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. :)