Wow, a "professor" observed these things, Dvorak? Of psychology, no less? He
must be right!
Ok, let's see what you've got...
Epstein made four observations. The first was that the Apple Switch ad campaign was over, and nobody switched.
Um. Wow, okay.
First of all, the Switch campaign was just an ad campaign. Ad campaigns come and go. Even successful ones. (Think "Be all you can be" or "Dude, yer gettin' a Dell!" And yes, those were both very successful campaigns.)
Also, Apple marketshare, unit sales, profits, and revenues are at their highest
ever, and growing at a faster rate than, for example, Dell.
So, point 1, wrong.
The second was that the iPod lost its FireWire connector because the PC world was the new target audience.
First of all, this is completely irrelevant to any discussion about whether or not Apple might
switch operating systems, which is what I thought we were talking about. FireWire, or the lack of it, has zero to do with Windows. Additionally, since all DV and HDV cameras and decks have FireWire and require its use as the primary - and usually only - means of video transport,
FireWire isn't going anywhere [appleintelfaq.com] on Macs in general anytime soon. Further, since all Macs since the Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) support USB booting, and since all new Macs and PCs are universally guaranteed to have USB 2.0, going with USB on the iPod and eliminating additional support chipsets for things like FireWire - especially on a peripheral - seems prudent.
But I'm getting sidetracked by Dvorak, here, because the iPod not having FireWire is completely, utterly unrelated to any discussion about whether or not Apple might be switching to Windows.
Point 2, wrong. Actually, not even wrong...just utterly irrelevant.
Also, although the iPod was designed to get people to move to the Mac, this didn't happen.
Um, no. The iPod was designed to be a product that, you know, sold well. Which it, you know, did. Wildly so.
This whole "iPod was deisgned to sell Macs" business was a fantasy created by press and analysts who attribute that guess to Apple as if it were their sole intent. So we'll just ignore that the iPod is one of the most successful consumer products ever, and at the same time say it failed at some imaginary goal and purpose that there is no solid proof Apple ever created it for.
And on top of it all, most of the anecdotal evidence suggests that the "halo effect", as it were, actually works in some areas, at least marginally. To say nothing of the fact that, as I said before, Apple marketshare, unit sales, profits, and revenues are at their highest ever.
Point 3, wrong in both premise and substance.
And, of course, that Apple had switched to the Intel microprocessor.
Ahh, Dvorak must be feeling emboldened by his decade-plus of wrong predictions that Apple was on the verge of switching to Intel finally coming true.
There are many, many reasons Apple switched to Intel, all discussed
ad nauseum elsewhere. "Switching to Windows" isn't one of them. Has Dvorak missed the amount of time, secrecy, and effort Apple has put into keeping it's options open for
Mac OS X to run on alternate hardware platforms? Christ, Dvorak.
To say nothing of the fact that if Apple's secret purpose was to start a switch to Windows, you'd think they'd have at least made it possible to, oh, I don't know, RUN WINDOWS on the Intel-based Macs easily, which isn't possible at this time?
Point 4, wrong again. Well, at least Dvorak's consistent, if anything.
Dvorak is also actually missing the biggest play for Apple here:
being able to run Windows and other x86 OSes in virtualization [zdnet.com]. That would be the holy grail for many academics, researchers, scientists, and other users, most of whom use Macs because they
don't wan
