If Bezos wanted to fuck around with his apology, he'd have used more cushiony words. "Stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles" doesn't allow for much leeway with how he views Amazon's actions here. He's saying straight out that they made a mistake.
Hardware in terms of ram, graphics card, hard disk: Not in a distinguishable way.
Hardware in terms of firm design, usability, compactness, and aesthetic: I can't think of anything that comes close to Apple's design. I can barely think of computers that come close to looking as good, and those are ones that don't feel good when you're actually using them.
There's a chance Ubuntu is better than the years-old operating system. I've had Ubuntu driver issues with all three of my attempted installs, but if I hadn't had those issues I might prefer it to Windows XP for some things.
That said, Windows 7 (and even most of Windows Vista) is more polished than Ubuntu in its current state, and its plug-and-play is much better.
Windows 7 isn't mindblowing. I actually dislike a lot about it. Microsoft doesn't have a clue regarding their design.
That said, when you plug in a mouse it works without complaining. My point was that the specific gripe ("Windows XP has a lot of noise") was taken care of in Vista and is now fairly polished for Windows 7.
I can confirm this. In high school I hated math, planned on getting an English major, because the English teachers were so good. Previously, in middle school I hated critical analysis of books, but because my math teacher was so good I was an absolute math geek.
I remember my high school Algebra II teacher was asked, "Why should we care about what you're saying?" His answer: "You shouldn't care. You're here to get a grade. You'll never use this and it's not fun." This while my English teacher was staying an hour after class to debate Lolita, Ulysses, A Space Odyssey, and a whole ton of other stuff with basically every student willing to talk to him. There were a lot.
Your second paragraph struck a chord with me - through middle and high school, nearly all my math teachers would preface various topics with "You'll never use this in real life..." With that kind of sentiment, its no wonder why a lot of students did not want, or develop, an understanding for math :/
But the teachers are right, you know. Professional mathematicians doing research will practically jump at the chance to tell you that their work is meant to be beautiful, not practical. I think that's the message we should be imparting to students: math doesn't have to be useful for you to study it, just as poetry doesn't have to be useful for you to read it.
I remember my year-12 math teacher being the first true teacher I had for the subject in a very long time who actually cared, A student who came up with a varied or creative solution to a normal problem was praised with an overwhelmingly happy and teary exclamation.
I tried harder that year than ever before, Not just because of the importance of my results, But because I wanted to understand her euphoria at really giving yourself over to the problem.
Unfortunately Teachers who inspire such enthusiasm are a desperately rare breed.
It should delight them that writing proofs help you think about thinking logically, monads help you write abstract code, prime numbers (and the difficulty of factoring them) helps you think about encryption; it's just that explaining that "doing this proof is like doing stretches before you work out" leaves some unfulfilled.
I'm astounded at how recession-proof Apple has made itself seem. I was hoping they'd survive without too many bruises, but it seems as if the recession is boosting their sales, if anything.
They're a luxury good and a status symbol-- the people that were willing to pay a premium for one pre-recession by and large can still afford to. It's a triumph of their marketing direction (backed up by products of quality, so I hear).
Apple also happens to be the only major manufacturer still willing to treat customers with some measure of respect. I've owned a Toshiba before, and have dealt with Dell also with regards to warranty service; they are terrible. Long wait times (upwards of three hours!), clueless reps, and an iron-clad resistance to making any repairs whatsoever.
Dell eventually acquiesces if you press them. Toshiba never did fix the defective laptop they sold me.
Now Apple. I bought a MacBook Pro some time back in '06. It bit the dust this past Christmas (Dec '08), and I called Apple up; the below is what happened, embellishment-free:
- Waited less than 2 minutes for the first representative to answer. I told her about the problem, she called up my file and noticed I had done previous repairs for the laptop, and immediately offered a full replacement (as opposed to a repair attempt).
- She transferred me to a level-2 tech, I was on hold for less than 2 minutes again, and when the L2 tech got on the line the first representative relayed all the relevant information to him, in my presence, and asked me to confirm that this is correct.
- They never once argued about the validity of any of my claims, nor did they ask for proof that my motherboard was truly shot.
- I told them that I needed to do work over the holiday break (this was Dec. 20th-ish), and asked them to expedite the process. I had my new computer by Christmas eve.
- They upgraded me to a unibody MacBook Pro for free, without me asking for one.
Try getting THAT kind of service from any other PC manufacturer on the market today.
If you purchase a Dell/HP/Lenovo support package, the support you'll get is excellent. e.g. same day, on-site, internationally.
Apple gives much better support by default; other manufactures offer teired levels of support, so if you're stuck in the default you get nothing - but if you pay a bit, you can get much better support than Apple offers.
I'll confirm product quality. It's just that right when the economy exploded there were a lot of people who were pretty snarky towards Apple, sneering at a company that dared make an expensive product. In fact, I spent this week on prog.reddit, and there are still people basically saying they'll laugh at Apple fanboys' faces when Apple collapses and they lose everything. I'm just glad that's not happening.
From anecdotal experience, every graduate at my old high school just picked up a 13" Macbook Pro. They're everywhere.
It seems like what recessions do is get rid of the middle of the market. High end goods still do alright because their market is small to begin with and more able to handle the storm.
Apparently you missed the news last week the Apple dropped from 4th to 5th or 5th to 6th (can't remember exactly) in the top PC manufacturers in the world. The recession and the shift to cheaper PC's was cited as the cause.
Not necessarily a bad thing but it's definitely not a 'boost' in sales.
I actually suffer a lot from misery that's woman-related, sometimes for months and years after something happens. Possibly that's because I'm fairly young, but also possibly it depends on the type of person and you aren't as affected as I am.
