How to beat Apple
kottke.org
kottke.org
We have that, it's called Postscript. Too bad that lots of cheap printers don't implement it...
Honestly, I don't print often enough for that step to be annoying, but how about if the printer exports a network share with a watch folder that prints PDF files that get put there. The workflow then is print-to-PDF, but save it to the bookmarked watch folder, and... printing happens!
> forget all that driver nonsense
But I think Win 7 does a fairly decent job of doing this (without Bonjour) too. I don't know about network printers too. I don't use Windows much on the network.
It's so much nonsense that if someone needs to print something, most people find it easier to copy the file to my computer and print it from there, rather than setup my (networked, auto-driver installing) printer on their computer.
What's nonstandard is the ways of telling the hundreds of ink nozzles of various colors to produce a particular picture. There's of course PostScript, but it is only implemented in expensive printers.
Printer integration to automatically wake up and print documents when I need them, not when I remember to print. (boarding passes, etc).
Printers that can take half-size paper, and potentially auto-scale down documents to work with that half-size paper. I hate printing because 70% of the time I need about 5 things on the page, but they're all spread out, and an entire sheet of paper is a waste. Email/web/bookmarks helps out, but we could get by with smaller paper most of the time, except all printers expect larger size paper.
Better auto-discovery of local printers around me, and cloud integration to print things wherever I'm at.
Easier ways to print remotely. If I'm onsite at a client, I can't print something I need until I get home, but I may forget then. Letting me print remotely so it's ready when I get home would help, and/or the scheduling for future printing, either at a set time or set context (IE - at home).
"3D printing" that would allow me to use those awesome red/blue glasses to get the full 3D effect from my documents.
Relatedly, I'm not sure why companies aren't giving schools free paper with ads on the back. This would help school budgets, and give advertisers a captive audience.
The office printer room actually has a huge poster: "How to fax in 12 easy steps". Ironically, the process is so "easy" that the poster lists more than 12 steps.
Create a printer protocol that basically multicasts for a certain address, and it automatically prints to the closest address. That printer would respond back with it's name and location plus map, and you wouldn't have to play the 'find the closest printer' game. You could combine this with the generic SMB/NFS/HTTP file drop idea, and simplify the printing process.
The catch would be you would no longer choose a printer, but that can be looked at 2 ways. You can simply offer the option to choose through legacy methods, or you can make the assumption that it's easier to physically find the closest printer than it is to find the physically closest printer through logical means.
The printer landscape out there is so dismal, I still haven't replaced my HP printer from the late 1990's. Even though it only prints black and magenta anymore, at least it still prints at all despite being more than a decade old. I won't be able to say that about any printer I buy today.
I would prefer someone make a printer that I could afford that didn't suck hugely.
Though, what you propose is more likely to have actual success...
- Although I think you need a price on the printer to weed out those who will default on the ink. Much like the square cost $10 at the Apple store; but is free online.
But then again other tablets are not a joke. There are some really good ones on the market and a lot of people are happy using them. And Microsoft did not gave up, they just did not believe in tablets. They believe in smartphones and released WM7.
MP3 players.. well ofcourse they sell a lot of them, but Creative and other brands still sells a lot of them too.
It's very simple: people who are having a nice bank account buy Apple, all the others buy something else.
Apple is a great brand, but it's stupid to say nobody cares about something other than Apple.
We must then assume that Android is playing some other game. Either that, or he is simply ignoring large facts that don't fit his narrative.
I would say a bit of both - Android is different ecosystem, but to ignore Android's market impact in smart-phones is negligent.
If smart-phones was actually the market that we were talking about, the fact that my iPhone sucks balls for making actual phone calls would matter.
It's quite amazing really, that Apple comes in as a late entrant and shaves all the massive profits off the top, leaving the rest of the market to fight over less profitable items.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/26/nielsen-consumer-desire-for...
I think Kottke was referring to specific one off products like the iphone itself. Google and the rest of the handset world collectively has surpassed iOS usage, but we know that the iOS pie slice consists of just 3 broad models -- iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch -- while Android slice consists of seemingly every other phone under the sun. How does the landscape look if you stop looking at it by collective mobile OS and start looking by handset model line?
I'm asking out of genuine curiosity, not to try and prove a point, so if this post sounds smarmy or anything its not deliberate. Culturally, collectively, "Android" seems like it is going toe to toe with iOS, but when you get down to single models, everyone talks about the iPhone and iPad, but not much about specific Android-sporting handsets. Android, in those conversation, always gets abstracted back down (incorrectly) to a nebulous brand/make, or (correctly) a platform.
