Macs, Megahertz, Safari, and Growing the Market

As Apple yet again increased the speed of the iMac, many people have remarked that they are just showing how far behind they are compared with the rest of the world.

Yes, this is true. While PCs have been upped to 3 GHz, the iMac looks pretty paltry at only 1 GHz. Using typical consumer logic, you'd have to be crazy to spend more for an iMac running at 1 GHz than for a PC running at 2 GHz - unless, of course, you want the DVD-R drive.

It's unfortunate to see how far behind Apple has gotten in the MHz race. Instead of trying to do something about it, they only seem to be trying to cover themselves.

For instance, with the introduction of dual processors in the 2000 Power Mac G4, it made them appear twice as fast as they would normally be, even though Mac OS 9 didn't support dual processors - and most applications still don't.

They're covering up in their laptops, too. With the introduction of the PowerBook G4, they were a little bit slow, but who else had a 15" widescreen display? The 17" G4 is still behind in MHz, but it has a 17" screen and a DVD-R drive.

As I've stated in the past, Apple is relying on its other features to sell computers. They're also using the computers' designs and modern appearance to sell them.

I simply don't know how long this can go on.

Sure, we all know that MHz isn't everything. The 400 MHz G4 that I'm typing this on is adequate for my needs, even though it does some things a bit slowly. After all, I can't expect extreme speed from a two-year-old computer running the latest software.

Still, it isn't all that comforting to know that some of the new models still don't run the same software all that much better than my two year old G4. Suppose I wanted to buy a new computer? What would be the point if the new model isn't markedly faster than the old one?

This is the problem Apple's having.

PC companies can sell new PCs easily, as they've already convinced most users with 400 and 500 MHz machines that they need new ones. Honestly, there really isn't a huge difference between a 500 MHz PC and a 2 GHz PC for basic tasks, but the difference between the numbers is enormous.

If Apple wants to sell more computers, it has to convince users that a 1 GHz computer is a huge step up from a 500 MHz computer, and it simply isn't. If Apple wants to sell more computers, that's what they have to do, but with their current MHz numbers, they can't do it.

They've been doing a great job convincing people to dump their Windows PC in favor of a new Macintosh, but maybe it's time that they worked on Mac users a little bit, too.

Macs have also always been much slower at Web browsing than PCs. It's a fact, and even the most die-hard Mac enthusiast will tell you that it's true. Of course, you'll probably hear all about how Microsoft "illegally" integrated Internet Explorer into Windows, but for the most part a Windows machine can browse 2 or 3 times faster than a comparable Mac.

Apple clearly knows about the problem and is trying to fix it. Safari gives you the feeling of loading pages much faster than Internet Explorer, and whether it does or not, it certainly appears like it does. Pages look nice in Safari, too, and it's surprisingly compatible and stable for a beta.

However, there's one issue that has come up for me and that will probably be enough to keep many people away from Safari. Printing pages. Safari doesn't place the URL anywhere on the page, which can be annoying if you want to get revisit the page using another computer.

Try putting a 6-page news article in order. Printed from Explorer or OmniWeb, it's no problem, but with Safari, it's a pain. It doesn't number the pages, and, in fact, it tends to cut off the last line, which makes matching them up by phrasing impossible!

Clearly, Safari still needs work, but Apple's really going in the right direction by trying to offer a speedy browser for Mac users to compete with the speed PC users have been used to with Internet Explorer on Windows.

Apple's got some good software right now. Not the best, but it's pretty good.

And perhaps Apple can improve its hardware a little bit, too. Without a next generation processor, there's no hope for increasing market share like they want. Apple needs a new processor that runs in the 2-3 GHz range if it really wants to turn some heads. It's got to make this computer reasonably priced. It needs to represent excellent value and show off its features, unlike the current lineup, which seems to be very much design oriented (although they have improved this in the G4s with price reductions and the slight processor speed increase).

Yes, Apple does have some pretty nice designs. But what do you buy a computer for? Do you simply look at it all day? Or do you use it? Apple needs to show everyone, like it did in 1990 with the IIfx, that something easy to use can also be very powerful.