Apple would be better served by continuing to offer great compatibility and ease of use on the Mac, than to compete head to head with the likes of Canon, Olympus, Sony, etc. on their home turf (granted Sony's turf is...everything and everywhere, but still...) in a very competitive market.
It's a lot easier to offer that "great compatibility and ease of use" if you build the damn thing yourself. iTunes' initial compatability with most MP3 players was pretty good, but it took the iPod to really get the experience perfect. The iCam will do the same thing for photography. When Steve intro'd iPhoto, he talked about the "chain of pain" downloading pictures from a digital camera to a computer. iPhoto removed all the software issues, but it couldn't (and still can't) do anything about the anchor at the end of that chain: the camera itself.
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Originally posted by DCQ
iPod took off because it offered so much more than what was out there, looked cool, and could benefit from Apple's HID experience, as well as the fact that the big-boys were absent, or merely dabbling.
It's my contention that the camera market is currently just as fragmented and in need of a better solution as the MP3 market was when the iPod came out. All the reasons you (accurately) list for the iPod's success are just as true for the iCam, maybe even more so.
The big boys may not be absent from the camera market, but they sure are dabbling. Their offerings suck, at least in terms of ease of use, it's just that nobody complains because there's no better alternative. Apple can and will beat Canon, Olympus, et. al. to the punch. They've done it before and they'll do it again.
IMO (and it's just my opinion), Apple would be better served by continuing to offer great compatibility and ease of use on the Mac, than to compete head to head with the likes of Canon, Olympus, Sony, etc. on their home turf (granted Sony's turf is...everything and everywhere, but still...) in a very competitive market.
I hear this all the time. Briefly, Apple would be better of by not competing with so-and-so or such-and-such. This is pure crap! Period! How do you think Sony got to where they are today? By going head to head with the "big boys" (at the time) and offering something better, more compelling (at the time it was the transistor radio!) Later it was Walkman and Betamax.
Here's my take. The management of Apple (and every other company) has a responsibility to its shareholders to produce value in the form of greater profit. Each company (Apple included) must look at their core skills and figure out how to apply those to making the greatest profit they can...increasing as time goes forward.
Apple's talent (if you will) is this: combining digital hardware devices and software technology to create compelling and usable devices for "the rest of us". This could be a computer (Mac). This could be an MP3 player (iPod). This could be a mobile phone, camera, chat software, video editing software, etc.
Now Apple might look at a market, analyze it and decide they have no real compelling value to offer and take a pass. Fine. But don't say they shouldn't compete just because Sony (or some other "big boy") is in the game. Apple is a "big boy" too! In fact, arguably, Apple is a bigger boy than Sony (or others that have been mentioned), if you consider Sony's diversification, in certain markets. For example maybe (and I don't know this) Apple is the "big boy" in the digital music player market.
In nay case, this "Apple shouldn't compete with the 'big boys'." Advice is flawed and lacking courage.
I say go for it. That's how the "big boys" got to be big boys themselves.
Apple may have to proceed more carefully, I'll admit this, but they should not forfeit any market if they think they have something compelling.
Good point. (But what keeps the Canons, Olympuses, etc from doing this as well?)
That's a more salient question than you realize. The iPod was built from off-the-shelf parts, using an OS that anybody could have licensed. What kept anyone from building an iPod? Even now, years after Apple's first model? A similar logic is reformed as a prediction every time Apple releases something: "That's great, but everyone else will be able to copy it." Really? So where are the copies? The work involved in doing proper design is constantly underestimated by people with a commodity mindset.
Clive's point upthread about features-list engineering is well taken, but there's another issue: When designing, say, the PowerShot, Canon can make no assumptions about what other equipment you have available to you. There's a real temptation to throw in e.g. effects processing because there's no guarantee that the digital camera will be used with a computer at all! You can buy printers that can be hooked directly up to a camera now, so the camera makers cannot assume that you'll have a computer with USB and this software with that range of capabilities, etc.
Apple, of course, can. They have the luxury of being able to leave off features because they know that iPhoto, or iMovie, or even the new transparent ColorSync capability in Panther will pick up the slack, and that affords them a freedom to design a clean, simple camera that the dedicated camera makers don't have. Apple can use FireWire because they know that millions of their machines have bus-powered FireWire. The dedicated camera makers (and Apple-like PC manufacturers like Sony) cannot because FireWire availability is a lot spottier on the PC side, and even where it is there's no guarantee of bus power.
Optics are not a problem. Camera makers license each others' stuff all the time. The optics for Apple's old QuickTake came from Kodak. The optics for a subsequent effort could come from Kodak (with whom Apple already has a close working relationship) or just about anyone else.
So the issue is not whether Apple can beat the field with an easy to use camera. I have no doubt that they can. The two issues that decide whether Apple enters a product outside of the core Macintosh line are: Whether anyone else is doing it right with a Mac-compatible product, and; how crucial it is to Apple's appeal as a platform that someone is doing it right. If those two conditions are met, Apple will make it work, if they have to hire people, if they have to license third-party solutions (such as Pixo's OS for the iPod) - they can make all of that work. They just need the motive.
That's the first time I ever heard Betamax used as a positive example of how to compete.
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Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
In nay case, this "Apple shouldn't compete with the 'big boys'." Advice is flawed and lacking courage.
