Apple as Mass Market Company

[rdowns]

True, but that was under Amelio as the CEO, and he didn't know what he was doing with the company. OS 8 was the last thing that he did, and that system was nothing special. Other than the Appearance Extension.
This is a different Apple today. And people are finally taking notice.

Amelio gets a bad rap IMO. Spindler really f'd up Apple. Amelio laid the groundwork for a new OS, slashed the bloated product line and amassed a lot of cash for Apple that was needed to turn around. He also bought Next (for too much) and brought Jobs back. I've also read that the iMac began development on his watch and Jobs finished it and took credit. Wouldn't be the first time he took credit for others work.

 

[MacSlut]

Please for the love of God, buy TiVo

Add me to the camp that wants Apple to buy TiVo, not just for personal reasons but also as someone as seeing it as a big win for Apple.

Apple has 7.5 billion in cash. A purchase of TiVo could easily be less than $500 million in cash.

 

[doogle]

trojan pod

Remember iPod is now it's own sector within Apple and the next step will break it off into it's own entity (independent but still owned by Apple).

iPod is Apple's own trojan horse in the next evolution of personal computing.

 

[MarkCollette]

My vote goes with the hard drive camcorder, preferably high definition.

Bonus points if they can aesthetically simply snap an iSight to an iPod video, so I could use each part separately too.

Errr, and while we're wishing here, I'd like a miniature helicopter that I could attach that camcorder too, and have it swoop around recording stuff at weddings and concerts

 

[BornAgainMac]

Errr, and while we're wishing here, I'd like a miniature helicopter that I could attach that camcorder too, and have it swoop around recording stuff at weddings and concerts

That would be sweet. An Apple remote controlled heliopter with a DV camera to import into iMovie. Have it possible to pre-program the flight path with Applescript or Automator. See what your Helicopter sees over a wireless 802.11g from iChat AV or have a Dashboard widget to see live video.

I want to hear Steve Jobs say "Entry level iChopper starting at $499, Power Chopper for our pro-customers starting at $1299.... available Toooday."

 

[wPod]

PowerPod - HD video iPod mass market, high def and in everyones living room. now all you need is a nice 30" apple display to plug in your PowerPod into and youre set! well, maybe a 30" iMac . .. it would be a bit tight getting a video processor in an iPod

 

[DPazdanISU]

pipe tape

 

[melgross]

Lots of products, lots of money

Well...

One thing that Steve Jobs is known for are his efforts to streamline...everything. When he rejoined Apple in 1996 (IIRC) they hade a very diverse product line that included digital cameras, printers, scanners, computers, monitors, PDAs, etc.. Within 2 years they had PowerMacs, iMacs and a few stragglers. Granted, this is a different Apple than it was back then, but it's the same Steve.

I don't want to see Apple get too diversified like they did in the mid-90's. It nearly killed them. I have no doubt that they would make a beautiful product, but so far Apple 2.0 has been doing a great job of staying out of markets they can't do well in. Let's keep it that way. But if they can rock it, I'm all for it!

When Jobs killed those lines of products it was because Apple was in trouble, and needed to concentrate on their main line.

Now Apple is doing very well and can afford to deal with several product lines.

When Apple gave up their printer busuiness it was making a profit. Same thing with scanners. The Newton had just taken off as a product when he killed it. That was too bad.

 

[weg]

Apple should. Look at HP, Dell, and Gateway. All of them are selling plasmas and LCDs. And of course, the same goes for Sony. Now who would you rather buy an HDTV from?

I would buy from a company who is willing to give me a new plasma/LCD if the one I bought has lots of dead pixels. I would buy from a company who does not incorporate medium quality displays in their professional "top of the line" portables. Meaning, I would not buy such a thing from Apple.

 

[Veldek]

this is suppost to be the year for video, right? i mean didn't steve say that earlier this year. then the whole final cut studio came out. it only makes sense!

come on video ipods.

He called it the year of HD, not the year of video. A small, but important difference.

 

[Sol]

Apple product ideas

Mediocre? The PSP isn't mediocre. Nor is the upcoming PS3. Nor is Blu-Ray.

