oh PLEASE get rid of the 'greeters' (they freak me out) and put one more 'genie' behind that desk...
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Apple Retail Stores to Receive Facelift Highlighting Software?
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I like the thought of moving to a more software focused store. The software has been a secondary thought in the back corner of many stores.
I like the thought of moving to a more software focused store. The software has been a secondary thought in the back corner of many stores.
Average consumers think Apple computers are overpriced too. Apple won't worry because they sell more iPods and phones than they do computers.
While I've obviously mouthed off here about my current disdain for hardware updates this makes perfect sense for Apple because the store are not for you and I but for the everyday consumer that wants a new toy to play with.
Now that computer illiterate user can see the macbook has the same specs as an Acer but is $500 more you need to hype up the thing that makes the expense worth it. The OS/Apps. People want more for their money and in this recession they want even more, so why not push the fact you get a better/easier OS, an entire suite of applications for your family photos and movies oh and you can get an office substitute for 1/3 the cash?
Do I like it no but it is the reality we live in. The hardcore is not important anymore the average consumer is. The days of the cult are long gone.
I just realized what fans of hardware should do at Apple stores. Come in via the back door, so you'll start in the hardware section!
As an extra bonus, you might see not-yet-announced Apple products stacked up on shipping pallets back there, with labels like "Nehalem Mac Pro. Do not open until February 27."
As an extra bonus, you might see not-yet-announced Apple products stacked up on shipping pallets back there, with labels like "Nehalem Mac Pro. Do not open until February 27."
Apple, since Jobs returned, has been an excellent marketer in that they seem to lead the market rather than follow it. This is extremely hard to do.
For example, at the time Apple opened up the iTunes store it seemed to be an attempt to get people to buy music when most were ripping off CDs illegally. It seemed silly to a lot of people. Now it's a power house for music. They've added a ton of new things like movies, applications, feeds, and so forth. Suddenly the competition woke up to how effectively the iTunes store (which is the most common non-Microsoft product loaded on PCs) is at drawing people to buying Apple-branded products and locking them to those products in the face of me-too competition.
There were a lot of stones thrown at Apple for thinking they could enter the saturated mobile phone market and be successful. I remember Balmer laughing at the idea, now he's going to try to emulate it in some ways.
The point is that Apple's moves are not as generally apparent to the casual person or the industry pundists at first. By the time their "crazy" ideas are seen for what they are it's too late for the competition to leapfrog...the best they can do is try to catch up to a moving target.
If you are having a problem with some of Apple's current decisions, it may be because you are focusing too strongly on what is needed today while Apple is adjusting to move the market to where it will be in the near future.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have told me, 'A better horse'." --Henry Ford
For example, at the time Apple opened up the iTunes store it seemed to be an attempt to get people to buy music when most were ripping off CDs illegally. It seemed silly to a lot of people. Now it's a power house for music. They've added a ton of new things like movies, applications, feeds, and so forth. Suddenly the competition woke up to how effectively the iTunes store (which is the most common non-Microsoft product loaded on PCs) is at drawing people to buying Apple-branded products and locking them to those products in the face of me-too competition.
There were a lot of stones thrown at Apple for thinking they could enter the saturated mobile phone market and be successful. I remember Balmer laughing at the idea, now he's going to try to emulate it in some ways.
The point is that Apple's moves are not as generally apparent to the casual person or the industry pundists at first. By the time their "crazy" ideas are seen for what they are it's too late for the competition to leapfrog...the best they can do is try to catch up to a moving target.
If you are having a problem with some of Apple's current decisions, it may be because you are focusing too strongly on what is needed today while Apple is adjusting to move the market to where it will be in the near future.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have told me, 'A better horse'." --Henry Ford
I wonder if this means that Apple will be giving much needed attention to its Pro software, which has been losing its head start on the competition for a while now.
I wouldn't keep your hopes on there. I think anything with 'pro' in the title really just means 'more features' and not really 'professional'. Plus haven't they let the Final Cut suite fall over two years since it's last major update?
The way the store is set up now is very cool/flashy, but I don't think its too conducive to actually trying out and using the software... I always thought there should be spaces set up to "simulate" an office or room where you could actually sit down and test out the software thoughtfully. Maybe even an interactive software program that runs on the machines and walks you through using some of the applications or something.