I say go for it. That's how the "big boys" got to be big boys themselves.
Apple may have to proceed more carefully, I'll admit this, but they should not forfeit any market if they think they have something compelling.
I don't disagree in the abstract.* I just think Apple's current strategy is a bit more conservative. (E.g., the iSight is only Apple's 2nd DLD in the 5 or so years since the "digital hub" strategy was announced. And even in that respect it differs somewhat from a "true" DLD; whereas DV cameras, digital cameras, PIMs, etc have a life outside a computer, which is enhanced by certain programs on the Mac, the iSight is really only a vehicle for iChat AV, only marginally useful without it, and not useful at all without a computer....I guess an MP3/WMA/AAC/etc. player would be somewhere in between...)
I don't think the digital and DV camera world are in as near a state of decrepitude as you or Ensign Pulver seem to think. My father-in-law just bought a damn fine DV camera (with digital photo capabilities) and can use it quite well, and he's not computer-savvy by any stretch of the imagination. Likewise, my step-father-in-law (similarly technologically handicapped), takes digital photos, prints them, burns photo CDs, and emails his photos like gangbusters (it's kind of annoying actually... ). Both are retired. Neither are interested in learning a lot of technobabble. And yet both do this stuff competently on Wintel PCs. I just don't see Apple being able to offer something compelling to either of these two. On my side of the family, my mother and father are both confirmed Luddites (on second thought, that's actually an insult to Luddites... ). But news of iChat AV and iSight has convinced them to dump their 350 blueberry iMac for whatever the high-end iMac will be when Panther ships...(this from a couple whose previous computer was a Mac SE...they don't upgrade very often... ). Of course, being able to see an impending granddaughter at a moment's notice is also an incentive . As for the hypothetical father-at-soccer-game scenario, I can speak from experience that a limited-capacity camera would not interest me in the least. I wouldn't even consider it. Games go into overtime, an even if they don't I might not have time between work, school, family-time, other aspects of my life to DL the video before the next game. And as for vacations...forget about it. 90 minutes isn't anywhere near enough. Even 10 hours would make me uneasy, and give me that annoying "I-have-a-limit" feeling.
Anyway, the point is that I really don't believe that Apple can add that much value/innovation to the digital/DV cam market. That is, to your point, I don't think there is anything compelling they can offer here. Not given current technology. And not given that all the big players are R&Ding the hell out of the technological limitations as we speak.
So I guess we just disagree on that point.
-DCQ
*Completely irrelevant side issue: Sony originally became a major player because Japan's labor costs were a fraction of US labor costs in the 60s and 70s. When the US-block decided to globalize its production in the late 60s/early 70s (or more accurately, reglobalize production) in order to compete more effectively with the smaller and more insular Russian-block, American consumers took advantage of the cheap Japanese goods. Originally Japanese prodects were cheap, but crappy too. Under the direction/encouragement of the Japanese state, Japanese corporations decided to invest massively in high-tech production (which required an educated workforce). Prices rose because of increasing labor costs, but quality rose faster. Sony's particular strategy was to focus on very high quality goods with a higher price tag than its Japanese competitors. But because of relatively low labor costs vs. American labor costs (at the time), they were able to offer good prices to Americans for top quality goods. Today, American and Japanese labor costs are roughly equal (American being slightly cheaper now), and corporations in both countries outsource production to low-wage exporters like China and Taiwan (even South Korea is getting too expensive nowadays...). This is why Sony is generally now the highest-priced product for any given commodity which it offers.
I understand your points, and tend to agree with you more than the other two. The other two stressed 3-color-per-pixel technology as something that Apple can add. I think that totally flies in the face of Apple's DLD strategy, which is to succeed not through technological innovation, but design innovation. That's actually one of the (many) reasons I think Apple will stay out of this market at the current time--it's about to undergo a revolution in its own right, where digital photos can actually start to compete with the richness of film photos (though it'll be ages before they can compete with the resolution film offers). Too much uncertainty/risk at a time when Apple's recovery is all too fragile. If camera makers fumble for many years with the 3-color-per-pixel technology for whatever reasons, and digital and DV cameras become wildly underdeveloped/under-utilized/under-integrated, then I can see Apple stepping in. But that's a hell of a lot of ifs, and years away at best.
In fact, I think the limited nature of the iSight is proof enough that nothing new is coming this way for a while. If they were coming out with a FW digital/DV cam anytime soon, why release a product that would compete against it (since any supposed iCam would obviously have to be iChat AV compatible), at least partially. Maybe in a few years, the iSight will evolve...maybe they even have a roadmap for upgrading it into an "iCam"...but it is what it is for the forseeable future, and Apple won't want anything competing with it--still less one of it's own products.
By going head to head with the "big boys" (at the time) and offering something better, more compelling (at the time it was the transistor radio!) Later it was Walkman and Betamax.
Just who were the "big boys"?
Sony invented a new market with the Walkman, and Betamax pretty much failed.
Clive's point upthread about features-list engineering is well taken, but there's another issue: When designing, say, the PowerShot, Canon can make no assumptions about what other equipment you have available to you. There's a real temptation to throw in e.g. effects processing because there's no guarantee that the digital camera will be used with a computer at all! You can buy printers that can be hooked directly up to a camera now, so the camera makers cannot assume that you'll have a computer with USB and this software with that range of capabilities, etc.
