NYT tech writer David Pogue on this years C.E.S. in Las Vegas. Exciting stuff. All of 11 products worth mentioning.No wonder why a new server from Apple this week got all the attention.
This nutcase blogging on c-net is blessing the world with his competence on why Apple should NOT in fact release a sub-notebook kind of computer. He first goes on to rant about all the usual drawbacks of such devices currently in the market, and then he manages to end up with the presumption that Apple will make something like what’s already there - or as he himself puts it:
Now, after reading over the general design of a subnotebook, does that design sound anything like a product Apple would sell? Not a chance.
Not a chance indeed. He apparently fails to see exactly how Apple works. The one thing that is certain, is that if Apple will do a sub-notebook, it will NOT look like anything that is out there. Whenever Apple designs a new product, they start with what is today, then they look thoroughly into all areas where they can improve on the thing. If they can’t, they won’t release it till they can.
One of the most interesting things to observe when Apple enter a new category or release a new/redesigned product is how it is so far ahead of and/or differentiated from other products catering to the same market. In fact, so different that they at the very minimum expand the market category, and sometimes even creates completely new markets (even unintentionally).Look no further than the iPod and iPhone, but also iTunes, iLife software and so on. This is the Apple DNA, no less.
Not all products Apple releases are instant successes of course, but the past 5-7 years I would be hard pressed to find any product that has really flopped (last one I can think of was the Cube). Apple has grown a sense for not releasing a product until both they themselves and the world is ready for it. Which means it can be designed with excellence in mind, be very useful for the consumers and be manufactured for a reasonable price. When all these three aspects are met, the product will be successful (the Cube failed miserably, as we know, on the last one).
I think the consumers are more than ready for a sub-notebook that changes the ballgame, I also think it is now possible to manufacture. It remains to be seen if Apple is ready. I am rather convinced they are.
[EDIT] I have been pointed also to the iPod HiFi thingie as a sort of lately flop. Could agree to that, and it also falls into same category as the Cube. However the HiFi was hardly a high profiled product.
Don’t even bother to link to this guys so called blog - a funny little site with clip-art spaceships from the ’80s and… buckets. Obviously it is exactly what he wants everyone to do. The retard is attacking IconFactories excellent Twitter app - Twitteriffic - claiming they owe him big time since they got him hooked on an early free version, and now suddenly demand you pay a wholesome 15 bucks, or accept that you are fed some nice looking ads from the Deck. Basically it sounds like the guy had this thing with a syringe, and his brain now is defunct because of the ads blocking the veines. Or something. Bottomline, he uses the same lame arguments as all other freeloaders uses (y’know; all those hairy, bad smelling people that’s always there when the beer is free, and goes home once it’s their round); “We don’t want to pay for this - it’s digital, no one gets hurt, no material is lost, we wouldn’t buy it anyway, it’s not worth anything….” yeah yeah, the list goes on. Most funny argument though;
Don’t worry, my friend. Twitterrific isn’t such a complex app that a half-decent (preferably open-source) coder with a few spare hours couldn’t whip up a decent clone.
So, instead of “whipping up” that decent clone in an hour or so, it’s - well - better to spend the time hacking the existing app instead. Either this Marc Fiszman and his “Odelbee” friends are totally crap at coding (rather obvious) or it actually does take quite a bit of time to make - and support - such an app (even more obvious).
I bet there are SO many people that will just love working with this Fiszman guy over the next years…
At ZDnet there’s this David Berlind guy - apparantly he’s been around since 1998 or so - claiming that Apple should license OS X. Well, not only should they, in fact, they might not even have choice but to. Not only that - he goes on bragging his business insight as well:
And, compared to selling hardware, selling bits is like printing money.
Right. That may be the reason why there is an abundance of companies currently selling operating systems around the globe. Newsflash: it´s like printing money IF you have a working monopoly of selling those bits. Otherwise it’s called competition - which means margins go down.
It would of course be stupid of Apple to do something like this. OS X is the core differentiator of their whole business, and the very reason why they - in fact - are “printing” money right at this moment.
Seems like he gets scolded east and west now though. Poor fellow.
Perhaps it’s time for Berlind to reconsider himself?
