Leopard's Soggy New York Debut
The cold Manhattan drizzle didn't faze the faithful.
An estimated 400 to 500 sodden die-hard Apple (AAPL) loyalists waited under umbrellas up to three and a half hours outside the company's flagship Fifth Avenue store for a chance to buy OS X Leopard on its first day of sale.
By the time the doors opened at 6:01 p.m. the line stretched — in places four or five deep — down Fifth Avenue, across 58th Street and all the way to Madison Avenue.
The rain-soaked customers were greeted in full pep-rally style by black-shirted employees who shouted and clapped as the crowd tramped down the glass-enclosed spiral staircase — and then gave them high-fives as they emerged a few minutes later brandishing their shrink-wrapped packages.
First in line was Bob Greenlees, 23, a student at the Cardozo School of Law. He had been waiting since 2:30 in the afternoon and was still as cheerful and excited as a child on Christmas morning.
"I missed the iPhone line because I was in Paris on my honeymoon," he said, minutes before the doors opened. "But I watched the webcast."
"That's my crazy husband," said Laura Greenlees, who waited outside with Bob's computer backpack while he completed the purchase. He came out 15 minutes later with a free T-shirt and a $199 Leopard family pack that he said he would share with his wife and his parents.
The store, which is open 24 hours a day, was expected to have sufficient copies of Leopard to supply all comers — but not necessarily T-shirts. Apple had only stockpiled enough for the first 500 customers.
See also The Day of the Leopard and Leopard: The Reviews Are In
If the Mac is so great, where is the Mac tablet?
I bought one of the original 1984, 128k Macs, which was an insanely great, truly revolutionary product. I Mac'd around until 1998. By that time Apple had frittered away its lead in operating system interface, so that I saw no remaining advantage worth giving up compatability with the industry standard for and jumped ship. The improvements that Apple is bringing out now are evolutionary, not revolutionary. Nothing Apple has brought out since then has made me regret my change.
Some people sound like overzealous Apple lovers in here. Please try and convince me because I am so stupid and need you to convince me more and more of that. Why haven't I used an Apple all along, well I went from Apple to the PC, sorry you had me once. Please people buy what you want and like, and don't listen to the man behind the curtain. I wish them all the luck though.
No big deal. Apple is a great company with a loyal following, what's new? They have many great products, however, only one has made a real splash in recent history. That unit of course is the iPod. All these stories of people waiting in line for the next Apple release is ridiculous. 500 people in line, wow, big deal. This is simply the "media aftershocks" from the last iPod buzz years ago.
Frankly I find it embarrassing that people will stand in line longer than 15 minutes for anything. Give it a rest already.
I think Apples's US Laptop Market share as of June 2007 was about 18%. Did it shoot up twenty or more points since then?
I am getting this number from Macworld.
Those who mouth "Elasticity of Demand" don't know what they're talking about. Leopard is $129, and comes with tons of superior and free software (iPhoto, iMovie, WebObjects, etc.) not to mention the incredible quality and value of their pro software available for purchase. That takes care of software.As far as hardware (which I think most posters are referring to) there is virtually no difference in cost (get your RAM elsewhere though.) Don't look at those cheapo $400 windows computers, they're trash. Compare Apple's offerings with similarly featured quality hardware. You will find there is little difference in price and in fact, when you can find comparable hardware, Apple's is usually a bit cheaper. Wake up! If you're still making excuses for why Apple is doing so poorly and you don't want to buy their hardware, it's because you're too blind to see reality. Apple is actually doing better than their rivals because they are selling better hardware with a better mix of features and performance at a better price (Apple now sells %40 of all new laptops in the US!)
We installed Leopard shortly after its release and it is a winner! Time Machine — Leopard's effortless backup utility — is singly worth more than the price of the upgrade. Putting it simply, our family is again impressed by Apple and its thoughtful design team.
One more comment. I believe the headline, while catching my attention, is misleading. If you were just skimming the headlines you would come away with the impression that Apples launch was not successful. I believe this to be irresponsible journalism. Although witty, it misses the mark. There are so many ways the story could have been spun based on the facts.
All this talk about lowering prices assumes market share is the end all to end all. There are many "great" economic minds that follow that path all the way to mediocracy. If Porsche would lower their prices then they might increase their market share. But would it still be a "Porsche"? Our economy is segmenting into those that compete based on price and those that build solid brands and compete on mind share (why buy $150.00 pair of jeans). Apple is one of the strongest brands in history and they are doing it right.