I'm not going to argue about "my phone is better than your phone"; but Android is definitely in the market and rising: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Android-Has-37-...
I think it's wrong to focus on particular models with Android, that's not how Android is getting traction.
Yes they are. In terms of "beating apple at their own game", is that even relevant?
They'll all want to talk about how they're unique and better
so far the vendor-UIs on top of android have been unique, but better? Not usually. If one finally is, I'd welcome it, but there hasn't been a stand-out that I know of.
not about how they're holding hands.
As a coder I'm interested in targeting all of them, which I can, and they'll want to talk about "comes with a store full of bajillions of apps" so in that sense they will make the co-operative nature a feature.
What impact the failed Xoom has taken on their bottom line, I don't know however.
The fandroids in topics like this one are delusional and seemingly motivated by anti-Apple hatred. Reminds me of all the Linux advocates who 5 or so years ago insisted that Linux and OpenOffice were going to take over the desktop from Windows and Office.
Market share means nothing when the adopters are freetards, you may have some numbers, you will not have quality of revenue. And anyway, what is the return rate like on Android handsets?
"Android Jumps Past iOS in Overall U.S. Smartphone Usage"
And I cant speak for others, but I am not excited about a Facebook phone. A hardware device does not seem to be a natural progression for a company like Facebook. And allowing Facebook, an entity that has now taken dimensions beyond a simple social network in to a Central identity provider, to track every single aspect of my life (location, calls, contacts, browsing habits, etc..) is simply a non-starter.
But maybe an FB phone will appeal to the 18-24 crowd for whom privacy is not as important as the desire to be social.
I believe similar Twitter integration is in the works.
iTunes 'bloat' is a huge competitive advantage. Apple can make changes to their digital stores and instantly release to tens of millions of customers, including Windows users who aren't going to install a half-dozen discrete applications if Apple chose to split up iTunes.
Edit: and so this isn't just me ranting about iTunes (yet again, sorry), I think iTunes can actually harm Apple's image. It's tolerable if that's all you've used, but when compared to pretty much any other music player, it has glaring flaws (at least on Windows). To make a terrible continuation of the analogy, a Trojan Horse doesn't work if the Trojans hate your crappy horse and decide to never speak to you again.
Performance problems on Windows and tacking on one new non-music playing feature after another seems to have doomed the experience and reputation.
[1] Well, Audion was pretty dope too: http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/
People keep complaining about it on Windows, and on the Mac it is one of Apple's last Carbon apps that can't run in 64 bit. Just inspect it in Activity Monitor and see all the Carbon library goodness loaded into memory.
The only thing that makes sense with iTunes in its current state is that Apple are going to reduce the emphasis on iTunes and sync via the cloud, hopefully with a Dropbox-like LAN sync.
I commented a couple of weeks ago on a thread where I talked about brand equity, and iTunes is a perfect example of this -- it hasn't been solely about music in years, it has a half dozen bolted-on functionalities and it's in desperate need of a refresh. And yet the iTunes brand is so strong that none of that matters.
The only reason I still use it, really, is because the last time I tried using something besides iTunes to sync my music to my iPod, it nuked the whole library. As far as I know, it's the only fool-proof way of synching my iPhone with my iTunes library (which actually lives on my iPod, because its audio jack died.)
I'm not aware of another media program that does half these things half as well. But feel free to enlighten me.
Safari is the browser for "all weird stuff out there" and the iTunes app is the browser for "media shop and media I have bought".
I remember that people got pretty excited with Windows 95, I don't think that this excitement was a enterprise mandate at all.
The points in the article are as myopic as Apple's competitors. You aren't going to beat Apple by reacting to what Apple does poorly today. Instead, ask "Where is technology going in one, two, and five years?" Then get the people that can do something about it and do it.
Maybe you will see a future that includes things Apple doesn't do. But maybe you will see a future with things Apple already does and you had better get on board or face extinction.
"...the Apple products & services that Apple does well are the ones that Steve Jobs uses (or cares about) and the ones he doesn't use/care about are less good (or just plain bad)..."
Seems about right. Funny.
Speaking of, one thing I know for sure Steve Jobs doesn't do is getting directions to his meetings from iCal on his iPhone: the appointment's location can't be tapped to open Google Maps. This is driving me crazy. Not only because I want to use it, but because it's so simple and has been begging for it since the iPhone came out.
