Having said that, I feel a bit like the iPhone customers who bought the first iPhones just to see the price reduced dramatically two months or so later. The first Intel Macs were supposed to appear Summer 2006. I got a Power PC iMac basically as a Christmas present right at the end of 2005. Then a month later Apple jumps the gun and announces they're bringing out the Intel Macs half a year early at thend of January 2006. Apple gives you 30 days to return/exchange the computer if you pay a 10% re-stocking fee (which can actually be quite substantial if you're low on money), but my 30 day period had run out and I was/am stuck with a PowerPC Mac. I used to believe the 90s hype that the AIM alliance's PowerPC RISC chips were the wave of the future, too. OOPS.
Having said that, Apple fan that I can be, I do get annoyed that Apple's branding power is basically like the hold the McDonald's brand has over kids. A recent experiment served kids the same type of burgers, fries, etc., in both McD's and non-McD's wrappers, and even though the foods were exactly the same, kids reported that the foods in the McDonaldss wrappers tasted better.
-B.
Doug Henwood wrote:
"Wow. Apple, a company that's no stranger to DRM, does no such thing. And they're not exactly hurting for money."
Tayssir John Gabbour wrote:
"I wondered about this, and suspect one reason is that Apple's customers are said to be more willing to pay for software than Microsoft's customers. Another guess is that computing companies tend not to put the screws on customers until they're dominant. (That said, I have no idea what the Software Update reports...)"