Watching Apple win
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Don't get me wrong, I like many of the products that Apple make (I'm currently typing this up with a MBP), however the personal connection that people have with Apple is not something I share.
For many people there exists a strange bond with Apple where they take any negative comment about one of their products or services as a personal affront against themselves.
It's a corporation folks, a wildly successful one, but that's it. It's not your buddy, your soulmate, nor your friend.
It's the Nike playbook (Steve Jobs once said that he learned a lot from Nike's example). Don't market your tech specs; market your lifestyle. Apple's competitors are still running commercials about the dimensions, specifications, and miscellaneous stats of their devices. Such commercials basically announce "Hey consumers, here's a commodity. For the time being, it's slightly differentiated from other, more or less interchangeable commodities by way of some wonky stats you don't understand. Please buy it."
Apple commercials, by contrast, show use cases and lifestyles. They use metaphorical and superlative language. That stuff works. It establishes an emotional bond with the consumer. Apple commercials aren't even really about Apple; they're about making consumers feel cool, special, hip, and creative because they use Apple products. It's the ultimate in feel-good messaging.
Seriously: watch a Motorola Droid RAZR commercial, then watch an iPhone commercial. The difference is extraordinary.
Apple understands products. Apple invests heavily into really good design, usability and compatibility. Their stuff WORKS, out of the box, without any fiddling. their products stay useful for a long time, longer than any crap of their competitors.
This is what makes Apple successful.
And it is clear why many "nerds" just don't get it - cause it means in reverse that they are wrong and the tools hey're building are second rate.
such a nerdy thing to reduce apple to "good marketing". just like SJ was just a great "showman".
It is people like you (sorry) that make Apple's competition looks like the clowns they are. You think a great ad would suddenly make Motorola sell more than Apple?
Consumers are NOT idiots. They understand quality and value. They reward that with loyalty and word of mouth advertising.
MS has understood this now and is trying hard with WP7. Let's see how that goes. They are lucky XBox 360 competed against Sony, not Apple.
This is not mutually exclusive with what I am saying. The two go hand in hand. Of course Apple focuses on product. But as far as its consumer messaging strategy goes, it talks about that product in a very specific, lifestyle-oriented way. Obviously it wouldn't be able to talk that way about its products if it products weren't great.
"such a nerdy thing to reduce apple to "good marketing". just like SJ was just a great "showman".
This is not at all what I said, and if that's the impression I gave you, then I'm sorry for not having been clear enough. But you're taking what I said in a tangent that was never intended. I am not "reducing" Apple's success to marketing, but rather, am explaining why consumers seem to have a love for Apple that they don't for its competitors (in response to the grandparent comment about not understanding why consumers have an emotional bond with Apple).
Marketing and product reinforce one another for Apple; it's not one to the exclusion of the other.
"think a great ad would suddenly make Motorola sell more than Apple?"
Again, you're pretty wildly misinterpreting my post and making inferences that just aren't there. I'm not sure what else to tell you. Either I wasn't being clear enough, or you misread me, or some combination of the two. But I'm not saying any of what you're accusing me of saying. At all.
i live in austria.
no official apple store. no apple billboards, tv ads, etc. apple marketing is non-existent.
and still they sell. like hotcakes. die-hard apple haters succumb and by an iMac. because the products are great. great value for their money.
and i don't get your backpedalling. your comment starts with "it's called marketing" and then you're piling on.
no consumer "bonds" with a company because of marketing. that's pure drivel. consumers bond with value. if they feel they are treated nice, that they get value for their money.
that's the "secret". classic marketing hates it, MBAs too. products matter? wtf.
Zappos understands this. Porsche, BMW, etc too.
I'm not "backpeddling." I'm clarifying in response to your misreading of my post. You and I are actually in total agreement as regards the quality, and emphasis on quality, of Apple's products. It just so happens that I didn't bring up product quality in my original post, because it wasn't the point I was responding to in the grandparent comment.
"no consumer "bonds" with a company because of marketing. that's pure drivel. consumers bond with value. if they feel they are treated nice, that they get value for their money."
Here I disagree. I think you're creating a false dichotomy between value and messaging. If "value" is all that matters to a consumer, then a lot of companies would be more successful than they are today.
Apple, for instance, has been making great products for more than 30 years. But it hasn't been wildly successful for all of those 30 years. If you're telling me that Apple's marketing turnaround circa the late 90s had nothing to do with its success, you're way off the mark. Product has always played a huge role in Apple's success, but so has its marketing. Steve Jobs himself has said as much in countless interviews, in his biography, and elsewhere. Apple's product design and Apple's marketing have been crucial to Apple's success, but to subtract marketing from that equation is silly. (Full disclosure: I am a former Apple employee who worked in both product and in marketing).
Finally, I don't understand the need for your hostility here. I'm a "nerd," I'm "nerdy," it's "people like me" who make the world a terrible place, etc., etc., etc. Can we lay off the personal attacks and converse like civil adults? If you took the time to read what I'm saying more carefully, you'd see that you and I are in a lot more agreement than disagreement.