Microsofts ad for their System Center grabs some attention around. At least it pulls off one criteria as a good ad then. Maybe this even is how Microsoft view themselves - and want others to as well. Huge, old fashioned, uninspired. The analogy actually does the opposite of what it should. Yes, the building (and corporation) is obviously huge, with all of those 659 floors. But if this is what you think of as a clever interface for handling that hugeness, I am a little worried about what is on the other side of that wall. Only Microsoft would think it ingenious to put the readout almost unviewable and smallish up in the corner (as opposed to directly in front of the user), and only Microsoft could think of a panel where you must stretch and bend to be able to get to all of that interface. The most funny of it all though, is the tagline; ‘Your potential. Our passion’. Right. This ad just screams passion at ya.
‘But, if Apple had made this ad, all the Apple fanboys would declare it an act of genious’ they say. The problem is, Apple would never ever pull off an ad like this. Apple rarely uses analogies (last one I remember happened around 1984). They might include references of sorts, but most of all, Apples ads are USP based, clear and simple. In fact, they are all about what the impression Apple wants for its products. If Apple were to make a ‘System Center’ product, they’ll make damn sure the product was as simple to use as putting on your sneakers in the morning. And the ad would not include some confused looking guy wondering what button to push. It would show the glaring simplicity of the real interface, how easy it is to use it - and what it does for you in real life. Now, that is how designed for great looks like.
Via Daring Fireball
There has been some waryness in the Mac community now for a while, about certain decisions from Apple. Rumble about Apple taking a less customer friendly approach to things. Specifically the ringtone spectacle, the lack of 3. party support in iPhone and other gadgets, the new iPod connector and then some.
One should of course always be skeptical to what a corporation is up to, and it is just sound to question their actions – companies do make mistakes also. Apple is of course no exception. However, to call out for a complete change in attitude is quite a long shot.
Remember that Apple is in fact the only large company that actively is pursuing a DRM free musicworld, putting every bit of weight they have on the issue. They are certainly on the customers side if it is true they denied NBC and the music companies wishes for higher prices for downloads, and even trying to reduce the prices. They sure are pushing prices on mobile devices. They are reimbursing early adopters of the iPhone. Remember also that Apple is a corporation – they are obliged to serve their shareholders both short-term, but even more so long-term. Screwing their customerbase totally is not a good way of doing the last.
Apple has always been doing debatable things. One I remember particularly well is when they decided to close all free benefits of .Mac. I still believe that was a huge mistake on Apple’s part, and .Mac never really recovered from it. But complaining about Apple changing interfaces from time to time, keeping their own sofware strictly proprietary and so on is just whining. It just happened that a lot of these things now appeared really concentrated. This summer/fall/winter is probably going to be one of the hottest release periods in Apples history. If the rumored MacBook refresh and the iPhone 3G happens within MacWorld we have seen an unprecedented product refresh in these 6 months; iPhone with a new OS X mobile platform, major iPod refresh also with new OS, Leopard release, major rollout and expansion of iPhone, completely redesigned laptops, redesigned iMac, revamped iLife and iWork… it is really insane when you think of it.
It is quite hilarious how people actually complain about a product getting a reduced pricepoint. If in doubt; this IS a good thing and nothing to complain about.
The interesting part in all this debacle though, is how Apple actually planned this all along. At least I believe they did. The initial pricepoint (in January) was set to gauge the market and give a bit of headroom just in case. Just high enough that it was plausible and low enough that it was still attractive.
There were rumors long before the June 29. launch of a reduced price. In addition, the Q3 conference call revealed an expectation for lower margins in the upcoming quarter. We know that this was not about the new iPods – or iMac.
Apple knew there would be a certain outcry about this and was well prepared. You can look at this either way you want, but it is very clever product management. IF they had sold the device for 100 or 200 dollars less from the start, the lines outside the shops would most certainly have been a lot longer – given the limited quantity available initally. Consequently the prices on e-bay would skyrocket. Individuals would specualate themselves to huge upsides, there would be a lot of press and noise about this, and of people getting screwed and all. Instead Apple themselves reduce the initial pressure on the product with the higher pricepoint. They reap the upside of initial demand themselves, and most importantly; when finally the first flurry about the iPhone introduction in the press is fading out, Apple slashes the price, and suddenly they are on everybodys lips again. Just to top it all off, they get an equal amount of free advertising for doing the honorable and highly unusual thing of reimbursing the early adopters with a 100 dollar store credit.
