Do you think Mac OS is overpriced?

[the.dark.lord]

Yes
No

[the.dark.lord]

Sorry for the double post

[Lord Illidan]

For what is essentially BSD with a nice skin and 3rd party apps? Yep, it is overpriced!

[Sushi]

Compared to Windows: No way!
Compared to Linux: Hell yes!

[x64Jimbo]

Compared to Windows: No way!
Compared to Linux: Hell yes!
Ditto. Windows makes OS X look like a gift.
I don't agree that it's just a pretty skin on top of BSD. Have you ever used a BSD system? Was it user-friendly for someone like your grandma? Your next-door neighbor? No. It's geek friendly and that's about it. Apple made a great UI, and that took a lot of hard work and research to make a computer as powerful as an Apple really usable.

[aysiu]

It depends on what you mean by overpriced.

Is the Apple hardware made of materials that are superior in quality or durability to less costly ones for Windows-preloaded machines? No.

But that doesn't necessarily mean they're "overpriced." The term overpriced indicates that they are charging you more than what they're giving you. And they're not just giving you hardware and software. They're giving you a full experience--the Mac experience. It's hardware designed for the software, software designed for the hardware, a more-or-less consistent look to every application, and a lot of other expensive peripherals that will match the white/silver/black look of your already existing expensive Apple hardware.

Could my wife be using Windows for her Adobe Creative Suite and Flash needs? Sure. But she enjoys the look and feel of a Mac (not necessarily the user interface, but she's willing to put up with that) and knowing that any Apple hardware she gets will "just work" with the Apple hardware she already has. It's a total experience, and that's what you pay for, not just the parts.

Frankly, I kind of wish there were something like that for Linux--a company that designs peripherals and hardware specifically to work with a Linux distro and a distro to work specifically with the hardware. Everything has a definite look (not just rebranded ASUS laptops) that screams "Penguin!" the way everything Mac-related screams "Apple!" I'm not just talking about preloading Ubuntu. I'm talking about making software specifically for Ubuntu (it can be GPL'ed to be available for other distros, too--that'd be fine) for a particular Ubuntu brand of hardware. And the hardware would include not just computers but USB devices, etc. If it were a little more expensive, I wouldn't consider that "overpriced" either.

[x64Jimbo]

I'm pretty sure that System76 is already doing this - not necessarily the peripherals, but the machines themselves are designed specifically to work with ubuntu. As far as customizing the OS for the machines, that would not be a very large step since it's all open source.

[aysiu]

System76 is not already doing this. They're rebranding Asus laptops originally designed to work with Windows.

Even though they do test out Ubuntu on these Asus laptops, I believe the media card readers don't work (I think that's what I read) and that the Windows key remains... the Windows key--though there was talk of putting a System76 sticker or Tux logo on top of it instead.

The hardware is not at all designed for Ubuntu. Carl Richell works hard to make things work out of the box as much as possible, but it's not the kind of tight integration Apple guarantees. Apple commissions both the hardware and software. System76 doesn't commission Ubuntu or Asus.

[x64Jimbo]

True, but is it not the direction they're heading? The company is still getting started, is it not? I would imagine they plan to have all of this working quite well in a few years. I'm willing to be patient. Ubuntu is a relative newcomer to the distro game, and given some more time to mature (and especially considering its rapid growth) I could certainly see this becoming a reality, and I think System76 will be one of the front-runners.

[aysiu]

No, don't get me wrong--I'm very excited about System76. When I get enough money and the urge to buy a new computer, I will most likely get a System76 computer.

I just don't think we're at the point now where we can accurately say that System76 is already doing what Apple is doing.

[the.dark.lord]

Uh, System76....? Enlighten me.

[cunawarit]

Apple charge for a .1 upgrade of Mac OS X, which happens every 12-18 months or so. Microsoft only charge for a major release, which happen much less often.

