That's a little flip. Not really sure why you'd say Apple lacks innovation? They've reinvented themselves several times to meet market demands. They strive to produce good products at affordable price points. I was paying $2,000 for my Apple home computer in the early 90's while my friends were paying a fraction of that for their Packard Bells. Those same friends are now on their second or third iMac and their kids have MacBooks for college.
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iPad2 v Galaxy Tab - compelling case?
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That's a little flip. Not really sure why you'd say Apple lacks innovation? They've reinvented themselves several times to meet market demands. They strive to produce good products at affordable price points. I was paying $2,000 for my Apple home computer in the early 90's while my friends were paying a fraction of that for their Packard Bells. Those same friends are now on their second or third iMac and their kids have MacBooks for college.
Read carefully what I wrote. I didn't say that Apple lacks innovation. I said that a marketplace dominated by a single vendor stifles innovation and I pointed to IBM's dominance of computing in the sixties and seventies as evidence of that. Apple has been extremely innovative as it has struggled to be competitive. Whether it would remain so if it dominates the "post-PC" future is another question, altogether. Counting on the company's "culture" and "good intentions" is a weak reed.
Nor is it reassuring to look at Apple's overall business model. IBM's dominance was broken by the emergence of Microsoft and separation of software and hardware from a single vendor. Apple's model is essentially identical to IBM's; the amalgamation of software and hardware from a single vendor. That's not a danger to the marketplace as long as such a firm controls 10% of the market. It is a major deterrent to competition when that firm controls 70%+ of the market.
You are certainly correct that those who purchased Packard Bell computers in the 1990's aren't using them anymore. And you aren't using that same $2000 Apple you used then, either. Who is better off? Your friends paid less for the computers they purchased because there was competition in that era. You paid a premium for a computer you also chose to replace. From the point of view of a consumer, your friends were arguably better served.
The same equation holds today. You may prefer to purchase an Apple product and pay a premium price. Fortunately, your friends (and their kids) have the option of an equivalent laptop at less money. If there were no alternative to the MacBook do you think Apple would lower its prices?
Difference between buying Apple and something from Dell, HP and the like... Resale value. Apple products hold their value. I'm always amazed by how much too! Buy a Dell for $700 and you'll be lucky to sell it a year later for $250. Buy a MacBook Pro for $1500 and sell it a year later for more than $1000!
You lose 500 dollars on both products!!!!
In fact, you could take that 800 dollars you saved in your original Dell purchase, put that into a savings account, Apple stock, or any number of other investments to actually make more money.
I am not arguing your point. Resale value for Apple products is phenomenal. As your numbers suggest, though, you'll save money if you don't buy Apple. The experience may not be as good (a subjective call), of course. But, that is another issue.
Actually, the fact that you’re nearing retirement even gives more weight to the app argument. Having more free time, it’s very likely that you’ll want to widen your interests. For example: yes, there’s a lot of content within the web-browser itself, but content-curating apps like Flipboard and Zite (free apps!) are extremely powerful to have a focused content exploration, same with the apps provided by big news outlets like NYT and WaPo. “There’s an app for that” isn’t just a gimmick. There is truly a vibrant app ecosystem surrounding iOS, such that all kinds of interests have their specialized apps, and many of them are well thought-out and useful.
You mention that streaming video to your TV is a feature you need. As far as I know, the Samsung cannot do that wirelessly, granted the iPad will require an Apple TV to do the trick, but there’s no similar solution outside of Apple to date.
I’m not telling the contrary. My point is that compared directly to the iPad it still has a long way to go to catch up.
Do you fear Apple facing competition or do you simply deride others opinions in order to validate your own purchase decisions? I don't know which country you hale from but what I have noticed is a great many posters based in the USA (reputedly the land of the free and home to capitalism) have hysterics at the very mention of Apple's dominance being challenged. Coming from the UK I find that a very strange position to take indeed. How can Apple's continued dominance benefit the consumer? If this was Microsoft most of you would be shouting foul, this must be stopped.
That’s beside the point. The point we’re making is that currently there is no alternative that is truly ‘challenging’ Apple as far as tablets and ecosystems are concerned. Competition can spur innovation and bring benefits to the consumer, provided it is a real competition; but that’s not what we have. What we have is a bunch of followers (even copycats!) that are trying to jump on the tablet bandwagon without bringing anything truly innovative on the table, outside of boosted hardware specs that practically make little difference in terms of user-experience.
What's happening now is that many vendors are backtracking and give up, for the time being, in their attempts to offer a competitive tablet experience.