Let's have fun with these discussions. I suspect we're all fairly nerdy, to be honest. I know I am. I probably wouldn't be coming to a site called "Hacker News" if I weren't!
And then they applied that same principles and came up with a shiny smartphone and single-handedly created the smartphone hype we see now. And then they did it again with the iPad, even created a new market that has not existed before. And again, those devices ended up selling like crazy.
By no means were those ground-breaking innovations but they were the first ones in those three markets to offer something that ultimately "everybody" wants. They have shown how to elegantly bypass that specs-war and engineer and market on a completely different dimension thus catching every single competitor off-guard. (see also Nintendo and Wii) And they knew and understood very well what the majority of customers really like or care about: how it looks, feels and how you interact with it.
These are FAR from being the only means of apple marketing YOU are being exposed to. I think even in the States while the iPod was catching on, apple was never very heavy on billboards or tv spots. They never had to rely on those channels alone to reach people.
(And hello, fellow Austrian!)
> Porsche, BMW
And who do you think actually dictates that value of a BMW or Porsche vs. a VW or Merc? Image, marketing and market segmentation. Way more than actual product value or actual quality... And getting that perceived value into people's minds is marketing's job and billboards and tv ads are just one, old fashioned way, of doing that.
BMW, Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini don't need no tv ads - why do you think that is?
Apple understands that extremely well.
EDIT: To be clear, I don't really know you, I'm only basing this on these two posts of yours.
You have argued the other guy off the page! (although more from passion rather than the argument itself) I'm sure you will keep arguing with anyone else who comments on this.
It goes well beyond the simple 'they make great products and I appreciate that' mantra. No one worshiped Henry Ford or his company (imo Apple's closest historical analog). No one is sticking with Yahoo through their tough times (like they did with Apple in the 90's).
Apple has turned you into a religious zealot.
The sad thing is, for the past two decades, Apple customers have been just sitting there doing their thing, happy with their products.
Yet whenever Apple is mentioned, the religious zealots come out of the wood work to bash Apple and to bash these people.
This thread is a good example, in fact HN is overrun with threads whose sole purpose is to bash Apple, because HN is overrun with religious zealots who hate Apple.
When Apple was the small fry, this was really curious. I mean, what was it about Apple that caused religious zealots -- who are not Apple customers-- to seek out Apple customers and bash them? Why feel so threatened that a company near bankruptcy dares to make something different?
Finally I came to understand why. The reason is that deep down, you know Apple products are better. IF you didn't' think that, why would you be threatened by people who think different?
Now that Apple is successful-- because its products are better-- the bashing has changed from "Apple's nothing they have %2 market share!" (When they actually had %25 market share in PCs) to "Apple's evil! They want to control everything, they're worse than Microsoft!" (which is kinda hilarious coming from google loving zealots-- google has betrayed people's trust, google is genuinely evil, while Apple has never cheated or lied to anyone that I'm aware of.)
And of course, because you're completely out of your mind irrational with hatred, you can't accept the fact that it is you who has a problem-- you who is seeking out peaceful apple customers minding their own business.
No, you must project your pathology onto them, and start calling them "cultists" and "religious zealots" and all manner of pejoratives like that.
Because, lying about Apple products, bashing Apple the company, spiting on Steve Jobs' grave-- these are not enough. No, you must attack the people who dared to choose to be customers of Apple as well.
All those people you think are religious zealots-- if you look at what they say, and try real hard to be honest about it-- you'll recognize that all they're doing is correcting myths, misinformation and outright lies. That's it.
You don't see us posting threads to HN for the sole purpose of bashing google or linux zealots.
But maybe it's not the absolute quality of the product that sells, but rather the difference in quality between the top two options. I'll take my macbook over a pc laptop any day but I'm plenty fine with my Android phone.
Seriously: watch a Motorola Droid RAZR commercial, then watch an iPhone commercial. The difference is extraordinary.
I don't know which particular commercials you meant, but here are the ones I watched:
Droid RAZR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj9yisLa4ao (the first video for "droid razr advertisement" on youtube)
iPhone: The first video on http://www.apple.com/iphone/videos/
The Droid RAZR advertisement has very little footage of the phone itself, and doesn't demonstrate any of its features. Most of the ad is an action movie sequence.
The iPhone advertisement shows people using the Siri feature in realistic scenarios. The focus is on the phone itself and what you can (purportedly) do with it.
I've never understood this meme that Apple wins because of feel-good marketing. Apple's ads typically just show people using their product. This strategy wouldn't work if the product didn't have something intrinsically desirable about it.
I didn't say anything about product quality in my original post. That wasn't my focus. My focus was on explaining -- in response to the grandparent comment -- why it is that Apple is able to establish an emotional connection to consumers.