I agree. SONY is a company that delivers on key products like the consoles.

Apple should sell HD TVs. Why not? Their products are reliable and well designed. A HD video recorder would also be a terrific product. Apple stereos too. Maybe Apple should buy Bose to do this.

 

[edesignuk]

Apple branded HDTVs would sell well not only in the Apple Stores, but also through Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA.

An Apple "branded" HDTV would only use a screen provided by Samsung/LG/Philips, they'd slap a nice case on it and charge more for it than anyone else. Only die hard Apple/Style freaks would fork out the extra cash.

 

[MichaelAdam]

I think all those ideas mentioned on this thread are all so exciting and creatives. But I do not think personaly that Apple will dominate the home market this time. The Mac mini and OSX is a perfect platform to replace all we have in our living room and beyond but it would lack one feature that is essential to millions now. Gaming ! The PS3 and the 360 xbox will dominate and evolve slowly as the center of our living room. Playing games, watching movies, surfing on the web, recorder on the HD and viewing pics, listening to music, all of that with no wires (ps3 is wifi and bluetooth).
Any mac would do any of this perfectly (widgets like a Tivo too, dvd recorder, Itunes video store, etc...) but Mac will never be a gamer dream platform at a competitive price. Ps3 will be cheaper than a mac mini with incredible cpu power and stunning graphics.
Prove me wrong Mr jobs, I would like it.

I think Analysts should know that ...

 

[fixyourthinking]

been there, done that

Apple really has already been there and done that and it was seen as fat that needed to be trimmed once Steve Jobs came back.

While i think Apple should license out the Apple logo more, I don't think they need to be "the everything electronic company".

As far as I remember:

Inkjet printers
Laser printers
Ink & Toner
Digital cameras
A web cam (a quicktime conferencing camera; before iSight)
External CDROM drives
External hard drives
External tape drives
PowerPC Upgrades
ADB Cables
Serial cables
SCSI cables
Appletalk Cables
Keyboards & Mice

I can't really think of anything else at retail.

They used to sell T-Shirts and I have yet to understand why they refuse to have a small rack of T-shirts in the corner of each store.

 

[Nickygoat]

Apple stereos too. Maybe Apple should buy Bose to do this.

Bang & Olufsen would be closer in terms of aesthetics, and price

 

[feakbeak]

I think all those ideas mentioned on this thread are all so exciting and creatives. But I do not think personaly that Apple will dominate the home market this time. The Mac mini and OSX is a perfect platform to replace all we have in our living room and beyond but it would lack one feature that is essential to millions now. Gaming ! The PS3 and the 360 xbox will dominate and evolve slowly as the center of our living room. Playing games, watching movies, surfing on the web, recorder on the HD and viewing pics, listening to music, all of that with no wires (ps3 is wifi and bluetooth).
Any mac would do any of this perfectly (widgets like a Tivo too, dvd recorder, Itunes video store, etc...) but Mac will never be a gamer dream platform at a competitive price. Ps3 will be cheaper than a mac mini with incredible cpu power and stunning graphics.
Prove me wrong Mr jobs, I would like it.

I agree with you - the lack of gaming really does hurt Apple's ability to enter the set-top box market. They could do all of the media streaming from computers well (Rendevous is Mac and PC technology, though not really utilized on the PC yet). If they partnered/bought TiVo or went it alone I think they could do PVR fairly well. You are right though - I can't seem them penetrating the console gaming market. Sony and Microsoft will be trying to incorporate all the above mentioned capabilities and possibly more into the XBox 360 and PS3 and the gaming gives them a definite advantage. I suppose for those who don't care about gaming an Apple set-top box might be worth it, especially if it is priced lower. I can't see the XBox 360 or PS3 selling for under $300 given their capabilities. If Apple could hit $199 or maybe even $149 there could be potential market.

 

[Dave00]

Good. Next product: the iScreen.

In other words a tablet computer which is never referred to as a tablet. It's a TV-watching, stereo-controlling, handwriting-recognizing, DVD-playing, picture-managing SCREEN. Oh, and it has a tablet form factor. Except really cool, like you'd expect from Apple.

