There was a precedent at the time. Hewlett-Packard was the era's supreme, vertically integrated computing/instrument manufacturer. Jobs and Wozniak learned many lessons at HP which they put into practice at Apple.
Even now, the pundits and Wall Street believe the Android platform is far superior to iOS and Apple devices. All that really matters to Wall Street is how many units can a platform spawn. Android is already past a billion units despite its later start, easily leaving Apple's iOS in the dust. Android has been declared the winner in the mobile wars and Apple is still seen and valued as a doomed company.
Wall Street is definitely betting against Apple. Even as high a number of iOS devices there are, the pundits claim that Windows Phone devices will overtake iOS by 2017. That's how poorly they think Apple as a company is. It's really sad that after all these years Apple has not been able to do anything to give Wall Street and investors confidence that it isn't going out of business. Apple always appears to be on the verge of collapse as far as the big money investors are concerned.
Regrettably Constable, that's sure the way it seems, but Apple probably doesn't care too much about the cognitively challenged (mostly male) droids on Wall Street and the (mostly male) "big money investors". After all, they are the ones who respectively, fucked-up the US economy in 2008, and don't have a clue about investor value today. Size isn't everything - quality of performance is everything. Ask any Woman.
IMHO, I think that Nokia may have asked Microsoft to buy the handset business in order to save it from closing it down entirely. There was so much integration between Microsoft and Nokia from a software perspective for the Lumia line that it made complete sense for both parties.
Actually, I think that there was talk a while back that Apple was in talks to be an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) and integrate service, content, software and hardware thus cutting out the provider from the equation. That would have been very simply incredible as Apple could have provided a single experience throughout the vertical stack.
Several things come to mind, my N7 was virtually unusable for months till they released 4.3 with significantly better memory management. Google got a pass on that, like all the other crap they pull.
That Google and Microsoft have become vertically integrated is amazing to me, both companies are heavily invested in a distribution model, it's not working for Google, and I just can't see MS pulling it off, maybe if they put 90% + of their managers out to pasture and hire 20 year olds to replace them, but I just don't see them pulling it off, this is the company that thought the Kin was a good idea.
Google can't pull off a good phone/tablet through Motorola or the nexus line because it risks pissing off Samsung and all of it's other OHA members. What they can do is put out "average" phones like the Moto X. Every nexus device launch has been a mess, and Google gets a pass again because "Well, they contract out a company to do that, it's not really Google."
Neither company has the balls to do what it would take to become a wildly successful fully integrated vertical company like Apple has become because of their pre existing relationships with OEM's.
Were I Tim Cook, I'd be sorely tempted to watch MS and Google burn some bridges with OEM's and then license out iOS and OSX to Foxconn for a year (but hide the year only part of the licensing) and watch MS and Google scramble to rebuild OEM relationships.
You'll never convince the other side's sycophants that they are copying Apple's business model (vertical integration.) From stand alone retail stores, to iPhone form and function, to the iTunes Music Store, you name it, they have all come around to Apple's way of thinking but will NEVER admit it.
They'll just try to make up a story like Apple copied someone else. It tries to divert the attention away from Microsoft and themselves.
It is with a kind of regretful honesty that I think that the selfish monopoly that is MS brought the computer industry into a kind of harmony by making the kind of compatibility, you speak of, the LAW. As in a Play our way or Die.
It was a painful era for many who bet on alternatives, sometimes way superior. But it was play our way, or die an ignoble pauper's death. And it was too often, 'you are competing with the MotherShip so die no matter what'.
None the less I think we got a cruddy but common and refined framework. Apple is now Intel, USB is everywhere, and Word or compatible is universal. It was an ugly, unfair process but like British Royalty in the end it works pretty well. Think of MS as an aging matriarch, heir to the system, but not really in charge of much as history races past.
1) I think you have confused the terms "affluent" and "rich". Every survey I have seen seen has found that iOS users are better educated, more affluent, travel more, user the internet more and buy more on the internet than Android users.
2) You may be right. However Google took a huge risk by offending by their breach of trust their strongest ally in mobile computing and they are beginning to pay a heavy price. Android is already costing them billions and those losses will mount up, especially as Samsung and other Android OEMs increasing fork and fragment Android.
1. Affluent is defined as having an abundance of something (in this case we are referring to wealth). Owning an iPhone or having your credit card on file with iTunes doesn't make you affluent by any accepted definition of that word.
2. You honestly believe that Google made the wrong decision by backing Android at the expense of their relationship with Apple? You mentioned Google is paying a heavy price. Google's market cap around the time they announced Android and pissed off Apple was about 150 billion. Now Google's market cap is 292, virtually double what it was then. So in the time Android has been around Google has doubled in value. How are paying a price. Sure they've made some bad buys (Motorola comes to mind) but none of it holds a candle to the growth attributable to their newfound mobile empire. I think it's a safe bet that not a single Google shareholder regrets Android's inception. Sure, Apple has grown even more in the same time frame, but either way Google played it, that success wouldn't have boosted their own numbers, hence Android was the right move for Google.