The real home-run though, is how they lure the competition into believing this would stay a rather exclusive product. I would really liked to see the faces of all the engineers and marketeers at Nokia and Samsung planning their iPhone response products with this in mind – ”hey, we make it almost as good, but 200 dollars less” – when Apple took away their only winning point, just like that. And mind you, just as they are about to release it to the rest of the world and having ample stock of the product.
When you think of this clever scheme in retrospect I can’t help but hand it to the marketing guys at Apple.
Macjournals claims the sticker-question is a legitimate one. At least no less than the other questions. They’re right on the last part. It is of course a waste of time that Apple allows a Q&A at events like these, because they will never answer interesting questions anyway.
Apart from that, Macjournals are totally off mark on about everything. Comparing the “obvious” product non-evolvements to the “obviousness” of Apple not putting stickers on the Mac is ridiculous. Apple histiorically never talk about product enhancement, but they never let the smokescreens they create get in the way of their products. Never. Whatever they’ve said, and whatever people think or believe doesn’t matter. If Apple thinks the product will benefit they’ll introduce whatever technology needed. Hell, they’d sell the Mac with Windows if they’d really thought it beneficiary. What they will never ever do, is dillute the brand. At least not with Jobs and Ive at the helm.
“Obvious” is in the eye of the beholder, and we still say that if you think the answer to “why aren’t you taking free money after announcing lower margins” is obvious, you need to do more beholding.
Intel could probably offer to pay Apple to use their processors and still not get the sticker on. As already said; Apples brand awareness is just too high, and the benefits for Apple not to include the stickers are way to obvious. Macjournals assumption that Apples margin would be higher if they include the sticker is simply false. They can start with looking at other PC companies margins for the last 8 years. Next they may check on development of the stocks and brand awareness.
Rarely does one single question get as much attention as now infamous journalist Bob Keefe’s at the latest Apple event. Not because it was interesting, but because of claims that it was utterly stupid. However, questions can’t be stupid. The people asking them is another thing entirely.
So why was it stupid to ask this particular question? Not so much the fact that Apple never puts stickers of any kind on their computers. Remember that the a large part of the Mac-community itself was quite excited to see if there would be any Intel promostickers on the new Macs. The simple answer is partly in what Steve Jobs himself replied:
We love working with Intel. We’re proud to ship Intel products in Macs. They’re screamers, and combined with our OS, we’ve tuned them well. It’s just that everyone knows we use Intel processors. We’d rather not tell them about the product that’s inside the box
People that care about such knows there are Intel processors inside, and what kind. Steve Jobs knows very well that the first thing his customers will do is peel off that sticker - if it was there. He also knows it will irritate them. Of course he also knows that no one is buying Macs because there are Intel processors in them. In fact most people could care less for what is inside that box - including the processor. People buy Macs because they like them and has taken a distinct choice both for the Apple brand of hardware and operating system. No small choice in a world where 90% runs flavors of Windows.
Actually the same goes for Apple. Apple does not sell Intel processors. They sell Mac’s - and will never do anything to take peoples attention from that fact. They use Intel processors now, because at the moment they offers the better price/performance/versatility. But remember - Apples stuff runs on at least three kinds of architecures.
So the good question in this matter is not why Apple is not promoting Intel processors, but rather: why does almost everyone else do? Why on earth is everyone willing to deteriorate they’re own brand in this obvious way? I can not think of any other tech product at all that is promoting any component inside like the PC-business is promoting Intel and Windows. In fact I honestly can think of no brand at all that does this.
Bob Keefe himself argues that his is a good question because Apple is saying no to millions at the cost of the shareholders. That is ignorant at best. Look no further than to Apples market cap and results compared to the competition. Even if revenue and unit shipment is far behind for example Dell, Apple’s market value is almost double. One of the major reasons for this is that Apple is very conscious about their brand. They let nothing disturb it. Most certainly not third party components. Intel’s processors are no more or less important than any other - hence they get no special treatment. I believe the shareholders are quite happy with this arrangement.
At least there is no little satisfaction to watch a journalist getting the heat himself and feeling oh, so hurt. Should make him think, really.