Apple is on fire. The general market awareness of great architecture, user frendly applications, quality has turned a lot of heads that were previously tunneled on windows base computers. They were concerned with protecting data bases developed on windows programming and didn't know how to easily transferr their files to a Mac so they saw no reason to look a a Mac. That condition simply no longer exist. Lepord outpreforms anything in the market and the greater market will want to know what all of the fuss is about. Curosity will drive them to investigate and that means an opportunity to look at Max more objectively than in the past.
So when or why doesn't S Jobs offer a product to compete with AOL and MSN? Anybody out there know?
Pretty sad that a person on their honeymoon had to stop everything just to watch a freakin webcast of the iPhone launch.
Apple has never capitalized on the elasticity of demand for their products. At their relatively high prices, the demand is such that a 10% decrease in prices would probably result in at least a 20% increase in demand in computers & software.
Mark, you are so very right about lowering the prices and increasing the market share. But, I think that Apple has decided it wants the profit margin, and doesn't want the consumer who lives paycheck-to-paycheck.
Apple does make great products, hardware and software. What they have never figured out is the economic concept of "elasticity of demand." In simple terms if they lowered their prices (say by 25%) the demand for their hardware would grow significantly. But, alas, they won't, so their percentage of the industry will stay the same.
Another wonderful day for Apple, rain or shine. Only committed Apple product users would understand waiting in the rain for another great Apple product. I've been an Apple product user since 1991 and watched this business come from an unnoticed public company just a few years ago to a stock market leader this week, now that's excitement! Just try an Apple computer product and you will see what all the hype is about. I know, am I an Apple employee? No. Just a person who has enjoyed years of trouble free, crash free computing. As for negative comments, those of us who enjoy Apple products need these comments to keep us feeling special : >) Have a great Apple day!
This article points to the fact that Apple is so much more than the ordinary technology company. True, Apple is respected by many as one of the most innovative tech companies on the planet. They have earned the respect and awe from users and wantabes alike with their impressive roll out of sleek new products and cutting edge software that actually lives up to expectations. But what amazes me most is Apple's ability to conquer the world of retail in truly over-the-top fashion. They offer a hybrid opportunity for the investor in equities as both a retailer and tech company. How many other retailers would love to have such loyal fans willing to wait in the rain for hours to pay full retail for their products?
Larry Stephenson
Andover, Kansas
Now with Leopard, the window user can run Window on Apple enjoying the slick Apple hardware, but lacking the Apple look & feel.
While developing the ecsystem like Window will still take years for Apple, a thin layer of wrapper on top of the Window (runing on Apple bootcamp) will certainly give Window application an Apple look. By doing this Window becomes a component middleware in Apple environment and help Apple to win market share from PC. Remember Window ecsystem is well adopted by most industries.
Kind of stupid…preordered copies would have been delivered to your doorstep today. I guess the old saying "too stupid to come in out of the rain" is appropriate here…
I get all over you for being mean to Apple, so you write a feel good story the next day. You don't have write feel good articles to make me happy. I just want unbiased news. This story was news though and I couldn't tell whether you were a fan or dislike Apple which is what news reporting is supposed to be about, so I'll take it and add a thank you Philip.
VIOLATING THE LAW ALREADY?
Bob Greenlees is a law student and newlywed, but does he live with his parents? The first-in-line Mac enthusiast buying Apple's new Leopard operating system is reported here as planning to share his Leopard Family Pak with his wife and parents. Perhaps his legal education will help him wade through Apple's licensing, where he'll learn the Family Pak is only to be used in one household (as in one structure, like a house or an apartment). So, if mom and dad live across town, Bob Greenlees is on his way to violating the licensing already. Way to go, Bob!
(yes, I know it seems trivial, but he is a lawyer, after all)
Apple's finally getting the spot light, after-all they really deserves it.
One thing to keep in mind historically is Apple had been always very revolutionary, for instance, they are the first one who brought computers to Personal Computer, and they are the first one who brought the "mouse" and graphical user interface to PC.
It is good to see companies like Apple "finally" coming into light. I foresee more and more people would be converting from Windows to MacOSX in near future.