New Macbooks and Macbook Pros

In article <1icyn18.10p3muc14o3fedN%nospam@see.signature>, Richard
Maine <nospam.RemoveThis@see.signature> wrote:

> sbt <dogbreath.RemoveThis@chaseabone.com.invalid> wrote:
>
> > In article <0001HW.C3EACBB103F36D66F01846D8.RemoveThis@news.verizon.net>, Randy
> > Howard <randyhoward.RemoveThis@FOOverizonBAR.net> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:44:47 -0600, Richard Maine wrote
> > > (in article <1icxa7r.19k7j301y2c84mN%nospam@see.signature>):
> > >
> > > > Dave Fritzinger <dfritzin.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> I just noticed that Apple no longer gives you the remote for free.
> > > >
> > > > Maybe they found a lot of customers like me. I've got at least 3,
> > > > perhaps 4 of the things floatting around the house. I've never actually
> > > > used one of them for anything other that seeing that they worked.
> > >
> > > Same. I don't even know where the two of them I have are at the
> > > moment, and don't care. Pretty worthless, imo.
> >
> > Worthless to some, useful to others -- pretty typical of a lot of
> > hardware/software features.
>
> Yes. But my comment was intended as a serious answer to the (implied)
> question of why Apple stopped shipping the remore with the computer. I
> wasn't sniping about the remote or saying that it was inherently useless
> - just that it was useless to some customers such as myself. That it
> could be useful to others I accept.
>
> When something ise useful to some customers, but useless to others, that
> can be a very good reason to make it a separate option as opposed to
> shipping it to all of them. That's particularly so when it is a separate
> piece of hardware like this.
>
> Of course, it depends on the relative numbers involved; something useful
> to 95% of the customers, you might about as well ship to them all. And
> there are a bunch of other factors involved in such a decision. You can
> even, if you want to, throw in desire to gouge more money out of
> customers, balanced against annoying them. I'll not speculate on flamish
> matters like that. I'll look for more "objective" (not quite the right
> word, but I struggled for a better one) reasons before assuming such
> base ones. I would have to assume that the fact that a significant
> fraction of the customers might not get any use out of it would be one
> of the basic factors.

My conclusion re the remote is that, like other technologies, Apple was
trying to accelerate the Mac's (and other Apple technologies') advance
into the "living room" with FrontRow and the remote giving virtually
all Macs some sort of "media center" status while not having to build
specific media center products.

What I find somewhat surprising is that, at least in the microcosm of
the condos where I live, Apple might have been successful in this
attempt. A number of my neighbors have "media center PCs" and only one
of them actually has the Winbox usable as part of their home
entertainment system while at least five of the other Mac owners (i.e.
not counting me) has their Mac hooked up to play with their TVs, etc.

--
Spenser