Apple, of course, can. They have the luxury of being able to leave off features because they know that iPhoto, or iMovie, or even the new transparent ColorSync capability in Panther will pick up the slack, and that affords them a freedom to design a clean, simple camera that the dedicated camera makers don't have...
That's kind of good thinking, and I think that to a certain extent you are right, but you know what the missing ingredient is? Everyone has to have a Mac.
Now we already know that Apple isn't shooting for that market alone, because we have Windows iPods and we're going to get Windows iTMS.
While I think that Apple can sell iPods to Mac users, and a few to Windows users i also think that this market is pretty much a closed loop and will be quickly saturated.
With a digital camera I really think there's no point in Apple going there. If we assume that such a thing requires a Mac (or PC) the people buying must already be pretty computer literate - so there's no market for a "dumbed down" camera.
What there is a market for is a decent application to make the experience of using/accessing/archiving your photos - that's called iPhoto.
In addition I think people criticising the digital camera "experience" fail to realise that this is a pretty immature market still, with an even more immature infrastructure. Once people get more used to it and the facilities are available to drop off your photos on disk at your newsagent's to go back and pick up your prints later, then the whole experience will be better and more mainstream.
I don't think there's room in there for an Apple digital camera.
The reason there's an iPod is that it's breaking new ground, at a point in the not too distant future it no longer will be.
There's room for anyone that can make a good product at a decent price.
Apple would act only as a design, focus group, development team. Any neccessary manufacturing would be contracted out, just like they do with the assembly of most macs.
The digital camera lanscape is getting reshuffled all the time. We know that you don't need experience in traditional film cameras and that you don't need experience in electronics to make it work. Successful models have come from both backgrounds. YOu can buy any of the production or components that you need.
Apple is good at design, not just styling, they could build a camera if they wanted to.
Sony invented a new market with the Walkman, and Betamax pretty much failed.
a) Sony was going up again (then) American electronics giants for TV, radios, tape players, etc. Walkman was only one example. They saw a market and created a new product. But there were plenty of other players to compete against.
b) Beta was a consumer failure. Still widely used in pro circles as I understand it.
Stop and just think for a moment how wonderful an Apple "digicam" would/could be:
- No tape. Just a hard drive and you FireWire it directly to your Mac when you're ready
- Somehow, a "dual-mode" device: decent, consumer-level digital video (not talking $3000 pro level video here, but rather $500 Canon Z-25 stuff) and a respectable 3.2 megapixel still camera. I?m not an expert in how this could/would be done. But I feel confident that Apple could. Their track record at coming up with ultra cool, ?how come WE didn?t think of that?!? stuff is pretty solid
- FireWire. Like the iPod and iSight. Fast transfer of video AND photos to your Mac.
- TIGHT and seamless integration with iPhoto and iMovie, of course. They could work some magic on their end to really make this stuff sweet and totally ?no brainer?.
- Apply all they?ve learned about battery life and performance with the iPod and iBook to this device. Make it really longlasting...much more so than others on the market
- Again, taking a cue from the iBook: give it that tough shell to brace against scuffs and accidental drops that are sure to happen in real life, with students and people living an active lifestyle. Mount the guts the same way the iBook?s hard drive is mounted
- SIMPLE controls and function. Since it IS made for the Mac and Apple can rest assured knowing that the photos and video will be brought in to iMove and iPhoto for sweetening or editing, they can leave of all the unnecessary effects, bells and whistles and ?gee whiz? features that just gum up the simplicity of the device. Just capture the picture or video and move on. An on/off button, a ?Photo/Video? switch, a built-in mic, a built-in flast, decent optical zoom (leave off the digital zoom altogether...it?s useless) and maybe some controls for improving performance under certain conditions (sunlight, indoors, cloudy day, flourescent lights, etc.). Just the BASICS!
- Leverage all they know and all they have to help sweeten the pot: QuickTime, iPod-esque simplicity in the controls, iBook toughness, etc.
Forget what Sony or Canon is doing. This is for US. You write the rules for your audience, us Mac users who have Macs and the iApps. Just give PC people another reason to switch or something to chew on. Don?t try and match Sony or Canon in silly features...instead, consider your end audience and design this for THEM and the computers and software you already make and we?re already using.
THAT?S how you make a kick-ass product. If something like the above came to be, I?d happily pay $600 or so for it. I figure by having just one connection type (FireWire), leaving off a bunch of silly effects and features that should be applied in iMovie or iPhoto anyway, paring the device down to just the essentials in capturing photo and video, that could be done. More or less.
Just to have ONE device (not lugging around two anymore), have it tightly integrated with the Mac and corresponding iApp, great battery life, rugged shockproof chassis, good basic features and capabilities...and a big luscious chrome Apple logo on the side.
a) Sony was going up again (then) American electronics giants for TV, radios, tape players, etc. Walkman was only one example. They saw a market and created a new product. But there were plenty of other players to compete against.
Well there were the likes of Grundig, Philips, blah, but the Japanese manufacturers beat them at their own game, because the economics of the whole industry changed. The Japanese didn't have the same legacy as the European and American manufacturers, and they also invested in mechanisation.
Additionally they had a cheap labour force.
So, more than anything else what they won on was price.
I'm saying that the same is true today. To compete in those markets you have to compete on price.
