Of, course. ...and i think Apple success has caused Egypt to overthrow their dictator, and helped the US dollar to improve across the world. This is the most amazing reporting I have ever heard. So what successes from competitors caused recent Apple exec departures, you geniuses.
Which Apple exec departures are you specifically referring to. You criticize the article yet offer no viewpoint or specifics on anything. At least the article expressed an opinion, valid or not, whereas your comment has no conversational value and is nothing but criticism.
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights. But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
O.K. Phalanx (I almost typed phallus), it's time to come clean. It is one thing to hate Apple; it is quite another to come to a Mac blog and spew your venom and pester people, who, for the most part, are happy if not ecstatic about their Apple products.
Why do you hate Apple - specifically Steve Jobs, and why do you waste your valuable time proving you are a person of questionable morals and taste?
I have always believed hatred has its genesis in fear.
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights. But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights.
Unibody construction contributies to durability, rigidity and lightness. Aluminum machines well, is light, looks good and is ecologically advantageous.
The funny part is that you don't care, but you think that means no one should care. I think the beauty of the PC industry is that they've trained their users to treat PCs as disposable hunks of plastic distinguished solely by price.
Quote:
But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Yes, the only possible explanation for Apple's huge success and meteoric rise to the top of the consumer products industry is that "Steve" has convinced hundreds of millions of people to pointlessly overpay for baubles. Which is why all those CEOs are resigning, they were just trying to make decent products for thrifty people but everyone is too stupid to be grateful.
Quote:
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
Thin means easier to handle, easier to carry and lighter. In the case of the iPad, it contributes to an appreciably nice user experience. Most consumers seem to agree.
I think it's interesting that Apple haters are starting to seem like the cult, not Apple's users. Apple's users are huge numbers of mainstream folks who just want the best bang for their buck. In the face of that indisputable fact, the haters are left muttering about an apparently globe spanning RDF and mass hypnosis on an unprecedented scale.
Apple's success has been going on for a while. It's not a fad, it's not an anomaly, it's not a trick. They make products people want. You can explain that by claiming people want the wrong things for the wrong reason, but that just makes you a crank.
Anyone suggesting that some companies are greedy and need to focus more on the customer instead of the stock price is being airhead silly. Of course you have to take care of the customer first, and the stock price rewards will follow in lock step. They are forever joined at the hip.
The single reason for Apple's success is the same as it is for any other hyper successful company .... offer stupendous products that people really want at prices they are willing to pay.... while leaving your competition standing on the side of the road asking themselves "what the hell just happened?"
No other company has come close to matching Apple's gamesmanship.
Try to imagine where the mobile gadgetry industry would be right now if it weren't for the influence of Apple and especially the gifted visionary SJ? Would we have multitouch screen phones with resolutions that match the human eye, or would we all still be fingering little slide out key pads or reading msgs on flip phones with 2 inch screens? Would wannabe iPads be 1/2 inch thick, weigh 2-3 pounds, and have battery lives of 3-4 hours? Would "The Cloud" still be something people talked about as maybe a reality 5-10 years from now? Would downloading music illegally still be considered a worthwhile sport?
Developing those ideas takes buckets of cash and courage. Does anyone really think RIM, Motorola, Samsung, or Nokia would be spending huge resources right now to try and stay in the game if they didn't have to? Maybe one or two of them will indeed come out with non-Apple cloned products that people want and are willing to fork over hard earned cash for. Let's hope so. Fortunately, in a free market society, the end user... the little guy... eventually wins.
That's because making the hardware and software isn't a good business model, it had Apple at the brink of bankruptcy. Macs didn't save Apple, the iPod did, then the iPhone and now the iPad have made it hugely successful. If it weren't for those devices Apple would be a very different company, and it would've been SJ getting fired yet again.
Let me clarify if I got your point correctly, it was the products iPod, IPhone and iPad that made Apple, what iy is todays. And the Apple Ecosystems that included the sofywares, among many other servirces, is not a good business model?
So if the much criticized "Walled Garden" -- an almost seamless integration of hardwares (learn one learn all), with an array of Apps (softwares), services (Genius Bar, One Stop Apple Store) and customer services (One-to-One,) and more --is nor a good business model -- why is every company that matter seem to bet running all over each other trying to emulate the "unsuccessful walled garden' of Apple?
