Apple to cut products from retail stores and expand personalized setup

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 75
    Bad idea. If they don't see the product, they will not immediately remember or crave the products. How do you think supermarkets came up with the idea of their shop floor arrangements? Buy one get One free or MultiBuy. All about impulse buying.



    I suggest at least they need to put some big or prominent pictures on the wall or shelfs saying 'We sell these (whatever the picture shows e.g. printers, scanner etc.) too. Just ask'.



    We all know how expensive these things are in Apple Store. I mean they carry premium prices. If they can see they can buy and Apple can get more money.
  • Reply 62 of 75
    is they sell World of Warcraft: Cataclysm in the store. Without the first two expansion packs (The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King) or the original game. You can't use Cata as a stand-alone game. Either carry all of it, carry just the orignal game, or just skip it. Don't sell a single part of a whole that makes Apple, and Blizzard, look bad. Put Starcraft II in there instead.
  • Reply 63 of 75
    timgriff84timgriff84 Posts: 912member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleStud View Post


    uh, who's buying a $1000+ computer with no internet at home?



    People who downloaded pirate music and then had there internet cut off.



    Or people from rural areas that maybe have internet bit at a very slow speed.



    Like someone else said though, arnt Macs mean to be easy!
  • Reply 64 of 75
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by skittlebrau79 View Post


    Let me correct that for you:

    Wouldn't have to do that if everyone has a tablet that can read all versions of Microsoft Office documents, PC and Mac, flawlessly.



    In my experience, my coworkers can easily create a PowerPoint presentation that can't load at all in Keynote, or Keynote just puts every animation on top of the last keyframe, making a half dozen copies of the same object/slide. It's a very messy import that rarely works flawlessly in the presentations we have.



    And then there's Pages/Word, or Numbers/Excel which isn't even a close comparison.



    I solve this by sharing presentations and other documents that are for reference and that don't need to be worked on as a pdf. Usually the pdf is a smaller file and doesn't hog so much bandwidth when you email it. If the audience is not an internal one, then sharing a pdf means it's also harder for the audience to 'borrow' and recycle your work without asking.



    It's amazing how many people don't follow the practice of 'create and publish'. Create the document in your favourite app and then publish it in a format that pretty much anyone on any platform can read - pdf. Of course this is a lot tougher to do when you are collaborating in the creation step.
  • Reply 65 of 75
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post


    But aren't Mac supposed to be easy to set up? Here's the real reason...





    Steve did a lot of bragging during the recent iPad event about how Apple has "over 200 million accounts with credit cards."



    "scuse me bud, I wanna get an application from the Android Market, mind pointing out where I take this crisp, new dollar bill?"
  • Reply 66 of 75
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Why don't you have Internet at home? Is it too expensive?



    Do you own a Mac?



    Not judging, just curious. I don't know of a single Mac user who doesn't have broadband. Maybe I'm living in a bubble though.





    Most people have the internet, not all have Broadband internet. There's a huge difference if you have to buy and download every item digitally. In addition, many users are capped as they just surf/get their mail - 20GB a moth or so for a cheaper tariff. They won't want to have to up it so they can download a 10GB file. They would rather buy the disc and keep their tariff. But that might ruin profit margins.



    Skating where the puck is? I don't think so. Not giving a shit about the consumer they purport to hold dear? Certainly. It's all good if you're in a city with great connectivity and middle income.
  • Reply 67 of 75
    shaun, ukshaun, uk Posts: 1,050member
    If they want to save space I have a few ideas:



    1. Stop all the kids coming in just to look at their Facebook accounts so the shops are not always packed and genuine customers get a chance to look at the machines.



    2. Steve keeps going on about how Apple is the number 1 mobile devices company - how about instead of selling 'home' printers they started selling some 'mobile' printers and scanners, which take up less space and generate more revenue/margin. You could probably even put them on shelves with the other peripherals instead of on tables.



    3. If they want to get rid of most (but not all please speaking as a pro apps user) software why not have a 'download bar' with free wifi where you can plug your mac into super fast broadband connection and download apps while you are there. Make it a freebie for MobileMe or One To One subscribers or something to cover the costs.



    4. Provide a way for users to activate their iPhones at home. In my local AppleStore there is a whole section cordoned off for iPhone activations.
  • Reply 68 of 75
    pxtpxt Posts: 683member
    An iPad is probably about the size of a game box. Perhaps they could have a row of selected games, with an iPad fixed at the end, where you can see the rest available in store.