Apple-bashing though it irritates me, is not what I accuse you of. Apple can and must be criticized when they get it wrong and they happen to do so now and again. What I'm criticizing you for is that you're presenting a mediocrely executed product to be on par with the iPad ("compelling case"). That is misleading. Maybe the Galaxy Tab can suit your specific needs (and maybe not as I mentioned above), that's fine. But in the general world it is no match. The Galaxy Tab might be worth looking at if/when Samsung has to go the HP-way and do a firesale at 200 or 100 bucks.
There is evidence that your fears are unjustified: it’s called the iPod. Just look how that product line has evolved in 10 years from the very first iPod and today’s iPod Touch and iPod Nano. During that whole time, Apple has outrageously dominated the PMP market and went unchallenged until now, when the market for this kind of device is starting to decline, replaced mostly by smartphones as consumers prefer having a single device.
On the other hand, there’s been too many cases when competition was actually prejudicial to consumers and to innovation; for example in terms of competing standards generating confusion and fragmentation (think video formats, or the Blu-Ray v. HD-DVD war). Competition can drive prices down, for sure, but most often, in a way that’s detrimental to quality and that promotes complexity.
There is a fundamental difference between the past dominance of IBM and the enduring one for Microsoft on one hand, and, on the other hand, Apple’s current ‘dominance’, which I’d rather call a leadership, as far as in smartphones, iOS is not ‘dominating’. That difference is that Apple works on consumer markets, while the two others made their fortune in business/enterprise markets, which have infinitely more inertia. In the consumer market, if you drop the ball, you die.
Apple will continue innovating and bring on game-changing features on the table for the decade to come. Just look at those amazing patents they’re applying for or winning:
- Future iOS devices to be solar powered?
- 3D Display and Imaging in conjunction with human interface
Not mentioning the high likelihood of a system-wide implementation of Nuance voice-recognition technology into the upcoming iOS 5... And those are just examples, just the tip of the Apple product-roadmap iceberg.
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Good post BTW....
Related although a different argument, it will be interesting to see what happens now Apotheker has been shown the door in relation to HP and what they do with their Tablet, indeed their whole computer division.
Apparently, the spin-off strategy of PC's and TouchPad is maintained. It's just that they don't trust Apotheker to execute it successfully, which makes sense.
On the other hand I have serious doubts that trusting Whitman for that matter makes sense.
The best thing that could happen to WebOS now seems to be an acquisition by HTC. THAT could bring about a real challenger to iPad, providing HTC is smart enough to take its time.
[/I]"IBM's dominance was broken by the emergence of Microsoft and separation of software and hardware from a single vendor. "[/I]
IBM made one of the biggest blunders in business history by allowing a then runt like Microsoft to retain DOS rather than just buying them outright. IBM was the 1200 LB gorilla and should have told Gates we'll buy DOS outright but not license it from you. It's what Gates would have done and did do, i.e. squash the startup!
The IBM exec and lawyers who accepted Gates terms were fools.
IBM made one of the biggest blunders in business history by allowing a then runt like Microsoft to retain DOS rather than just buying them outright. IBM was the 1200 LB gorilla and should have told Gates we'll buy DOS outright but not license it from you. It's what Gates would have done and did do, i.e. squash the startup!
The IBM exec and lawyers who accepted Gates terms were fools.
Thank you very much for that. My major mistake was thinking that I could set up an iPad ahead of time and then send it to my mother for her birthday without being next to her to explain how things work.
(No OS is intuitive. They all require explanation or exploration at first. Ever see what happens the first time a new iOS user accidentally holds down an icon too long and they all start wiggling? Talk about confusion!)
It was really an oversight on my part. Due to a shipping delay from China caused by Fedex, I only had a half day to set up the iPad for her. If I had tried out some of the links we sent in email, I'd have spotted the problem and come up with a solution ahead of time. Insead, she was frustrated.
Ditto for updating the OS. Sorry, no OTA updates for her iPad 1. A visiting brother had to plug in his laptop and get iTunes to do that.
She's not alone. My wife is also frustrated by hidden menus, settings, unlabeled icons and other wonderful modern app traps for the casual user.
So I've decided to swtich them from iPad to Android, and have started writing a custom Android tablet launcher I call "For My Mom", which will have large simple buttons giving access to family photos, Facebook entries, TV Guide, news+weather, email and so forth. No press-and-hold hidden actions. No icon placement customization. Just easy, easy, easy
Have kids? There's also the 3 - 17 year olds and their sites. Personally, I find it handy to not have to avoid sites still using Flash.