Matsu says that Apple could compete on price - I think they probably can't because they have to contract out too much of the process.
There's room for anyone that can make a good product at a decent price.
So, um no, Matsu does not say that they could compete on price, though they could. Good product, decent price. As opposed to their past practice of decent product, at an obscene price. See the difference. Nowhere did I say cheapest product.
The iSight is not th cheapest product, but it's nearly cheap enough. The iPod is certainly not the cheapest product, but it's the best, and not so expensive that epople have to write of their option list before even looking.
An Apple camera would have to strike the same balance, not the cheapest, but cheap enough while being the best option for the type of person that would buy/want it.
- SIMPLE controls and function. Since it IS made for the Mac and Apple can rest assured knowing that the photos and video will be brought in to iMove and iPhoto for sweetening or editing, they can leave of all the unnecessary effects, bells and whistles and ?gee whiz? features that just gum up the simplicity of the device. Just capture the picture or video and move on.
pscates, you nailed it.
Consumer cameras are crammed with "features" aimed at doing as much as possible in the camera itself. Why? Because 95% of people buying the things use them with really sucky PC software. The message is "don't manipulate your photos and video in Windows, do it on our tiny screen with our brain dead UI." Same thing with connecting your camera directly to your printer. HP's whole consumer photography ad campaign is based on avoiding Windows.
Well, I'm a Mac user. My software doesn't suck, and the only link left in the "chain of pain" for me is the camera itself. Give me great image quality, a sturdy, yet gorgeous design, and most importantly, a minimum of hardware controls. My Mac will do the rest.
Canon and Olympus wouldn't make a truly simple camera even if they could. There's a bells and whistles arm race among the big camera manufacturers, and they're not about to change their strategy for 5% of the market.
Put it that way, I would buy one pscates! Do you work in marketing? I think most of us would buy this. Like the iPod it would start out Mac only. Then Apple could partner with Microsoft and introduce compatibility with Movie Maker. Oh wait nevermind...
They should either start porting iPhoto/iMovie/iTunes or partner. I think they should port! Most PCs already have QT installed. PC people will see this kind of quality and then see that on a Mac everything is that high quality. Of course I've seen XP constantly "mess" QT 6 up. On a vanilla system. Kind of suspicious. I wonder if Office would disappear if this were to happen, or if the Win iApps would start having "problems."
Well, Windows users have a lot of webcams to choose from. Some of them really nice (not as nice as iSight tho). But I guess more importantly, if iChat were made compatible with Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger, that would skyrocket the number of people you can use it with.
Well I wasn't referencing the hardware (although, as you say, iSight IS nicer than what else is out there). Just access to iChat users or AIM people (yeah, a lot I guess), but I'd to see yahoo and MSN added to it, like you said.
That's kind of good thinking, and I think that to a certain extent you are right, but you know what the missing ingredient is? Everyone has to have a Mac.
It's not the missing ingredient, it's a permutation of one of the two questions that has to be asked before Apple releases the product: Is this going to enrich the platform enough to get people buying Macs? The whole point of the Apple DLDs is to pretty up the platform.
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Now we already know that Apple isn't shooting for that market alone, because we have Windows iPods and we're going to get Windows iTMS.
Certainly, and Apple could rig up something similar to what they've done with the iPod, with a USB2 cable and somebody's not-too-bad photoediting software, so that PC users can still be tempted with an Apple, if not a Mac.
They could also do it after proving the demand on the Mac side, as Apple did with the iPod and the iTMS. Because of their position, Apple does the opposite that most companies do, and tries things out on the Mac first before deciding whether to offer the product or service to Windows users. It's a more controlled environment in which to launch and refine a product, and if it makes a few people wish they had Macs, and if some of those people take the plunge, so much the better.
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While I think that Apple can sell iPods to Mac users, and a few to Windows users i also think that this market is pretty much a closed loop and will be quickly saturated.
Maybe and maybe not. If if matures, it'll continue to generate revenue as people replace their old MP3 players. Maybe it won't be enough to make the iPod worthwhile. But, again, because this is an Apple product the iPod doesn't have to stand or fall on its own merits. The iTunes Music Store is a boon for the iPod, and it will become more of a boon when iTMS for Windows appears. The nature of the beast is that Apple can make the hardware more attractive with software, software more attractive with hardware, either more attractive with services, the Mac more attractive with peripherals, and the peripherals more attractive with any of the above.
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With a digital camera I really think there's no point in Apple going there. If we assume that such a thing requires a Mac (or PC) the people buying must already be pretty computer literate - so there's no market for a "dumbed down" camera.
This assumes that everyone - or even a plurality of people - who have Macs or PCs are computer literate.
Even among the ones that are, there's a basic wish on the part of most people to have something that just works. If enough people want that wish fulfilled enough to pay Apple's premium, there's a possibility there. couldn't possibly say whether the digital camera market satisfies any of the conditions I've posited as necessary, so keep in mind that I'm not arguing that Apple will or should release a digital camera, only that they could do a consumer camera better because of their position and their approach to design, and the time might become ripe for them to make an attempt.
It seems to me that whether any particular DLD succeeds as a permanent entry is a secondary concern. If it gooses the competition into releasing better stuff that's Mac compatible, that's a win for the platform too. The DLDs are all about enriching the platform.