And, Steve Jobs had nothing to do with those devices? If he had no significant role in their creation, would those hardware come out without Steve Jobs? If he did play a significant role, how could he have been fired a second time? To reiterate, if he played a role in fhs creation of those devices, how could Steve Jobs not envisioned the paradigm shift to mobile devices or more consumer-centric company?
It is true that Steve Jobs and Apple, by extension, could have made a very bad miscalculation since his return and that would have been the end of Apple.
But, it did not turn out that way.
Robert Frost wrote a verse, "The Road Not Taken", it very much captured what Steve Jobs did. Apple was at a cross-road. and he made a choice on what best to do -- not second guessing what could have been had he taken the other path.
What is just as important is that Steve Jobs had a vision, including taking the company in a path that was based on what you dubbed ""making the hardware and software isn't a good business model".
But that has been Apple all along before he was ousted from Apple. And, it worked -- it remained and is the basis of the success that defined the Apple of today.
Wow. I am so proud of Apple. I bought my first Apple in 1983 (IIe) with a daisy wheel printer and Jasmine hard drive. $4K. I was a first class (E6) in the Navy with an annual salary $14K. Following year, sold everything and bought a Fat Mac and never looked back. My children always get apple products for xmas. The only premature failure we have experienced was last year my daughter dumped a cup of coffee on her MBP... Apple has always been about quality. As a CIO of a Gov agency, we use Windows Crap. Still using XP and 03 Server; 3,000 workstations and 120 servers. Staff of 40 techs. It is a shame knowing that we could be using a much better product, with less failure rate and higher client productivity. But then again, I would probably be out of a job....
You two miss the whole point of what a cult is.. The cult leaders usually have a vision and they are usually fanatical about the details and things have to be done their way. The cult leader also knows what their followers want and gives it to them at the appropriate times. They usually do not give them everything, keep them wanting more or the next thing.
So yes Apple is a cult, people are bought in, even people who probably can not afford it. they can not seem to live without it. ...
I know what you're trying to say here but the analogy goes too far IMO.
Speaking as someone who has long studied cults, cult leaders, the history of cults and sociology in general, I can say without question that Apple is really nothing like a cult at all. Someone making you drink poison even when you know it will kill you, shows the power of being in a cult. Someone buying an Apple product that is actually a good product and improves your life in many concrete ways is not the same thing at all.
To call the people who buy Apple stuff part of a "cult" is just a dodge and is mostly put forward by people who have no real argument to explain their point of view. It's the same as calling someone a "fanboy/fangirl," in that what it really points out is that the person using the term has no real idea why people like the products in question and no real counter argument either. They therefore resort to the opinion that these people are "crazy" or obsessed in some way when it's not really true at all. People who buy Apple products can and do have many good reasons to purchase them.
A closer example (in consumer products), to being in a cult would be something like Coca-Cola, because there are much fewer (rational) reasons to drink it, and quite a few reasons why it's really a bad idea to drink it. Their love for the product, instilled in them by commercials and the society around them, overcomes the product's shortcomings. They know it's bad for them, but they buy it and drink it anyway. They are for the most part making an irrational decision simply because they've been "sold" on the idea of Coca-Cola.
By contrast, Apple products have very few shortcomings and the "downside" to buying them is very slight indeed, mostly consisting of the cost, and a few minor annoyances like censorship in the app store, and a bias towards the USA.
Who would have ever thought that low cost manufacturers needed to be scared of Apple. Even Google, which gives stuff away for free, did not have such an impact on Acer and Asus as the iPad did.
I'm the CFO and IT guy for our small company (and video editor) and have moved all but 2 people to Apple computers over the last 5 years. Here is my speculation why they are doing so well and the other companies are firing their CEO's I remember the IIe (A friends dad had one). I had a Lamp iMac at my office for video Editing
To me the biggest advancements that allowed Apple to achieve this level of success where the change to Intel chip set, bootcamp and OSX. The change to Intel and bootcamp (Parallels and Fusion) allowed me to purchase one of those first intel MacBook Pro's (my son now uses that one). Once I started to use the machine I found that OSX was a much better OS than anything MS could ever come up with. The other thing I noticed was the superior build quality of the Mac.
Two things I noticed between my XP users versus Mac users:
1. The MacBooks always worked
2. I never had to work on the Macs to get rid of a virus
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights. But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
You are just too critical of Apple and everything about it. Sad thing is, your criticism is pointless.
Which Apple exec departures are you specifically referring to. You criticize the article yet offer no viewpoint or specifics on anything. At least the article expressed an opinion, valid or not, whereas your comment has no conversational value and is nothing but criticism.