While useful, it's not critical to me. It's just that it's hard to explain why my Android tablet shows everything on a page and the grandkids can use it for their kid sites, while her super duper iPad sometimes does not
One word: DLNA.
No doubt they were. Much to the benefit of consumers and the the entire computer industry.
Wouldn't necessarily say they are 'equivalent' laptops. They may share the same components, however, the value of a Mac, unlike a PC, goes beyond the cost of the components. You, and many others, may not feel this way, however, the fact that Apple is able to sell its products as well as it does at comparatively higher prices, shows that millions of consumers find value in Apple's products beyond the cost of the components.
Ultimately for luxury items like consumer electronics, consumers dictate pricing. Laptops are not like gasoline, where we are so dependent on the product that we're at the mercy of producers to buy it at whatever price its available.
People pay premium prices for higher quality cars, clothes, housing, food, electronics etc etc, and while the cost of these items may be a bit extravagant, that does not mean that additional value is not created and that the prices are not justified.
2nd point:
Higher sales volume does not equal better quality or higher value creation.
ie, Toyota has a higher sales volume than Lexus
You make some reasonable points. I won't try to respond to the entirety of your posts since they require a more extended discussion than this thread supports. But I will make a couple of observations.
Not sure you meant to do so (and I'm admittedly pulling your comments out of context above), but I think you've pointed out the double-edged sword of "competition" and how complex that concept is. On the one hand, you note that "real competition" consists of more than copying a market leader. On the other, you note that introducing different standards may "drive prices down...in a way that is detrimental to quality..."
Note that I'm not necessarily disagreeing with either of your statements. Just noting that a "free market" and "competition" are not without costs and that when you buy into the efficiencies of a competitive marketplace you also buy into its costs.
Secondly, I'm not especially impressed with "patent" filings as a measure of innovation. In fact, the entire patent system in the US is badly broken. I'm not criticizing Apple on this point. They, like other manufacturers, file thousands of patents they have no intention of turning into products. Such patents are mainly chips used in negotiations and the fodder of litigation.
Thank you very much for that. My major mistake was thinking that I could set up an iPad ahead of time and then send it to my mother for her birthday without being next to her to explain how things work.
(No OS is intuitive. They all require explanation or exploration at first. Ever see what happens the first time a new iOS user accidentally holds down an icon too long and they all start wiggling? Talk about confusion!)
It was really an oversight on my part. Due to a shipping delay from China caused by Fedex, I only had a half day to set up the iPad for her. If I had tried out some of the links we sent in email, I'd have spotted the problem and come up with a solution ahead of time. Insead, she was frustrated.
Ditto for updating the OS. Sorry, no OTA updates for her iPad 1. A visiting brother had to plug in his laptop and get iTunes to do that.
She's not alone. My wife is also frustrated by hidden menus, settings, unlabeled icons and other wonderful modern app traps for the casual user.
So I've decided to swtich them from iPad to Android, and have started writing a custom Android tablet launcher I call "For My Mom", which will have large simple buttons giving access to family photos, Facebook entries, TV Guide, news+weather, email and so forth. No press-and-hold hidden actions. No icon placement customization. Just easy, easy, easy
And what happens when the family doesn't have a coder to write a custom launcher?
Have kids? There's also the 3 - 17 year olds and their sites. Personally, I find it handy to not have to avoid sites still using Flash.
While useful, it's not critical to me. It's just that it's hard to explain why my Android tablet shows everything on a page and the grandkids can use it for their kid sites, while her super duper iPad sometimes does not
Yep I have kids. My 3 years old knows that when the icons start wiggling, home button is her friend ;-)
I'm really curious to see how usable flash web-mini-games are playable on a touch based device...
Oh! I didn't know about it, thanks for the info. However... It means if I purchase a Galaxy Tab and want to stream video to my TV, I actually have to upgrade my TV to a DLNA equipped one i.e. cash out about 1,000 bucks v. 100 for the AppleTV. Uhm...
I didn't say it does. But while my commute would be considerably easier if the only choice of a car were a Lexus, it would also be a very inefficient allocation of resources and much lower "value creation" in the aggregate. There is obviously a place for Apple products in the marketplace and for a small minority of consumers their features merit a premium price. The same is true of a Lexus. As you pointed out, "consumers dictate pricing," and for the vast majority of consumers, Apple's premium prices are not worth it.
