The Macalope

Picture the scene.

At the edge of a wood bordering the high mountain plain, a creature stands eating the last of the autumn RAM chips that have fallen from the magic trees that produce them. He must store up energy to survive the long winter that has already left the ground covered in a dusting of snow. As he chews slowly and thoughtfully, the pixies begin to nestle into his fur — a home they will claim until the spring thaws come.

Suddenly, the great beast pauses. He lifts his be-horned head and sniffs the wind. Alerted, the pixies burrow deep and his thick coat sparkles with their dust.

An ill wind is moving in from the southwest. The lesser beasts — the silken-furred jackalopes and hairy manelopes — have smelled it now too, and they bolt haphazardly into the forest.

But the Macalope breathes deep. He knows this smell. He knows what it means.

Somewhere, Rob Enderle has written something about Apple.

And he knows what he must do.

…

OK, that’s not exactly how it happened. The Macalope was getting some RAM chips and soda out of the pantry when he got an email from John Gruber saying “You want this one?” But his fur is full of pixies (they’re an excellent exfoliant).

Sooo, Mr. Enderle. What. To. Do. About. You?

You see, it’s fairly obvious what he’s doing here. As the horny one has noted, he’s come to realize that Rob is not as stupid as he’d have us believe. No, Rob is playing a part. It’s doubtful he truly believes what he writes about Apple. Lord knows no one else does.

Many an astute reader has wondered why the brown and furry one would reward such trolling with a link. Well, it’s not like traffic from the Macalope is really going to win Rob that coveted set of steak knives from the International Jackass Institute. And, really, you’re asking a creature with a Mac for a head not to respond to this? Clearly this is what the Macalope was born and bred for.

Plus, this one is like a quotation buffet. Take a look.

Unfortunately, the key part of the message for the new MacBook TV ad was the claim that it had the notebook computer that was the most green. Greenpeace almost immediately, and clearly opportunistically, branded Apple again as an environmental problem company, offsetting significantly the message Apple was trying to convey.

Right. Because we know how consumers just eat up those Greenpeace press releases.

In addition, the new Apple MacBook touchpads have been reported as broken, something that goes along with a number of other perceived quality problems with Apple’s latest products…

Perceived by who, Rob? You? Certainly not Apple customers. They sure beat the pants off your buddies at Dell. Crappy physician, heal thy crappy patient.

…most of which seem to be priced substantially more than the US$800 price ceiling that was identified at the Phoenix Technology conference I attended a few weeks back.

These ceiling comments are based on observed buying behavior after the economic collapse and, if true, given how expensive Apple’s PC products are, would indicate Apple is having problems selling its new PCs.

According to several guys down at the video place, Rob’s mustache exceeds the ceiling for tackiness for anyone not actually a ’70s porn star. If these ceiling comments are true, it could indicate that Rob was actually a porn star back in the ’70s.

No, what Rob means is that these comments would indicate that Apple might have problems selling its new PCs. Rob frequently seems prone to these leaps of logical faith when talking about Apple.

There is increasing speculation that there is a lower-cost Apple netbook coming, but it may arrive too late to offset Apple sales volume problems.

Sales problems we have shown conclusively through the use of third-party comments about their prices possibly being too high in this economy and through the use of Doug Henning-style magic! (Again, mustache.)

And what does this even mean, anyway? The Macalope keeps hearing people wondering aloud whether any price cuts by Apple will come “too late”. Apple has literally 8 million metric buttloads of cash on hand (no, you look the actual number up) and margins that offer a comfortable padding to cut into in hard times. Try that with a netbook, Rob.

Apple has substantial reserves, and there is little chance it will go under…

Go under? Go under what? The bleachers and make out with Anne Hathaway? That’s more likely.

Rob, having proved absolutely nothing, now brings it all not home.

…but it needs some lower-priced products in retail and simply may not have enough time this year to boost its 2008 numbers in the fourth quarter.

OK, so, after numerous years in the black and beating estimates quarter after quarter, Rob wants us to think that Apple suddenly has no idea how to sell computers. Well, it’s possible they’ve priced themselves out of this market.

It’s also possible Rob’s just doing it again.

You know which one the Macalope believes.

…

It’s the second one. Just so there’s no confusion.

Speaking of professional trolls, ZDNet’s Robin Harris provides a veritable omnibus of stupid. An omnishortbus, if you will.

The title?

Apple’s new MacBooks: flop or fiasco?

What prompts this bon mot? What appears to be an unattributed report saying Apple has cut MacBook orders by 20-30% in DigiTimes, the outfit that said Apple would offer an AMD-powered laptop.