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In addition I think people criticising the digital camera "experience" fail to realise that this is a pretty immature market still, with an even more immature infrastructure. Once people get more used to it and the facilities are available to drop off your photos on disk at your newsagent's to go back and pick up your prints later, then the whole experience will be better and more mainstream.
That's certainly one way to do it, but the maturing of the infrastructure - or, following your example, the adaptation of the film infrastructure to digital media - still doesn't address the complexity of the camera. If you have to do a lot of fidgeting around to take pictures in the first place, you're not going to take them, and then all the infrastructure in the world won't matter. (I've seen this enough with film cameras...)
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The reason there's an iPod is that it's breaking new ground, at a point in the not too distant future it no longer will be.
The iPod is a commodity product (in the sense that it's built almost entirely from commodity parts, running a commodity OS) that was a fairly late entry into a crowded enough market at a high enough price that a lot of people thought it would be an expensive flop. It wasn't.
As long as nobody takes the time to make the product as slick as Apple has, and as long as nobody can find a way to match Apple's ability to make a product appealing by building up other products around it (breaking the "chain of pain," to borrow the digital photo example), the iPod will remain a contender. It's difficult to understand, but nothing prevented anyone - certainly not the likes of Sony - from designing and building the iPod themselves. They didn't - and in large part they still haven't - and that's significant.
Apple should enter whatever markets it wants. As one of the most recognised brands in the world with a loyal 'fan base' if anything it makes is half decent, it will sell.
Many Mac users see non Apple products as designed more for PC and so are put off - they are soft targets for Apple. The iPod also shows that if a product is great, even PC buyers can be won over. I work in a high street electrical store and every week I get asked by about two people for an iPod, most of these guys are PC users.
However, many digital cameras are a step too far. The best digital cameras are now made by people who make SLRs and 35mm Cameras - Canon, Olympus etc. I can't see a novel new feature which Apple could use to enter this market like the did with the iPod (first big hard disk MP3 player) so there is little point in entering here.
If Apple can continue to come up with devices as good as the iPod for other markets however, I see no reason why they shouldn't enter - go on Apple, give as another iPod!
Comments
Originally posted by DCQ
Apple would be better served by continuing to offer great compatibility and ease of use on the Mac, than to compete head to head with the likes of Canon, Olympus, Sony, etc. on their home turf (granted Sony's turf is...everything and everywhere, but still...) in a very competitive market.
It's a lot easier to offer that "great compatibility and ease of use" if you build the damn thing yourself. iTunes' initial compatability with most MP3 players was pretty good, but it took the iPod to really get the experience perfect. The iCam will do the same thing for photography. When Steve intro'd iPhoto, he talked about the "chain of pain" downloading pictures from a digital camera to a computer. iPhoto removed all the software issues, but it couldn't (and still can't) do anything about the anchor at the end of that chain: the camera itself.
Originally posted by DCQ
iPod took off because it offered so much more than what was out there, looked cool, and could benefit from Apple's HID experience, as well as the fact that the big-boys were absent, or merely dabbling.
It's my contention that the camera market is currently just as fragmented and in need of a better solution as the MP3 market was when the iPod came out. All the reasons you (accurately) list for the iPod's success are just as true for the iCam, maybe even more so.
The big boys may not be absent from the camera market, but they sure are dabbling. Their offerings suck, at least in terms of ease of use, it's just that nobody complains because there's no better alternative. Apple can and will beat Canon, Olympus, et. al. to the punch. They've done it before and they'll do it again.
Originally posted by DCQ
IMO (and it's just my opinion), Apple would be better served by continuing to offer great compatibility and ease of use on the Mac, than to compete head to head with the likes of Canon, Olympus, Sony, etc. on their home turf (granted Sony's turf is...everything and everywhere, but still...) in a very competitive market.
I hear this all the time. Briefly, Apple would be better of by not competing with so-and-so or such-and-such. This is pure crap! Period! How do you think Sony got to where they are today? By going head to head with the "big boys" (at the time) and offering something better, more compelling (at the time it was the transistor radio!) Later it was Walkman and Betamax.
Here's my take. The management of Apple (and every other company) has a responsibility to its shareholders to produce value in the form of greater profit. Each company (Apple included) must look at their core skills and figure out how to apply those to making the greatest profit they can...increasing as time goes forward.
Apple's talent (if you will) is this: combining digital hardware devices and software technology to create compelling and usable devices for "the rest of us". This could be a computer (Mac). This could be an MP3 player (iPod). This could be a mobile phone, camera, chat software, video editing software, etc.
Now Apple might look at a market, analyze it and decide they have no real compelling value to offer and take a pass. Fine. But don't say they shouldn't compete just because Sony (or some other "big boy") is in the game. Apple is a "big boy" too! In fact, arguably, Apple is a bigger boy than Sony (or others that have been mentioned), if you consider Sony's diversification, in certain markets. For example maybe (and I don't know this) Apple is the "big boy" in the digital music player market.
In nay case, this "Apple shouldn't compete with the 'big boys'." Advice is flawed and lacking courage.
I say go for it. That's how the "big boys" got to be big boys themselves.
Apple may have to proceed more carefully, I'll admit this, but they should not forfeit any market if they think they have something compelling.
Originally posted by DCQ
Good point. (But what keeps the Canons, Olympuses, etc from doing this as well?)
