The New York Times Throws Apple a Puff Piece

I usually like The New York Time's John Markoff, but this time he's a bit too friendly with his topic. In this article about Apple's recent PC market share gains, he fails to adequately highlight that the lofty numbers he's citing are US only, and he also conveniently skips over the fact that 4 of the 5 "major" OS X upgrades that Apple has shipped since the original 2001 version have cost Mac customers $129 each time. Windows users, meanwhile, have only had to pay for one upgrade, Vista, in that time. So while Vista may technically be more expensive than OS X, it's also only a one time fee: A Mac user who bought OS X in 2001 and then paid for 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, and now 10.5 (10.1 was free) would have spent $645. Kind of makes the cost of Vista Ultimate look like a bargain by comparison. OK, that little bit of perspective out of the way, here's some interesting facts and figures from the article, along with some relevant commentary:

The average of one a year? Major releases? LOL. Wow.

It's been two and a half years since the last "major" OS X release, Tiger.

Aside from the fact that "that pace" is a lie, it also suggests that Apple will continue to charge its customers more often for upgrades than Microsoft. This is a fact that Markoff ignores.

That's so funny. But see my note about this above. That's irrelevant for the reasons I mention at the beginning of this post and because most (over 95 percent) of Windows users don't actually "buy" Windows at retail, they get it with new computers when they upgrade. It's a completely different sales model. Yes, Mac owners also get OS X with new Macs, but Apple sells millions of retail copies of the OS each time it ships an ugprade; clearly, a huge percentage of Mac users feel the need to buy upgrades each time at retail.

And charged them another $260. Meanwhile, Windows users will have paid nothing for their service packs and the many, many free upgrades Microsoft ships via Windows Update and the Web. Explain to me again why Apple's way is "better" for users and how, exactly Apple is moving faster than Microsoft.

Steve Jobs originally claimed Leopard would ship before Vista. So this version has not been delayed just four months. Let's get realistic here.

Please pay attention to this last bit; it's very important and is, in fact, central to my upcoming Leopard review. Apple, like Microsoft, has a problem: OS X, like Windows, is mature. So it's getting hard to ship major upgrades, though Apple has little problem describing evolutionary updates like Leopard as "major updates." Leopard is not a major update. It is however, a solid and respectable continuation of the OS X line. Apple can't market it like that, because no one would buy it. But that's what it is.

What's hilarious here is how the discussion turns from OS X to the iPhone, because there's no huge innovations in Leopard at all, while there are some major innovations in the iPhone. I'll re-use part of the quote above for context so you can see how Markoff effortlessly changes the discussion from the actual topic (the Mac is selling better than ever and here comes Leopard) to an ancillary and almost completely unrelated topic: But hey, let's talk iPhone too. The problem is that the typical NYT reader will never know they've been fooled into making this connection...

Wow. That has nothing to do with Leopard. But then I'm sure the typical SuperSite reader knows that. The typical NYT reader? Not so much.

So there you go. Sad.