Sorry Constable, but this is just too wacky to let slide. Institutions and mutual funds own 62% of Apple. At the current market cap, that amounts to $280 billion. Do you really think they would invest that much if they thought Apple was going under?
You forgot one thing. Most of those one billion Android devices are low end, low margin junk. And if there's one thing Wall Street hates it's low margins.
Key missing point here: The hardware companies may not make much money on Android, but at least they're making something. They can't make Apple products because of Apple's business model and they have to make something or they perish.
And Apple may be the best at hardware, but they can't fight armies of hardware manufactures and software giants forever. That's why they lost the war with Microsoft despite Microsoft's (mostly) shitty products. That's also why they lost the war with Android.
Also, a couple reality checks: Microsoft bought Nokia because no one else would make their phones and people generally love the Nexus line.
Used an iPhone for 6 years. Sold my iPhone 5 for an S4 Active. With the exception of the camera, which is still pretty solid but not consistently enough, I'm much happier with my S4. 5" screen. Water resistant. Notification light. Gmail app is excellent. Terrific Google Music app. Habit browser is smooth. Android has really surprised me in a good way. I still use and love my iPad Mini and iMac. But if you don't think Android has gotten awesome in recent years and that there are some excellent flagships right now being offered by several OEM'S, then you are out of your mind.
Used an iPhone for 6 years. Sold my iPhone 5 for an S4 Active. With the exception of the camera, which is still pretty solid but not consistently enough, I'm much happier with my S4. 5" screen. Water resistant. Notification light. Gmail app is excellent. Terrific Google Music app. Habit browser is smooth. Android has really surprised me in a good way. I still use and love my iPad Mini and iMac. But if you don't think Android has gotten awesome in recent years and that there are some excellent flagships right now being offered by several OEM'S, then you are out of your mind.
The Sony x-peria is pretty slick too, had a go at it at the store, very sharp colorful screen, very comfy to hold, so much slicker than the Samsung Galaxy phones imo, but for some reason no one talks about the Sony phones.
I would argue that nothing has changed. Phones, games consoles, portable music players, pda's have always had an os made by the guy that makes the hardware. Even Microsoft never tried to license the xbox os to another hardware company.
The only thing thats happen is Apple managed to move into Sonys territory and make a lot more profit and Microsoft so far has failed to follow. Even with the halo effect of iPhone sales leading to Mac sales, after 10 years of ipod, iphone and ipad sales the percentage of macs being sold still isnt that large, there far from beating windows. In the server market osx has done even worse.
So in the end like in the 90s generic pcs are still proving the licensing model works, and more specific devices where the look of the device is more important the whole thing from one company works best.
MS may now be starting to make there own hardware, but is that a result of thinking it works better, or just the fact that the only way they can sell more copies of windows is world population growth. If they can why not get the hardware partners cut of the profits? What competition do they really have?
The iPad is Apples answer to PC licensing. IPads are being purchased for more and more corporate functions. Complete control over the users access is easily accomplished by simply writing your own app. When you have 90% of a market, losing 5% is a pretty big deal. The PC market is dying. Maintenance costs, viruses, adware and high power usage are all built in from the ground up. I will be replacing 13 PC based register systems and 3 servers with iPads and a custom cloud implementation. My installation costs alone will drop by 80%. PCI compliance will come built in and the platform will be updated every year.
Microsoft is not willingly going along with this industry change. They are having to retire Steve Ballmer.
Strongly disagree with Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 failure. Firstly they never expected the nexus line to beat Apple, the nexus line exist to inspire manufactures to make better hardware. I guess they're pretty successful on it, since that android phones used to be mediocre 2 years ago, now they're finally catching up Apple.
1. Affluent is defined as having an abundance of something (in this case we are referring to wealth). Owning an iPhone or having your credit card on file with iTunes doesn't make you affluent by any accepted definition of that word.
affluent |?aflo?o?nt, ??flo?o-|adjective1 (esp. of a group or area) having a great deal of money; wealthy.