Marketing and product design are not mutually exclusive. And I did not intend to imply that they were, or that one takes precedence for Apple over the other. Since at least two people have incorrectly taken this from my post, I must have phrased something incorrectly. I'm really not sure how to have been clearer, but I'll accept responsibility for the misinterpretation. That said, it is neither what I meant to say nor imply.
I just don't get it...
As corporations grow larger, they typically disassociate by nature. Megacorps like AT&T, Comcast, etc intentionally diassociate with their customers in order to reduce costs. The depersonalization of customer service is probably the best example.
I think what drives consumers' connection to Apple is that they have intentionally avoided the customer disassociation model of business. Apple incorporates their customer idea in to their products and their advertising. Apple's products are opinionated.
Think about that last statement for a moment. Opinion matters. Our opinions are a large part of our identity, and humans are inherently tribal. We associate with those who share our opinion. This is observable in everything from politics to commenting on HN. Writing that expresses strong opinion typically solicits the greatest number of comments. As a corollary, no one likes soft writing. We use terms like "wish washy" and "waffling".
It is no coincidence that Apple's users are their greatest advocates. Apple has created a company and products that allows me to identify with them. I won't be shamed for doing so.
Have you ever seen a 4-year old try an iPad? Such experience was just not thinkable 10 years ago.
A company had to try to build it and make it happen. A lot more companies didn't bother and just produced more gray boxes (think Dell). Therefore I am entitled to feel a stronger sense of satisfaction with Apple than with Dell.
(*) to their credit, Dell did play a significant part in bringing computing to the masses
Have you seen a 4-year old try a Windows machine?
Honestly, I'm unsure whether people are just grossly underestimating children, or they never bothered giving them the outlet before. My four year old is a master of Windows 7. He has no problem with Vista before, going back to when he was two. He loads the browser, knows his favorite sites, uses YouTube, plays games on CBC Kids, etc. As did my two older children. My one year old hops up on the PC and moves the mouse, clicking on things of interest on the screen.
I just don't get the notion that kids and the iPad are some magical combination. Kids are brilliant, at a very young age, and the only reason the kids and the iPad/phone/pod stories get play is that it plays into the mythology surrounding Apple.
Who do you think of when someone speaks about Apple? Who defined what it is, really. If he embodies the ideals you appreciate, it really is personal.
Apple shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist than Microsoft ever was. Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform. They are also quite adept at "capturing the consumer surplus" using tiered pricing, etc., to maximize their profit.
The overreaching terms in developer agreements, very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits, and restrictive shrink-wrap licensing are all efforts to protect and extend their control.
TL;DR: Apple is not your friend.
I'm not going to disagree with you, but every time I hear people complain about Apple and patent lawsuits, I recommend the following: Watch the iPhone introduction video on YouTube. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, skip to 3.40 in Part 1, and see the state of affairs, then watch at 4.00 in Part 2 [2]. Listen to the crowd reaction when Steve "Slides to unlock" for the first time in the world.
It doesn't matter who you are, or what your background is, nobody had ever seen anything like that before.
In my opinion, Apple clearly invented something "brand new" and they are defending the patents that have on that in court. What's wrong with that?
I don't think anyone can deny successful smartphones today have almost nothing in common with the phones at 3.40 in Part 1 [1], though they look and behave a hell of a lot like the one shown at 4.00 in Part 2 [2].
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VTB7Lj_NA
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VLb5XdxRm8
EDIT: I need to clarify: I'm not just talking about "slide to unlock" being brand new and patentable.. I'm talking about the whole phone..
I tried to like Apple, after receiving an Apple Tv 2, but it doesn't work seamlessly with anything else I own. As one co-worker put it "You need an Apple House for that."
I'm glad all the Apple fans have lovely walls in their garden, but I'm not hanging out there. I don't like them trying to patent me into hanging out there for trivial items like "slide to unlock", either. I don't even like slide to unlock! I much prefer just punching the physical button unlock my phone, but I guess that just means I'm old and you damn kids better get off my lawn.
edit: qdog, I can't reply to this thread or your response, so I'm going to edit my comment with a link to an article with referencing the specific patent Apple applied for (and was granted) [1].
If you look at the diagrams, it is completely different than what is shown, as there is immediate visual response where there is none in this device... that is a key part of the patent (and requires a capacitive touchscreen).
Apple products work well for a lot of people, I'm just not one of them, and I don't think having to 'slide to unlock' make my Android phone an iPhone clone. Nor is it the type of thing that should be patentable, imho. It'd be like he first company to have a link to a web browser on the main phone screen patenting that concept, it's a pretty obvious idea once you have a phone.
Near as I can tell, you guys think that anything that vaguely resembles the representation of what the patent covers (which usually isn't correct in the first place-- Amazon didn't patent a "one click" at all) -- counts as prior art. Someone once told me that the movie 2001 is prior art! (If you know anything about patents, you know that a movie can never be prior art, except maybe about a movie technique. A movie is a fictional representation of an idea, not an invention that has been reduced to practice.)
A dutch court, however, has said this invalidates Apple's patent.
