Archive | Features

Are Macs More Expensive? Round Two: Survival of the Cheapest

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 16, 2008 at 2:25 pm

On Thursday, I began my multiple-part look at the cost of Macintoshes by comparing a mid-range MacBook to some Windows laptops which I’d configured to be as similar to the MacBook as possible. Compared to those machine, I concluded that the MacBook was in the zone in terms of price and power, or, in other words, “not expensive.”

I also managed to stir up lots of controversy, in the form of dozens of comments and discussion elsewhere on the Web. So as promised, I’m back with another round of price comparisons, and based in part on comments to my original post by a reader named Michael, I’ve decided to stick with the MacBook and compare it to Windows laptops that happen to be on sale at Best Buy at the moment.

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Are Macs More Expensive? Let’s Do the Math Once and For All

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 14, 2008 at 10:50 pm

[UPDATE: This is one of the most popular stories we’ve ever published, but with the arrival of the new MacBook on October 14th, it’s also obsolete. Read it if you like–but this new article compares the new MacBook to comparable Windows computers.]

It’s of those eternal questions of the computing world that never seems to get answered definitively: Does the “Mac Tax” really exist? Some folks are positive that Macs are overpriced compared to Windows computers; others deny it steadfastly. Almost nobody, however, bothers to do the math in any serious detail.

So that’s what I’m going to do. And since Apple manufactures multiple models, I’m going to do it one computer at a time, starting with the MacBook, the company’s consumer notebook.

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A Brief Reverse-Chronological YouTube History of Apple

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 14, 2008 at 1:40 am

The history of Apple is so long and interesting that some amazingly weighty tomes have been written about it. But I don’t think you need to pore over hundreds of pages to get the gist of the company’s journey. Actually, more than with any other computer company, its advertising tells much of the story. And thanks to YouTube, it’s all a few clicks away, and watching it is downright addictive.

I started to put together this video timeline starting in the 1970s and working my way forward to the present day. Then I realized that it’s more fun–and much bloggier–to begin with current commercials and travel backwards in time. Join me, won’t you?

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An Open Letter to Windows Vista

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 6, 2008 at 11:49 pm

Dear Windows Vista,

First of all, I’m sorry it took me so long to sit down and write this letter. You’ve been an unusually busy operating system lately, starting with the official (if less than utterly final) demise of your predecessor Windows XP at the end of June. Then you spent some time helping with a Microsoft marketing experiment by pretending to be a new version Windows code-named “Mojave.” This week, however, seems to be a relatively quiet one for you–and so I wanted to take the opportunity to bend your ear.

We haven’t talked, but I’ve been watching you from afar and feeling your pain as you’ve dealt with more than your fair share of challenges. Eighteen months after your debut, you simply don’t have an aura of success about you. Worse, your aging predecessor, Windows XP, has unexpectedly gained armies of devotees who refuse to give it up. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs–your original marketing tagline may have been “The Wow Starts Now,” but many people remain steadfastly unwowed.

The idea behind Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment was to suggest that those who spurn you do so out of ignorance. It’s true that some Vista doubters base their distaste on what they’ve heard about you rather than hands-on experience. But I don’t know of anyone outside of Redmond who’d maintain that long-term exposure to you turns the average computer user into a raving fan. Sure, you’re better than you were when you first showed up, thanks to Service Pack 1 and improved compatibility with applications and peripherals. But I’ve talked to lots of people who have used you for many months, and while some of them are pleased with you there are plenty whose feelings range from ennui to anger.

Even Microsoft admits that you have a reputation as being a disappointment. The Mojave campaign sure implies that, as does the Vista site’s references to “confusion and lingering misunderstandings” about you. How often does any manufacturer of anything acknowledge unhappy customers at all?

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Goners! 10 Websites That Didn’t Deserve to Die

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 3, 2008 at 9:28 pm

The World Wide Web is such a young medium that many of the best sites from its earliest days are still very much still with us, such as Yahoo (founded in 1994), Amazon.com (1994), CNET (1994), eBay (1995). and Salon.com (1995). It’s a little as if I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Milton Berle Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Huntley/Brinkley were all on the air in 2008.

But for every site that’s been lucky enough to have a long and happy existence, there have been countless ones whose lives were cut short. Sometimes their deaths were huge stories; sometimes they quietly fizzled away. And even though many of their untimely passings were self-inflicted, it’s still worth celebrating the fact that they existed at all.

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Ten Reasons It’s So Damn Hard to Out-Google Google

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 28, 2008 at 12:01 pm

Sifting through the blogosphere buzz on search engine Cuil today, just about everyone broaches the question of whether it might be a better search engine than Google–maybe even a more successful one someday. Judging from my experience with it so far, the real question is whether it’ll get marginally adequate, not whether it’ll topple the most dominant Web site the planet has ever known. But the chatter got me thinking: Why is it so $@#@$% difficult to beat Google at its own game?

It’s not like nobody’s giving it all they’ve got. Cuil is merely the most recent startup to be positioned as a possible Googleslayer: Others have included Powerset (recently snapped up by Microsoft), Wisenut (which is no longer with us), and Wikia. And every time Yahoo or Microsoft or Ask launches some feature which will supposedly prove an irresistable lure to Google fans, Google’s share of all searches only trends upward.

In short, nobody’s really even managed to give Google a flesh wound. As with Freddy Krueger, tryng to kill it seems to do more harm than good. But why?

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