That's a more salient question than you realize. The iPod was built from off-the-shelf parts, using an OS that anybody could have licensed. What kept anyone from building an iPod? Even now, years after Apple's first model? A similar logic is reformed as a prediction every time Apple releases something: "That's great, but everyone else will be able to copy it." Really? So where are the copies? The work involved in doing proper design is constantly underestimated by people with a commodity mindset.
Clive's point upthread about features-list engineering is well taken, but there's another issue: When designing, say, the PowerShot, Canon can make no assumptions about what other equipment you have available to you. There's a real temptation to throw in e.g. effects processing because there's no guarantee that the digital camera will be used with a computer at all! You can buy printers that can be hooked directly up to a camera now, so the camera makers cannot assume that you'll have a computer with USB and this software with that range of capabilities, etc.
Apple, of course, can. They have the luxury of being able to leave off features because they know that iPhoto, or iMovie, or even the new transparent ColorSync capability in Panther will pick up the slack, and that affords them a freedom to design a clean, simple camera that the dedicated camera makers don't have. Apple can use FireWire because they know that millions of their machines have bus-powered FireWire. The dedicated camera makers (and Apple-like PC manufacturers like Sony) cannot because FireWire availability is a lot spottier on the PC side, and even where it is there's no guarantee of bus power.
Optics are not a problem. Camera makers license each others' stuff all the time. The optics for Apple's old QuickTake came from Kodak. The optics for a subsequent effort could come from Kodak (with whom Apple already has a close working relationship) or just about anyone else.
So the issue is not whether Apple can beat the field with an easy to use camera. I have no doubt that they can. The two issues that decide whether Apple enters a product outside of the core Macintosh line are: Whether anyone else is doing it right with a Mac-compatible product, and; how crucial it is to Apple's appeal as a platform that someone is doing it right. If those two conditions are met, Apple will make it work, if they have to hire people, if they have to license third-party solutions (such as Pixo's OS for the iPod) - they can make all of that work. They just need the motive.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
Later it was Walkman and Betamax.
That's the first time I ever heard Betamax used as a positive example of how to compete.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
In nay case, this "Apple shouldn't compete with the 'big boys'." Advice is flawed and lacking courage.
I say go for it. That's how the "big boys" got to be big boys themselves.
Apple may have to proceed more carefully, I'll admit this, but they should not forfeit any market if they think they have something compelling.
I don't disagree in the abstract.* I just think Apple's current strategy is a bit more conservative. (E.g., the iSight is only Apple's 2nd DLD in the 5 or so years since the "digital hub" strategy was announced. And even in that respect it differs somewhat from a "true" DLD; whereas DV cameras, digital cameras, PIMs, etc have a life outside a computer, which is enhanced by certain programs on the Mac, the iSight is really only a vehicle for iChat AV, only marginally useful without it, and not useful at all without a computer....I guess an MP3/WMA/AAC/etc. player would be somewhere in between...)
I don't think the digital and DV camera world are in as near a state of decrepitude as you or Ensign Pulver seem to think. My father-in-law just bought a damn fine DV camera (with digital photo capabilities) and can use it quite well, and he's not computer-savvy by any stretch of the imagination. Likewise, my step-father-in-law (similarly technologically handicapped), takes digital photos, prints them, burns photo CDs, and emails his photos like gangbusters (it's kind of annoying actually...
Anyway, the point is that I really don't believe that Apple can add that much value/innovation to the digital/DV cam market. That is, to your point, I don't think there is anything compelling they can offer here. Not given current technology. And not given that all the big players are R&Ding the hell out of the technological limitations as we speak.
So I guess we just disagree on that point.
-DCQ
*Completely irrelevant side issue: Sony originally became a major player because Japan's labor costs were a fraction of US labor costs in the 60s and 70s. When the US-block decided to globalize its production in the late 60s/early 70s (or more accurately, reglobalize production) in order to compete more effectively with the smaller and more insular Russian-block, American consumers took advantage of the cheap Japanese goods. Originally Japanese prodects were cheap, but crappy too. Under the direction/encouragement of the Japanese state, Japanese corporations decided to invest massively in high-tech production (which required an educated workforce). Prices rose because of increasing labor costs, but quality rose faster. Sony's particular strategy was to focus on very high quality goods with a higher price tag than its Japanese competitors. But because of relatively low labor costs vs. American labor costs (at the time), they were able to offer good prices to Americans for top quality goods. Today, American and Japanese labor costs are roughly equal (American being slightly cheaper now), and corporations in both countries outsource production to low-wage exporters like China and Taiwan (even South Korea is getting too expensive nowadays...). This is why Sony is generally now the highest-priced product for any given commodity which it offers.
Originally posted by Amorph
That's a more salient question than you realize.
No. I knew what I was asking.
I understand your points, and tend to agree with you more than the other two. The other two stressed 3-color-per-pixel technology as something that Apple can add. I think that totally flies in the face of Apple's DLD strategy, which is to succeed not through technological innovation, but design innovation. That's actually one of the (many) reasons I think Apple will stay out of this market at the current time--it's about to undergo a revolution in its own right, where digital photos can actually start to compete with the richness of film photos (though it'll be ages before they can compete with the resolution film offers). Too much uncertainty/risk at a time when Apple's recovery is all too fragile. If camera makers fumble for many years with the 3-color-per-pixel technology for whatever reasons, and digital and DV cameras become wildly underdeveloped/under-utilized/under-integrated, then I can see Apple stepping in. But that's a hell of a lot of ifs, and years away at best.