In my opinion, just adding a 'graphic' to the slide to unlock is bullshit. There's any number of ways to slightly alter slide to unlock, add a ding, whatever, do you think they all deserve government monopoly status? I don't.
The patent from 2001 is a design patent, and I'm not a lawyer, so I won't say whether it will be invalidated. I don't really see anything clearly patentable in the idea of a touchscreen device with rounded corners. I used to have one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Concerto back in 1993.
I'm not a lawyer, I don't try patent cases, I don't intend to. These may be perfectly valid patents in the current system, but I don't agree with the system. I make no claims as to validity or invalidity WITHIN THE CURRENT SYSTEM.
That article shows the same device, and quotes a dutch ruling that it invalidates Apple's patent. Whether it gets invalidated is kind of a moot point to me, I don't think it should have been patentable.
- nobody in the world had seen anything like the entire package that was the iPhone 1.0. It was a fabulous and revolutionary package, and Apple was rewarded with a massive crowd reaction and huge profits.
However, I bet there were people in that crowd that had seen some of those features before: slide to unlock, multi-touch et cetera. However, they were probably cheering just as loud as the rest. It's often more exciting to see something done well that previously sucked than it is to see something brand new.
Just because Apple rendered this functionality in a touchscreen doesn't mean they "invented" the concept of slide to unlock. The patent is completely bogus as is all software patents.
Microsoft IS dominant. 90% desktop market share.
Apple doesn't have anything near a monopoly. The iPad is the closest thing because they have 70% of the nascent tablet market. Android is here and strong and Microsoft will be joining with a respectable product later this year.
I could go on but this is really a pointless endless debate.
Apple recovered by making products they could sell at high margins again (with comparatively little overhead in engineering, I might add).
They still suck at stuff outside the area of consumer botique computing. It's a huge market, but it's not the whole market by any stretch.
How is Apple "controlling the tools used to develop for the platform". I am using AppCode for iOS application development and it works just fine.
If suddenly every Linux laptop anywhere in the world turned into a MacBook, everyone would smile quietly and start configuring it.
Lies. If my Linux laptop turned into a Macbook Pro, I'd reformat it and turn it back into a Linux laptop. I used to think that Apple maintained a dichotomy between their iOS arena and their OSX arena. iOS was locked down and OSX was more open. But the introduction of the app. store for OSX, and the pressure placed upon software developers to sell through that app. store shows me that Apple does not draw a distinction between iOS and OSX. It appears that the openness of OSX is a historical artifact, and that if they could get away with locking down OSX as much as they lock down iOS, they would.
And then you would end up with a rocking Linux macbook. There are bussinesspeople that run windows on their macbooks, just because it's such great hardware.
To be fair, I haven't heard of any pressure at all. It's just a very nice platform to ALSO distribute through, as it handles updates far better than many other platforms.
You certainly can distribute outside of that.
I have call BS on this.
As someone who uses all three - and made the switch from Windows to Mac - the whole meme of "it just works" or "is simply superior" is a load of crap.
Mac are fine products. The physical design is nice. The trackpad is definitely top-notch. The keyboard? meh. The display? meh.
The OS? least impressive of all. It's fine once you get used to it but I have had as many problems getting the Mac OSX to work with stuff as I ever did with Windows or Linux. Sure - it's a different set of problems, but Mac OSX most definitely doesn't "just work".
All OSes are good at some things, great at some things and are complete and utter junk in other ways.
You just pick you poison learn to live with it.
which is the difference between microsoft and apple.
How would a macbook not imply OSX? Have you tried to buy a macbook without also buying OSX at the same time? Not seeing distinction you are making between MS and Apple..
Even for the tech-savvy among us I think referring to installing a new OS as "configuring" is a bit of a stretch :-)
But I won't argue that the macbook hardware is solid.
I guess that's the crux of where we disagree.
I think both Apple products and Microsoft products have their strengths and their weaknesses. Both are solid in many ways and both are hell in other ways.
MS products work really well for a lot of people. Nothing wrong with that.
Mac's really resonate with some people. That's fine too. I'm not one of them.
I agree with you that Windows means huge productivities for millions of businesses, and also that Macs really resonate with huge numbers of people, also millions. I also agree with the reason we're coming to an explanation, which is that Apple seems to get a pass on monopolistic behavior that we (tech people) railed on in the nineties. My attempt is to try to explain part of that.
If they become a monopoly in Phones or Computers , they will properly be restrained legally from certain aggressive actions.
Difference being, they don't have a monopoly in any area with the possible exception of music players. They have a minority market share in every other product they ship, so the consumer has a ton of choices. If Apple had Google's Search dominance in smartphones, then it would be an issue. As it is, if you don't like Apple, don't buy their products.
I don't really care if people love a certain software/hardware product (even though its annoying when they bash other products to show that love). I just hate that this same community will bash sports fans for the same kind of devotion. For the most part both are harmless even though the devotion may be a little nutty.
