O.k. we have a guy that is really smart, owns two really successful companies, and loves technology and music. he went through a few really rough years, and eventually got back in the game creating his own company. after it flopped and he got his old job back, his company immediately went from zero to hero in about a week. i think this is pretty great, considering that it was caused by one man. this is a good place to check out. http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Jobs.html what do you think?

i recently read Apple Confidential 2.0 and it paints an interesting portrait about the man and what he has done behind the scenes over the years.

During his first tenure at Apple is was quite the manipulator, liar and egotist. Often times taking credit for others work while distancing himself from projects that he had direct involvement with that turned out to be flops.

His second time around now at Apple seems to be a lot more productive. It seems as though Steve Jobs has matured and grown up. I may not like his extremely liberal views, nor his decision to bring Al Bore on to the Board at Apple, but i think as a whole he has done a tremendous job at turning Apple around. I also cannot think of anyone who would be a better CEO then him at this point in time.

I think apple makes some good products but I doubt that they will ever leave their <5% marketshare area anytime soon... Several Reasons, 1st I know they have been working to lower their costs of product but at around 1k for a machine I don't see them attracting the masses of folks who buy low cost PC's @ around $499 w/ 17inch CRT nowadays. Say what you will about windows XP, but if your gonna be realistic, you get just about everything the average household needs for almost half the cost. 2nd, ease of add ons availablity. This is a no-brainer unless you live in a apple-deep neighborhood almost all the retail chains carry massive variety of good pc software and hardware to choose from but check those same vendors and they have little to no software/hardware for apple products(unless the software vendor puts both versions on 1 disc). In my area for example we have Best buy, Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Comp-USA, and CIrcuit City. Only comp-USA has any mac products, and even then not that many. If you drive another 40 min down the road(30 more than the others = 70min total), you find an apple store, but that's 70min of driving, hardly convienient. 3rd, Entertainment. I know apple is working hard to try and catch up but untill they really do they will continue to lose out on the gamers and such. I know apple is getting "some" new titles at launch but for the most part they lack the large base of games, and when they do, regular patches for those games to fix developer issues/bugs/exploits. One example might be Everquest for Mac. Great, they made a mac version, only problem is that I can't play EQ with all my friends because they mac version is restricted to MAC-only servers. Although I must admit some might find that to be a good thing, at least everyone will have something in common.

I personally really like apples great innovative designs. They continue to inspire great PC designs and have helped the PC become more stylish due to customer demand. Unlike many drones I also do not wish them any ill will and hope they continue to innovate. An enormous wish for apple products to remain largely in the minority exists within the mac community. Wisely, many apple customers understand that if mac was so commonplace as M$FT then it would be just as plauged with problems and patches. Keeping the hardware selection limited makes for some excellent and stable systsems. kudos to all those apple customers who get it.

Good luck apple and keep on truking!!

well lets get something correct, the price of a Mac is not 2x as high as an equivalent PC.

Entry level Mac will set you back $799.00 versus the $500 Dell w/ 17" monitor.

The game situation sucks on the Mac platform. Although any of the good games do make it out on the Mac platform. If your honest you will fully admit that of the dozens of PC games that are released each year there is but a small handfull that are actually worth playing.

For the most part Apple has good software offerings for its platform. Noticably absent at this point is a solid high end CAD app. Other than that there doesn't seem to be anything else lacking.

Is $300 extra the additional price of admission to join the Mac masses? It would appear so at this point in time. : / I for one truly hope that they come out with a eMac without built in 17" monitor for $499.00 If they did that, then it would show that Apple was serious about bumping up their pathetic marketshare.

I was seriously considering getting an Apple (iMac) but I decided to build my own PC. Apple destroys Windows in the stability area, but Windows is just more compatible, with just about everything. However, Apple's software is *da bomb* so they have an advantage there. Anyway, with all these viruses and security flaws that Microsoft releases patches to every 3 nanoseconds, Apple just isn't attacked nearly as often as Windows (how often do you hear that 1 million Mac users got infected with a virus?!). And if you ask me, that's a plus.