In fact, I think the limited nature of the iSight is proof enough that nothing new is coming this way for a while. If they were coming out with a FW digital/DV cam anytime soon, why release a product that would compete against it (since any supposed iCam would obviously have to be iChat AV compatible), at least partially. Maybe in a few years, the iSight will evolve...maybe they even have a roadmap for upgrading it into an "iCam"...but it is what it is for the forseeable future, and Apple won't want anything competing with it--still less one of it's own products.
-DCQ
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
By going head to head with the "big boys" (at the time) and offering something better, more compelling (at the time it was the transistor radio!) Later it was Walkman and Betamax.
Just who were the "big boys"?
Sony invented a new market with the Walkman, and Betamax pretty much failed.
Originally posted by Amorph
Clive's point upthread about features-list engineering is well taken, but there's another issue: When designing, say, the PowerShot, Canon can make no assumptions about what other equipment you have available to you. There's a real temptation to throw in e.g. effects processing because there's no guarantee that the digital camera will be used with a computer at all! You can buy printers that can be hooked directly up to a camera now, so the camera makers cannot assume that you'll have a computer with USB and this software with that range of capabilities, etc.
Apple, of course, can. They have the luxury of being able to leave off features because they know that iPhoto, or iMovie, or even the new transparent ColorSync capability in Panther will pick up the slack, and that affords them a freedom to design a clean, simple camera that the dedicated camera makers don't have...
That's kind of good thinking, and I think that to a certain extent you are right, but you know what the missing ingredient is? Everyone has to have a Mac.
Now we already know that Apple isn't shooting for that market alone, because we have Windows iPods and we're going to get Windows iTMS.
While I think that Apple can sell iPods to Mac users, and a few to Windows users i also think that this market is pretty much a closed loop and will be quickly saturated.
With a digital camera I really think there's no point in Apple going there. If we assume that such a thing requires a Mac (or PC) the people buying must already be pretty computer literate - so there's no market for a "dumbed down" camera.
What there is a market for is a decent application to make the experience of using/accessing/archiving your photos - that's called iPhoto.
In addition I think people criticising the digital camera "experience" fail to realise that this is a pretty immature market still, with an even more immature infrastructure. Once people get more used to it and the facilities are available to drop off your photos on disk at your newsagent's to go back and pick up your prints later, then the whole experience will be better and more mainstream.
I don't think there's room in there for an Apple digital camera.
The reason there's an iPod is that it's breaking new ground, at a point in the not too distant future it no longer will be.
Apple would act only as a design, focus group, development team. Any neccessary manufacturing would be contracted out, just like they do with the assembly of most macs.
The digital camera lanscape is getting reshuffled all the time. We know that you don't need experience in traditional film cameras and that you don't need experience in electronics to make it work. Successful models have come from both backgrounds. YOu can buy any of the production or components that you need.
Apple is good at design, not just styling, they could build a camera if they wanted to.
Originally posted by Clive
Just who were the "big boys"?
Sony invented a new market with the Walkman, and Betamax pretty much failed.
a) Sony was going up again (then) American electronics giants for TV, radios, tape players, etc. Walkman was only one example. They saw a market and created a new product. But there were plenty of other players to compete against.
b) Beta was a consumer failure. Still widely used in pro circles as I understand it.
- No tape. Just a hard drive and you FireWire it directly to your Mac when you're ready
- Somehow, a "dual-mode" device: decent, consumer-level digital video (not talking $3000 pro level video here, but rather $500 Canon Z-25 stuff) and a respectable 3.2 megapixel still camera. I?m not an expert in how this could/would be done. But I feel confident that Apple could. Their track record at coming up with ultra cool, ?how come WE didn?t think of that?!? stuff is pretty solid
- FireWire. Like the iPod and iSight. Fast transfer of video AND photos to your Mac.
- TIGHT and seamless integration with iPhoto and iMovie, of course. They could work some magic on their end to really make this stuff sweet and totally ?no brainer?.
- Apply all they?ve learned about battery life and performance with the iPod and iBook to this device. Make it really longlasting...much more so than others on the market
- Again, taking a cue from the iBook: give it that tough shell to brace against scuffs and accidental drops that are sure to happen in real life, with students and people living an active lifestyle. Mount the guts the same way the iBook?s hard drive is mounted
- SIMPLE controls and function. Since it IS made for the Mac and Apple can rest assured knowing that the photos and video will be brought in to iMove and iPhoto for sweetening or editing, they can leave of all the unnecessary effects, bells and whistles and ?gee whiz? features that just gum up the simplicity of the device. Just capture the picture or video and move on. An on/off button, a ?Photo/Video? switch, a built-in mic, a built-in flast, decent optical zoom (leave off the digital zoom altogether...it?s useless) and maybe some controls for improving performance under certain conditions (sunlight, indoors, cloudy day, flourescent lights, etc.). Just the BASICS!
- Leverage all they know and all they have to help sweeten the pot: QuickTime, iPod-esque simplicity in the controls, iBook toughness, etc.