Don't get me wrong I love sports and have teams that I follow but I have to try to divorce myself from the team's performance (especially when they lose). I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have any skin in the game so I cannot influence the outcome.
With Apple love I suppose it's a little different since you can go all-in to their ecosystem and provide them with revenue.
I wish I could accomplish so little. :-)
Facebook connects people. Television can inform. Movies can inform.
Yes, video games are almost as useless, but at least the consumer is actively involved... I love sports when people play them. When they watch overpaid idiots play them and obsess about it? Not so much.
As you said yourself it provides entertainment. Different forms of entertainment can inspire you while you work. Or entertainment can help you relax by taking your mind off of work. This is what sports do for some people. Others instead might watch a movie or listen to music. Inspiration, motivation and relaxation are very useful in the workflow process.
I am not a sports guy or fan by any means but that is a very harsh judgment. Look at all the industries directly and indirectly connected to those sports teams, players and events and add to that all the news stations and news papers etc. and they all provide jobs and eventually pro-sports might even contribute to new medical treatments and therapies. And in the worst case, huge sports events like the superbowl or olympics usually bring tourism and infrastructure projects to wherever they are being held.
On top of that, "watching the game", especially in the stadium, actually does serve social and therapeutic means and needs - do not underestimate how much of an outlet it can be for some people.
By and large, any sort of entertainment is big, big, big business and in our IT world, what is facebook but entertainment? And most technology companies nowadays are mostly providing means to get access to some sort of entertainment.
On the same account, you could question art, music and fiction literature.
So, do not look down on "entertainment" because as they say, "all work and no play...."
There are lots of examples of $company:$product pairings, e.g. Apple/iDevice, Google/Android, Microsoft/Windows.
Also, before you cast the "provide entertainment" stone, you should look around you at how people are using tech company products. I would venture to guess that, outside of the workplace (and inside the workplace when workers can get away with it), entertainment is the #1 use of computer-based devices. Apps in the App Store, game consoles, computer games, YouTube, emailing LoLcats, browser-based games (Farmville - 100% wasted time) etc.
I mean, I do understand getting excited about superior products. And I understand the validation of being proven right in the end.
But I think there are two things wrong with that storyline:
1. "The definition of an Apple fanboy is anyone who switched before you." When Apple was the underdog, the argument was, "oh, most people just don't get good quality and good design." Now it seems to have changed to "people get good quality and good design. Why don't you get that?"
2. Apple products now are different from Apple products even ten years ago. I went the DOS/Windows route because I was a gamer, and never really had a good reason to switch. The product design was better, but the kit really was significantly more expensive until recently. Apple of today constructs higher quality, better-designed products at lower price points than competitors so it's a different value proposition than it was in 2002.
Back to my point, though. Why the intense personal identification with a brand?
The difference between the best and worst teams in a professional league is usually minute. Thus, the outcomes of the super bowl or the world series are often more biased by chance than the intrinsic differences in ability between the opposing teams.
I would argue that, while there are still many random factors in the business "game", the vast differences in performance between the winners is losers is proof that some people truly know what they are doing (Apple is one example). Thus, admiration of Apple is probably more deserved than admiration of the New England Patriots.
Yes, when you compare the entire market to the NFL's Fortune 32, of course football is going to appear more based on luck that skill. You're forgetting all about the skill it took for people to get drafted into those franchises. If we were to look just at the Fortune 50, buisness starts to have all the same properties you ascribe to professional sports leagues.
I certainly will not force my children to grow up liking a particular team/company just because I or my family likes them. I would hope that I would teach my children to appreciate a well played game (or well run company) and make the appropriate choice for mature reasons. I would also hope I would teach them that you do not need to have devotion in the face of mediocrity.
One has a choice in who one roots for and one should use proper reasoning when coming to that choice. Rooting for a particular team/company should not be a mindless activity.
Be a fan of excellence.
Being a fan of a team from your region gives you another connection to your community. It is something you all have in common. I would not call that silly. A little overly emotional maybe but not silly. It is just like the programming communities that we all fall into. I think we have all read stories on HN about someone leaving a or joining a language based on the community. Community can be important to some people.
And being a fan of a player, thus becoming a fan of the team, probably falls into your line of thinking as far as "picking a team for a mature reason". You like how the player plays the game so you want to cheer for him. If that's how you pick a team then that is fine as well. Some sports fans hate this way of picking a team but I think it is legitimate.
I can understand picking a player and liking the team because of that player, but do most people then stop liking the team when that player is drafted to another team? Seems the norm is to like a team, and then if a particular player is on that team it's a bonus, otherwise they still like a player but ultimately root for the original team.
As an app developer this rings true to me. Apple certainly has raised the bar, and public expectation, of end-user software. I think back to the late 90s (or even early 00s) and the shite software we'd all put up with, compared to great Android and iOS apps now...
