Apple Tax Out of Control?

We saw this image over on Digg and thought it was worth a quick post. We haven't check these specs ourselves, but if true the so-called Apple tax is truly out of hand. With Q109 results due today, it will be interesting to see how the poor economy and Apple's unwillingness to budge on price effected their sales.

Dell, you can't be serious

Today brings word Dell plans on re-entering the portable music player market. Really, Dell? Did you learn anything from the failed Dell DJ? (pictured above) I remember nights spent during my Apple breaks heading over to the Dell kiosk to razz the staff, and pretend to actually be impressed with the DJ. They knew as well as everyone else what a dud it was: those same employees were in the Apple Store later to buy iPods.

Moving on... A few notes. First, just about everyone except Microsoft has thrown in the towel on competing directly with the iPod. Sure competition's good, but given their track record, I don't think anyone expects anything particularly innovative, or game-changing from Dell. Secondly, the future of mp3 players is blah at best. Apple, and the industry is moving on. People don't want to carry a music player and a cell phone. At long last, at least for phones and music, convergence is here. Why not start a competing home DVD delivery service to take on Netflix while you're at it?

It way too little, jaw-droppingly too late, Dell

The Forgotten Mini

Dell announced today a new line of small, affordable and eco-friendly desktops under the Studio Hybrid name. Yes the name is horrible, but these little desktops pack decent specs and are sexy as hell. Call us crazy, but we even like the wood grain model. A direct comparison to Apple's Mac Mini can easily be made, and it makes us wonder why Apple has abandoned its little fellow. The mini was suppose to be an affordable desktop aimed at PC converts. It was to compete with and out sexy the lowend offerings from beige box PC manufactures. Instead it's been pushed aside and forgotten, and now outclassed by of all companies Dell.

Apple Falling Behind The Technology Curve?

Today DELL made good on their promise to be first to market with a sub-$1k notebook with an included Blu-Ray drive.

After doing some comparison shopping on both DELL and Apple's site, you can see that for a paltry $79 more than the low end Macbook you can land yourself an Inspiron 1525 which will burn both CD/DVD and BURN Blu-Ray. Why is a company that has pioneered DVD creation and movie making for the past 5 years still shipping their low-end notebook with a combo drive as the standard configuration? It is 2008 right? I haven't slipped into a worm hole and landed myself in the year 2001 have I?

Even at the risk of hurting movie download sales, Apple needs to start including Blu-Ray now. By the end of the year there will be over 13 million PS3 sold, and countless more stand alone players. The format is here to stay and eventually Blu-Ray will become a bullet point when a customer is deciding between an Apple computer and a competitors.