Bob Borchers, Mark Papermaster, Pablo Calamera, Graeme Devine, to name a few.
They have. But they aren't the only reason that macs are doing well. Apple was the most profitable PC maker even before the iPhone was introduced in 2007. It was selling the most >$1000 computers even in 2006.
I am not saying they weren't the most profitable - but saying they sold the most >$1000 computers is no proof of them being the most profitable. If you think about it, it is possible to have sold the most computers > $1000 and be least profitable. Or even be unprofitable.
Your argument makes no sense at all. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad are exactly the same as the Mac, hardware and software fully integrated, the "walled garden" the critics like to bash. The original bondi blue iMac changed the equation. I do not agree at all with your assertion that making the hardware and the software is not a good business model. This model has, in fact, made Apple the second most valuable company on the planet.
Yes they're the same when it comes to hardware and software integration but where they differ is in price. Much cheaper buying a iPod or iPhone than a Mac. For millions the iPod was the first Apple product they ever owned and started to see things Apple's way. I really don't think the masses know they're in a walled garden, because they're content going on Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, Google, Yahoo, etc? and not worry about viruses and such. Btw just because the business model works for Apple it doesn't mean everyone should follow suit.
Let me clarify if I got your point correctly, it was the products iPod, IPhone and iPad that made Apple, what iy is todays. And the Apple Ecosystems that included the sofywares, among many other servirces, is not a good business model?
So if the much criticized "Walled Garden" -- an almost seamless integration of hardwares (learn one learn all), with an array of Apps (softwares), services (Genius Bar, One Stop Apple Store) and customer services (One-to-One,) and more --is nor a good business model -- why is every company that matter seem to bet running all over each other trying to emulate the "unsuccessful walled garden' of Apple?
And, Steve Jobs had nothing to do with those devices? If he had no significant role in their creation, would those hardware come out without Steve Jobs? If he did play a significant role, how could he have been fired a second time? To reiterate, if he played a role in fhs creation of those devices, how could Steve Jobs not envisioned the paradigm shift to mobile devices or more consumer-centric company?
It is true that Steve Jobs and Apple, by extension, could have made a very bad miscalculation since his return and that would have been the end of Apple.
But, it did not turn out that way.
Robert Frost wrote a verse, "The Road Not Taken", it very much captured what Steve Jobs did. Apple was at a cross-road. and he made a choice on what best to do -- not second guessing what could have been had he taken the other path.
What is just as important is that Steve Jobs had a vision, including taking the company in a path that was based on what you dubbed ""making the hardware and software isn't a good business model".
But that has been Apple all along before he was ousted from Apple. And, it worked -- it remained and is the basis of the success that defined the Apple of today.
CGC
No that's not what I meant. I'm just saying that the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and the iPad has taken Apple to another level. Many of the older Apple heads used to say Apple doesn't care about market share yet having a HUGE market share with iPods, iPhones, and iPads has led to exponential growth and the increase sales in Macs is a direct correlation of this. I wonder how many people walked into a Apple store simply to get their iPod serviced and walked out with a MacBook, iMac, Mac mini, etc?
You guys are right-on! My experience with IT guys affirms your posts. The more complicated and abstruse the system, the more exclusive and "superior" the attitude. There is something innately controlling about IT guys.
I'll second these remarks. But I'll add in some really ancient history as well. I remember working in places where there were "computer rooms" where the Vax or IBM or DG equipment sat, tended by buys in white lab coats who lived in their own world and had virtually no interaction with the rest of the folks in the company. If you had a problem wiht your terminal, you wrote a complaint on a piece of paper and slipped it under the door, then waited and waited and waited. I used to half expect these guys to be wearing pointed blue hats and robes with all sorts of sorcery and D&D-like symbols printed on them.
Wow. I am so proud of Apple. I bought my first Apple in 1983 (IIe) with a daisy wheel printer and Jasmine hard drive. $4K. I was a first class (E6) in the Navy with an annual salary $14K. Following year, sold everything and bought a Fat Mac and never looked back. My children always get apple products for xmas. The only premature failure we have experienced was last year my daughter dumped a cup of coffee on her MBP... Apple has always been about quality. As a CIO of a Gov agency, we use Windows Crap. Still using XP and 03 Server; 3,000 workstations and 120 servers. Staff of 40 techs. It is a shame knowing that we could be using a much better product, with less failure rate and higher client productivity. But then again, I would probably be out of a job....
