Nov 19
dell vs. mac … so over the last couple of weeks i have heard a lot of times that macs are just too expensive, compare to macs. and that you can get a much cheaper pc. yes you can get a cheap pc that is true, but that cheap pc won’t compare to the mac you compare it to. so this morning i went to dell and just tried to build a dell computer that was comparable to the new quadcore imac. you can see the result in the screenshots … the dell came out at $1534 and the imac at $1999. there are a couple of caveats here … first off, that dell price is for a system that has a 24” screen, i couldn’t find a 27” quickly on the dell site (i ticked off large screen but they only go to 24” … don’t know why). also the system has an older quadcore processor, and the mac has a better graphics card. if you account for all of these three the price difference will be fairly small maybe $200. for that though you get a much better looking system that has one cable, is easy to set up, and runs mac os x :-)
so i think overall, with an apples to apple comparison the macs are not that much more expensive.
Nov 19
i am sick of all those iphone app developers whining and bitching about apple’s app approval process. if you hate it so much, go to the pre app store or open your own. but honestly i bet you are making too much money through the app store.
and to people like paul graham, please give me a break:
How did Apple get into this mess? Their fundamental problem is that they don’t understand software. They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes. Apple is the channel; they own the user; if you want to reach users, you do it on their terms. The record labels agreed, reluctantly. But this model doesn’t work for software. It doesn’t work for an intermediary to own the user. The software business learned that in the early 1980s, when companies like VisiCorp showed that although the words “software” and “publisher” fit together, the underlying concepts don’t. Software isn’t like music or books. It’s too complicated for a third party to act as an intermediary between developer and user. If software publishing didn’t work in 1980, it works even less now that software development has evolved from a small number of big releases to a constant stream of small ones. But Apple doesn’t understand that either. Their model of product development derives from hardware. They work on something till they think it’s finished, then they release it.
so apple doesn’t get the software business. the reason paul give is that apple creates complete products that work, rather than ones that a broken, and now apple is the bad guy because they demand apps that work rather than are beta works in progress. maybe the software industry is broken? maybe the way software is made and sold should change from a model of trial and error to a more or less finished product. oh, i hear you developers scream, code is so complicated. well tell that to nasa, i bet they make sure that both the hardware and software that they use to send people into space works, rather than using beta crap. cars usually when you get them from a dealer work. so do mobile phones. i used to have nokia phones that also have software on them that didn’t crash for years on end.
so please all you developers out there whining about the app store that is making you a ton of money that didn’t exist a couple of years ago … why instead of whining spend the time on creating good code.