BTW, how is Dropbox more compelling than Mobile Me? Sure it's cheaper, but that doesn't mean it's better.
I'm just saying I wouldn't dive headfirst into competition with them in the cloud space just yet. The tethered syncing issue is a valid point, but don't Microsoft and Google already have solutions for that?
As for the rest of MobileMe, the sync is OK, except when it gets confused. The whole setup is definitely a weakness, it's just one to be exploited in pieces, as DropBox has.
If Dell (and HP and all the rest) built compelling looking (and performing of course) higher end notebooks then folk might not keep looking to Apple as the standard "best". All these companies (except Apple, since they enjoy such high profit margins on everything) fight over scraps at the low end. Even in their business lines (not talking servers here just notebooks).
I'd be looking more to Steam for doing a decent job of mixing social with gaming, where you have recommendations, inbuilt groups to join for people who play the same games, etc. That way you're connecting with people you know share an interest, not inflicting your latest 'social' game status updates on your friends who are most likely not interested.
Personally what I find deficient in iOS devices is real time communication (I know I know, they're called phone calls) and the single foreground task nature of the device. With web based games or Steam there's always a real time method of communicating with your friends no matter what you're doing, you can see who's online and so on. On the other hand, due to the casual nature of specifically gaming on phones and tablets, I don't think the desktop paradigm really works anyway.
From a non-gaming perspective, what I'd like to see most on iOS is a better way to manage files, rather than sending copies to any app which I would like to use them with. I don't really want to access a file I've stored in DropBox, then send it to GoodReader or Keynote or whatever. I don't want to load a picture from Photos into $editingApp then save a copy into Photos then load the new photo into something else. It seems a terribly wasteful way of handling things (and very much a 'tacked on' approach while people figured out what to do with a tablet).
New title suggestion: How to Beat Apple and Drop Your Work into Facebook's Lap.
I fail to see how this competitor might be more benevolent than the other.
If they try to drive competitors out of business by pricing below cost, this is illegal. Apple is already getting looked at by regulators, and I doubt they want to invite more investigation, which slows a company down and may prove really harmful to the culture (see: Microsoft).
If this just means Apple might be willing to cut their margins, then yes, I agree. So the key is to make something with a lower cost structure than Apple has. Not going to happen for iPads in the near-term, but this industry changes pretty quickly...
That's pretty horrible. Life isn't all about profit, you know?
That is definitely a true statement. Life isn't all about profit, but staying competitive is a huge contributor to maintaining any profit at all.
Apple is the hip and cool thing that your artistic cousin uses, whereas Microsoft is the lame and boring thing that the enterprise uses.
Between these two stereotypes, what would be the image you would market to in order to turn huge profits like Apple is doing? I have no idea, and I think it would be unwise to just imitate Apple, they have more experience being Apple than anybody.
We touched on this in another HN thread recently, but back home in the UK there is even a popular garage track called "Blackberry Hype":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omehnInidjA&feature=playe...
The full lyrics diss-out the iPhone because to them it's all about Blackberry - you wanna tell them they're wrong? ;)
I think as technologists we can pontificate that Apple (usually) imperically has the best hardware and software, but that's not how image and culture decide what is best.
Windows is cheap, which is good for an artist. Cultural cache can only go so far when one's judged on their work.
It'd be pretty funny if Apple's success rested merely on people's desire to be perceived as creative and aesthetically discerning rather than on people who are creative and aesthetically discerning finding it to be the better product.
I don't think that's accurate, but it does probably make up some measurable amount of their sales.
At least this is what was happening at my alma mater as I was graduating.
... but that was back when Vista was at its prime level of stinkiness. General feedback on Windows 7 (even if it is just a glorified Vista service-pack as some claim) is that it is a lot better.
I've had a couple of opportunities this year to use Windows 7 desktops set up by different organizations. And I noticed an improvement over Vista. I wouldn't say it was completely pain free, but it is comparatively closer to an OS X level of experience than Windows XP was back in the day (whereas Vista was a decrease in that regard).
The question is, would you pay 70% of the price (keeping in mind student discounts on Macs) to get 75 or 80% of the quality? To a lot of people that will seem like an acceptable trade-off, and so we might see a resurgence in Windows laptops on the campus.
iPod is the music player that everybody uses, and iPhones are what about half of adults I know use.
The parent displays the standard classic misunderstanding of Apple. The vast majority of people who buy Apple products don't buy Apple because they "want to be hip" or for reasons of image. Most of us left that kind of juvenile peer pressure behind in high school.
