New and Noteworthy: Apple, Microsoft and the Betamax Effect; PowerBook 12": 'Don't be fooled by toy look'

Apple, Microsoft and the Betamax Effect A GrabAGeek article speculates that Apple may be on the way to a form of dominance, thanks to largely unknown causes of style and marketing. "I've long held the belief that how good something is has little to do with how popular it becomes. This was highlighted back in the days of Betamax and VHS, the inferior format won. The Amiga platform was far superior to the PC but the PC still became the dominant system. The Atari Lynx console was way ahead of its time, resembling a Sony PSP but flopped to mediocre offerings from Sega. All of these examples illustrate how marketing is the dominant factor in deciding which format wins and unless you have two products that have an equal amount of cash behind them, you can predict with some level of certainty that showing the money wins. And so it is with Apple, who just don't have the kind of resources Microsoft have but against all odds are winning the hearts and minds of more users than ever before while Microsoft seem to be making more enemies and showing an ever decreasing ability to cope with competition." More.

PowerBook 12": 'Don't be fooled by toy look' The Australian Advertiser notes that despite its tiny dimensions, the PowerBook G4 12" packs quite a bunch. The author writes: "At first sight, the smallest of Apple's Powerbooks does look too small to get any real work done. However, as a trip through the western U.S. with my daughter's 12in iBook proved, that diminutive screen is no impediment to getting stuff out the chute. At the end of each day, the iBook was used to gather all the digital stills from our family day out, which then got the Photoshop treatment prior to uploading to my .Mac website so the folks back home could keep up with our activities. The 12in Powerbook would have sped all that activity considerably while offering a sturdier build quality for peace of mind on the road." More.

Previously on MacFixIt

• Apple posts iPod Updater 2005-03-23 for iPod Photo
• Security Update 2005-003 (#4): Continuing problems with (now pulled) Server edition
• Mac mini: Clunking hard drives (#4); DVI problems
• Keynote 2.0.1: Distorted MPEG content, fixes
• Yahoo video and Mac OS X browser compatibility
• Verizon FiOS (FTTP) and Mac OS X (#4)

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