Let the games begin

There is no doubt that within the Mac community expectations were high for today's MacWorld. I can't believe many people came away disappointed.  Of course I'm impressed with the products that were announced.  I not as surprised as many who are saying the Intel based Mac products are not priced as they hoped they would be.  I don't think you're going to see Apple down in the trenches competing with Dell.  I would be disappointed if Apple tried that route.

Apple also wisely didn't bring out an inexpensive Intel based Mac Mini.  To do so would have siphoned off tons of profits from that traditional group of Mac users that will buy absolutely anything that Steve throws over the wall.  Admittedly he usually throws great products over the wall, but the expectation that there would also be great values is a little naive.

It's not that Apple Intel machines are over priced.  In fact after looking at the PC World article, "Innovative Dual-core Notebooks Debut at CES," and Apple's website, all the dual core Intel laptops, including Apple's, seem to start at $1999.  I guess we shouldn't be surprised at that.

My question is how many people will want to spend $1,999 for a laptop these days?  I guess we'll see over the next few quarters. There's always a group that needs the latest, greatest, and fastest.

I don't spend a lot of time waiting for either my Apple G4 laptop or my Dell Latitude D610 to do something.  Now if they could promise me better bandwidth into the house with the purchase of a dual core machine, I might get excited.

Like many Mac users, I'll probably wait a while before buying an Intel based Mac.  The prices will come down as they always do.  There is no sense racing out for one since there still isn't an application that I just have to have that will only run on an Intel based Mac.  I would have been tempted if there had been a low cost Intel Mac Mini, but I understand Apple reasons for not delivering that product. 

In responding to comments in previous posts, I have mentioned 1.3 million units as the number to measure Apple against over the next few quarters.  According to Steve they were just slightly under that with 1.25 million units last quarter.  Based on that, the quarterly number that I mentioned  in an earlier post of averaging about 1.5 million units per quarter this year still seems reasonable.  That would put Apple at 6 million units for 2006.

The challenge that I pointed out in an another earlier post, "Apple numbers in perspective," is that the PC market grows about that much or more each quarter so it is very hard for Apple to make substantial market share gains.  Don't get me wrong, getting to 6 million units this year would be a historic comeback for Apple, but I think it should be clear to everyone by now that iPod revenue not computers is really driving Apple's success.

As long as the iPod business is healthy, Apple will be healthy.  If there are problems with the iPod business, Apple faces some challenges and will have to work harder to reinvigorate their PC business.

I don't see iPod sales diving any time soon, but every time I try to predict the iPod business I end up figuring out that I'm not very good at understanding the world of iPods. Perhaps I should say the opposite of what I'm thinking, and then I might have a chance of being right.  In that case the iPod business is peaking.

It's nice to see Apple come up with something to create blogs with in their iWeb product, but there's a whole lot more to blogs than just creating them so we'll have to see if there is anything really useful there.  I will try to track down a copy of the new iLife tomorrow since my iPhoto library is now over 25,000 pictures.  Then I can give iWeb a try.  I'm passing on the new iWork, I did one document with the old Pages and felt it was okay but nothing revolutionary and the new version doesn't sound much more exciting.   I've checked but have been unable to find if the new Keynote 3 has the one feature that Keynote desperately needs which is a nice simple way to export for placement on the web without going through PowerPoint.  Putting Quicktime movie versions of presentations on the web just doesn't cut it.

All in all, it seems to have been a good keynote from all reports.  It was not as revolutionary as many had expected, but there is plenty there to keep people going for a few months.  The one thing that I haven't figured out yet is whether or not having a relationship with Intel will improve Apple's partnership skills. 

There is part of Apple that will always require that us against the world attitude.  Now they can't be against Intel. Also they've signed a new agreement with MS  with the result that no Apple competitor to Excel seems on tap yet.  Of course maybe CNNMoney.com is right in their article,  "Apple finds new enemies."  I guess we'll have to see if those new enemies keep the Apple spirit alive.

I'm not going to rush out and buy any hardware since I'm perfectly happy with my current assortment of Mac, Linux, and Windows machines, but I'll be interested in seeing how close Apple gets to my 6 million units projection for this year.

There are plenty of challenges ahead this year for Apple.  Business Week has a good article that outlines a few risks and opportunities, "More Apple Miracles in 2006?."

Much of Apple's success comes from Jobs's own gut instincts on everything from product design to advertising slogans. "That model doesn't scale," notes Moore. "So as an investment, Apple is a risk not because it will run out of new worlds to conquer, but because it may run out of occupying armies."

And I would add the General won't always be around. If I were an investor in Apple, the big worry for me would be that Steve Jobs is Apple, and there is just not much way around that.

Comments

[cre8ive]

Although Apple probably wont be gracing the cover of TIME this year, I thought it was a pretty decent keynote. For someone whos family utilises the iLife suite at home, to me that upgrade looks good (hey - the very loss of Brushed Metal is one reason to upgrade!). And while the Intel based iMac and MacBook were welcome surprises, I’m less than blown away with the MacBook.

As a Pro user, I guess I’m a little at odds with the specs. The removal of things on the MacBook Pro such as S-video out, FireWire 800, modem (though not drastic) and a downgraded Superdrive doesn’t seem very ‘Pro’. There’s also no mention of battery life and no 17” model?. While the future Intel architecture is a major performance plus, I’ll steer clear of Rosetta at least until my apps are universal.

Still, we users, the press and analysts always expect more at an Apple event, and can suffer post keynote depression when expectations weren’t met. The hype machine goes in to overtime. I would loved to have seen a souped up mac mini media device able to stream content from my Mac to the TV. Mind you, Apple will be 30 on April 1. I wonder if there’ll be another ‘special event'... ;)