This can't be good, or right. Macs are dying. Rob Enderle says so repeatedly. John Dvorak agrees. Macs are on their way out...right out the doors at Best Buy!

I only hope that they have some Maccentric sales people and that the display units are up and running.

if Jobs wants better market share, he should reduce prices... but he doesn't give a crap about market share... and, no, it's not the same as BMW... (and, no, I'm NOT a windows fan... I LOVE the Mac and HATE windowzs... BUT... Macs are still too expensive and way too limited in choice... the only "consumer Mac" that Jobs sees fit to produce has NO EXPANSION capability... that sucks! and nobody in their mind would pay what he wants for "a toaster"... (his words, not mine)

this was bound to happen at some point. in the old days, Apple was in Best Buy, Curcuit City, Wal-Mart, etc. But that was the Performa days, when steve returned, all those channels where closed down.

Now, it's time once again to increase market awareness and "widen" the channel and Best Buy is better than most.

If all goes well, Macs will be sold everywhere iPods are sold. This is EXACTLY what Apple needs to do before it can hit 20% in the coming years.

Friends of mine went to best buy to buy an iPod. The geek there told them that they should buy the iriver because the nano was not rechargeable. Can you believe that, and the lemmings beleived him! When I laughed they said "why would someone tell me that if it wasn't true"?

These places are where the worst mac FUDs get started. The illiterate people they infect then go out with unabashed confidence to relay their new "facts" to all the other lemmings.

I just don't see best buy being a place that's Apple friendly.

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Guest wrote:
if Jobs wants better market share, he should reduce prices... but he doesn't give a crap about market share... and, no, it's not the same as BMW... (and, no, I'm NOT a windows fan... I LOVE the Mac and HATE windowzs... BUT... Macs are still too expensive and way too limited in choice... the only "consumer Mac" that Jobs sees fit to produce has NO EXPANSION capability... that sucks! and nobody in their mind would pay what he wants for "a toaster"... (his words, not mine)

It's hard to know where to start with this ill-thought-out rant.

First, when you look at the price, you have to compare the Macs to a truly comparable Windows PC. Try building a Dell desktop that has what an iMac has--not counting the iLife software. Go out and do your homework.

Apple doesn't sell bottom-of-the-line computers. Neither does HP, but are you blustering about HP's prices? How about Sony and IBM laptops? In order to cut the price, Apple will have to cut out something.

A colleague recently went to buy a "cheap" PC for his daughter. The salesman (at a big chain store that shall be nameless) showed him the $500 PC that was advertised, then proceded to move him away to another one at $800. He pointed out that the cheap PC had a cheap sound card, cheap graphics card, etc., while the more expensive PC had better components. As they talked, the daughter said that she wanted to play games. Now, I sincerely doubt that she's playing 3-D shooter games--she's 11, but the salesman said, "Oh, then you need THIS PC," which was $1100. Then, he said that they needed to upgrade the monitor, the printer, the WiFi card (he also tried to sell them a wireless router, which they don't need), max out the RAM, add a DVD burner and Bluetooth (they don't have any Bluetooth devices), and on and on--ending up at nearly $1800. The kid was delighted, but Dad drew the line. He went back to the $500 PC and said, "I want this one." The girl was upset, but that's what they walked out with. Few people would have had the b*lls to do what he did. (The kid uses the PC mostly for email and IM'ing.)

OK, just what expansion capability do you want/need? (Oh, yeah: there are actually two "consumer" Mac lines--the Mac Mini and the iMac.) Consumer Reports keeps bashing the Macs for lack of expansion capabiity, but they can't come up with data showing that many people actually "expand" their PCs. Computer geeks do, of course, but they might represent 2% of the users. Businesses almost never "expand" a basic PC, unless it's for high-powered graphics or video use.

What are you going to "expand"? The HD? UPgrade the video card? (Talk to Windows users about putting in new video cards. It's not fun.) Wifi? Bluetooth? FireWire (often an "expansion" for a PC that takes up one slot)? Gigabit Ethernet?

Also, you can expand the Mac Mini and the iMac with external HDs, CD-RW and dual-layer DVD burners, a second monitor (try that with most PCs), etc. If you want video capture, get EyeTV.

If you're a real power user and need PCI cards, go buy a PowerMac G5.

At least here in Laurel Maryland. Their staff would chide me whenever I visited them for looking for Mac compatible hardware. Even claimed that Apple would one day return after they didn't like selling the fruity Mac. Worse yet, their sales people engage in bait and switch on regular sales items like dishwashers. I went to buy one 2 years ago, and all was peachy, until up at the register they refused to sell it to me without a $25 accessory pack. This was even if my existing dishwasher had all the right cables. If Best Buy wants to sell Macs, they will have to stop engaging in activities that no Mac user would want to deal with. Respect us Mac users. Respect your sales clients. I'd rather see Sears get back into the Mac act over Best Buy. And this even though they continued to try to telemarket me after I asked them not to.

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Guest wrote:
if Jobs wants better market share, he should reduce prices... but he doesn't give a crap about market share...

I guess these statements cancel each other out. So no need to address this.

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Guest wrote:
and, no, it's not the same as BMW...

That was very insightful. Both have boatloads of cash. Both innovate in their respective industries. Both have a great public image. Both are top selling brands among the "luxury" end of their respective industries. Both have limited marketshare yet still have a rather large overall user base. I own both. Seems like a good analogy to me.

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Guest wrote:
Macs are still too expensive and way too limited in choice... the only "consumer Mac" that Jobs sees fit to produce has NO EXPANSION capability... that sucks!

LOL. Ah the classic computer geek projecting his needs onto the other 99.9999% of the public. Sorry man, business is a numbers game. You are in the extreme minority. It sounds more like you are just upset you can't afford a higher end Mac. Get a better job or something. That's how the rest of us geeks afford them. Your average Joe does not expand his computer.

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Guest wrote:
and nobody in their mind would pay what he wants for "a toaster"... (his words, not mine)

Now when you say nobody... does that include the 1,112,000 people who bought Macs last quarter? Oh did you mean just the Mac mini? Sorry I don't have that number for you, but I think it might be > 0.

Oh and speaking from first hand experience, the Mini is a sweet little machine. It meets the average person's needs in it's sleep. Even the old G4 ones. You can't argue with that statement since you have proven you do not know what the average person's needs are. Oh and guess what?!? The average person is exactly who the mini is for! Crazy Steve Jobs!

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Guest wrote:
Macs are still too expensive and way too limited in choice... the only "consumer Mac" that Jobs sees fit to produce has NO EXPANSION capability... that sucks!

LOL. Ah the classic computer geek projecting his needs onto the other 99.9999% of the public. Sorry man, business is a numbers game. You are in the extreme minority. It sounds more like you are just upset you can't afford a higher end Mac. Get a better job or something. That's how the rest of us geeks afford them.

That's the funny part, if he actually used his supposed computing knowledge and got a job working or supporting a Mac, he could afford to buy more expensive things like Macs and Beemers. Instead, he is sitting at home building the ultimate gaming machine for cheap and playing games all day long.

SNAP!