However, pound for pound Mac OS X is cheaper than Windows. Mac OS X comes loaded with features, Windows is available in multiple versions with the cheap versions being pretty bare. If you are a lowly Joe Average user you can buy a basic version of Windows, not update it for three or four years and then Windows works out very cheap. If however, you want your “advanced” features then Mac OS X works out cheaper.

IMHO, neither Mac OS X nor Windows are very expensive.

As for the hardware, once again the same applies. Pound for pound nowadays Apple hardware is often cheaper than Dell's. However, Dell has low budget offerings, Apple doesn't really cater for that market... Sadly.

[aysiu]

Uh, System76....? Enlighten me.
http://www.system76.com

[mahy]

I answered yes, but with limitations.

It's a different business model: you pay a lot and in return you get a cool, working and stable system, elegant and stylish hardware and above all, you'll (almost) never have to worry about hw-sw incompatibilities. I dunno why, but even 3rd party sw for Mac OS is soooo great, take Camino for example, or some icq clients. But yes, it is overpriced.

[sloggerkhan]

Yes, overpriced, but compared to the future pricing model for Vista, it's a bargain. Still, if you are going to pay for an OS at all, I think SLED 10.2 is probably a better deal.

[kerry_s]

Apple considers it self to be a hardware company. Your just actually being overcharged for the hardware and the OS is free. ;)

[aysiu]

The OS isn't really free. I thought Tiger costs something like US$129.

[RAV TUX]

I voted NO,....they should charge more and stop exploiting Dickinson Slave-like labor in China

Whats stopping Apple from giving bonuses to the factories they contract to build their computers; to redistribute these funds to the exploited Factory workers?.....Greed.

...or the lack of balls to renegotiate a contract that specifically stipulates such a thing to exist and happen.

[BWF89]

It's not so much the operating system being overpriced, it's the fact that the hardware is so overpriced that it scares away your average Joe-user who wants to get a computer but sees he can get the same hardware specs in a PC at half the price.

[brentoboy]

I dont mind the price of any one part of the system, what bothers me is that if you buy there stuff, you cant really mix it.

buy an ipod, buy they music, ... you cant use either with other stuff. Its the same with their PC. It isnt made to dual boot (well, bootcamp, or whatever they call it).

I think that the stuff is good, and the price is fair, I just dont like the idea that once you go apple, they own you. You have to get everything from them. Which wouldnt be so bad, except that if they are their only competition, then they arent as competitive as they would be if you could buy the stuff from newegg or dell or someplace.

They have tight vendor lock in, but, can you blame them? It has worked out well for them.

I think that my next notebook will be a Mac, so I guess I cant complain that much, the stuff is good.

[x64Jimbo]

I dont mind the price of any one part of the system, what bothers me is that if you buy there stuff, you cant really mix it.

buy an ipod, buy they music, ... you cant use either with other stuff. Its the same with their PC. It isnt made to dual boot (well, bootcamp, or whatever they call it).

I think that the stuff is good, and the price is fair, I just dont like the idea that once you go apple, they own you. You have to get everything from them. Which wouldnt be so bad, except that if they are their only competition, then they arent as competitive as they would be if you could buy the stuff from newegg or dell or someplace.

They have tight vendor lock in, but, can you blame them? It has worked out well for them.

I think that my next notebook will be a Mac, so I guess I cant complain that much, the stuff is good.
I completely disagree. HP printers work jusi fine with Mac OS X. Olympus digital cameras work just fine with Mac OS X. You can put music on your iPod from your CDs without having to use iTunes (iPod Linux, anyone?). You can boot as many OSs as you want with BootCamp. I'm not sure what you mean by "whatever" but it's true, and I don't think the release of BootCamp can be reasonably interpreted to be anything but an attempt to be cross-compatible. Mac OS X machines can talk to Windows and Linux machines over the network with Samba, they're compatible with industry standard VPN software, and they even have some of their own state of the art virtualization software that allows you to run other OSs inside Mac OS X. It may have been a while since the last time you took an Apple for a spin, but they have come a long way since a decade ago.