I'm sure that Apple's moves make perfect sense as far as their marketing strategy goes. But I, like most people, tend to view these decisions through the prism of what I want, not what they want.
I first thought this is a bad idea. The idea of the apple store is to showcase thing they can't show you on the website, to a certain point. Why think only of the software ?
It makes perfect sence, first off, due to apple's mass marketing ploy, everyone know they are well built beautiful machines. The missing link is why shell the cash on a mac ?
More importantly, they can put the in store computers to use. I think they will keep ruffly the same amount or more computers on the floor, just not have a passive setup. If anything, they are putting the focus back on the mac, as a platform, not just ipod and shinny macbooks.
It makes perfect sence, first off, due to apple's mass marketing ploy, everyone know they are well built beautiful machines. The missing link is why shell the cash on a mac ?
More importantly, they can put the in store computers to use. I think they will keep ruffly the same amount or more computers on the floor, just not have a passive setup. If anything, they are putting the focus back on the mac, as a platform, not just ipod and shinny macbooks.
I just realized what fans of hardware should do at Apple stores. Come in via the back door, so you'll start in the hardware section!
As an extra bonus, you might see not-yet-announced Apple products stacked up on shipping pallets back there, with labels like "Nehalem Mac Pro. Do not open until February 27."
lol!
Not only that, but you'll get your daily dose of exercise by running away from the security guards!
I sure hope so. At the current rate, BRD will be obsolete before Apple upgrades DVDSP. This is very disturbing.
And FWIW, MicroSoft seems to have done well financially by concentrating on software.
I'm sure that Apple's moves make perfect sense as far as their marketing strategy goes. But I, like most people, tend to view these decisions through the prism of what I want, not what they want.
Good marketing is getting you to buy what you didn't know you really wanted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=befugtgikMg
Bad marketing is a brown Zune.
By the way, news today that MS is following Apple into the retail store business:
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090212/tc_nm/us_microsoft_1
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090212/tc_nm/us_microsoft_1
This is a step in the right direction for apple.
It's not the hardware that drives people to switch to macintosh, it's the OS/Software. Additionally, it is not "pure facts" that convice people, it is a person, a real person. You wouldn't buy a mac just because some retail store worker tells you something about the new iLife, on apple.com.....people make deals, not computers.
It's not the hardware that drives people to switch to macintosh, it's the OS/Software. Additionally, it is not "pure facts" that convice people, it is a person, a real person. You wouldn't buy a mac just because some retail store worker tells you something about the new iLife, on apple.com.....people make deals, not computers.
No, you don't care and would have those that do care about performance believe as you do. Nice try.
Am I the only one who parsed the headline to mean that Apple stores are to receive software that will highlight facelifts?
(perhaps an extension of iLife's new face-recognition feature...)
I disagree here. Apple has always been a software company first - that happens to design it's own hardware.
I just got a unibody Macbook last week and I have safely say that it is the nicest engineered and designed bit of kit I have ever owned (I previous thought that about the iPhone 3G).
I know a few lines are overdue for refresh now, but I think this unibody machine is truly amazing (and I used to own and work on a bunch of other Macs)
Apples a hardware company that designs its own software, although its moving over to an increasing reliance on software sales and slowly becoming a software company, for example they used to make all their own hardware, 15+ years ago, even their own processors, but now its all Intel and Nvidia and this is reflected in their decision for the newly refurbished stores
However saying that OS X was ripped from another company and its hardly theirs being Unix based.
You are really right! There is a scene in the Onion movie (I think) where a poor guy gets constantly referred back to the store to get the latest model which came out moments earlier, only as he is leaving the shop for the latest model to come in again.
Admittedly, people paying the premium for Apple gear should be getting hardware close to the best, but having the latest Quad Core processor for Ma and Pa to organise their photos is not going to be a deal breaker for them. Apple knows a lot of the value is in the user experience and service, rather than on pure grunt alone.
Unlike everyone on these forums who bases their decisions on refreshes etc. But that is a very small minority of all Apple sales...
It would do them well to highlight the fact that Ms Office runs just fine on the Mac and can read their PC generated Office files.
Half the time I mention I use a Mac the first question is does Word run on it. Go figure.. at least they aren't asking for Minesweeper and Solitare
Half the time I mention I use a Mac the first question is does Word run on it. Go figure.. at least they aren't asking for Minesweeper and Solitare