As it turns out, Apple is more popular than everyone's favorite search engine Google - at least in November. The Associated Press reported yesterday the popularity of the iPod and iTunes has resulted in explosive growth for Apple's web site. Amazing. Below is the article:
Apple's Web Site Among Fastest Growing
Thu Dec 22, 8:07 AM ET (AP) - Driven largely by the popularity of the iTunes music service and software, Apple Computer Inc.'s Web site was the fastest growing last month among the major brands, according to a study by Nielsen/NetRatings.
The site drew 30.8 million unique visitors in November, a 57 percent jump from the 19.6 million a year earlier. Google Inc. saw a 29 percent growth in visitors while Amazon.com Inc. had a 16 percent boost.
Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) remained the Web's leading brand with 104 million visitors, a 10 percent increase from November 2004. But among the Web's top 10 brands, Yahoo's growth ranked only seventh.
Comparing all sites with at least 1 million visitors in November, the PhotoBucket photo-sharing site saw the largest growth — a 16-fold increase to 15.6 million visitors, from 983,000 last year.
Social networking sites MySpace and Facebook had the second- and third-highest growth, respectively. Wikipedia, an encyclopedia that lets volunteers add and change entries regardless of their expertise, was ninth on the list, nearly quadrupling its traffic.
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.
Apple Site Grows Faster than Google
Mossberg is Convert to the Mac Way
Without a doubt, Walk Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has been transformed into a Mac fan the past couple of years. While Mossberg once spoke of Macs with sarcasm and disdain, he now praises Apple for the beautiful machines and operating system Mac devotees have loved for two decades.
Mossberg's latest column praises the iMac G5 as the "gold standard" of personal computers. Way to go, Walt! Read the entire article.
TiVo Digital Downloads Could Transform TV
An announcement by the makers of TiVo to make TV shows downloadable to digital devices has the potential to revolutionize TV as we know it. Apple with the video-capable iPod and other manufacturers are making possible TV-to-go for the masses, the big question now is easy-to-obtain and free content. TiVo's plan will make this a reality. I wonder now how TiVo is going to get around content-provider concerns that users will pirate material. Time will tell. Read the article in MacWorld.
The Mark Away from Windows
Business Week has published an interesting report about the move away from Windows to the Macintosh platform among some computer users.
Fueling the growth in "switchers" is the popularity of the iPod and Mac operating system's advanced security against viruses and spyware.
"Wolf has created an interesting forecast model in which he assumes that 11% of Windows users who buy iPods also purchase Macs at the same time or soon afterward. The model also assumes that of these new Mac buyers most stick to the Mac platform and buy a second one when it comes time to upgrade."
Read the entire article here.Is iPod's Popularity Waning?
According to The Financial Express, Apple Computer’s continued dominance of the MP3 market is prompting more people to examine exactly what it is that makes the iPod so successful.
Many attribute the iPod’s dominance to Apple’s coolness, but according to the report, "Understanding iPod’s Dominance: A Consumer Perspective," Apple’s coolness appears to be waning. The reasons most often cited for purchasing an iPod have more to do with brand familiarity than Apple’s cachet.
Today’s iPod buyer is driven by practical considerations more than social status, according to Dale Gilliam III, director of primary research at the Diffusion Group, a media research and consulting company. Coolness ranked third among people aged 15 to 24, behind quality of interface and familiarity with the brand. Design aesthetics and quality of interface were the top two reasons cited by the 25- 34-year-old age group for purchasing an iPod. Among those between 35 and 50, familiarity with Apple and the iPod brand were the primary reasons they chose the iPod.
Video iPod May Change TV
Apple may have stumbled onto something very great, and it's called iTV.
The new iPod that supports video could very well change TV and video the way the original iPod changed eletronic music. Only time will tell.
Admitedly, there's still a lot of shaking out yet to be done. It may be months or years before we see clearly the impact the video-enabled iPod makes. Some, like Business Week have seen the future and it's huge.
OS X Continues to Impress
A few weeks ago I rescued our old clamshell "Black Tie" iBook that had found a home in my daughter's closet.
The iBook was stored after the CD/DVD door had stuck open. After a few days tinkering with it, I got the door to close and it was whole once again. Apparently, my daughter had accidentially pulled the door out too far.
Satisfied of my handyman abilities, I began using the machine and was impressed how strong its Airport reception and battery life was compared to my 12-inch G4 PowerBook. What I wasn't happy with was the 9.0.4 operating system it was running. I continued to use the iBook and began to experience daily system crashes and reboots. Then I read an article on O'Grady's PowerPage about his installation of OS X on a Blueberry iBook. Up until then I never thought about installing OS X on the iBook, figuring it would run way too slow.
Well, to make a long story a bit shorter, O'Grady installed Tiger on his aging iBook, breathing life into the once fanciful iBook. I decided to try it too.
After updating OS 9 to 9.2.2, I went for the gold, installing OS 10.2.8 (I don't own Tiger). The installation when extremely well, and despite the limited 800 x 600 screen real estate, I have enjoyed every minute of the iBook since. What I have especially enjoyed is that it hasn't crashed once since the installation.
While not a screamer, the machine handles OS X better than I ever expected. What's more, I get to use the same updated OS X apps that my other Macs use, such as Word.
Apple did a good thing when it finally updated its aging OS 9 system with OS X. With the move to Intel chips, I figure more of the world will discover this world class operating system really soon.
Oh, That Windows Feeling!
About four years ago my mother decided she wanted to buy a new computer and asked me what I would recommend.
