PowerBook is dead; MacBook Pro is here (Intel-based)

[Q Classic]

They are already doing that. I think Apple is now bigger than Sony... I'm not sure (I remember reading that in a paper somewhere and being sceptical). They will pass Dell soon, and HP isn't that far off. If this year is even half as successful as last year, they will do it.

Asher very clearly makes the point--market cap/stock valuation doesn't mean that a company is larger.

Samsung Electronic's got a bigger market capitalization, but make no mistake, they're still smaller than Sony Electronics. Much is the same with Apple-Sony comparison.

[Agathon]

Market cap doesn't determine how large a company is. Especially when the stock is overvalued.

Which the analysts are saying it isn't. Who to trust? IBM peon or professional stock analysts? Some are saying it will go past $100 per share. I remember not long ago people were scoffing at the idea it would go over 70 bucks a share.

[Asher]

Saying it will go past $100 per share doesn't mean it's not overvalued. It just means the hype factor is there.

If you look at the P/E, it is overvalued. Just like all of the dot-com bubble stocks, and just like Google stocks.

I'm not sure you understand what determines overvaluation. Overvaluation doesn't mean it will go down soon; it just means that the earnings and revenues do not warrant such a high price. Historically, it means it will go down eventually because there are special circumstances (most cases, hype) that increased demand not warranted by the actual finances.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

They are already doing that. I think Apple is now bigger than Sony... I'm not sure (I remember reading that in a paper somewhere and being sceptical). They will pass Dell soon, and HP isn't that far off. If this year is even half as successful as last year, they will do it.

Asher very clearly makes the point--market cap/stock valuation doesn't mean that a company is larger.

Samsung Electronic's got a bigger market capitalization, but make no mistake, they're still smaller than Sony Electronics. Much is the same with Apple-Sony comparison.

It is larger in one way and not in others. Clearly McDonalds is larger than GM in some respects (they own more toilets for example). Stock valuation would seem to me to be the obvious variable to determine what a company is "worth", since that's just how capitalism works (things are worth what people are prepared to pay for them).

Of course that is a pretty odd way of valuing things, but it's the way it is currently done.. until the Revolution of course.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Agathon
Q3... I reckon it is weird that you discount aesthetics when it comes to technology. Do you hate art or something?

When it comes to technology, I don't discount aesthetics. However, I do place very little emphasis upon it for my product choices. When I shop for machinery, I look for functionality, substance, and power over flash and style. In other words--I'd take the less attractive, but better engineered product over a more attractive, poorly designed one.

Don't mistake that for a distaste for art--far from it. I find imagery, style, and elegance very attractive. I just don't think it should decide what technologies I obtain.

Art is for the mind and soul to appreciate; technology is for the hands and the mind to work with.

===

Apart from a few disasters, like the Flower Power iMac, Apple's machines in recent years have been wonderful art objects,

I agree that the Flower Power iMac was an eyesore; however, I find that all iMacs are offensive, as well; all three for technical reasons, but there are other, aesthetic reasons. The first for the oblong shape, as if it were some candy-colored pebble crapped out of a constipated giant. The second for its overly cutesy far too flimsy dome-with-teletubby face. The most recent for the enormous amount of ugly whitespace at the bottom.

and OS X is just wonderful to look at.

I won't disagree--I like the appearance of some versions of Aqua--mostly the plastic. I'm not a huge fan of the brushed metal or the pinstripes, but flat white plastic has a clean elegance that I appreciate.

The Cube in particular was an awesome machine. I'd love to get an old one and bang in an upgrade kit.

That's the Mac I have. I like it, though I wouldn't have paid the market price (got it for free~). That, and it's significantly more upgradeable than iMacs--it's really a matter of space for them.

So what if a house is just to live in. I'd rather have one designed by Frank Lloyd Wright than a prefab (I think that is a pretty good comparison, although Apple's machines are a lot more reliable than Wright's buildings).