It's gratifying for reality to finally match your values as a developer. I get a sick glee when I see WebView-wrapped apps on the App Store get absolutely eviscerated in its reviews and stumble out with a 1.5 star rating. I love that people not only appreciate beautiful design, now, but they practically demand it.
It's glorious.
I suspect any narrative that looks at Microsoft as the reason the '90s didn't look like Steve Job's aught's has rose-colored glasses on about the "quality" of (pick any:) Linux desktop software, Nullsoft, Netscape Navigator, NCSA HTTPD, Eudora, Forte FreeAgent.
I think the reality has more to do with technology progressing to a point where it's cost effective to build products with high production values --- handheld computers with a BOM in the low hundreds of dollars can do hardware-accelerated OpenGL compositing for a vector-based GUI.
That doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to carry the industry forward; they did: they noticed the coming new reality first, and did the best job of capitalizing on it by designing new kinds of products that executed a few core features better than anything could have in the '90s, and so didn't need to crud themselves up with 1,000 extra features to make up for deficits in their core.
They may have spent large sums on well designed software, but as far as I can tell this did not have the intended effect.
I owned a DOS machine in the late 80s. The interface was tragically poor, compared to just about anything else available. Stability was poor as well. 10 years later, I bought a Windows 98 machine, thinking 'oh surely Microsoft has worked this out!'. Alas, it featured a rather limited, poorly thought out interface and had all the stability of an inflatable boat on the high seas. This is to what I refer.
Seldom I have seen such a quasi-religious, non-critical hailing of an international cooperation.
Working-conditions in china? Who cares? Steve jobs takes over and kills the till then legitimately produced Mac-Clones, because they were technically superior (killing companies is not so good for US-jobs)? Who cares? Ripping of ideas from developers of Apps? Who cares? Well maybe fellow-developers should care.
It seems, that as long, as apple is able to whitewash itself in front of its fanboys the will sing in tune as one big choir and hail their spiritual leader Steve, come what may.
Apple sucks. So does every other electronics manufacturer in the world, but Apple sucks more because they're sitting on huge mountains of cash that could reduce the suffering of their workers if they could manage to give a shit about human concerns.
Given the alternative was being driven out of business by the Mac clone manufacturers, and the fact that Apple employs A LOT of people in the United States (far more than a few niche hardware companies ever did), it seems like they made the correct choice for US jobs.
Yeah, it's cool that they are so successful, but the bottom line is that my playground is gone. Why should I consider that cool? It is their success, not my success. Or maybe they build a theme park in place of the playground and admit me to play there for a regular fee, if I stick to their rules.
Also, somehow I still don't believe that Apple will continue to be successful without Steve Jobs. Already I heard rumors that the iPad 3 will be thicker again, presumably because they need more LEDs to light the high resolution display. iBook Author doesn't seem to have made many friends, either.
Why shouldn't they? Publishers aren't printing books. Apple does the distribution (electronically) and the payments. This leaves publishers to add what value? Marketing? Editing?
or suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element.
Stupid to you but it's the little details that make a good design a great one. Apple had their UX employees designing the buttons, getting the scroll velocity right, giving the right amount of bounce to a page change. Those engineers got compensated for their work, now Apple wants to be compensated for its work.
For real? We're discussing the company that just announced the largest non-energy profit in history, right? That has $100 billion in the bank? That is almost certain to continue growing that profit for at least a few years to come?
My heart breaks for them. They just want to be compensated.
But yes, as a society and culture there is a natural disdain for excessive success ($100 billion in cash reserves? That is deeply unsettling), and as a natural course both the government and the courts are going to be less favourable to Apple.
It feels awkward now because Apple is no longer the underdog but you can see how that personality made them succeed against all predictions. You may not like that personality (if a corporation can have a personality) but is easy to see how some people may feel identified with it.
Apple has never demanded %30 of all of anyone's revenue.
Apple has never crushed anybody small with their iTunes stores-- on the contrary, they've created a massive boom in small software publishing, and soon small book publishing.
>suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element.
All those phone manufacturers stole patented inventions. They cheated, and they deserve to pay. If you don't like the patent system, work to get it reformed... but I promise you you haven't thought out the consequences of that, and you wouldn't like the results.
>The bigger their profit the more they come across as grossly petty and greedy.
People like you have been hating on Apple for the past 3 decades. Always hating with lies and misrepresentations.
Its not any different now that Apple is successful, only one thing is true-- Apple's success has proven your predictions wrong, year after year.
Remember when you said the iPad was "just a bigger iPhone"?
Remember when you said the iPhone would flop without a physical keyboard?
Remember when you said the iPod was lame?
Whose laughing now?
Serioulsy, I'm tired of these ignorant apple bashing posts. HN is going to hell because its overrun with people who practice an ideology of socialism-- pro-google because its "Free" and anti-Apple because they actually innovate and have the audacity to charge for their products.
HN is going to hell because its overrun with
people who practice an ideology of socialism
Mission accomplished.
Rescue us, lady with the sledgehammer...