Hey, neat personal story! Thanks for contributing and welcome to the forum.
Comments
Of, course. ...and i think Apple success has caused Egypt to overthrow their dictator, and helped the US dollar to improve across the world. This is the most amazing reporting I have ever heard. So what successes from competitors caused recent Apple exec departures, you geniuses.
Which Apple exec departures are you specifically referring to. You criticize the article yet offer no viewpoint or specifics on anything. At least the article expressed an opinion, valid or not, whereas your comment has no conversational value and is nothing but criticism.
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights. But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
O.K. Phalanx (I almost typed phallus), it's time to come clean. It is one thing to hate Apple; it is quite another to come to a Mac blog and spew your venom and pester people, who, for the most part, are happy if not ecstatic about their Apple products.
Why do you hate Apple - specifically Steve Jobs, and why do you waste your valuable time proving you are a person of questionable morals and taste?
I have always believed hatred has its genesis in fear.
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights. But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
moron
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights.
Unibody construction contributies to durability, rigidity and lightness. Aluminum machines well, is light, looks good and is ecologically advantageous.
The funny part is that you don't care, but you think that means no one should care. I think the beauty of the PC industry is that they've trained their users to treat PCs as disposable hunks of plastic distinguished solely by price.
But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Yes, the only possible explanation for Apple's huge success and meteoric rise to the top of the consumer products industry is that "Steve" has convinced hundreds of millions of people to pointlessly overpay for baubles. Which is why all those CEOs are resigning, they were just trying to make decent products for thrifty people but everyone is too stupid to be grateful.
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
Thin means easier to handle, easier to carry and lighter. In the case of the iPad, it contributes to an appreciably nice user experience. Most consumers seem to agree.
I think it's interesting that Apple haters are starting to seem like the cult, not Apple's users. Apple's users are huge numbers of mainstream folks who just want the best bang for their buck. In the face of that indisputable fact, the haters are left muttering about an apparently globe spanning RDF and mass hypnosis on an unprecedented scale.
Apple's success has been going on for a while. It's not a fad, it's not an anomaly, it's not a trick. They make products people want. You can explain that by claiming people want the wrong things for the wrong reason, but that just makes you a crank.
The single reason for Apple's success is the same as it is for any other hyper successful company .... offer stupendous products that people really want at prices they are willing to pay.... while leaving your competition standing on the side of the road asking themselves "what the hell just happened?"
No other company has come close to matching Apple's gamesmanship.
Try to imagine where the mobile gadgetry industry would be right now if it weren't for the influence of Apple and especially the gifted visionary SJ? Would we have multitouch screen phones with resolutions that match the human eye, or would we all still be fingering little slide out key pads or reading msgs on flip phones with 2 inch screens? Would wannabe iPads be 1/2 inch thick, weigh 2-3 pounds, and have battery lives of 3-4 hours? Would "The Cloud" still be something people talked about as maybe a reality 5-10 years from now? Would downloading music illegally still be considered a worthwhile sport?
Developing those ideas takes buckets of cash and courage. Does anyone really think RIM, Motorola, Samsung, or Nokia would be spending huge resources right now to try and stay in the game if they didn't have to? Maybe one or two of them will indeed come out with non-Apple cloned products that people want and are willing to fork over hard earned cash for. Let's hope so. Fortunately, in a free market society, the end user... the little guy... eventually wins.
That's because making the hardware and software isn't a good business model, it had Apple at the brink of bankruptcy. Macs didn't save Apple, the iPod did, then the iPhone and now the iPad have made it hugely successful. If it weren't for those devices Apple would be a very different company, and it would've been SJ getting fired yet again.
Let me clarify if I got your point correctly, it was the products iPod, IPhone and iPad that made Apple, what iy is todays. And the Apple Ecosystems that included the sofywares, among many other servirces, is not a good business model?
So if the much criticized "Walled Garden" -- an almost seamless integration of hardwares (learn one learn all), with an array of Apps (softwares), services (Genius Bar, One Stop Apple Store) and customer services (One-to-One,) and more --is nor a good business model -- why is every company that matter seem to bet running all over each other trying to emulate the "unsuccessful walled garden' of Apple?
And, Steve Jobs had nothing to do with those devices? If he had no significant role in their creation, would those hardware come out without Steve Jobs? If he did play a significant role, how could he have been fired a second time? To reiterate, if he played a role in fhs creation of those devices, how could Steve Jobs not envisioned the paradigm shift to mobile devices or more consumer-centric company?