Since she lives in a rural area of Missouri - though I really wanted to recommend a Mac - I decided to help her with the purchase of a Dell (www.dell.com) running Windows XP. At the time she bought the machine she also purchased Dell's extended warranty which provided telephone technical assistance and on site computer repair. I also made certain she bought virus software after the 90-day free trial version expired.
For the first year or so, all went fairly well with my Mom's Dell. Since e-mail, light Internet browsing, and an occasional game of Solitaire was all she used the computer for, XP worked for her.
Then it happened. Despite my warnings, she accidentially downloaded and opened an attachment that contained a virus. The computer ended up having to be taken to the local computer repair shop where technicians were happy to clear the machine up and charge my mother handsomely for their services (which was about a 15 percent of the original purchase price of the computer).
More time passed. Last week, Mom told me she was unplugging her computer for a few days while the current Windows virus threat blew over. I told her that unplugging the computer wouldn't keep the computer from getting the virus, as the machine could only be infected when she was connected to the Internet (she's on a slow dial-up connection).
Finally, I told Mom she might want to consider buying a Mac. She agreed but said she really doesn't have the money to do that right now.
The moral of the story is that I should have recommended a Mac from the beginning of my mother's computer experience. I thought at the time that her limited use of a PC running Windows would work okay, but I was sorely wrong.
You live and learn. She definitely is experiencing "that Windows feeling."
Apple to be Intel's "Show Pony?"
Rhonda Ascierto of the Computer Business Review reports about the newfound lovefest between Apple and Intel in the article, "Apple may be Intel show pony." Ascierto quotes IDC analyst Roger Kay: "Apple could be become the showcase for Intel's technology." I think Kay is on to something.
Apple already has practically cornered the digital music market by "getting it right." But another frontier is on the horizon: digital video...and no one has gotten it right yet either. If Apple - powered by Intel technology - were do for digital video what it has done for digital music, a new giant in the entertainment business could be born.
Now Steve Jobs has said more than once that watching video on the tiny screen of an iPod is not the experience people want. But what if Apple produced a device that's as small as an iPod with the capability of a consumer "digital hub?" Want to listen to music? Use the device as a stand alone player or feed it through your home stereo system. Want to watch the latest release of a new movie? Just hook the device up to your home TV system. If you're on the go, just watch the movie on the built-in screen or project it on the wall. A true portable digital device for all occasions!
Intel technology is closer to making this happen than IBM or Motorola and Apple saw the writing on the wall. If you think about it, it's amazing it took Apple this long to make the switch. In 1998 I talked about the promising future of the PowerPC chip in the article, "The Second Coming the of Macintosh." There's some great technology in the PowerPC chipset, but when it comes to portability and power consumption, Intel has leaped ahead big time.
The bottom line is Apple had little choice to do what it did. It will be exciting to see what the most innovative computer and software maker in the world will do with this opportunity in years to come. There will be bumps along this conversion, but with Apple encouraging developers to produce both PowerPC and Intel versions of their apps for the foreseeable future, there should be little compatibility concerns for current and future Mac users.
Tim Yarbrough
MacDoor Editor
Apple Better Off with "Intel Inside"
Well, it's true. Apple is moving to Intel. Who would have ever imagined it? Actually, the move to Intel technology makes a lot of sense for Apple, which since the introduction of OS X has moved its core architecture to previously PC-only territory. It will be interesting to see how the "establishment PC" crowd will feel about Apple now.
Few argue that Apple has one of the most stable and robust operating systems out there today. Windows still rules the day, of course, but OS X with its rock-solid stability and immunity to many viruses has got it noticed outside creative and scientific circles in recent years.
What's still missing is OS X's robustness in the enterprise. Windows has such a head start, one wonders if Apple could ever catch up. But again, who would have foreseen the Mac GUI running on top of UNIX powered by Intel chips?
Moving to Intel means Apple will finally produce a world class laptop with world class power-saving features and extended battery life. My G4 Powerbook running OS X is a great machine, but it's no match for my office HP laptop with its P4M. Battery life on the PC extends easily to 4 or 5 hours, while the Powerbook stuggles to run 2 to 3 hours...especially when pushed by intense computing.
Scalability is another factor I'm certain Steve Jobs considered in deciding to switch. It is very possible you could see OS X running on your iPod, cell phone or PDA in the very near future.
Long gone are the days of Apple's legendary hardware/software integration. It just isn't as necessary today as it was in the early days of computing.
Will Apple's move to Intel mean we can buy any piece of hardware off the shelf to run OS X? I doubt that is Jobs' intention, but I figure if he tries to prohibit it someone will reverse engineer around it and make it possible.
I continue to be very optimistic about Apple's future. I figure the move to Intel will be the last straw for some of the Apple faithful, but those losses will be easily replaced by appealing to a new and larger market that never would have considered an Apple without "Intel Inside."
Tim Yarbrough
MacDoor Editor
Apple Moving to Intel: Say It Ain't So!
CNet's report yesterday that Apple is ready is switch to Intel chips is interesting, to say the least. What this move - if true - would mean to the loyal Apple fan base is unclear. After all, the Macintosh experience has always been about the user interface, not the chip that powers the screen. However, the anti-Big Brother mentality Steve Jobs has fostered at the company for years has meant Apple usually looked for non-PC alternatives which meant for years using Motorla chips and since the mid-1990s, chips powered by IBM technology.
Personally, I think it would give Apple a big advantage to use the chip set "the rest of the world uses," which potentially will result in lower computer hardware prices and increased compatibility.
Time will tell. I can't wait to see if the news is true.
Tim Yarbrough
MacDoor Editor