A true iScreen - with processing offloaded to a laptop or processor box- would be a breakthrough. The problem with tablets is that the processor is included, which makes them clunky and heavy. If you had a screen with the thickness of a pda but 15", and with handwriting recognition, the applications would be wide-ranging. The problem is in communication speed - it has to be alot faster.

Dave

 

[sushi]

Errr, and while we're wishing here, I'd like a miniature helicopter that I could attach that camcorder too, and have it swoop around recording stuff at weddings and concerts

Check out these:

http://www.rctoys.com/videos.php

While not exactly a helicopter in the purist form, it can do the job.

Sushi

 

[Lynxpro]

When Apple gave up their printer busuiness it was making a profit. Same thing with scanners. The Newton had just taken off as a product when he killed it. That was too bad.

Yeah, it seems to me Dell got their "printer line" idea straight out of old Apple strategies. But then again, Nintendo's best ideas came from non-implemented ideas dreamed up by Atari. And of course, Microsoft's best ideas come from Apple.

 

[Lynxpro]

An Apple "branded" HDTV would only use a screen provided by Samsung/LG/Philips, they'd slap a nice case on it and charge more for it than anyone else. Only die hard Apple/Style freaks would fork out the extra cash.

If you aren't an Apple freak/fan, what the hell are you doing on this website?

 

[Lynxpro]

While i think Apple should license out the Apple logo more, I don't think they need to be "the everything electronic company".
They used to sell T-Shirts and I have yet to understand why they refuse to have a small rack of T-shirts in the corner of each store.

I'd love a hemp-based (*think different*) Apple branded t-shirt. It would probably be sold at Hot Topic, though.

 

[feakbeak]

If you aren't an Apple freak/fan, what the hell are you doing on this website?

Learning of Apple rumors/news and discussing it, sans worship and tasty kool-aid.

 

[Trimix]

merrill never got it right

i remember merrill calling apple dead and out (was it last year ?) - since then they had to eat humble pie and have tried to predict ever more outrageous product inventions - fact is, they do not know what they are talking about. i would not put any emphasis on anything coming out of their corner

 

[kenaustus]

The one thing you can be sure of is that you can't be sure of what Apple will do next.

They tend to come out with these neat little things we never thought of, like the iPod, iSight and Airport Express. While the iPod took some serious development dollars the iSight and AirPort Express probably didn't.

You also need to remember that none of the above were anticipated to be huge hits when they were announced. Apple felt that the iTunes Music Store might get as high as a million songs a year when it was introduced.

So where are we now? Apple continues to spend around half a billion a year in R&D (and with $7.5+ billion in cash that is equal to around 15 years of R&D!). I don't think that anyone can accurately guess what they will release next, but I'd give my left one to spend a day in their labs.

As for the Mac ever taking a back seat to other products - forget it. Macs will always be the core product and will always get the money and attention needed to improve it. The Intel announcement should be total reassurance of that.

Me? I'll sit back and wait. When something is announced I'll probably reach for the credit card again.

 

[Toe]

A true iScreen - with processing offloaded to a laptop or processor box- would be a breakthrough. The problem with tablets is that the processor is included, which makes them clunky and heavy. If you had a screen with the thickness of a pda but 15", and with handwriting recognition, the applications would be wide-ranging. The problem is in communication speed - it has to be alot faster.

Dave

On first blush, I would agree that wifi can't handle heavy data like a video feed. But then again people are sending video over the internet now, and a full T1 line is slower than wifi 802.11b. At 56Mb, 802.11g should be able to handle it nicely.

That said, I think the processor is still necessary. Current Mac network clients on Portable Home Directories (where all data is stored on the server) still use the internal client CPU for actual processing. Gotta decompress that video somehow.

The key might be in getting a low-cost, low-heat CPU... say, maybe, a new Intel chip...?

The iScreen doesn't need any optical drive or any ports at all. All input would be through wifi and bluetooth. It would have no ethernet controller, no USB, no firewire, no modem, etc. (Though it being Apple, I imagine a sound card and audio jack would be mandatory.) That should take the weight/size down quite a bit.