The problem is the pundits are simply unable to look beyond the surface details. It would kill them to admit that there are actual reasons to use Apple that go beyond the superficial "skin deep" shininess. But because the pundits bang that drum so often and so loudly (any that don't are dismissed out of hand as "cool-aid drinking fanboys"), other people (e.g. the parent poster) think it must be true. That (for instance) OS X is "just the same as Windows only prettier".
It almost becomes a grunge aesthetic. They reason that the non-Apple and Apple products are functionally the same (or turing equivalent, or use the same hardware (intel chips, A5) as their competitors), so that the only difference is prettiness and price tag, and on that basis they reject Apple. They're trying to show how manly they are by not being swayed by 'base emotions' and superficiality.
Personally, I think the burden of proof should be on the other side. Given that Microsoft has spent the last 15-20 years dishing out shit-soup and their marketing mostly consists of "stick with us because the next bowl won't be so bad", how in blue blazes are they still so popular?
The burden of proof shouldn't be on the Mac-heads to prove that they're not superficial and shallow, the burden of proof should be on anyone that supports the Windows eco-system to prove that they're not clinically insane! ;-)
I agree with Kottke, Apple has a huge ability to compete on price if needed, and I think they are more than ever. Discounted previous models used to be limited to clearance/refurb. But now you'll find the iPhone 3GS and the MacBook prominently displayed as a part of the lineup. The iPhone is available via the online store "from $49", not "from $199".
Talk about 'not in their DNA', Apple will never compete on price. They never have and they never will. A brief look back at the history of the PC clearly shows this. They could have owned the PC market, they were first and best. But just too expensive.
Look at the iPhone it started out at $800, unsubsidized, and when that didn't take off they quickly got it subsidized and down to $200, and then have kept the 3GS around to sell at $99 and $49 price points... Clearly they are competing on price.
Yet it competes on price, unsubsidized.
Apple will never sell a device for which they can't keep a healthy margin. They've optimized their supply chain and component procurement in such a way that they can make absurd margins on an iPad 2 and competitors still have a hard time beating them on price. They have to compromise with smaller screens and pretend that's part of the design strategy.
When a company has profit margins of 24.27%, as Apple does for the last quarter, they are not competing on price. Companies that compete on price typically have profit margins down around 5% (see Dell, Walmart).
Apple will not cut into those margins to make market share. They never have. That's not to say they won't do whatever they can to gain market share. But deep price cuts is not one of those things.
BTW the iPhone is subsidized by the carrier, not by Apple.
Also, this is the first time I've heard that the iPhone "didn't take off" until the price came down. I kind of remember people lining up overnight to buy it when it came out -- no price drop necessary.
The iPad is seriously competing on price. This both elated and worried AAPL investors, who are worried about gross margin as well as sales.
So, Apple can and will compete on price in one market (iPad) while being nosebleed premium in other markets (Mac Pro).
Regarding iPhone, there are no BOGO (buy-one, get-one offers) while every other manufacturer offers those, and the Average Selling Price (ASP) is a nosebleed $600+ and hasn't come down over 3+ years... this is money that Apple makes per unit.
Apple is both luxury AND competes on price - they're incredibly flexible for such a large company.
You are making my case for me. :)
Then where are all the $200-$400 tablets that should be killing Apple like in your reference previously: A brief look back at the history of the PC clearly shows this.
So why isn't this happening now then? Also yes, AT&T or whoever the carrier is subsidizes the price, I thought this was obvious and didn't need clarifying.
My reference to the history of the PC was to point out that even when Apple had only 4% or 5% of the PC market, and was all but irrelevant, they still did not choose to compete on price.
I never said anything about "$200-$400 tablets that should be killing Apple", but since you bring it up, I would be surprised if they don't come eventually. And when they do, you won't see Apple matching those prices, let alone beating them.
"Also yes, AT&T or whoever the carrier is subsidizes the price, I thought this was obvious and didn't need clarifying."
If you know this, then why do you bring it up as an example of how Apple has dropped their prices?
To make things more concrete, where Dell might look at a Macbook Pro, and then figure that they can compete by using a plastic casing instead of unibody aluminium, thereby making their product $50 cheaper to make, so they can sell it for $50 less, Apple is more likely to try to compete by adding a thunderbolt interface, or introducing better screens that guarantee colour fidelity, or making a better OS, or whatever. That don't lower the price - have a look at the MacBook line, the prices have barely changed over 5 years, but the value of the models offered has increased massively.