I believe you have it the other way around. iDevice users are reportedly known (by pundits and the media) to be affluent. Owning an iDevice does not make one affluent by any means.....although it does enrich one's life. The hundreds of millions of iTunes account holders (with credit cards on file) are what is coveted by Apple (and by the rest of the tech industry) and they are a HUGE asset that has yet to be tapped. It's Apple's 'Ace in the hole', and I believe, in conjunction with the strong security of the fingerprint scanner, that Apple will capitalize on future transactions taking place outside of the iTunes Store, through the iTunes Store, IMO.
affluent |<span style="margin-left:.3em;margin-right:.3em;">?aflo?o?nt, <span style="margin-left:.3em;margin-right:.3em;">??flo?o-</span>
|</span> <span style="display:block;margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;"><span style="display:block;margin-bottom:1em;margin-top:.2em;">adjective<span style="display:block;">1 <span id="user_m_en_us1220259.001" style="display:inline;text-indent:-1em;">(esp. of a group or area) having a great deal of money; wealthy.</span>
</span>
</span>
</span>
I believe you have it the other way around. iDevice users are reportedly known (by pundits and the media) to be affluent. Owning an iDevice does not make one affluent by any means.....although it does enrich one's life. The hundreds of millions of iTunes account holders (with credit cards on file) are what is coveted by Apple (and by the rest of the tech industry) and they are a HUGE asset that has yet to be tapped. It's Apple's 'Ace in the hole', and I believe, in conjunction with the strong security of the fingerprint scanner, that Apple will capitalize on future transactions taking place outside of the iTunes Store, through the iTunes Store, IMO.
Think thread got lost a while ago. The original response I made was to a comment made to the effect that all iTunes (not iDevice) account holders were affluent. That's just not true. On the other hand Apple users in general (according to every study I've ever seen published) are more affluent, educated, travel more, etc. I don't disagree with that at all. I simply disagreed with an earlier post about there being 700 million affluent people in the world. If you look at the global distribution of wealth and compare it to iTunes account holders, you'll find far more iTunes patrons than affluent people, assuming reasonable standard for what's to be considered affluent. That was all. Nothing more, nothing less.
Comments
Ah, the Windows Kin:
To this day, I believe that Microsoft missed a huge opportunity by not licensing it to the medical industry to combat depression.
It sure makes me laugh whenever I see it.
Apple should've patented their business method (which is possible to do, by the way): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_method_patent
There was a precedent at the time. Hewlett-Packard was the era's supreme, vertically integrated computing/instrument manufacturer. Jobs and Wozniak learned many lessons at HP which they put into practice at Apple.
Even now, the pundits and Wall Street believe the Android platform is far superior to iOS and Apple devices. All that really matters to Wall Street is how many units can a platform spawn. Android is already past a billion units despite its later start, easily leaving Apple's iOS in the dust. Android has been declared the winner in the mobile wars and Apple is still seen and valued as a doomed company.
Wall Street is definitely betting against Apple. Even as high a number of iOS devices there are, the pundits claim that Windows Phone devices will overtake iOS by 2017. That's how poorly they think Apple as a company is. It's really sad that after all these years Apple has not been able to do anything to give Wall Street and investors confidence that it isn't going out of business. Apple always appears to be on the verge of collapse as far as the big money investors are concerned.
Regrettably Constable, that's sure the way it seems, but Apple probably doesn't care too much about the cognitively challenged (mostly male) droids on Wall Street and the (mostly male) "big money investors". After all, they are the ones who respectively, fucked-up the US economy in 2008, and don't have a clue about investor value today. Size isn't everything - quality of performance is everything. Ask any Woman.
This post is nearly as well thought out and insightful as the article. Thank you.
IMHO, I think that Nokia may have asked Microsoft to buy the handset business in order to save it from closing it down entirely. There was so much integration between Microsoft and Nokia from a software perspective for the Lumia line that it made complete sense for both parties.
Actually, I think that there was talk a while back that Apple was in talks to be an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) and integrate service, content, software and hardware thus cutting out the provider from the equation. That would have been very simply incredible as Apple could have provided a single experience throughout the vertical stack.
Several things come to mind, my N7 was virtually unusable for months till they released 4.3 with significantly better memory management. Google got a pass on that, like all the other crap they pull.
That Google and Microsoft have become vertically integrated is amazing to me, both companies are heavily invested in a distribution model, it's not working for Google, and I just can't see MS pulling it off, maybe if they put 90% + of their managers out to pasture and hire 20 year olds to replace them, but I just don't see them pulling it off, this is the company that thought the Kin was a good idea.
Google can't pull off a good phone/tablet through Motorola or the nexus line because it risks pissing off Samsung and all of it's other OHA members. What they can do is put out "average" phones like the Moto X. Every nexus device launch has been a mess, and Google gets a pass again because "Well, they contract out a company to do that, it's not really Google."
Neither company has the balls to do what it would take to become a wildly successful fully integrated vertical company like Apple has become because of their pre existing relationships with OEM's.
Were I Tim Cook, I'd be sorely tempted to watch MS and Google burn some bridges with OEM's and then license out iOS and OSX to Foxconn for a year (but hide the year only part of the licensing) and watch MS and Google scramble to rebuild OEM relationships.