Someone even made a parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVzboF2E2Q
But its also the case that people were a lot more ignorant of computers then than they are now. People actually believed that Macs were not as good as windows machines because that's what the teenager at the local computer store told them.
I mean, sure the old school giants like Exxon, Walmart, Microsoft, et al. give incredible sums of money to charities. Hell, even Goldman Sachs gave over $300 million in 2010. But just imagine how much money the Apple corporation must be contributing...
Apple has done far more to make the world a better place than any corporation I've ever heard of. Far more than any government in history ever has. Far more than any charity every has or ever could.
Capitalism benefits people. Every dollar in profit Apple puts in the bank is represented by thousands of dollars of improvement they've done to people's lives.
Capitalism is the cure to poverty-- when socialism is tried the countries quickly become hellholes. When capitalism is allowed-- as it was in the US in the past-- the country went from 3rd world to 1st world in a couple generations. India doubled the standard of living of over a billion people in 20 years simply by reducing red tape, allowing a little more capitalism. China has done even better on that score.
Apple could burn all its money in a big old bonfire, and it still would have had a more positive impact on the world than Bill Gates charities ever will. (In fact, I suspect Bill Gates charity work is actually making people's lives worse due to misallocation and undermining economies in those regions, combined with bad economics, but I haven't studied it closely enough to be sure.)
Apple has done a fantastic job in the past of destroying their cash cows if they feel that have an even more awesome cash cow in the pipeline. This is a mark of a well run business.
(On a side note, Apple didn't say anything on the latest development around SOPA/PIPA, simply because Apple is strongly pro DRM and they would probably support these kind of laws willingly).
Apple and DRM is interesting. They're pretty expressly against it across rich media content. Their video services are crippled with such awful restrictions due to studio pressure. iOS appears DRM heavy to discourage the unrestricted sideloading of apps, which comes with its own set of pitfalls and dangers for the end user (which, as a commenter points out above, fits within their user-focused view of systems).
Not that their methods are correct; moreso I think that they've created an interesting ecosystem where DRM is non-invasive to the point of being invisible. Really, it's always reminded me strongly of Steam.
http://www.apple.com/fr/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
I would argue that iTunes' strong success (with DRM forced by the music labels) helped Amazon negotiate the deal to sell DRM-free music, which in turn allowed Apple to drop them too (all music on iTunes is DRM-free since 2009).
Movies and TV shows still have DRMs, sure, but nobody, as far as I know, is distributing DRM-free video content, not Apple, not Amazon, not Netflix and not Google. That means that either all of these companies are “strongly pro DRM” or the content owners are.
JFTR: I like many Apple products, but come on.
I've been through the IBM/Sun/Oracle era, the Microsoft era and am now living in the Apple era. It's like a perpetual screwing ground extracting cash however they can. The products look good but aren't and are primarily fad based. It's the same tactics but different medium.
The only constant good, trouble free, ground levelling force has been Linux so far which solves problems and gets out of the way.
In fact, Apple's guiding principle is almost a secret to hear the way many people talk about them, but it shouldn't be.
Apple's guiding principle is to do right by the customer. That's it.
For instance: "Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform."
If you want to see Apple as evil, its very easy to interpret them doing right by the customer as somehow having nefarious intent.
They want to control what apps can be installed simply to keep out malware and porn, so that they can do right by their customers who don't want malware and the parents who don't want porn apps. (They leave Safari open and give it effectively native app capabilities, for people who want to deliver porn. They even do right by that customer, though its a shame that so few people make use of this completely open and unregulated way to install apps on iOS devices. In fact, many people don't seem to know that you can have apps written in javascript, download them from the web, save them on the device and run them offline.)
Apple doesn't want to restrict expansion and peripherals. Far from it. For iOS devices they've created an API and a completely reasonable licensing agreement so that you can make your peripherals for iOS to do just about anything you want-- except harm the device. Again, they do right by the customer by having a very vibrant and active peripheral and accessory market-- which they do, and its quite massive-- and they do right by the customer by ensuring these devices work together. Its the same as WiFi or any other branded protocol with a licensing scheme that requires interoperability.
As for "controlling the tools used to develop for their platform", that one simply isn't true. Unity Technologies makes a development tool to build 3D games for the platform. Coronoa makes a flash like platform to develop apps for iOS. In both cases, these third party products simply use Xcode for the code signing or compilation steps. I don't see Apple stopping anyone from making tools to develop for their platform, and I certainly can't fault Apple for providing free tools to develop for their platform.
Of course, when you're large and successful, you'll naturally attract people who don't like you for whatever reason.
But, by definition, doing right by your customer means putting the customer first. That doesn't mean compromising that principle in order to comply with the beliefs of non-customers. This is why Apple doesn't ship Windows as their core operating system, for instance. Apple chose to ship an operating system that is better for their customers, to the continued derision of non-customers who claim that Windows is the industry standard (not, notably, that it is actually better.)
It is gratifying to see a company win in the marketplace by sticking to a principle like this.
