What Has Apple Done?
Base10 had it set in his mind today to buy an Apple laptop. For Mrs. Base10 of course, since Base10 himself is a linux kind of guy by preference but a Windows guy out of necessity. Anyway, Mrs. Base10 has been working very hard at school, and I decided to buy her a new laptop. Her old one is a clamshell iBook dating back to her conversion several years ago to all things Apple. This iBook has been through a lot: an HD upgrade (impossible to do in your house), broken CD drive door, dead battery, and so on. Finally, Base10 caught the news of the new generation Powerbook and was hooked. Base10 had in mind the 12" 1.5 Gigahertz G4 with the CD/DVD burner. Base10 met Mrs. Base10 after her Saturday morning class and went to J&R, but alas the item was not in stock. While the salesman did make a valiant effort to persuade me to buy the clearance model instead, I opted to try elsewhere.

Now as everyone knows, there are only three spots for Macs in the Big Apple (excuse the pun), J&R, Tekserve and most recently, the Apple store on Prince Street. Having never been there, Base10 dragged the missus to got see the place. First thing, visiting SoHo on a Saturday afternoon on a holiday weekend is not a particularly great idea. Needless to say, the streets and subways were very crowded, not with tourists mind you, but with that obnoxious subset of Manhattanites who wouldn't think to go to the outer boroughs. But I digress.

Going into the Apple store was interesting. It was also packed, but I have to say the design was great. Translucent glass stairway to a second floor open ampitheater where training was going on. Elsewhere there were loads of tables with mosey-on-up and use-me computers. Now we all know that these guys have the design thing down, but what they don't have down is the sales thing. Remember, Base10 walked into this place with the intent of being parted with a substantial amount of his cash equivalents. But there was no discernible organization to the store and not even a single sign that said "Buy a computer here!" Base10 could have solicited one of the floor workers, but that's not the point. It should be clear where to go to buy something. Apple, one of the great things about a retail outlet is that people want to buy things. In the future, please designate one of your employees to separate your customers from their money. It's what we've come there for!

Mr. and Mrs. Base10 left after a while, unwilling to suffer the crowds and the long lines. Up we headed to Tekserve on 23rd Street. I like Tekserve and have had the iBook serviced there before, but alas we arrived right after closing time. I just find it very frustrating that Base10 was looking to buy a big ticket item today, and there were no takers. It was as if the universe was saying, Sir, you really don't want to buy that laptop. It's a lot of money, why don't you sleep on it. Do a little more research.

All was not lost. Heading back to Queens, Base10 and his better half visited CompUSA. Now Base10 has often criticized CompUSA for its lack of sales reps, but this time they were out in force. We actually could do the deal here! But by then, indecision set in. Mrs. Base10 seemed to prefer the 15" model while Mr. Base10 suggested the 12" for portability purposes. The 15" model does boast a better video card and a PCMCIA port, too. It was clear. Now that the 15" model was on the table, more research was needed. Let's check if this one is in J&R.

Apple, here's what happened today. You had a fair opportunity to separate Base10 from a significant fraction of his income today and you failed. Will we buy tomorrow? Maybe, but who knows? Mrs. Base10 might go back to wintel machines, a new rumour of a better technology might come out, research about the undeisreability of the new Powerbooks might be published. Whatever might hapen tomorrow is speculation. Today, you could have made a sale. You did not.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:09 PM