Re: Question about the number of Apple users vs Mac users

[Mike Pfaiffer <pfaiffer@mts.net>]

Ernest wrote:

> >  OTOH estimates of the number of Mac users seems
> >
> > > to be generally dropping (in favour of Linux from the way things look).
>
> Yes, I agree with this but it's still to soon to tell how long term this
> effect will be. There are a lot of people dipping their feet into the latest
> Linux craze but a good number of these folks will go running back to Windows
> or their old reliable Macs. However, there are quite a few schools,
> universities, and young people in general who have no real history with
> either Macs or Windows systems, and for those groups Linux is great -cheap,
> reliable, and hip.

	I don't know about people running back to their older systems. At least 
not right away. We thought they'd do so with the Apple as well. They 
stayed and protested for a while but the majority went over to the 
Wintel machines. I'm actually surprised people are coming back to the 
Apple. I've personally installed half a dozen systems over the summer. 
If I could get a free supply of controller cards and hard drives for our 
club we'd be "off to the races".

> > Linux, as terrific as it is, is still too geeky for the general
>
> population.
>
> It's to geeky for my Mother, or my boss but not for kids (the future) or
> college students, or large corporations, or biotech firms, etc..

	I don't know about "geeky". It is easier to use than 95 was when it first 
came out. In my case it provides function at a decent speed and 
stability where there was none on my other machines.

	As an anecdote, my business partner was noticed by some of the people 
where she has a day job. They saw she was always either working at her 
machine or reading a book. As the sysadmin she made the choice to run 
Linux. One accountant had a conversation with her (when his Win ME 
machine was completely down). He wanted to know why she never had down 
time on her machine. She told him. He asked her to install Linux on his 
work machine. He came back next week asking for her to slow it down. It 
turns out he was *too* productive. He never realized how much he counted 
on the unscheduled breaks provided by Windows.

> > It's not a matter of how powerful Linux is, it's how productive can you be
> > with it (at this point) because of the learning curve and few apps yet
> > (mainstream apps). It has a way to go yet. But it is cool to dink with.
> > Very stable. *Very* fast.
>
>
> I don't know if you've been keeping up on the latest developments in Linux
> software but there's very little that you can't do on the Linux platform.
> There's a long way to go before some of the more common Linux apps become as
> stable and robust as MS Office, or Adobe Photoshop, etc. but that will come
> with time.

	IMHO MS office is one of the most unstable programs out there. It almost 
caused us to lose a complete issue of our magazine. The stupid thing 
started wiping out partitions on my hard drive. As soon as I installed 
Star Office (there is a version for Linux too) and stopped using MS 
office that set of problems vanished. There is also Word Perfect for 
Linux too. Frankly if there was a copy of Appleworks I'd recommend it too.

	As for Adobe. Although they canceled their Linux research it looks as 
though they are going to do an about face and start development again. 
Same with Corel.

	Stability is not a problem. Perception is.

> > >         I'm thinking of the possibility of the number of Apple// users
> >
> > eventually
> >
> > > exceeding the number of Mac users at some point. It might be an
> > > interesting scenario... ;-)
> >
> > Not in your wildest imagination. The installed Mac base is in the
>
> millions,
>
> > and still growing, and there are *at least as many* legacy Macs still
> > around as there are Apple file://s.

	It was just a thought. We had quite a number of installed machines too at 
one point. I was hoping with this upward trend for a discontinued 
machine it might give the Apple community a bit of leverage.

> Yeah, I agree with you on that one. The real question is, will the current
> Mac users feel as nostalgic about their old Macs as we do about our old
> Apple II's? Not likely. Macs have no soul compared to the Apple II. They're
> useful in a utilitarian kind of way but nowhere near as interesting or
> hackable. Macs were designed for rich newbie morons with work to do, not
> hackers or "geeks." Besides, Steve Jobs had evolved into a dictatorial
> megalomaniac by the time the later models of the original Macs were
> released, and that was about when I lost interest in them.
>
> E.

	I bought a couple of Macs a while ago (a Plus and a IIcx). I still prefer 
my GS for stability and functionality. When we get an office my business 
partner wants some of my spare GSs to work with in the office. It'll be 
off of floppies for a while until we can find some hard drives and 
controllers, but that is not a problem for most of what we do.

	Unfortunately it looks as though your evaluation of Steve Jobs seems to 
have hit the mark. For the most part it was *his* decisions which sunk 
both the NeXT and Apple. He keeps shooting himself in the foot so often 
I wonder how many toes he has left.

				Later
				Mike



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