That's simply untrue. Many apps have been blocked from the iPhone apps store that were neither "porn" nor malware. If it were just about blocking "porn" and malware then they would continue with their (excellent BTW) curated apps store, but could still allow side-loaded apps for those who wish to use them. Instead they block sideloaded apps to ensure complete control of the iOS ecosystem and render impossible any kind of credible competing app store (like the Amazon App store) on iOS.
First off, there is no ban on competing browsers. There are a wide variety of browsers available in the AppStore, and I use one of them-- iCab-- a fair bit.
Secondly, there is no "monopoly" to protect. You're using that word because it has an emotional impact, when in reality, its like saying you have a monopoly on your home. The iOS is Apple's product, for it to be a "monopoly" there'd have to be no android and no Windows phone.
FWIW, The post you're responding to has been heavily down voted, as are any posts which talk about Apple that do not bash them. I've had posts that stated simple facts- not even taking a personal position- and linking to an authoritative source to back up that fact, down voted to oblivion. On HN, if you're not an Apple basher, you get down voted constantly.
That's how most businesses work and I doubt you'd find anyone who disagrees that this is how Apple works.
If you're worried about downvotes (You're not in the gray so I don't think you have that many), perhaps I can offer the suggestion that they are because your definition of 'fact' has been, uh, rather generously deformed?
The reason why competing browsers aren't prevalent is that they don't want any executable code downloadable that isn't in their sandboxes.
Browsers have executable systems (Javascript, being the biggest issue), so they aren't allowed.
They actually DON'T let you have the optimized javascript engine they use in their browser in your app either, probably for the same reason (security loopholes).
===> 3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s). <===
So the argument that they ban any interpreted code is hypocritical. They ban competing browsers through banning JavaScript VMs.
http://www.quora.com/JavaScript/Why-has-Apple-limited-the-Ni...
Here is the why: http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/nitro_ios_43
>It’s a trade-off. Most OSes allow marking memory pages as executable for performance reasons. iOS disallows it for security reasons. If you allow for pages of memory to be escalated from writable to executable (even if you require the page be made permanently read-only first), then you are enabling the execution of unsigned native code. It breaks the chain of trust. Allowing remote code to execute locally turns every locally exploitable security flaw into a remotely exploitable one.
This is just an example of Apple releasing new code in the browser first before extending it into other apps being turned into an excuse for people to ignorantly or dishonestly bash Apple.
The reason it was put in Mobile Safari first is obvious-- Apple controls the source code there. Thus they can deal with any instability caused by the engine in the wild there.
If they immediately put it in all the UIWebViews in the system then many third party developers apps would become unstable due to these bugs.
I find it quite astounding that people are trying to make hay out of Apple using a phased roll out for a key piece of technology.
It just shows how any opportunity that can be used to mischaracterize Apple is seized upon, and even when the situation that led to the original issue is long resolved, people continue to report it as fact.
There have been a few mistakes, but I'm not aware of any apps that wouldn't fit into those categories. I consider apps that trick users, or which use undocumented APIs to be malware.
Apps that are offensive, such as gay bashing apps, etc, have been blocked, this is true, though I put that under the "porn" label even though it isn't porn. What's the broader word for "apps that many people might find inappropriate or offensive"?
> could still allow side-loaded apps for those who wish to use them.
As I pointed out, Apple has gone out of their way to create a method for "side loading" apps. They provided a way to create apps in javascript, which have access to much of the native hardware, you can install it thru the web, with a custom app icon and run them offline.
> Instead they block sideloaded apps to ensure complete control of the iOS ecosystem
On the contrary, as I mentioned there is a method to install apps completely out of Apple's control. (in fact, you can do this also with native apps as well using the adhoc distribution method.)
>and render impossible any kind of credible competing app store (like the Amazon App store) on iOS.
Yep. And this has proven also to be in consumers best interest. Look at all the dozens of "App Stores" that have sprung up since the real AppStore was created? Every single one of them sucks, and sucks really hard. Its like they aren't even trying.
Massive amounts of malware are being distributed via, at least the android marketplace, if not Amazon as well.
Why should Apple support third parties making the phone suck?
> Massive amounts of malware are being distributed via, at least the android marketplace, if not Amazon as well.
Amazon's app store is curated exactly like Apple's, so if there is malware in the Amazon's store then the model must be broken.
Besides, as I mentioned, I don't have a problem with Apple curating their app store. I think it's great. A nice mall like shopping experience. I do have a problem with them not allowing side-loading for those more advanced users who would like to side-load apps. IMHO, it seems to me like 90% of the reasons people Jailbrake their IOS devices are things that would be available without Jailbraking if side loading were allowed.
> On the contrary, as I mentioned there is a method to install apps completely out of Apple's control. (in fact, you can do this also with native apps as well using the adhoc distribution method.)
That's rather a bullshit cop-out to claim than web-apps or an "Adhoc" method that's limited to 100 users are either viable alternatives to side-loading.