PC sales are way down. Macs way up.

“…Consider this: Apple’s retail market share is 14 percent, and two-thirds for PCs costing $1,000 or more.

Should I repeat those numbers? The share data is for first-quarter brick-and-mortar stores, as tabulated by 

the NPD Group. Apple’s market share is but one measure of success. Sales growth is way up, while Windows desktop PC sales are way down.

“In notebooks they’re growing two times the market,” said Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry 

analysis. “Windows notebooks are pretty much flat right now.”

For the first quarter, Windows notebooks had “zero percent” growth year over year, Stephen said. By comparison, Apple notebooks had “50 to 60 percent growth.”

On the desktop, “They’re up 45 percent,” he continued. “The [overall] market is down 20 percent. Windows desktops would be down 25 percent.” The figures are also for first quarter.

I spoke with Stephen earlier this afternoon. He remarked: “iMacs are growing and the Windows desktop ain’t. No matter how you look at it, Apple is outperforming Windows.”  Read the full article on Apple Watch

PC gamers shun Vista, sticking with XP

Games like Crysis benefit clearly from the DX 10 upgrade, but that benefit hasn’t been enough to push gamers into upgrading to Vista. Historically, those are the very first computer users, living on the bleeding edge, to upgrade to new hardware and operating systems. The statistics from Valve, whose Steam system lets gamers download titles from the web and which collects system information in return, shows that Vista still has less than a 15 percent market share among these users.

That’s roughly in line with the total consumer market, but it’s a real surprise considering the advantages Vista’s DirectX 10 offers gamers. There’s no way to run DirectX 10 on XP, so the only way to get the very best PC gaming experience is to run Vista. They should theoretically be lining up to buy Vista in droves. Read the full article on Yahoo Tech

 

InfoWorld’s “Save XP” Petition

 

“…Millions of us have grown comfortable with XP and don’t see a need to change to Vista. It’s like having a comfortable apartment that you’ve enjoyed coming home to for years, only to get an eviction notice. The thought of moving to a new place — even with the stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and maple cabinets (or is cherry in this year?) — just doesn’t sit right. Maybe it’ll be more modern, but it will also cost more and likely not be as good a fit. And you don’t have any other reason to move.

 

That’s exactly the conclusion people have come to with Vista. For most of us, there’s really no reason to move to it — yet we don’t have a choice. When that strong desire to stick with XP became obvious in spring 2007, major computer makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard quietly reintroduced new XP-based systems (but just to business customers, so as not to offend Microsoft). Come June 30, however, even that option goes away.” Read the full story and sign the petition at InfoWorld.Com

From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion to Mac OS X—Part II

“…I want to write nice applications. I want to be able to concentrate on my own code rather than fighting the API the whole time. I want my applications to fit in with the OS and work in a way that’s consistent with first-party applications and even other third-party programs. I want this because I think it leads to better software; it means I can spend my time creating innovative and useful software that people enjoy using. I really want to do this, but you know what? On Windows it’s just too damn hard.

Microsoft has had good opportunities to do something about this, but they have been systematically squandered through a combination of ineptitude, mismanagement, and slavish adherence to backwards compatibility. The disillusionment I feel is incredible. I enjoy writing programs, but I don’t enjoy writing for Windows. And while once it made sense to stick with Windows, it just doesn’t any more. There’s now an attractive alternative: Mac OS X”  Read the full article on ArsTechnica

 

Exclusive: Spy shot from behind closed doors at Canada’s newest Apple store.

Apple is normally very secretive about keeping the veil on Apple Stores until they are completed. Which makes this sneak peek a tasty tidbit. You may have already seen the floorplan, and you may have already seen the cloaked storefront but now… VistaSucks.WordPress.Com bring you the first spy shot of the interior of the new Apple Store Vancouver…