Apple is not a luxury brand | Hacker News Reader

Apple is not a luxury brand

blog.yafla.com

65 pointsshawndumas46 comments

> Apple is no more exclusive than the GAP or Target or eating at Red Lobster.

Definitely true, but he also undermines his own argument here: Yes, Red Lobster is not Chez Panisse and Apple is not Rolex, but to large parts of society Red Lobster is considered expensive and not worth it. It's not "exclusive", but it's still at the top of the "normal" bracket. There's a lot of middle class people who'd rather shop at Kohl's than Gap and buy the cheaper and equivalent-seeming Android device over the fancy expensive iDevice.

Disclosure: I wrote this on a Mac.

Yea, I agree. Just because a Corvette Z06 is a bargain compared to a Ferrari 430, doesn't mean most people won't still think it's too expensive.

There is a concept of a sub-luxury brand, a product that is not exclusive to the rich, but still markets itself as a quality, high-end, status-worthy product, and that is what I think the author is getting at.

An example of this could be Lincolns and Toyota Avalons, from the car world, except Lincolns aren't designed to be simple and sexy and Toyota really didn't know what they were doing with the Avalon. Say what you will about the engineering and cost, but that is what Joe Schmoe thinks of Apple.

Hmm...The Mac is to computing as Red Lobster is to seafood?

The RDF is cracking.

In Russia and in some parts of EU, Apple really is a luxury brand. For the cost of iPhone4 I can get a notebook, a netbook and a mobile phone. Or a smartphone and notebook.

I'd never have bought a macbook ($2500, or ~110% of my current monthly salary; I believe, I am in 80-85 percentile of Russian salary spectrum) if it weren't for unix (which I need for work)+textmate (which I need for work)+ultimate design (which I can't live without).

Ulimate design?

Well, I believe that apple are the only guys that get industrial design right, but I'm probably just a fanboy.

Their software design is also arguably the best there is.

Ah. Thought there was a new app, "Ultimate Design," that I needed to investigate :-)

Not to get into semantics, but this meme has been going around for a while: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/luxury-vs-pr...

(link is from From DF a while ago: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/05/18/luxury-premium )

It's not a luxury brand because the iPod exists?

What if the iPod itself is a luxury item? "Normal" people are maybe lucky if they can afford a phone, and then they wouldn't buy an extra device that does the same thing the phone does. So the iPod is just 200 bucks thrown to the wind - if that isn't luxury, what is?

Anyway, I had to flag this article, because in the history of mankind, I am sure there have been much, much bigger lies than some connotations about Apple. (Hubris of Apple fans my ass).

The iPod used to be a luxury item. It wasn't until places like Wal-Mart started the disconnect of labeling departments "iPods and MP3 Players" that it turned into just another gadget you'll probably find in a stolen laptop case.

As far as I am concerned the iPod has become completely superfluous. I am surprised that people still buy them - what for?

Also I am not sure I follow the logic: because Walmart has a MP3 player section, suddenly iPods are must-have items?

I am surprised that people still buy them - what for?

I really like the matchbook, clip type shuffles for working out. They are super light, pretty much indestructible and have a built in clip.

Try the Sansa clip. Literally half the price, or quadruple the capacity for the same price. And you even get the most premium of luxuries: a display.

Thing is, I don't want a display. My current shuffle (2 gens old) is completely beat to hell (visible scratches and gashes) but still works great at the gym, running, hiking, in the sauna, actually playing basketball with it on, etc... I'm pretty sure any display would have been cracked or destroyed by this point. The Sansa clip is also bigger than the shuffle.

I know I'm a very specific case, but for me the shuffle is exactly what I need.

Well I have one in my car to hold and play all of the music I have ever owned without having to flip through thousands of CDs.

If they ever get rid of the large classic iPod it will force me to go to another mp3 device.

As far as I am concerned the iPod has become completely superfluous. I am surprised that people still buy them - what for?

My mother (honestly). She doesn't use computers (too difficult, no interest) or smartphones (yet another subscription). But with the iPod Touch she can listen to music, call her kids from the other side of the globe with Facetime and the front facing camera, and send e-mails. The last two generations of the iPod Touch brought her from 'never used a computer', well into the 21st century, where she can manage to do stuff online that matter to her.

I bet that there are a lot of casual users, who just want an affordable device to play games, write e-mails, and listen to music, without spending $$$s extra on an iPhone, which also requires a relatively expensive subscription to provide value over the iPod Touch.

I actually bought an iPod touch for exactly that reason. I'm really not a phone user (I spend $5/month on cell service), so buying an iPhone and spending the money on a data plan does not appeal to me. For my purposes the iPod touch is everything an iPhone does that I'd want, for $2000 less.

The only time I regret it is when I'm traveling, and I'd find it useful to be able to access the internet. But this is rather uncommon.

Honestly, I would be happy to spend extra money on an iPhone without the phone bits. The camera in the iPhone is much better, and the gps would be useful even without an always-on connection.

Pundits like Scoble (whose fame still confuses me)...