It is true that Steve Jobs and Apple, by extension, could have made a very bad miscalculation since his return and that would have been the end of Apple.
But, it did not turn out that way.
Robert Frost wrote a verse, "The Road Not Taken", it very much captured what Steve Jobs did. Apple was at a cross-road. and he made a choice on what best to do -- not second guessing what could have been had he taken the other path.
What is just as important is that Steve Jobs had a vision, including taking the company in a path that was based on what you dubbed ""making the hardware and software isn't a good business model".
But that has been Apple all along before he was ousted from Apple. And, it worked -- it remained and is the basis of the success that defined the Apple of today.
CGC
You two miss the whole point of what a cult is.. The cult leaders usually have a vision and they are usually fanatical about the details and things have to be done their way. The cult leader also knows what their followers want and gives it to them at the appropriate times. They usually do not give them everything, keep them wanting more or the next thing.
So yes Apple is a cult, people are bought in, even people who probably can not afford it. they can not seem to live without it. ...
I know what you're trying to say here but the analogy goes too far IMO.
Speaking as someone who has long studied cults, cult leaders, the history of cults and sociology in general, I can say without question that Apple is really nothing like a cult at all. Someone making you drink poison even when you know it will kill you, shows the power of being in a cult. Someone buying an Apple product that is actually a good product and improves your life in many concrete ways is not the same thing at all.
To call the people who buy Apple stuff part of a "cult" is just a dodge and is mostly put forward by people who have no real argument to explain their point of view. It's the same as calling someone a "fanboy/fangirl," in that what it really points out is that the person using the term has no real idea why people like the products in question and no real counter argument either. They therefore resort to the opinion that these people are "crazy" or obsessed in some way when it's not really true at all. People who buy Apple products can and do have many good reasons to purchase them.
A closer example (in consumer products), to being in a cult would be something like Coca-Cola, because there are much fewer (rational) reasons to drink it, and quite a few reasons why it's really a bad idea to drink it. Their love for the product, instilled in them by commercials and the society around them, overcomes the product's shortcomings. They know it's bad for them, but they buy it and drink it anyway. They are for the most part making an irrational decision simply because they've been "sold" on the idea of Coca-Cola.
By contrast, Apple products have very few shortcomings and the "downside" to buying them is very slight indeed, mostly consisting of the cost, and a few minor annoyances like censorship in the app store, and a bias towards the USA.
There seems to be only one way to describe the competition in the tablet/smartphone/content space at the moment: in total disarray.
....
Apple only sell 3 Macs, 3 MbPs, 2 MbAs, 2 iPhones and 1 iPad as mainstream products. That's a core of just 11 pieces of hardware.
I agree... look at Nokia's website
http://www.nokiausa.com/find-products
They have 22 different kinds of just phones! Apple has 1 phone. You can't buy the wrong one.
To me the biggest advancements that allowed Apple to achieve this level of success where the change to Intel chip set, bootcamp and OSX. The change to Intel and bootcamp (Parallels and Fusion) allowed me to purchase one of those first intel MacBook Pro's (my son now uses that one). Once I started to use the machine I found that OSX was a much better OS than anything MS could ever come up with. The other thing I noticed was the superior build quality of the Mac.
Two things I noticed between my XP users versus Mac users:
1. The MacBooks always worked
2. I never had to work on the Macs to get rid of a virus
I think the beauty of Apple is that Steve made you care whether your laptop was made out of one piece of aluminum. See the funny part is, no one should. There is absolutely no value to you other than bragging rights. But, don't worry, before long Steve will convince you that your laptop should be made of carbon fiber or maybe kevlar. Then you will be able to tell your friends that. Won't that be cool!!!!!
Btw, He also has everyone obsessed with thin. It fits in a backpack. What is the big deal about 0.3 inch. Give me a break.
You are just too critical of Apple and everything about it. Sad thing is, your criticism is pointless.
Please leave politics out of this.
Did I miss something? I certainly didn't see anything remotely political posted before your post.
Which Apple exec departures are you specifically referring to. You criticize the article yet offer no viewpoint or specifics on anything. At least the article expressed an opinion, valid or not, whereas your comment has no conversational value and is nothing but criticism.
Bob Borchers, Mark Papermaster, Pablo Calamera, Graeme Devine, to name a few.
They have. But they aren't the only reason that macs are doing well. Apple was the most profitable PC maker even before the iPhone was introduced in 2007. It was selling the most >$1000 computers even in 2006.
