Comments on: Apple results beat the Street

Buoyed by strong Mac and iPod sales, results sail past expectations. But company's holiday outlook is less rosy than some analysts had hoped.

[CBSTV]

Apple stock

That's a lot of Macintosh sales for one quarter. Something tells me
they will sell record volumes of product during the upcoming
holiday period, too.

Why did I listen to Michael Dells' dire predictions about Apple? I
should have followed my instincts a few years ago and purchased
stock. The value has more than tripled since then.

[OS11]

Yes, how fortunes change... look at this chart...

this says it all...

http://snipurl.com/zqgl

apple is now worth about $10 billion more than dell, with accelerating sales, dell is becoming a white elephant without OSX.

[CentrOS]

Well done!

Well done!

[hunter_jc]

Can you focus on quality now?

Ok this is all great. But i strongly believe that the sales will only
climb further if you focus on making quality products and
strengthen the support for its product. And the Pro Care is a
slap in the face to people who expect the pro care quality service
at the first place. I believe that if they are going to implement
pro care, they should just include it in AppleCare. I personally
am already looking at alternative to a Mac. My current macbook
is my third mac now. I am pretty disappointed with the quality
and the slow turn around fix service at Apple store. The slip in
quality is definitely hurting its new customers and giving new
switcher a bad after taste. I seriously hope they apply some sort
of Quality control when they do introduce new phones. Because
not spending money on it will haunt them in the near future. If i
can find a good Linux/Windows combination. I am going to
switch right away.

[aristotle_dude]

My MBP is fine

My 15" macbook pro has no problems whatsoever and it shipped to me in early March of this year straight from the factory. It is my third mac after I switched in 2002. I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience but the problems are not as widespread as some online forums would lead people to believe.

Maybe I've been lucky but I have not had any major problems with any of the macs I've owned. The only thing that broke on my 12" pbook was the the light on the latch button.

[CBSTV]

Has QC become a significant issue?

I've read some online accounts of quality control issues, but the
echo chamber of the Internet may exaggerate the volume of
manufacturing defects. Out of all the Apple products I've purchased
since the 1980s, I've had only one (knock on wood) hardware
problem. An Airport Express suddenly stopped working about a
year ago. Apple gave me a free replacement within a few days.

[CBSTV]

Has QC become a significant issue?

I've read some online accounts of quality control issues, but the
echo chamber of the Internet may exaggerate the volume of
manufacturing defects. Out of all the Apple products I've purchased
since the 1980s, I've had only one (knock on wood) hardware
problem. An Airport Express suddenly stopped working about a
year ago. Apple gave me a free replacement within a few days.

[Penguinisto]

Eh?

My PowerMac (dual G5 1.8GHz box) has been ticking along w/o a hitch for two years straight now. The only times I've shut it off was to either move house, go to a LAN Party, or it was shut off via UPS warning during power outages. I also recently shut it off to dust it out a month ago.

I agree that there has been some bumps and grinds in QC here and there - but no company escapes that. But IMHO, Apple has been among the better of them (I work w/ Dell and HP gear at work, and damn; you want low MTBFs? Buy an HP 4-way Opteron server... urgh).

Meanwhile, the only other computer that even comes close to that box in performance is my home-built PC running Fedora - but that's because I did the research and built the box myself out of solid quality parts.

/P

[john55440]

5.8% US Share - Lower Worldwide

To put things into perspective, Apple's Q3-2006 US computer market share is 5.8%, compared to 31% for Dell, and 22% for HP. Worldwide, Apple's current share is in the Others category, below HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and Toshiba. Numbers from IDC.

[Llib Setag]

IDC v. John

CNET quote ; "Apple shipped 975,000 Macs in the U.S. during the September quarter, according to IDC, putting the company within a stone's throw of nabbing the No. 3 spot from Gateway."

your numbers don't add up...

[CBSTV]

Down but not out

Microsoft has lost a lot of steam in recent years, but the enormous
installed base of Microsoft Windows machines in corporate
environments is enough to sustain the company for a long time to
come. The fact that OS X is superior to MS Windows is not going to
change the personal computer landscape in a significant way
anytime soon.

[close5828]

Quality is everything

I was a loyal Mac enthusiast for over 3 years and finally switched 'back' after frustration with the quality of repairs w/ my 12" Powerbook and overall quality of the MacBook. After all the frustration, I dumped it all on eBay and bought a PC notebook.

If the Macbook Pro is superior in quality and performance, fantastic, but I shouldn't have to pay twice-the-price of a MacBook or 3x the price of the average PC to get a quality product. I shouldn't have to buy a Lexus when all I need is a Corolla.

I'm glad to see Apple doing well, but I would like to see them focus more on QA/QC instead of profits and new products. If that were the case, their support page wouldn't be full of repair extention programs (iBook G3s, eMacs, iMacs, iMac G5s, etc.). My buddy had an iBook G3 and after 6 logic board replacements in 2 years, he finally threw the thing away and bought a "Dell" (not my first choice). A year later, he's writing his Master's thesis on the Dell.

Anyone who says, "Oh, that's just one machine..." or "You're off topic.." or even "Mine is doing fine..", well, great, that's your opinion and you're certainly entitled to it. However, just as you claim the issue or issues are isolated solely to myself and a select group of others, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or their problems are any less genuine. You should show solidarity instead of resentment or accusation.

Telling people their problems are not realistic, genuine, or irrelevant is a sure-fire way to lose the argument you are trying to make.