But but but but but I thought people liked when their computing experience was wild wild west-esque and no one called the shots for the sake of the greater good (the user). Is that not the case?
In the previous century it was more normal. People would take classes in how to use the operating system and not mind that they had to duct tape a fan to the outside of the CPU case.
Now it's more important that the device makes your life easy or fun.
The iPad competitors are way behind the iPad and they know this which is why the trump features that are really superfluous to what consumers need.
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If you're a company that thinks you're going to be Apple with a reference design hardware running run of the mill ARM chips and the same Android OS that your competitors offer then talking about USB or HDMI ports and how many megagigapixel your camera offers is about all you can do.
I agree. Sputtering about specs is the last century's way of selling tech products.
"Will it do what I want to have it do without driving me crazy." is the question on buyers minds today. Apple's ads are the only ones making that pitch today.
Not quite. This was the key sentence from the article "Apple designs the software (iOS), the hardware (A4 and A5 chips), controls the sales channel (Apple Retail and Online Stores), and decides the fate of how buyers use the iPad via the App Store."
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So it's (iOS devices) definitely not like the Mac. It's a lot more integrated and controlled, and maybe that's adding to why nobody can compete with it.
I agree. However, Apple is moving the Mac in that direction. During the introduction of Lion, iOS5, and iCloud, Apple demoted the Mac/PC to the level of the iDevices. I think Apple will have everything under the iCloud highly controlled in a couple years or more.
This will make the Mac portion of their line more desirable, and I'd expect this to boost market share significantly. Don't forget, Windows is running on a lot of dedicated industrial control equipment doing one task. Apple is not targeting that segment, but rather targeting the segment that involves a lot of user interaction.
False. If 'Design Efficiencies' made it tough for others to compete we'd have Windows sitting on around a 5% market share, not OS X. Sad, but true.
The iPad is winning because it's got solid software, a huge app base, and more importantly - is an excellent product in an emerging market.
Don't get me wrong, Design efficiencies don't hurt, but it's not everything.
Yes, I don't think any one on this board would disagree with you: "Design efficiencies don't hurt, but it's not everything." Apple has put all the important pieces of the puzzle together which synergesticaly strengthens each other, and THAT'S why Design Efficiencies for Apple is so powerful.
Yep. It's very difficult for non-vertically integrated manufacturers of tablets to advertise the advantages of buying their specific tablet, because all the tablets are running Android, so from their point of view, the only thing they have to differentiate their product is specs, something that the average Joe is not going to care about, nor understand. Apple can advertise the entire experience to differentiate itself.
That's correct, but if any one of the manufacturers of Android-based devices were to create some killer apps that only ship with their devices, they could begin to offer an user experience closer to the Apple iDevices.
None of them will likely do that because their marketing is still lodged in the previous century. Apple is moving iOS, iDevice hardware, in-house apps (like iWork and iLife), iCloud, and iTunes Store forward all together. It's this synery of everything working as one that will kill competition in the near future.
IBM is an old company. They built mechanical "computers" in the early 1900's.
I'd hardly call them mechanical computers, they were time clocks.
No, you missed one very important way to have your product stand out: "Price". This is the one thing all consumers do understand.
In the iDevice markets that Apple has created or controlled, "price" plays second fiddle to "perceived ease of use." Apple has never been the least expensive iPod, or the music from the iTunes store has never been the least expensive. Yet Apple by shrewd marketing has taken first place in both after entering the market after it existed.
In the cases of the iPhone and iPad, Apple get their ducks in a row before creating the market and has done better then anyone expected. In these two areas they lead the market in many ways and also set the bar for pricing.
You're absolutely right, it's completely intentional. The main reason for such tight control is that Apple understands the idiosyncrasies of the average consumer.
The average consumer doesn't care about code, tech specs or anything else that goes on under the hood of the device. They just want it to work--all the time.
If an app is written poorly, or in a format that doesn't play well with the OS or the hardware, the consumer doesn't blame the app developer, they blame the device.
If an app causes major battery drain, they don't delete it and move on with life, they assume that Apple is just lying about battery life and may choose a different device the next time.
If the ecosystem is so clogged with varying code languages and unpredictably performing apps that it becomes overly complex to use, consumers don't blame themselves for not understanding how it all works. They blame the device and assume it is broken.
The endless accusation that Apple only does things the way it does to ensure that consumers have to buy from them is getting tired. To date, Apple has paid out just over $2 Billion to iOS developers. That means Apple has made just under $1 Billion in App Store revenue. (they keep 30%) When you factor in the cost of labor to keep it all running, the cost of hardware, maintenance, real estate to house it all etc...That $1 Billion is pretty much wiped out. It would certainly be easier for them to just let an open source App Store open up and walk away from it.
But that doesn't happen, because if it did, the end user experience would be crap and iOS devices wouldn't have the reputation for quality that they currently enjoy.
Your comments were so spot on that I highlighted them. I hadn't thought about it as clearly as you stated it, but it is the essence behind the allure of Apple iDevices.