It's worth noting in this case, however, that Apple departed from their usual "premium pricing" model with the iPad. In fact, the iPad is apparently priced at a point that most competitors cannot successfully undercut, at least not currently.
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Is that the Royal "We" or just you? Please quantify instances of where you don't believe it? I had to return my first Mini which was faulty out of the box and the second one within 4 days. I have never had an electrical product fail on me before like this including home appliances never mind computers.
I'm not saying I haven't experienced software issues with Windows as I have but I had the intelligence to fix them myself.
I'm not really interested in doing this wirelessly. All I want to do is connect a Tablet using a line out to HDMI cable and then view the media via BBC iPlayer or Sky Player from the Tablet onto my large screen TV. Are most Tablets not capable of performing this function? If they are then that accounts for a large part of my use for a Tablet of any ilk.
Apple has the opportunity to position their iOS devices to be the market leader, and they are doing so. This is very different from their approach to the PC and Laptop market, where they have positioned their products to be niche products.
Tablet makers have an opportunity to carve out a niche market of their own, however, there isn't a single company other than Apple that is successfully doing so.
The problem with Android device manufacturers is that they're all pitching their hardware as the primary advantage of their devices. This would be OK, if every single Android device weren't running close to identical hardware (Tegra 2 chips).
The other problem with the approach of Android device manufactuers is that when it comes to mobile devices, hardware specs alone do not move units. Android devices makers are disobeying a very basic marketing principle and are constantly marketing features, instead of marketing the benefits.
Apple has been successful with iOS because they understand the concept of selling benefits, not features. They develop their products around the usefulness to the consumer, and center their marketing around the way their devices integrate into the lives of their users. What good is the hardware of a device, if the software does not offer more utility than its competition? Does anyone really care that a tablet has a faster processor, if the software is unintuitive, unstable and offers less application support (utility)?
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Ah! but is it maintained? What Whitman said is
The word critical part of the text being "explore whether". Explore is a world removed from actually saying "it will happen".
What I'm essentially saying about competition is that it should not be regarded with a dogmatic mindset. It's neither good nor bad per se. It can be beneficial, as well as it can be detrimental. It's a matter of context. John F. Nash won a Nobel prize demonstrating that competition globally yields less benefit for a community than collaboration; however, collaboration is not always possible.
I must clarify that I didn't make a direct causation link between conflicting standards and "driving prices down" (though that may be an occurrence). Also I didn't invoke anything about "free market", another concept that often (mis)leads to dogmatic attitudes.
What's most intriguing about Apple Inc. is that it's a company whose business strategies are essentially atypical: e.g. the Mac or the iPhone are products that challenge the competition while priced above their respective competing products.
About patents, I also find it simplistic to say "the system is broken". I don't think it is in a fundamental manner but it's ill-served by inadequate institutions. Specifically, the folks who are granting patents don't necessarily have the right technical competencies to do so in a satisfactory way. Anyhow, as far as Apple is concerned specifically, I don't know of any occurrence where they've been blatantly patent-trolling. For example when they attack Samsung, they assert patents that are effectively used in Apple's existing devices.
While they file tons of patents more or less preemptively, I actually believe that those that I've linked above are ones they're actively working on in order to implement them in real-world products.
My 2 cents -
Been an iPad owner (both 1 and 2) since day one. Recently I picked up an Asus Transformer so I could play with the Android OS. Pretty slick, loved the widgets options. Nothing ran as smoothly as the ipad did. I took the Transformer back and picked up a Galaxy Tab 10.1. Great looking hardware, beautiful screen. Same issues as the Transformer. I'd run games and they would either lock up or be laggy.
After a few weeks with it the Android tablet went back for a refund. There are some things I really liked about the OS, but overall the experience just wasn't as nice.
Been an iPad owner (both 1 and 2) since day one. Recently I picked up an Asus Transformer so I could play with the Android OS. Pretty slick, loved the widgets options. Nothing ran as smoothly as the ipad did. I took the Transformer back and picked up a Galaxy Tab 10.1. Great looking hardware, beautiful screen. Same issues as the Transformer. I'd run games and they would either lock up or be laggy.
After a few weeks with it the Android tablet went back for a refund. There are some things I really liked about the OS, but overall the experience just wasn't as nice.
Well there are a few issues with your post and the original example. First, the comparison should be between 2 similar prices so if its $1500 Mac resale for $1000 it should be a $1500 PC reselling for $750. This leads into a review of percentage change, the focus shouldn't be on the $500 difference but on what percent of the original value you can sell the item for.