the perfect storm. Steve is aligning a bunch of big players and bringing all his weapons to bear for a broadside against M$. I still say his ultimate goal is to crush M$ under his boot heel with the simple elegant Apple lifestyle.
I know this thread should only be about Apple and technology and products, but Starbucks has been responsible for buying up and closing dozens of independent coffee companies in town. The diversity of the market gets more pathetic and it reminds me of Microsoft in the early 1990's. As strategic as this would be for Apple and I'm all for that, I certainly will never go into a Starbucks for any of it. I'm not being anti-smart business, just my way of making an economic statement against Starbucks' influences on the local, social marketplace.
Personally, I'd rather buy a couple of TV shows or four songs on iTunes than spend $3.99 on a horrible cup of coffee. But I realize that is a matter of taste.
But, put another way, I could do neither, save $120 a month, or $1440 a year, which when annually invested at 10% per for the the next 18 years works out to about $72.5K (say you have a newborn today -- that's a nice chunk of change for his/her college).
Starbucks is the modern substitute (from a financial standpoint) for that daily pack of cigarettes (remember those?)!
A cup of coffee (Venti: 20oz) is less than $2.
The froth drinks are definitely different and cost $3 or more.
I know this thread should only be about Apple and technology and products, but Starbucks has been responsible for buying up and closing dozens of independent coffee companies in town. The diversity of the market gets more pathetic and it reminds me of Microsoft in the early 1990's. As strategic as this would be for Apple and I'm all for that, I certainly will never go into a Starbucks for any of it. I'm not being anti-smart business, just my way of making an economic statement against Starbucks' influences on the local, social marketplace.
Well, it's not like other recent strategic partners (Nike, Disney, ATT) are exactly poster children for responsible corporate behavior.
I kinda think that at this point Apple would make a deal with bones of Enron if it moved hardware.
Ever since Steve mentioned that you can now transfer files from an iPod to an authorized computer, the kiosk idea has seemed obvious to me. And that's what we're talking about I bet. Imagine a circular table with iPod docs and touch screens. You could be putting music (or movies!) on your pod pretty quickly if the 'hits' were cached on the kiosk.
Comments
Yes. Including the people who already mentioned it on this thread.
Personally, I'd rather buy a couple of TV shows or four songs on iTunes than spend $3.99 on a horrible cup of coffee. But I realize that is a matter of taste.
But, put another way, I could do neither, save $120 a month, or $1440 a year, which when annually invested at 10% per for the the next 18 years works out to about $72.5K (say you have a newborn today -- that's a nice chunk of change for his/her college).
Starbucks is the modern substitute (from a financial standpoint) for that daily pack of cigarettes (remember those?)!
A cup of coffee (Venti: 20oz) is less than $2.
The froth drinks are definitely different and cost $3 or more.
I know this thread should only be about Apple and technology and products, but Starbucks has been responsible for buying up and closing dozens of independent coffee companies in town. The diversity of the market gets more pathetic and it reminds me of Microsoft in the early 1990's. As strategic as this would be for Apple and I'm all for that, I certainly will never go into a Starbucks for any of it. I'm not being anti-smart business, just my way of making an economic statement against Starbucks' influences on the local, social marketplace.
Well, it's not like other recent strategic partners (Nike, Disney, ATT) are exactly poster children for responsible corporate behavior.
I kinda think that at this point Apple would make a deal with bones of Enron if it moved hardware.