Support Mac OS X Already!
To this day, there are still amazing numbers of software developers that still do not suppot Mac OS X. It is truly unfathomable to me. Statistics are not necessary for this argument. It is well publicized in the media that the Mac market is growing fast these days. The big thing developers need to understand is that Mac users will spend money for quality. Period. This is obvious from the fact they purchase Macs to begin with. What could be more obvious?
Mac users also make software marketing cheap. They know that it is often difficult to find boxed software for Macs in brick-and-mortar stores, so Mac users are very good online customers. Online sales and distribution is a no-brainer; it is far cheaper than any other software sales channel.
Macs also support web standards better. They are ready, out-of-the-box to access Web 2.0 sites (Strict XHTML + CSS and/or AJAX or Rails driven) without a hitch. So why are sites like Yahoo! Games still dragging their feet on this?
posted by J.J. at 7:34 PM
2 Comments:
I dont mean to start a rant, but you miss the obvious. HARDWARE! Apple is intent on forcing customers to use their hardware. Its easy to see why, computer hardware accounts for the majority of their income. But they have to cut the cord so to speak and make a go of it just selling OSX to run on any PC if they ever want to go beyond the 2% market share and become a serious competitor to MS again.
Oh, no, I don't miss the point at all. Apple makes money selling hardware. They always have. They know that software or hardware independently are more difficult to succeed in. They're quite successful with the total package.
Market share really doesn't mean much. Their market share has shrunken largely because market share means new sales, and overal the new sales market has exploded. It exploded due to prices dropping on commodity PC hardware. That hasn't boded well for the long term future of most hardware makers. I know this because of hardware maker consolidation over the last 25 years. Price competition with Windows-based systems influences Apple tremendously, but doesn't make them or break them. TCO, total cost of ownership, and quality are huge factors to consider. Apple has always had the best personal computer customer satisfaction for good reasons. Their stuff works better overall and the system gets in the way of your work less.
Software is much easier, and cheaper to pirate than hardware.
Apple isn't going away. John Dvorak has been predicting their doom for over a decade and a half. There was one point where it may have loomed close, but then they bought NeXT and brought Jobs back on board. Remember this, Apple makes hefty profits, and keeps repeat customers. Few other companies of the same size, either in terms of employee count, or market capitalization, have so much money in the bank. Cash. Currently 10 billion dollars cash, that is outside of any debt or costs, that is warchest money to be used as they please.
They are particular about using their hardware, but they do care about quality. If you send e-mail to feedback@apple.com they will not always answer it, but they do read it. They are a responsive company, and they're not gods or angels, but they make nice stuff that works, and their business model is clearly working and they're never resting on their laurels. They are not simply a computer and OS maker. They sell online music, they sell music players, they sell movies now, and have a forthcoming livingroom media device. They have big plans.
Most importantly they believe deeply in wholistic design. Not just gimmicks. They really want to make good stuff. They also want to make a profit.
Bad things they have:
.mac
it's overpriced, under-featured (anemic!) but integrated to their system and applications.
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