More Falling Apples

Geeze, I shoulda shorted Apple stock yesterday.

I thought Apple had 4% of the PC market but the Mercury News reports it at 3%. Quite a triumph, since I can remember a 10% market share -- but that was long ago and far away.

Apple fans reportedly flocked to the website and stores looking for the new PC, no doubt willing to think differently about parting with their money and overlooking the release date. IMHO, Apple doesn't create terribly many new customers, they more or less recycle the old ones (and may actually begin promoting recycling efforts for their products). For a very PC (as in politically correct) product, Apple hasn't been quick to get into recycling (unlike, say Dell). I do believe Apple dropped its development and support of accessibility devices for handicapped users years ago, while Microsoft continues to address accessibility issues.

Here's a company that tells you to think differently while it sells you products you can't customize or easily upgrade and will now sell you a music player that picks songs for you, rather than let you choose. Different all right.

The problem Apple faces is software. If they really want people to switch they'd develop a WinTel emulator or give you some sort of a deal on replacing your software. It would cost me far and away more than the machine to replace the software. Besides, I don't see any compelling advantages to changing platforms. The other side of the software problems is that fewer programs are being written for Apple. Apart from a couple of specialized, high end, photography applications I haven't seen much of anything written exclusively for the Mac. The market's not there.

The moral of the story is hubris goeth before the drop in market share.