Daring Fireball

A couple of very good points by John Gruber:

Daring Fireball:

Subtraction: An Important Message for .Mac Customers ★

I suspect Khoi Vinh speaks for many .Mac members.

Jobs mentioned at Tuesday’s event that Apple has 1.7 million .Mac customers. But they’re selling around 1.7 million Macs per quarter now. Clearly this number could be a lot higher, and most Mac users don’t see it as worthwhile.

True, but notable? I guess I’m not convinced. the half-full argument is the one I used, that .Mac is selling a lot of memberships, much more than critics gave it credit for. But the half-empty argument is that it’s still a relatively small number compared to what the potential market might be — but if the apple installed base is around 22 million, that put’s .Mac’s market share at almost 8% of that installed base. I don’t consider that bad.

I think the bottom line is everyone’s right — .Mac is doing better than many sites people who criticize it tout; but it could do better and improve as well. But I do have to wonder what the potential marker for .Mac is — is it 10% of the installed base? 15%? Certainly much smaller than the installed base is overall…

iMovie ’08 Trepidations ★

Exactly the sort of guy for whom iMovie ’06 is still available.

True, but at the same time, I think Apple stumbled here a bit and are recovering nicely. The changes to iMovie in the rewrite are nice, but a bunch of features are missing. I expect plug-ins to return at some point, but for now, there’s still a legitimate need for both versions.

Yes, it’s avaialble for download. But that’s because Apple heard the complaints and reacted — if they really had understood this issue, why isn’t it on the DVD and available as an option there? Or install it alongside the existing one instead of delete the old version?

Now, full credit for catching it and fixing it fast — but there are indications to me they didn’t realize how this would negatively impact some existing users, and they probably should have. The change is nice, but it’s a bit too radical for some of the existing users. Fortunately, the fix is easy. Easier would have been to have it on the DVD and not blow it off the disk during the upgrade…

update: oops. Steven noted that the old version is NOT deleted from the disk. he’s correct, it’s moved into a “previous version” subforder. My bad. I still think both versions should be on the DVD and installable, though…)

You might also want to read:

1. Apple releases MacBook, MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2 Apple releases MacBook, MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2 – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): That’s because Apple just released a software update for the new...
2. Daring Fireball Linked List: September 2007 Daring Fireball Linked List: September 2007: Apple lowered the price of the iPhone because it wants to make lots more money by selling boatloads of...
3. Daring Fireball: Pinprick Daring Fireball: Pinprick: Here’s the Gruber Theory of Software Pricing, in a nutshell: Don’t underprice your software in an attempt to appeal to cheapskates. I...
4. Technovia: Teal Sunglasses: Daring Fireball: Trusted Technovia: Teal Sunglasses: Daring Fireball: Trusted: This is as silly as not buying an Apple computer because you don’t like what Chuq posts on his...
5. Daring Fireball: Trusted In this corner: Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing. In the other corner: John Gruber of Daring Fireball. And Gruber leaves no prisoners in showing out...