I am not saying they weren't the most profitable - but saying they sold the most >$1000 computers is no proof of them being the most profitable. If you think about it, it is possible to have sold the most computers > $1000 and be least profitable. Or even be unprofitable.
Your argument makes no sense at all. The iPod, iPhone, and iPad are exactly the same as the Mac, hardware and software fully integrated, the "walled garden" the critics like to bash. The original bondi blue iMac changed the equation. I do not agree at all with your assertion that making the hardware and the software is not a good business model. This model has, in fact, made Apple the second most valuable company on the planet.
Yes they're the same when it comes to hardware and software integration but where they differ is in price. Much cheaper buying a iPod or iPhone than a Mac. For millions the iPod was the first Apple product they ever owned and started to see things Apple's way. I really don't think the masses know they're in a walled garden, because they're content going on Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, Google, Yahoo, etc? and not worry about viruses and such. Btw just because the business model works for Apple it doesn't mean everyone should follow suit.
Let me clarify if I got your point correctly, it was the products iPod, IPhone and iPad that made Apple, what iy is todays. And the Apple Ecosystems that included the sofywares, among many other servirces, is not a good business model?
So if the much criticized "Walled Garden" -- an almost seamless integration of hardwares (learn one learn all), with an array of Apps (softwares), services (Genius Bar, One Stop Apple Store) and customer services (One-to-One,) and more --is nor a good business model -- why is every company that matter seem to bet running all over each other trying to emulate the "unsuccessful walled garden' of Apple?
And, Steve Jobs had nothing to do with those devices? If he had no significant role in their creation, would those hardware come out without Steve Jobs? If he did play a significant role, how could he have been fired a second time? To reiterate, if he played a role in fhs creation of those devices, how could Steve Jobs not envisioned the paradigm shift to mobile devices or more consumer-centric company?
It is true that Steve Jobs and Apple, by extension, could have made a very bad miscalculation since his return and that would have been the end of Apple.
But, it did not turn out that way.
Robert Frost wrote a verse, "The Road Not Taken", it very much captured what Steve Jobs did. Apple was at a cross-road. and he made a choice on what best to do -- not second guessing what could have been had he taken the other path.
What is just as important is that Steve Jobs had a vision, including taking the company in a path that was based on what you dubbed ""making the hardware and software isn't a good business model".
But that has been Apple all along before he was ousted from Apple. And, it worked -- it remained and is the basis of the success that defined the Apple of today.
CGC
No that's not what I meant. I'm just saying that the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and the iPad has taken Apple to another level. Many of the older Apple heads used to say Apple doesn't care about market share yet having a HUGE market share with iPods, iPhones, and iPads has led to exponential growth and the increase sales in Macs is a direct correlation of this. I wonder how many people walked into a Apple store simply to get their iPod serviced and walked out with a MacBook, iMac, Mac mini, etc?
Did I miss something? I certainly didn't see anything remotely political posted before your post.
You're right. The posts he was referring to were removed.
You guys are right-on! My experience with IT guys affirms your posts. The more complicated and abstruse the system, the more exclusive and "superior" the attitude. There is something innately controlling about IT guys.
I'll second these remarks. But I'll add in some really ancient history as well. I remember working in places where there were "computer rooms" where the Vax or IBM or DG equipment sat, tended by buys in white lab coats who lived in their own world and had virtually no interaction with the rest of the folks in the company. If you had a problem wiht your terminal, you wrote a complaint on a piece of paper and slipped it under the door, then waited and waited and waited. I used to half expect these guys to be wearing pointed blue hats and robes with all sorts of sorcery and D&D-like symbols printed on them.
To Dick A: No offense intended.
Wow. I am so proud of Apple. I bought my first Apple in 1983 (IIe) with a daisy wheel printer and Jasmine hard drive. $4K. I was a first class (E6) in the Navy with an annual salary $14K. Following year, sold everything and bought a Fat Mac and never looked back. My children always get apple products for xmas. The only premature failure we have experienced was last year my daughter dumped a cup of coffee on her MBP... Apple has always been about quality. As a CIO of a Gov agency, we use Windows Crap. Still using XP and 03 Server; 3,000 workstations and 120 servers. Staff of 40 techs. It is a shame knowing that we could be using a much better product, with less failure rate and higher client productivity. But then again, I would probably be out of a job....
Hey, neat personal story! Thanks for contributing and welcome to the forum.