This started out as a blurb to go next to a news article in my Google Reader feed but it already looks too lengthy for that, so I share it here with the world rather than with the eight people who would otherwise see it*.

There’s a story over on BetaNews about Apple’s market share of the “premium computer” market – computers that cost more than $1000. I’ll save you clicking the link – their market share is 91%, which is pretty fucking high. Their overall market share is below 10%, since most computers now cost considerably less than that.

Incidentally, I can remember when computers cost in the region of £2000 (roughly $3300). Of course, back then in 1999 all home computers could arguably have been considered premium products, but it’s still jarring to see that something that ten years ago cost the same as a cheap second hand car or a nice Rolex is now considered pricey at over £600. Cars and gorgeous watches, of course, still cost the same today as they did then.

Enough showing my age – what’s interesting here is when you consider this news coupled with Apple’s drive to make software run quicker on the same hardware. Snow Leopard especially, and the last couple of OS X releases in particular are all about running faster on a given machine than the big cat that came before. Well, faster on the same reasonably-new machine, anyway. Meanwhile Steve Jobs is often quoted, and I’m paraphrasing, that the reason Apple doesn’t make netbooks is because they don’t know how to make a good computer for $500. Apple make $1000 machines because they don’t know how to make a Mac for anything less… yet.

But what about when it becomes possible to make that good computer for $500? What happens when the chips needed become smaller and faster? More importantly, what happens as the software undergoes successive obsessive performance tuning? When it’s possible to make a good mac for $500, will it be possible to make a usable PC for $250? (ignoring, of course, that it’s already possible to make a crappy PC for $250) Will the market slide ever downwards until people use Windows PCs that came free with cereal rather than pay $50 for a Mac?

I don’t think it will. I suspect that Apple’s push to streamline their desktop OS is indicative of a drive to bring the cost of building (and, hopefully, of buying) a mac down faster than Moore’s Law affords. Perhaps by the time you can buy a MacBook for $500, the Windows laptop on the shelf next to it** will not be so far beneath.

* Yes, those same eight people are probably still the only ones who will read it. Shut up.

** No, I’ve never seen Macs and Windows PCs on neighbouring shelves either.

Today I shaved without the aid of fancy modern shaving foam, the way your grandfather likely did*.

It wasn’t actually that bad, and most of the unpleasentness was probably due to trying to remove three days’ growth with the last blunted razor I could find in the bathroom.

I did still moisturise afterwards, mind you, so I’ve not gone totally wild man of the north, all shaving with a sharpened rock by the light of my camp fire.

In conclusion: shaving foam is likely a worthless modern frippery, designed to wash your money down the sink. Maybe. I’ll try it again with a proper razor and let you know.

*assuming your grandpa liked his balls smooth and his bush trim. I bet he did.

X is like Y meets Z*.

Its an old trope beloved of lazy writers, but sometimes that really is the most effective way to describe a new thing to someone unfamiliar with it (assuming that your audience is familiar with both Y and Z).

Better Off Ted is like Mad Men meets Eureka.

Ted is a suave, highly competent creative manager with a permanent 5 o’clock shadow (like Don Draper in Mad Men), who manages a team of research scientists at a super-high-tech company with a finger in ever industry (like Eureka’s Global Dynamics). Hilarity ensues, more thanks to the great writing than the cast, but solid and earnest hilarity nonetheless.

Better Off Ted is still airing its first season right now, a mere seven episodes in. I only caught it because it was mentioned on Murmer‘s “this week in TV”, which seems to be the result of the iFanboy staff** getting at once sick of talking about comics and a chronic case of the 2.0s. There’s a podcast too, just one episode so far. Maybe you should listen to it.

*X is also sometimes like Y on Z, where Z is some kind of narcotic. Something explored past its logical conclusion by Lee and Herring back in the day when they spiked Norman Wisdom’s drink with acid to see if it really would make him act like Lee Evans. (shitty video link)

** All of them but Ron (that’s “the fat one” to you, Matt).