Holding The Mac Line
It seems to me the problem for Apple since the early to mid-nineties as far as their strength in the PC market has been mindshare. Now with the success of iPod and the iTunes Music Store as well as high profile stories about the good in their new OS and the bad in their competition's they are positioned well for a new assault on the market. Problem: they are underpowered. Now don't go throwing a fit. They ARE underpowered and NOT price competitive.
I can go buy a pretty solid Dell right now for 500 USD that will outperform on many tasks the cheapest Mac (eMac) at 300 USD more. That does not look good to a consumer, mindshare be damned. To add insult to injury there is the software availability problem and the generally poor performance of anything other than a Power Mac for heavy gaming. Software availability follows marketshare so in addressing marketshare you are addressing software selection and availability, but games need horsepower and there are no two ways around that.
In my opinion the recapture of market share requires a lot of things to change and to facilitate that change Apple needs to push their hardware into the modern era so that it combined with their ahead of it's time OS can truly make the competition look as shoddy as it is. My revised line-up within six months would look like this.
Entry Level Desktops = Colorful eMacs starting at 599 (Revive the colors fun and match them to the iPod Mini colors)
These should have two RAM slots accepting up to 2 GB of DDR RAM running at 333 Mhz and start at a default 256 MB of RAM or they will seem sluggish. The FSB needs to be upped to 533 Mhz. If they want to jump up more slowly they can do 266 RAM/400 Mhz FSB but they need to up this. Consumers are not as computer dumb as they used to be and they look at these as standard specs along with processor type and speed which brings up the next thing. They should up the G4s in these to at least 1.25 Mhz and within another 6 months 1.42 Mhz. No excuse for a slow system. All of these major performance ups could be achieved at a new price with only a modest margin hit I'm sure. Other things like being Airport ready and the video/sound cards/hard drives require no change. I'd keep the two models idea running. Basically one cheap starter system (599) and the more professional but still reasonable upgraded system with DVD burning and maybe slightly higher default RAM (maybe 899). To meet these prices they could maybe drop the cheaper eMac to a 15" CRT but this is dangerous as many consumers have now become accustomed to 17" monitors which are competitive with 15" monitors in pricing.
Entry Level Laptop = iBook
I think these are fine and color matching should be considered. I'd up the processors to 1 Ghz in the 12" model and 1.25 in the 14's because a sub-Hz computer speed looks slow to consumers used to 2 Ghz and up. They will accept slower speeds in laptops because they're used to it but sub 1 Ghz looks bad. Only other things would be the building in of 256 MB instead of 128, and allowing for larger 1GB RAM modules in the single upgrade slot instead of 512 MB modules. This would make their RAM max 1.256 GB instead of 640 MB making them solid performers and a very good option for laptop customers. The prices should remain the same but the 12 inch model should be dropped to 999 for prestige sake.
Prosumer Desktop = iMac?
While I know there are people who like these I would personally drop them all together in favor of a line of single processor G5s at similar price points. The cost of them doesn't jive with people's ideas about the cost/performance ratio and their design makes upgrading or customizing not possible. For an entry level computer this is fine but for a Prosumer machine it isn't acceptable. There are no PCI slots and these max at 1GB of RAM. You also can't change out the video card. Nasty. These are overpriced eMacs with flat panels and nobody is buying them.
If you want to keep them drop the 15" model and lower the prices on the 17" and 20" by about 300, make Bluetooth default and then make the max RAM 2GB. This wouldn't drive their sales much but it would make them more attractive.
If it were me I would create a new two system line of Macs based on the single processor G5 tower designs using perhaps what was the bottom rung 1.6 Hz G5 as the starter system and then a revived single processor 1.8 G5 as the upper end unit. These are upgradable and seductive to consumers. At the old iMac price points including a 17" Apple flat panel these would be DAMN sexy purchases. (G5 1.6 Ghz + 17" monitor = 1699. Oooo...Aaaaa). My only other suggestion would be to change the name and tower look to distance it from the POWER Macs. You don't want any mistake about where the POWER lies in the line-up and this could have that effect if Apple wasn't careful. Save the Power Mac name for the true power systems. I'd also speed bump them to 1.8 and 2.0 in October or so to get in on those folks who buy a new computer for Christmas as a tax write off before they have to give the money to the government in the next year.
Perhaps the iMac's design could be revived in a few years as a replacement to the eMacs when no one want's to see a CRT or traditional BIG monitor anymore and the manufacturing cost of the flat panels comes down low enough to make sub 1000 USD iMacs realistic. Apple was a little too early on this move and the demand for consumer sales of the eMac have shown this.
Power User Desktop = Power Mac G5
I don't think they still make G4 Power Macs but they should certainly stop. The G5 is the only processor that should exist in anything currently called a Power Mac, period. I'll go one step further and say that they should do away with the single processor systems in the Power Mac line as well and save those for the Prosumer line I mentioned above. They'll need only two models. One which is cheaper and acts as the entry level system and one that is about all out balls to the wall performance bar none (prestige!!!!! It equals mindshare which affects marketshare). I'm talking about a dual 2 Ghz as the entry level and a dual 2.4 Ghz as the pillaging plundering conquerer of 2004. And these should be speed bumped in November to get in on those end of the year shoppers I mentioned above. Push the damn things to the limit. Dual 2.4GHz machines replace the Dual 2s and Dual 3s step it to take over the crown. Only other thing is to not go over 3000 on the default configuration of any of these making them not only unbelievable, but unbelievably priced (prestige!!!!!!!!).
Power User Laptop = PowerBook G4
I know I'm going to take heat for this one but the fact is that these with a few speed bumps are still totally awesome machines. There is no need to move them to G5s this year and doing so could hurt their battery life and prestige. I would wait for revisions to the G5 that improve power consumption and upgrade the processors to G5 next year. For this year just keep uping their speed across the line and maybe improve their video cards a bit.
On more thing and it's not about hardware but about software. Games are a major force in driving consumers to an OS/computer and the Mac is hurting for games by comparison to PC. I think Apple should buy Bungie or a similar quality developer and/or create there own in-house game development team which makes modern cutting edge Mac exclusive games and then perhaps ports them slowly or late or incomplete to Windows PCs. Turn the tables a bit. Give gamers a reason to look at Macs first. This is a standard technique in console wars and should be considered as a valid one in PC marketshare battles. With iLife, Mac exclusive or first games, and a more solid pricing/performance comparison to PC Apple's Macs could really truly make a huge move in the next 5-10 years instead of the slow painful creep that they've been fighting for during the past 5.
Final thing. I think Apple should consider entering the camcorder market with a digital camcorder based on mini-hard drive technology. Apple's already on the cutting edge of the computer side of home movie making for consumers. They should levy that and their iPod prestige to branch into this consumer market as well. Apple has made their computer the best "digital hub" money can buy and branched out of that limited position with the iPod by reaching into the digital music market. Now I think they should reach into the digital video market as well. The iCam could effectively work with Windows easily without giving away iMovie to the Windows crowd but really shine when plugged into the Firewire on a Mac. This is an opportunity Apple should NOT miss out on.
There. I've said my piece. Now when Apple calls I'll gratiously accept their job offer.
