Dateline CNET: Apple offers sleek cachet for clunkers
Imagine consumers en masse dumping their old PC clunkers for a svelte MacBook Air running the sleek, new Snow Leopard operating system. An implausible Orwellian vision but probably not that far removed from Apple’s marketing aspirations.
In short, walk into any Apple Store in any tony neighborhood and the message is: relieve yourself of those old bulky PCs and flip phones and we’ll give you smaller, more stylish computing with the Apple cachet.
Which is a nice thought. Except that “give” part. There is no “give.” There is only “buy.” For a lot of money. If that’s your thing, great. But I’m not going to pay twice as much for the same shitty Dell hardware in a sleek package the price of the rebate you’d be getting in the automotive “Cash for Clunkers” deal. Apple is not going to take your PC and give you a Mac. CNET is imagining a scenario where you throw out your PC and just go buy a Mac. That may save you a bit of software frustration, well, after the getting-to-know-you period where you figure out Apple’s computing metaphor, since you’re used to the PC world. Then the shitty Dell-quality hardware inside those sleek packages will break, and you’ll be sending your Mac back to be refurbished. Then it will break again, rinse, repeat. Well, if you physically use the computer connections alot. If you just sit it there and compute with it you’ll experience less failure. Take a mac laptop on the road, the software will never fail but your firewire port may, and if you’re a performing musician who uses that firewire port…. well, you own a second Mac so this problem won’t stop your road trip.
In summation: Just because you’ve bought a Mercedes or Porche doesn’t mean you’re any less likely to run into another car or off the road.
Tags: i eat apples, puppies and kitties, wild speculation, yes this is really how I amuse myself