Apple's Oscar-Winning Ambitions to be Spearheaded By Six Original Movies a Year, With a Budget up to $30 Million per Film

[ipponrg]

Let’s say for argument’s sake that I agree with you.

Your point is?

Maybe I am off my game a little these days, but I find I am having a harder time following your arguments than usual.

Seems you have poor sarcasm detection.

Apple might say they are not a tech company, but the entire tech industry along with the world classifies them as a tech company. They are a tech company with heavier focus on design despite whatever mantra they spout.

I don’t understand how you can come to that conclusion with a straight face.

 

[Abazigal]

Seems you have poor sarcasm detection.

Yeah, I get that a lot.

Apple might say they are not a tech company, but the entire tech industry along with the world classifies them as a tech company. They are a tech company with heavier focus on design despite whatever mantra they spout.

And that is why the critics, the haters, and the industry will get Apple wrong every time.

Their view of the industry is based on what they see around the most - cost leadership, divisional organisational structure, growth through M&As and engineering-led product design.

Apple is a puzzle because it has acted differently in every single way and it brings them discomfort. Rather than try to understand Apple better, they instead choose to double down on the assertion that if Apple does the opposite of what they think Apple should, it must be Apple who is wrong and not them.

Remember when Apple was supposed to be doomed if they didn’t release a netbook, a budget smartphone, a round smartwatch, or a foldable phone?

There’s a reason why Apple hasn’t done any of these, and gone on to prosper for it.

That reason is - design.

I don’t understand how you can come to that conclusion with a straight face.

Because I believe.

At Apple, design is the magic ingredient, with Apple designers calling the shots, and searching for technology to serve the product experience (even going so far as to customise their own tech if necessary), not the other way around where we have engineers excited about about new hot tech and then trying to turn it into a product (which is precisely how the whole folding phone fiasco came about in the first place).

Sometimes, it may lead to Apple making some rather controversial choices with regards to product specs, but I believe this is what has made Apple as successful as it is, and design is what will allow Apple to carry on being successful in the future.

 

[evatar]

Since when does "a la carte" mean "exclusivity"? We got a la carte, great. But we also got exclusivity, which sucks. Companies are taking advantage of their position of being the content producer and distributor simultaneously. This was the case with cinemas before the Paramount case, and a law was created specifically for this reason. And now it's happening again, and I don't see anyone intending to create a law to stop this so far. Basically monopoly is coming back.

This, this, and THIS.

It's baffling how many people can't see these 'walled gardens' for what they are. P.T. Barnum was right.

 

[koa]

Apple should get a clue. They should be doing at least 10 movies, each with 100 million budget. Small budget films can be great, but they will never bring in a large audience. I guess Tim wants to do "art" films and stick with a small audience of elites?

Maybe Tim was one of the few people who saw Cutthroat Island?

 

[ipponrg]

That reason is - design.

No dude. You said it yourself. The reason you are in the ecosystem is because of the synergy. The ecosystem is an inherent tech solution. It's the tech that allows you to do this, not the design. The design is a superficial substance that some people rationalize for their purchases despite any technical shortcomings.

I can assure you though that design is not why Apple has been successful. If it were, iTunes wouldn't have come to PCs, Macs wouldn't have switched to x86, and Apple wouldn't be boasting about their own chips.

At Apple, design is the magic ingredient, with Apple designers calling the shots, and searching for technology to serve the product experience (even going so far as to customise their own tech if necessary), not the other way around where we have engineers excited about about new hot tech and then trying to turn it into a product (which is precisely how the whole folding phone fiasco came about in the first place).

Customize their own tech? Can you elaborate here? There's nothing customizable about any of their offerings from a design perspective other than colors.

Lastly, not that Wikipedia is the source of truth, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_company. Maybe in Singaporean culture, it's different. That's not the case here in the US.

 

[Abazigal]

The reason you are in the ecosystem is because of the synergy. The ecosystem is an inherent tech solution. It's the tech that allows you to do this, not the design. The design is a superficial substance that some people rationalize for their purchases despite any technical shortcomings.

Tech itself is nothing without the right ideas on how to go about implementing them. Ie: design.

Take for example the AirPods. Every design decision that went into it has clearly been to enable a very singular and opinionated definition of how people ought to interact with audio. You have the charging case which fits snugly into my jeans' coin pouch or front shirt pocket. You have a cover which is oh-so-very-satisfying to spin and open and close. You have earbuds which are easy to hold thanks to the ear stalks, are extremely light and comfortable, and basically answer every gripe I have had with wireless headphones thus far. That there are headphones 1/10th the price with equivalent (or even superior) sound quality misses the point as to why I settled on AirPods in the first place.

So when I pay Apple's asking prices for their products, I am not paying for the tech inside these products. I am paying for Apple's expertise in putting all these disparate pieces of tech together in a manner which affords me the user experience I desire. Apple could tell me tomorrow that their AirPods cost only $10 to manufacture, and I would still continue paying for them, because no competing product comes close.

This is why I am not really interested in trying to add up the base costs of the raw components that go into making an Apple product, and why it doesn't exactly bother me when people reveal that Apple products tend to cost way more than the cost of making them, or attempt to draw comparison with competing products that claim to do more while costing less. Never mind that such estimates tend to end up being extremely inaccurate to begin with, but doing so also shows a very fundamental misunderstanding of why I chose to use Apple products in the first place (and why I still choose to continue using them in this present day).

I can assure you though that design is not why Apple has been successful. If it were, iTunes wouldn't have come to PCs, Macs wouldn't have switched to x86, and Apple wouldn't be boasting about their own chips.

Why do you think Apple released a smartphone without a hardware keyboard?

Why did they release the iPad at a time when the market was clamouring (or thought they were clamouring) for a netbook?

Why is Apple settling on a square smartwatch instead of a circular one?

The chief reason why Apple is not doing a foldable phone, but instead doubling down on AR glasses, is design.

Even the unorthodox design choices that went into the iPhone battery case, the 1st-gen Apple Pencil charging mechanism and the placement of the magic mouse's charging port can be traced back to design.

And it all begins with Apple first starting with the desired end experience they want their users to have, then working backwards to see how best to replicate that experience using existing tech, or putting their own twist on them (eg: custom processors for the Apple Watch, W1 chip for AirPods, lightning over micro-USB, even their own conductive fabric for the iPad Smart Keyboard).

When you choose to go against conventional wisdom, there is always the risk of you screwing up, and when this does happen, all the spotlight will be on you because you don't have the rest of the industry to hide behind. But this is precisely what I admire about Apple - their penchant for marching to their own beat and not caring a crap about what everyone else thinks.

And that is why I largely agree with AboveAvalon's Neil Cybart that the biggest risk to Apple is becoming "just" another technology company, because that implies their product design process changes as well.