    They could do that per software category.

    And include some nice demos.



    Sometimes it's just nice to browse in person and pick stuff up in the moment.
  • Reply 69 of 75
    pxtpxt Posts: 683member
    I like to have the disks for software I buy.



    I'm not sure if I can get back all the software I have downloaded without paying again.

    Plus I may want the same versions as before, rather than a later one that may not work the way I like or with some hardware I own.



    So, unless license management and software versioning has been sorted out, I like disks.



    I suppose I should just make sure I save a backup of the original download somewhere.
  • Reply 70 of 75
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    Not everyone is connected to the internet though



    Not everyone can make it to an Apple Store, either. Not sure what the point was, but there you go. Not everyone owns a car, not everyone owns a house. Not everyone uses public transit, I mean we can go on for hours at this if you want. My guess is that ENOUGH people who own Macs have internet access of some sort to make this a sensible move for Apple. That's the only statistic that matters.



    OTOH, since you later mention printing out presentations for meetings. My Fortune 50 company has seriously discouraged the practice as being irresponsible with resources - and with over 75,000 staff potentially doing that it costs the company a lot of money and creates a lot of waste. Perhaps its time for you to exit the twentieth century and join us in the 21st? Perhaps you've even heard of the green movement, no wait let me take it back to the seventies where ecology was strongly emphasized. Use resources wisely, generate less waste. Noble concepts to embrace.



    Do you seriously believe that you and the "handful" of your acquaintances represent the large majority of Apple product users? Or should Apple spend millions of dollars to placate less than 0.01% of their consumer market? Is that fiscally responsible?
  • Reply 71 of 75
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by old-wiz View Post


    does the personalized setup cost? $50?



    It's free.
  • Reply 72 of 75
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scaramanga89 View Post


    Most people have the internet, not all have Broadband internet. There's a huge difference if you have to buy and download every item digitally. In addition, many users are capped as they just surf/get their mail - 20GB a moth or so for a cheaper tariff. They won't want to have to up it so they can download a 10GB file. They would rather buy the disc and keep their tariff. But that might ruin profit margins.



    Skating where the puck is? I don't think so. Not giving a shit about the consumer they purport to hold dear? Certainly. It's all good if you're in a city with great connectivity and middle income.



    Of course there's a huge difference. But, and this is important, what does the average profile of an Apple product user look like? See like chronster, you can cite personal anecdotal exceptions until the cows come home (note nice rural reference there), but you are not really expecting a large corporation to meet every single need of every single user of their devices no matter what are you?



    Moreover, if you check the prices of the software that is in fact downloadable, it is cheaper than the version with the physical media. Why? Because the company doesn't have to support the entire supply chain that is needed to produce the physical media, and therefore needs to raise the price in order to cover those costs. How about responsible use of resources? Not using as much plastic (derived from non-renewable crude oil refinement to produce long-chain hydrocarbons) or energy to drive the packaging equipment, warehousing and transportation. Not to mention disposal when upgrades cause a warehouse full of old software to become defunct. See? There are a lot of reasons to do this which reflect a higher concern than you give credit for. It's possible that there's more good to this than you are willing to admit.
  • Reply 73 of 75
    stevehsteveh Posts: 480member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by peter236 View Post


    Apple should design and sell its own printers.



    They used to do just that, and some of the models were as good as anything on the market, like the LaserWriter 8500.



    It wasn't a money-making part of the business.
  • Reply 74 of 75
    stevehsteveh Posts: 480member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    No it isn't



    In fact, I don't have internet at my home, and I know about a hand full of people who don't either. You say you've wondered as if the answer isn't obvious: Not everyone has internet.



    But it seems that you do have access to it elsewhere, whether at work or someplace with (free?) wifi available.
  • Reply 75 of 75
    stevehsteveh Posts: 480member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    Again I laugh



    You seem to be living in the future or something. Whenever I give a presentation here at work, I print out that presentation for everyone to follow along with. If I emailed everyone the presentation (which I do sometimes) most of the people in the meeting would still print it out, with a few bringing their laptops in.



    It'll will definitely get to where you think things currently are, with broadband being in every home, and printers being largely unneeded, but until then, bring yourself back to 2011 with us



    We used to provide hardcopy, but over the past several years, the perceived/actual need continually declined, with email or other electronic substitutes replacing hardcopy.



    It's not done yet, but it is going away for the most part, and not in some far-distant future.
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