Mmm! That’s good troll! The Macalope has always said that troll is always better when it’s fresh. But remember to eat it before the sun comes up or it turns to stone.

Harris wonders why Apple can’t be more like HP and pump out low-margin laptops that drive market share and revenue. HP’s laptop business is, unarguably, doing well from a revenue perspective, but Harris’ numbers are a little out of date. HP’s laptop revenue increased 26% in the third fiscal quarter (announced in August) as Harris notes, but that fell slightly to 21% for the fourth quarter (announced yesterday).

Meanwhile, Apple’s year-over-year increase in laptop sales revenue for the third calendar quarter (announced last month) was 17%. Not as great as HP’s, but still nothing to cause investors to demand the head of Steve Jobs on a festive platter surrounded by Thanksgiving-themed garnishes.

Harris asks:

When was the last time you picked up your notebook and thought “I wish it weren’t so flimsy!”

Funny you should ask, because it was literally last night.

The Macalope switched from a PowerBook to a MacBook earlier in the year and, while he’s been pleased with the unit and would make the same decision again if he had to, the build quality is disappointing compared to the Pro. The plastic bends and separates at the seams and Mrs. Macalope’s white MacBook has even slivered at one edge.

The new design specifically addressed these concerns. Harris must be used to a different standard.

Steve Jobs is a design geek, which is usually a Good Thing. But he over reaches regularly and the results hurt.

Yeah. Hurts like a fox.

(Huh?)

Harris’ examples of Jobs’ painful overreaching? The swing-arm iMac, the G4 Cube and the NeXT Cube. Even if you buy Harris’ claim that these were all very costly flops (which is a joke), that’s three flops over a 30-year career in technology. By any standard, that’s a tremendous success.

Steve’s history of putting form before function – or price – comes at a particularly bad time.

Stop. The phrase is “form before function”, which is really something Apple hasn’t done since the hockey-puck mouse. At any rate, the new MacBooks are both formtacular and functacular. If you want to say Apple puts form before price, just say that. Because what you wrote is simply not true.

Netbooks are moving prices into iPod Touch territory.

And, with the App Store, the iPod touch is moving functionality into netbook territory (certainly for gaming, anyway).

And with Moore’s Law pushing performance up more people will buy them instead of standard notebooks.

Will they? Or is the netbook as currently defined a niche product without an audience? Does everyone want an underpowered (remember, it’s all relative, Robin) device with a tiny screen? Sure, you might want a netbook if you’re backpacking across Europe, but do you want to give up on performance when you’re just going to the kitchen for a snack?

By investing in a costly feature no one asked for Apple is stalling its rapid growth in notebook marketshare.

You keep saying that no one asked for this but the fact of the matter is customers expect a higher quality product from Apple. While the Macalope doesn’t agree with his Macworld compatriot Cyrus Farivar that it’s a foregone conclusion that Apple won’t release a netbook in 2009, Cyrus is spot on noting that market share is generally not the company’s primary concern (certainly when it comes to Macs at least).

Remember what the entire premise that the MacBook is either a flop or a fiasco is based on. The Macalope knows business is tough these days, but would someone tell ZDNet that having a blowout sale on stupid isn’t really going to improve their bottom line?

Wired’s news feed teases Adam DuVander’s Webmonkey piece on the so-called “Apple tax” thusly:

It’s no secret that Apple’s computers cost more than PCs with similar specs.

Well, when you put it like that, it must be true!

But Apple’s disclosure of its sales figures and estimated market share at a press event Tuesday raises new questions about exactly how much money the company is making off each new Mac purchase.

And new questions mean new jackasstic answers! Enough teasing! Let’s get to the piece.

The concept, which has merit, is that Apple’s computers cost more than PCs.

Does it have merit? Of course! Adam just said so!

Just how much? Apple hinted at the number in its event today:

Retail share: 17.6 percent market share of unit sales.
Revenue share: 31.3 percent of retail sales.

In other words, where one in five computer sales is an Apple, these account for one of every three dollars spent. Apple has more share of the revenue because its computer cost more.

Cost more than what? Cost more than similarly configured machines as Adam says (remember, the teaser promised we’d be talking about similarly configured machines)? No.

No matter how you crunch the numbers, they imply that Apple charges at least 50 percent more than other manufacturers, maybe even twice as much.

Good lord.

They do not. How would that even be possible? Don’t you think people might notice that? What the numbers show is that Apple competes at the high end of the market and has no presence in the low end of the market.

Are you kidding us, Adam? Are you kidding us, Wired?