orange casing.
OK,** Sol**. I’ve grown to have a great deal of respect for you over the past year. You’ve helped to educate me and lose some prejudice I carried for far too long.
But a frigging man-purse? Nothing wrong with it? Sac up man! You are still a guy, you know. This is a sad day in dufferland[sup]TM[/sup]!
Anyway, I try to stay out of PC vs Mac stuff as I’m more partisan on this than any other topic. I can’t imagine ever being swayed. I started out on Apple 25 years ago in school, and today see Mac as little more than a tool for graphic designers and artists. Though PC’s are now, or will soon be, caught up for power.
Add to that the massive advantage Windows PC’s have (can Linux or Unix be run on Mac?)* in the area of available software products and capabilities, configurations, compatability, etc. I know some of you would marry your Mac if you could, and if you prefer that to PC fine, but I just don’t see Mac being in the market in 20 years if they don’t do something amazing to garner market share. And it will have to be something more than a fancy case and Madison Avenue.
*Seriously, I don’t even know if Mac can run these. It’s not meant as a dig, just don’t know. 
Yellow Dog Linux
Just fightin’ ignorance, y’know.
Thanks for the replies. Learned something new. 
I know this board is about fighting ignorance and all, but this is one of those times where I find I just have to 
at the sheer level of un-knowledge being flaunted in public.
The choice is simple – use a Mac today, or wait until Microsoft cobbles together a half-assed copy in 2006… or maybe 2007… or, eh, whenever…
Sorry, I’ll attempt to hide it at every opportunity. 
Yeah, but does the HP have the iMac’s signature sudden death at 3 months? Which requires the mid-plane to be replaced, the major cost of the machine. Luckily mine was under warranty, this time. I’m pretty sure its a design defect that will happen again.
I’ve had an iMac for about five years, and I haven’t had any major problems. All I had to get done once was have it reformatted, because it had slowed to a crawl. I guess I got lucky.
That’s not all. There was also the little matter of MS committing to developing a non-ported Mac Office product for 5 years, as well as other Mac products like Mac IE and MSN Messenger for the Mac. When that ran out a couple of years ago, MS announced that they were still committed to creating a unique Mac-Only version of the Office suite, including RDC and VPC.
…though Microsoft did stop development of Internet Exploer for the Mac, probably because (a) it was getting spanked hard by all the other Mac browsers available, and (b) they couldn’t make money selling it.