I didn't know it feels this great to find out that I'm not alone.

What's with the Scoble bashing? He's famous for being famous, just like most celebrities. I thought programmers got recursion.

Oh no. I'm no one to bash him. Perhaps it's just my ignorance.

I don't have spare money for a smartphone right now. But I desperately need a new laptop. Will I spend £1,000 on a macbook? No, I think I will settle for a £300 laptop.

I know one should not be penny wise and pound foolish. But when all you've got is a penny...

Paying lots of money to Apple for a lot of value. I thought that is a luxury brand.

when you have money, you have the luxury to make savings (clubs, economies of scale, discounts and other "special treatment" etc.)

AAPL is a luxury brand, and this does not exclude, that it delivers value.

I'm not exactly sure on this analysis. Mr. Forbes is making several presumptions I'm not comfortable in confirming either way. Mostly, this is from not hearing this myths about the iPhone. Ever. I think the strength behind Android market will be its variety and competitiveness versus Apple's production model (though some might say this is also Apple's strength). When someone says Apple products are a luxury device I usually hear that as a detriment to their PCs.

A $150 million investment in a company that had around $5 billion cash is not a bail out.

And wasn't paid to settle the QuickTime lawsuit anyway?

Apple definitely controls the mind share of users and developers everywhere. Not because it's a luxury brand, per se, but because of the hard work by developers, engineers, scientists, and yes, even designers and artists.

It’s not one thing (like “luxury”) it’s everything working together.

This manifests itself by how everyone — even other device manufactures — compare all other smart phones to the iPhone.

The biggest attention-grabbing-headline to content-supporting-that-headline ratio to reach #1 today.

It would be a fun experiment to replace the headlines on HN with topic tags, author and source.

The biggest lie ever told may involve an apple ... but it's not the one in Cupertino.

Gravity is a lie?

Perhaps he's refuting the claim that one bad apple will spoil the bunch :P

I'm gonna guess that it was a Garden of Eden reference.

Ahh that makes a lot more sense. Shows the cultural gap between us.

ding ding ding!

Yes apple used to be a luxury brand. That is until they developed the worlds first consumer iOS and started selling consumer hardware (entire iFamily).

The real question is whether Apple will continue to develop osX for the workstation market. Personally I think that apple has been slacking on any interesting development for those of us who work professionally with computers.

Where is the improvement & innovations in workflow automation, file browsing etc.?

Automator, Time Machine, Spotlight.

All are major developments, all are so well-defined that they’re banal. A good design is one for the ages, and I assume “improvement” is churn.

Apple’s work with WebKit, LLVM and OpenCL is the interesting development for those working professionally with computers.

Banal to developers not to everyone else. Spotlight hopefully isn't the last word in document/app handling

  > file browsing

Expect to see less of that from Apple. You don't usually think about files when on iPhone/iPod touch/iPad and I expect the trend to stay: the more consumer friendly system is, the less filesystem is exposed.

He talks about "myths that somehow bear truth only through repeated assertion" and then he goes ahead and repeats such a myth: "At one point in Steve Jobs' reign they were effectively bailed out by Microsoft."

It wasn't a bailout (especially since the amount MS paid was negligible compared to the couple of billion dollars Apple had in the bank at the time) so much as it was a settlement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

I worked in the citadel of machinery to promote luxury brands - in GQ, my wife - in Vogue. And we have a very simple view on this matter - if you share the view that there are luxury brands, and there are the usual brands, then propaganda reached up to you. And this discussion is very sad, because here assembled smart people, well aware that the main thing - it's functional, not design, and luxury designed for people who do not understand it.

In India, the iPhone 4 is supposed to start selling at around Rs. 40,000+ (almost US$ 900) , that's much higher than an average middle-class person's monthly salary. So, I guess this post only applies to North America / Western Europe.

I couldn't agree more with this post: I've long said the competitive advantages of iOS are the iTunes ecosystem and gaming.

Gaming is already huge and is only getting bigger. My 9 year old nephew has an iPod Touch as do all his friends. Ot a PSP, not a DS but an iPod. That should scare Sony, Nintendo and the Android handset manufacturers witless.

It's an area where hardware consistency is critical. Apparently games development on Android with different resolutions, CPUs and (perhaps most importantly) the graphics chipset is a nightmare.

What's more people seem less inclined to pay for Android apps than on iOS.

So Apple has the iPod Touch and the iPad, neither of which really has an answer yet (no the Galaxy tab doesn't quite compare wit the iPad).

I know this is a topic John Gruber has mentioned many times, but I think the persistent lack of an Android competitor to the iPod touch is still little-mentioned and revealing.

However, I just saw that Samsung is looking to fill this role, which will be very interesting in its effect on the Android Market. It's basically a Galaxy S, de-phoned.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2043171

I agree this is a pretty dire but little-noticed situation for Android. Everyone in middle school who is attached to the iPod touch is going to want or have an iPhone in five years.

"Android is poised capture much of that growth." - UUh, the biggest lie ever told. :)

Race to the bottom! ;-)

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