I don't mind prefab housing. Honestly, if you're looking for a comparison many of us can appreciate, think of it in terms of companionship:
An Apple product is often very attractive, but that doesn't guarantee that the personality, the meat of the person, is worth the maintenance and the time.
Non-Apple products vary widely, and most of them aren't nearly as attractive; however, some of them have such depth and personality that they blow one out of the water and leave you wanting more.
In other words: would you rather want the company of Kahlo/Sartre, or Kelly Hu/Hugh Grant?

Apple's design team just seems to have a lot better taste than say, for example, HP.

Oh, come on. That's like saying that the SMART car has better mileage than the H3, or that Einstein was marginally more intelligent than Dr. Phil.

Apple's design team is top-notch. Then again, Sony and Samsung, both x86/Windows computer manufacturers (though not as much in the US) are also top-notch.

It's a pretty neat trick to make something both rarefied and minimalist and at the same time friendly and accessible. Not many designers can pull that off.

No arguments here.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Agathon


It is larger in one way and not in others. Clearly McDonalds is larger than GM in some respects (they own more toilets for example). Stock valuation would seem to me to be the obvious variable to determine what a company is "worth", since that's just how capitalism works (things are worth what people are prepared to pay for them).

Of course that is a pretty odd way of valuing things, but it's the way it is currently done.. until the Revolution of course.

Generally, when one talks about the size of a company, they take into account both stock valuation and the summation of all the assets, liquid or no, among other things.

In such a comparison, Sony would dwarf Apple, GM would dwarf McDonald's, and what not.

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

I'm not really referring to the hand held market.

Then maybe you'd better be more specific when making a suggestion that a certain company should pull out of a certain business? Because your claim applied to the whole console market.

There's always... a book. Or ball-in-a-cup, Mexico's favorite children's pasttime for the past 300 years!

What a move to kill off the conversation... Of course, yeah, sure, there's indeed even *gasp* analog entertainment. However not related to the subject.

Yak yak yak yak. I hear fanboi.

Oh right... Well, honestly speaking I wasn't looking at the issue as a fan of the brand, rather not being outright too pessimistic, because overall Nintendo has more than enough market share to justify continuing as a hardware manufacturer. Then again you merely try to trash my arguement by pulling out the fanboy card.

I don't particularly care about console games anymore. In fact, I don't particularly care about the market all that much.

Then why make a claim like the one you made?

I'll say this--HD gaming looks damn pretty, and the fact that the Revolution will a) not have it, and b) not be able to support blu-ray/hd-dvd means that I'm disappointed.

Then again the peak of high definition gaming with HDTV and PCs hasn't yet even been reached. Most likely not going to happen on a broader scale until PS3 and Vista are out and we see more households with HDTVs (right now mainly the US market has been pushing for it more widely). And even then it will take a while, even if it's inevitable that it will happen. This is the main weakness of the Revolution, but then again it will most likely be the underdog (again) competing with price. Overall it's going to be interesting to see how it will affect the market.

That, and I'm not following them on the controller.

Maybe, but I would assume there's somekind of a design behind it which hopefully actually works. It does however look wierd, but we'll see when it's actually available. But as it usually tends to be, not everyone will ever like controllers that aren't of the usual pad type.

But to take this even further, I don't really care. I don't care what Nintendo has in the bank, I don't care what their newest system is going to be. I don't see them being that revolutionary, hardware-wise. I just want to be able to play Metroid on something that's not... crap, on a controller that's not... crap.

So overall it seems you don't care a ****, but yet you feel urged to mildly flame me?

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Rasbelin
Then maybe you'd better be more specific when making a suggestion that a certain company should pull out of a certain business?

I suppose I could be more specific. I think NINTENDO should ditch the HARDWARE CONSOLE BUSINESS as it applies to NON-PORTABLE GAMING SYSTEMS.

FINNS, specifically those NOT PEKKA, and more specifically those named RASBELIN, may be known for their PATHOLOGICAL SERIOUSNESS.

