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Saturday, January 14, 2012

Apple Computer -- Absolutely Nothing To Do With The Bakken

Updates


January 18, 2012: More Apples landing on corporate desks. I noticed the same thing in the military. Graphics shops, intel shops, and headquarters were the first to get Apples; the rest of us were stuck with WinTel.

Original Post
Link here.
According to IDC estimates, Apple shipped 2 million Macs in the U.S. during the quarter ending Dec. 31, an increase of 18 percent over the same quarter of 2010. Gartner’s number of 2.1 million was slightly higher, as was its 21 percent year-over-year gain by Apple.

All other computer makers in the top five shipped fewer machines in 2011 than they did the year before, IDC and Gartner said.
Again, to repeat: Apple shipped 20 percent more computers in 4Q11 than in 4Q10. All other computer makers shipped fewer. 

I doubt I would have posted that story, but it confirms what I see when I stop in the Starbucks coffee shop on Harvard Square, Cambridge. Yes, one sees a few non-Apple computers, but one is struck by the number of Apple computers in the coffee shop. It is truly amazing.

The most interesting thing: one can spot an Apple computer from across the room. One can identify non-Apple computers, but one cannot identify the brand. Non-Apple computers have been commoditized by WinTel. Apple remains a name-brand computer company.

Apple has become the "new" Gucci. Except "average" folks can afford Apple products and it is not considered too pretentious to use an Apple. It has become bourgeois, if that makes sense, but yet the elite use them. Jean Valjean would have carried an iPhone, if only to coordinate the flash mob at the barricades.

One buys Apple or one doesn't.

I remember articles a couple years ago that iPads would cannibalize iMac (Apple computers); in fact, I argued that first-time buyers of Apple products (via the iPads) would convert to Apple. With Apple one gets the entire community of devices: smart phones, tablets, light laptops, laptops, desktops. And TV to follow.

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On a completely different note, for the past week, I've been enjoying coffee at the Starbucks overlooking Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The most incredible moment: when I turnright to go up the stairs, I feel as if I am back in Yorkshire. The stairs are wooden, worn, and the passageway is dark. One small difference: in Yorkshire the stairway would be only as third as wide. And if the thoroughfare below the Starbucks was much narrower and if the cars were driving on the "wrong" side of the road, I would think I was back in Harrogate. And I wouldn't be on the computer. Smile.
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Diamonds and Rust, Joan Baez

Perhaps one of the most poignant love-songs ever written led me down a rabbit path to this little bit of trivia:
In 1958, her father accepted a faculty position at MIT, and moved his family to Belmont, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. At that time, it was within the center of the up-and-coming folk-music scene, and Baez began busking near home in Boston and nearby Cambridge. She also performed in clubs, and attended Boston University for about six weeks. In 1958, at the Club 47 in Cambridge, she gave her first concert. The audience consisted of her parents, her sister Mimi, and a small group of friends to a total of eight patrons. She was paid ten dollars. Baez was later asked back and began performing twice a week for $25 per show. -- Wiki
"Our" home when "in Boston," is in Belmont, a 20-minute ride on bus route 73 to Harvard Square, Cambridge. A subway stop or two on the Red Line and one is at MIT.


Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word, Joan Baez

A country-western song. I wonder if Norah Jones will cover this one?

The title, "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word" comes from a line in the Tennessee Williams play, Camino Real (no wonder the country-western flavor) in which:
A main theme that the play deals with is coming to terms with the thought of growing older and possibly becoming irrelevant. -- Wiki
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Idle rambling; for the archives; something to share with my granddaughter, Arianna, who at age 8 loves Greek mythology.

From The War That Killed Achilles, Caroline Alexander, c. 2009, remaindered.

The Iliad covers a 2-week period in the 10-year long Greek siege of Troy. The Greek commander, Agamemnon, is the son of one of the most, if not the most, powerful king in "Greece," and is the equivalent of the 5-star general leading the seige. One of his lieutenants, Achilles, is himself a son of a Greek king, but is at best equivalent to a brigadier general (one star); based on his argumentative personality is more like a colonel.

The Iliad starts off with a quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, bordering on, if not outright, insubordination. Achilles is upset with Agamemnon's leadership style and war strategy and has told Agamemnon he has not come to the Troad to die:
I, for my part, did not come here to fight the Trojans for their sake, since they have done nothing to me.  Never yet have they driven away my cattle or my horses, nor spoil my harvest; for indeed there is much that lies between us, the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea.
And then Caroline does this, recalls Muhammed Ali's famous refusal to fight in Vietnam:
I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong ... No Viet Cong ever called me nigger ... I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder, kill, and burn other people to help simply continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people.
Some irony that I am reading that on the weekend of celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday and life. It is also interesting to see Ali's use of "dark people." When my five-year-old granddaughter tells me the story of Martin Luther King, she always refers to "dark people," not using other terms. Interesting.

Like WWI, I have never been able to understand the Iliad. Twenty pages in to Caroline's book and I have already had an epiphany. Wow.

4 comments:

  1. Excellent video about Apple and how they have it figured out.

    http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

    CB

    ReplyDelete
  2. How timely! My 5 y/o granddaughter has been telling me all about Martin Luther King this weekend; her kindergarten teacher has done a superb job teaching.

    And the video you linked is very, very good. Thank you.

    "I have a dream. Not I have a plan." Sounds just like JFK. Incredible. And the successful space program.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bruce,
    Although the Army went with Intel/Windows. My kids were using Apple from the time they were in kindergarten. They are now in their late 20's and early 30's. My oldest still prefer's his Mac and tolerates his Toshiba at work. (Ft Jackson, SC)
    Raising a generation on one platform was one of Steve Jobs most ingenious moves. I'm still a Microsoft slave. (old dogs and new tricks and all)
    But you're right, even in California coffee Mac's are king.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Back in 1987 or thereabouts, I bought my first Apple (I can't remember, I suppose it was an Apple II). I put my 8 y/o on my right side and my 4 y/o on my left side and showed them how to open the files on the desktop. I don't know how much the 4 y/o actually understood at that time, but all of us "grew" up using only Apple computers at home. The 4 y/o, now 30-ish, set up her wi-fi in her apartment before I set mine up and she did it with no assistance.

      (We used WinTel in the Air Force, but the graphics shops at headquarters got Apples/Macs. Go figure.)

      I was absolutely convinced that Apple never would have survived (as Dell famously said) and I was as surprised as everyone as Apple not only survived but thrived.

      Not only one platform as you noted, but it seemed to me that operating systems iterations 6 and 7 were compatible --- I forget all that now -- but I would always buy the old models when they were being phased out to make room for the new models, and the old models seemed to work just fine for years. I don't recall ever buying new software for Apple computers all those years. An Apple computer was truly "plug and play." I don't recall ever buying a new Apple computer until the "jellybean" iMacs came out. (Speaking of which, I found an old blue clamshell Apple in the attic at my daughter's house the other day. I'm almost tempted to turn it one to see what memories might come back.

      Delete

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