Is it too late for Apple?

To tell the truth, I first liked the new iPod Shuffle, until I realized it had no screen. I also like the idea of a low-budget Mac, until I realized that it came with no keyboard, mouse…or screen.

Is Apple really ready for the mainstream? Or is this another half-a$$ failed attempt.to meet the everyday consumer with the same uppity attitude that keeps Apple firmly holding only 2-4 percent of the computer market?

The iPod Shuffle will likely be pretty successful just because it’s an iPod and everything with that name flies off store shelves these days. At a starting price of $99 the 512Mb model is already lower than many competitors in the flash-memory mp3 market. The unveiling of the iPod Shuffle 512Mb and 1Gig models could spur a price war, which is good for people not in the high-end market. My problem with the Shuffle: no screen. How in the world am I supposed to know what’s on and what could be next? Even players in nearly the same price point and of comparable capacity (Sandisk’s for example) have an LCD screen so that you can navigate through the music files. Apple assumes you don’t need this feature and will be fine with it’s 3-setting slider that will allow you to shuffle (a feature Apple proudly touts as if it invented the idea of being able to randomly play songs) or plow though the files from beginning to end and repeat. The third setting? Off.

This is innovation? I think it’s a step back.

The $499 Mac…well that’s a different story. If Steve Jobs thinks that high prices were the real impediment to computer users buying Macs, he’s smoking high-grade crack. Most computer users are educated enough to see the big picture difference between Windows and Apple computers. The vast difference in the number of software offerings (especially games, which drives the whole computer industry anyway), peripherals and expandability makes the lowest-priced PC running Windows a better buy than an Apple. More choice always wins out.

I used to be a big Mac promoter. It was cool to part of something that looked like it was eventually going to make a difference...until the company got mismangaged into oblivion in the mid 1990s. The first computer I bought with my own money was a black-and-white Mac Classic. Five years later I moved on to a PowerMac and got acquainted with the Internet. After a few years I got interested in computer programming and it became clear that the only way to make that a profitable hobby (which is now a good living) for me was to buy a Windows PC and program it and not my Mac. That PowerMac was relegated to being the first computer my oldest daughter used and then after a little while it got shelved.

Over the years since I left my PowerMac to collect dust on a closet, I’ve been rooting for Apple to finally get “it” but the company never does. When it unveiled OS X a few years ago there was talk of perhaps making the operating system be adaptable (finally!) to Intel and AMD processors. Then for some reason that talk died almost as soon as it circulated. I guess IBM and Motorola, which manufacture Apple’s PowerPC processor chips, didn’t like the idea of the company abandoning its hardware-centric ways.

But that’s exactly the thing that will make Apple a better, stronger company. Abandon creating PCs and focus on making the mainstream computer user experience a better one. That means finally challenging Microsoft’s Windows offerings with an Apple OS that works on a PC.

Until that day, I doubt I will buy an Apple computer product. However, if you want to get me an iPod you are more than welcome to do so. :)

Boxer Rebellion….my a$$

What the heck was up with that silly stunt Barbara Boxer pulled off the yesterday in causing the electoral college vote to be delayed for 2 hours? What a waste of time, not to mention my tax money, on a symbolic stand to “call attention” to Ohio’s election problems.

Big fat deal.

I think we can say elections in this country for the most part are handled pretty well. Sure there’s always going to be some kind of glitch somewhere, but for the most part people vote and their vote gets counted. End of story.

But there’s a few things that made last November’s election a bit more messy. More people came out to vote than expected, leading to long lines and more room for error in processing and accounting for all those votes. Also the electronic systems some states used may not have been tested as well as they should have going into the election.


The Cincinnati Post Put the silly affair in perspective:

“The challenge was filed by Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Cleveland Democrat,
and Sen. Barbara Boxer from San Francisco. This was essentially theater,
designed to call attention to alleged deficiencies in Ohio's election
machinery.”

A far more glowing account appears on Boxer’s hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle :

"CREDIT Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., for standing up for the principle that
"every vote counts." She had to know her willingness to challenge Ohio's
electoral votes would be mocked and mischaracterized by Republicans -- and it
was. "

But really, what was the goal of Boxer casting her objecting vote to invalidate Ohio’s electoral College results? Tubbs’ press release says this :

" -- Allow all voters to vote early -- so that obligations of employment and family will not interfere with the ability to cast a vote.

-- Establish a national holiday -- Election Day -- to bring attention to the importance of the vote.

-- Require those who work in the voting booth to be fairly
compensated, adequately educated and sufficiently supported such that the job
importance will be elevated.

-- That will provide equipment -- whether it is the traditional
punch card or the more modern electronic machines that are properly calibrated, fully tested for accuracy and provide a paper trial to ensure a verifiable audit of
every vote. "

Vote early? That hardly seems necessary. Voting early - isn’t that already in place anyway in the form of an absentee ballot?

Make it a holiday? That’s ludicrous. The federal government really needs to pay for another work stoppage day so its employees (who you pay by the way) can go vote. Sure. Are holidays really effective ways to emphasize the importance of a day? Do people REALLY take the day to reflect on Martin Luther King on his day? Do we all pause to think of the accomplishments of Lincoln and Washington on their day? Not likely. Holidays are nice, but having an Election Day holiday every 2 years will not stop the fact that there will be lines at the polling places, nor will it enable more people to vote. People vote because they are motivated to vote, period. They will go out of their way to do it if they feel it its important. Giving someone the day off does not make them more likely to show up at a polling place.

Jesse Jackson’s son, who is now a congressman for Illinois thanks to the last election, said he thinks the national election should not be something the states control. There should be a federal effort to make voting for the President a uniform experience, he says. Nice concept, but who manages that? How do you conduct state and local elections along with that? Nevermind the cost of what that effort entails.

I just wonder what all that “protest” really accomplished yesterday? Will it really change how Ohio votes? No. We’ll all forget about it 3 years from now because it’s not that big a deal really.

All yesterday’s stunt amounted to was grandstanding to make the Democratic Party look like it’s some kind of election watchdog when we all know that if Kerry had won, no Democrat would have been out there saying Ohio’s election process was tainted. Heck even John Kerry did not support what Boxer did. But Kerry is now yesterday’s news. The was about Boxer getting more notice and more clout. Pure power grabbing at it’s decadent worst.

And it’s why the Democratic Party has lost touch with “real” America. No normal person can relate to this childish behavior.