Guys, What is your take on the current events at and surrounding Apple these days? I must admit I've come to the conclusion that the Mac as we know it is dead.
That's a hard thing to say. I love this computer, as it is the most productive system I've found to date. The problem is that Apple could never overcome all the negative press...and never even tried. I don't know all of what's going on in the exec boardroom, but it's definitely not good for current Mac users that Apple is keeping it all under wraps. The MASSIVE backlash among previously loyal Mac users is my main reason for believing the platform is largely dead at this point. I've seen a lot of apathy and antipathy towards Apple before, but nothing like this. I haven't seen much developer reaction that is positive, and many of the companies are accelerating complete Windows conversion of their products. I suspect we'll see more and more developer abandonment of the MacOS (unfortunately).
I still firmly believe that Apple will become the next SGI, and they should do well in that capacity. Rhapsody will help here. The advanced graphics software should continue rolling in steadily, but for consumer-level applications, I get the distinct impression that development is screeching to a halt. Long term viability of the desktop PPC systems now seems to be in question as well, with the recent announcements by Motorola (and possibly soon by IBM). I don't know what Apple was thinking when they started all this with Power Computing, but I doubt seriously they had any idea it would go this far. It's a sad, sad day.
I personally will be buying a PC (likely by Dell) in the next 3-4 months. This is a purchase I've been planning for a while, but it's now accelerated. The main reason is games: ALL the cool games come out for PC's, and only a very few of the best sellers come to the Mac...often 1-2 YEARS later. That's disturbing. Some of the new crop of games that are coming out are truly remarkable and worthwhile for entertainment. The prices for good-quality systems is also remarkable. I never really realized the price differential. You can get a top-of-the-line system (complete with 8 Mb 128-bit graphics card, 266Mhz Pentium II, 64Mb Ram, 8 Gig HD, 24x CD-Rom or DVD, 3D accelerator, huge speaker system, 17" trinitron monitor, Zip drive, a boatload of software, and more) for around $2700 plus shipping. This is about the price of a mid-range Mac clone. Depressing.
The good news is that Rhapsody will run on it. Whether or not anybody will develop software for Rhapsody is still unknown, but it puts my mind at ease anyway.
Anybody else moving over?
I for certain will keep my PowerMac, though. It's a great system still, and I have a ton of software for it. Also, I've always regretted selling my old systems when I've switched in the past (C-64, then Amiga). I think it's a good idea to keep them all around and working if possible.