Oh right... Well, honestly speaking I wasn't looking at the issue as a fan of the brand, rather not being outright too pessimistic, because overall Nintendo has more than enough market share to justify continuing as a hardware manufacturer.

It does. Doesn't mean it should.

GM has enough marketshare to justify continuing as an automobile manufacturer. Doesn't mean it should.

The RIAA has enough marketshare to justify its continuing existence as a pain in Oerdin's side, as well as destroying art and ****ing over everyone else on fair use. Doesn't mean it should.

Then why make a claim like the one you made?

Because I can?

Then again the peak of high definition gaming with HDTV and PCs hasn't yet even been reached. Most likely not going to happen on a broader scale until PS3 and Vista are out and we see more households with HDTVs (right now mainly the US market has been pushing for it more widely). And even then it will take a while, even if it's inevitable that it will happen. This is the main weakness of the Revolution, but then again it will most likely be the underdog (again) competing with price. Overall it's going to be interesting to see how it will affect the market.

I suppose. Of course, by "interesting", I mean "not at all".

Maybe, but I would assume there's somekind of a design behind it which hopefully actually works. It does however look wierd, but we'll see when it's actually available. But as it usually tends to be, not everyone will ever like controllers that aren't of the usual pad type.

I don't like control pads. There, I said it. They're the main reason I don't enjoy consoles (other than the games mostly stink).

Even though the Revolution controller will be able to detect motion, have integrated hookups so you can add a normal gamepad, and all that jazz... sure, it can have nifty uses.

But for every nifty use it has, it'll also have hundreds of piss-poor uses. For every good thing it can do, it'll mess with many others.

So overall it seems you don't care a ****, but yet you feel urged to mildly flame me?

Flaming is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think I'm flaming, but then again, I'm not even metrosexual.

Besides, these are message boards. If you don't have a thick skin, then you're going think everybody's flaming.

Besides, it's entirely the wrong thread to have this discussion:

Back to the original point:

Nintendo should kick out of the home console business.
Apple should kick out of the hardware computing business.
Palm should kick out of trying to be anything more than a has been.

[Agathon]

Art is for the mind and soul to appreciate; technology is for the hands and the mind to work with.

I don't see any reason why the two should not be embodied in the same objects.

[Agathon]

on the art note...

I usually hate Apple's ads (since Jeff Goldblum stopped doing them), but this one is awesome.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/ads/

Wynton Marsalis just blows me away every time I hear him play. He's so awesome he defies description.

[Asher]

Apple's "Intel" had has rubbed Intel the wrong way...

[Agathon]

It's a joke. They'll get over it.

I like Intel's CEO. At least he has a sense of humour.

[Asher]

So who wants to place bets on when Apple launches a Viiv-based home theare product?

[Agathon]

Word is that they were going to launch some other things at MacWorld, but chip supply forced them to delay.

I reckon they'll do it. I don't want one though.

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

FINNS, specifically those NOT PEKKA, and more specifically those named RASBELIN, may be known for their PATHOLOGICAL SERIOUSNESS.

Kewl, now we have a nice unrelated remark regarding my nationality, which is a non issue. You're now more like pulling a tirade about this, rather than staying to the topic. The link above serves no real purpose, except pulling a stupid stunt about seriousness or lack of it.

What you seem to try to do, is to attempt trying to be witty, while actually not being a tad bit interested about the issue, but for the sake of being TEH WINNAH of the arguement. This you pretty much put forward by saying you don't care about consoles.

You anyway still made a pretty vague case for the Nintendo issue, apart of Revolution might not be of your interest for several reasons, not to say consoles weren't your thing anyway. It's off-topic, but when you make a claim, you'd ought to back it up well.

The GM example was bad, because they make from profit of it, just like Nintendo does. If you think a company should focus more, then make a case and don't try some ****ty nationality references.

Because I can?

Smart...

Besides, these are message boards. If you don't have a thick skin, then you're going think everybody's flaming.

Uh oh... Big news... If someone is being serious here, it's you. Without the appropriate smiley, you apparently missed my little sarcasm.