You'll never convince the other side's sycophants that they are copying Apple's business model (vertical integration.) From stand alone retail stores, to iPhone form and function, to the iTunes Music Store, you name it, they have all come around to Apple's way of thinking but will NEVER admit it.
They'll just try to make up a story like Apple copied someone else. It tries to divert the attention away from Microsoft and themselves.
It is with a kind of regretful honesty that I think that the selfish monopoly that is MS brought the computer industry into a kind of harmony by making the kind of compatibility, you speak of, the LAW. As in a Play our way or Die.
It was a painful era for many who bet on alternatives, sometimes way superior. But it was play our way, or die an ignoble pauper's death. And it was too often, 'you are competing with the MotherShip so die no matter what'.
None the less I think we got a cruddy but common and refined framework. Apple is now Intel, USB is everywhere, and Word or compatible is universal. It was an ugly, unfair process but like British Royalty in the end it works pretty well. Think of MS as an aging matriarch, heir to the system, but not really in charge of much as history races past.
2. You honestly believe that Google made the wrong decision by backing Android at the expense of their relationship with Apple? You mentioned Google is paying a heavy price. Google's market cap around the time they announced Android and pissed off Apple was about 150 billion. Now Google's market cap is 292, virtually double what it was then. So in the time Android has been around Google has doubled in value. How are paying a price. Sure they've made some bad buys (Motorola comes to mind) but none of it holds a candle to the growth attributable to their newfound mobile empire. I think it's a safe bet that not a single Google shareholder regrets Android's inception. Sure, Apple has grown even more in the same time frame, but either way Google played it, that success wouldn't have boosted their own numbers, hence Android was the right move for Google.
Key missing point here: The hardware companies may not make much money on Android, but at least they're making something. They can't make Apple products because of Apple's business model and they have to make something or they perish.
And Apple may be the best at hardware, but they can't fight armies of hardware manufactures and software giants forever. That's why they lost the war with Microsoft despite Microsoft's (mostly) shitty products. That's also why they lost the war with Android.
Also, a couple reality checks: Microsoft bought Nokia because no one else would make their phones and people generally love the Nexus line.
IMHO, I think that Nokia may have asked Microsoft to buy the handset business in order to save it from closing it down entirely.
I doubt it. If so, MSFT would not have paid the premium that it did.
Were I Tim Cook, I'd be sorely tempted to .... license out iOS and OSX to Foxconn for a year....
I sure am glad you're not Tim Cook.
Owning an iPhone or having your credit card on file with iTunes doesn't make you affluent by any accepted definition of that word.
That's not what he said.
You should learn to read. And figure out which way the causality was implied.
Used an iPhone for 6 years. Sold my iPhone 5 for an S4 Active. With the exception of the camera, which is still pretty solid but not consistently enough, I'm much happier with my S4. 5" screen. Water resistant. Notification light. Gmail app is excellent. Terrific Google Music app. Habit browser is smooth. Android has really surprised me in a good way. I still use and love my iPad Mini and iMac. But if you don't think Android has gotten awesome in recent years and that there are some excellent flagships right now being offered by several OEM'S, then you are out of your mind.
The Sony x-peria is pretty slick too, had a go at it at the store, very sharp colorful screen, very comfy to hold, so much slicker than the Samsung Galaxy phones imo, but for some reason no one talks about the Sony phones.
The iPad is Apples answer to PC licensing. IPads are being purchased for more and more corporate functions. Complete control over the users access is easily accomplished by simply writing your own app. When you have 90% of a market, losing 5% is a pretty big deal. The PC market is dying. Maintenance costs, viruses, adware and high power usage are all built in from the ground up. I will be replacing 13 PC based register systems and 3 servers with iPads and a custom cloud implementation. My installation costs alone will drop by 80%. PCI compliance will come built in and the platform will be updated every year.
Microsoft is not willingly going along with this industry change. They are having to retire Steve Ballmer.
1. Affluent is defined as having an abundance of something (in this case we are referring to wealth). Owning an iPhone or having your credit card on file with iTunes doesn't make you affluent by any accepted definition of that word.
affluent |?aflo?o?nt, ??flo?o-|adjective1 (esp. of a group or area) having a great deal of money; wealthy.
I believe you have it the other way around. iDevice users are reportedly known (by pundits and the media) to be affluent. Owning an iDevice does not make one affluent by any means.....although it does enrich one's life. The hundreds of millions of iTunes account holders (with credit cards on file) are what is coveted by Apple (and by the rest of the tech industry) and they are a HUGE asset that has yet to be tapped. It's Apple's 'Ace in the hole', and I believe, in conjunction with the strong security of the fingerprint scanner, that Apple will capitalize on future transactions taking place outside of the iTunes Store, through the iTunes Store, IMO.