Forget what Sony or Canon is doing. This is for US. You write the rules for your audience, us Mac users who have Macs and the iApps. Just give PC people another reason to switch or something to chew on. Don?t try and match Sony or Canon in silly features...instead, consider your end audience and design this for THEM and the computers and software you already make and we?re already using.
THAT?S how you make a kick-ass product. If something like the above came to be, I?d happily pay $600 or so for it. I figure by having just one connection type (FireWire), leaving off a bunch of silly effects and features that should be applied in iMovie or iPhoto anyway, paring the device down to just the essentials in capturing photo and video, that could be done. More or less.
Just to have ONE device (not lugging around two anymore), have it tightly integrated with the Mac and corresponding iApp, great battery life, rugged shockproof chassis, good basic features and capabilities...and a big luscious chrome Apple logo on the side.
Honestly, who WOULDN?T dig that to pieces?
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
a) Sony was going up again (then) American electronics giants for TV, radios, tape players, etc. Walkman was only one example. They saw a market and created a new product. But there were plenty of other players to compete against.
Well there were the likes of Grundig, Philips, blah, but the Japanese manufacturers beat them at their own game, because the economics of the whole industry changed. The Japanese didn't have the same legacy as the European and American manufacturers, and they also invested in mechanisation.
Additionally they had a cheap labour force.
So, more than anything else what they won on was price.
I'm saying that the same is true today. To compete in those markets you have to compete on price.
Matsu says that Apple could compete on price - I think they probably can't because they have to contract out too much of the process.
Originally posted by Me, myself and I
There's room for anyone that can make a good product at a decent price.
So, um no, Matsu does not say that they could compete on price, though they could. Good product, decent price. As opposed to their past practice of decent product, at an obscene price. See the difference. Nowhere did I say cheapest product.
The iSight is not th cheapest product, but it's nearly cheap enough. The iPod is certainly not the cheapest product, but it's the best, and not so expensive that epople have to write of their option list before even looking.
An Apple camera would have to strike the same balance, not the cheapest, but cheap enough while being the best option for the type of person that would buy/want it.
Originally posted by pscates
- SIMPLE controls and function. Since it IS made for the Mac and Apple can rest assured knowing that the photos and video will be brought in to iMove and iPhoto for sweetening or editing, they can leave of all the unnecessary effects, bells and whistles and ?gee whiz? features that just gum up the simplicity of the device. Just capture the picture or video and move on.
pscates, you nailed it.
Consumer cameras are crammed with "features" aimed at doing as much as possible in the camera itself. Why? Because 95% of people buying the things use them with really sucky PC software. The message is "don't manipulate your photos and video in Windows, do it on our tiny screen with our brain dead UI." Same thing with connecting your camera directly to your printer. HP's whole consumer photography ad campaign is based on avoiding Windows.
Well, I'm a Mac user. My software doesn't suck, and the only link left in the "chain of pain" for me is the camera itself. Give me great image quality, a sturdy, yet gorgeous design, and most importantly, a minimum of hardware controls. My Mac will do the rest.
Canon and Olympus wouldn't make a truly simple camera even if they could. There's a bells and whistles arm race among the big camera manufacturers, and they're not about to change their strategy for 5% of the market.
Only Apple can do this, and they will.
They should either start porting iPhoto/iMovie/iTunes or partner. I think they should port! Most PCs already have QT installed. PC people will see this kind of quality and then see that on a Mac everything is that high quality. Of course I've seen XP constantly "mess" QT 6 up. On a vanilla system. Kind of suspicious. I wonder if Office would disappear if this were to happen, or if the Win iApps would start having "problems."
That pretty much covers anyone and everyone.
Originally posted by Clive
That's kind of good thinking, and I think that to a certain extent you are right, but you know what the missing ingredient is? Everyone has to have a Mac.
It's not the missing ingredient, it's a permutation of one of the two questions that has to be asked before Apple releases the product: Is this going to enrich the platform enough to get people buying Macs? The whole point of the Apple DLDs is to pretty up the platform.
Now we already know that Apple isn't shooting for that market alone, because we have Windows iPods and we're going to get Windows iTMS.
Certainly, and Apple could rig up something similar to what they've done with the iPod, with a USB2 cable and somebody's not-too-bad photoediting software, so that PC users can still be tempted with an Apple, if not a Mac.
They could also do it after proving the demand on the Mac side, as Apple did with the iPod and the iTMS. Because of their position, Apple does the opposite that most companies do, and tries things out on the Mac first before deciding whether to offer the product or service to Windows users. It's a more controlled environment in which to launch and refine a product, and if it makes a few people wish they had Macs, and if some of those people take the plunge, so much the better.
While I think that Apple can sell iPods to Mac users, and a few to Windows users i also think that this market is pretty much a closed loop and will be quickly saturated.
Maybe and maybe not. If if matures, it'll continue to generate revenue as people replace their old MP3 players. Maybe it won't be enough to make the iPod worthwhile. But, again, because this is an Apple product the iPod doesn't have to stand or fall on its own merits. The iTunes Music Store is a boon for the iPod, and it will become more of a boon when iTMS for Windows appears. The nature of the beast is that Apple can make the hardware more attractive with software, software more attractive with hardware, either more attractive with services, the Mac more attractive with peripherals, and the peripherals more attractive with any of the above.
With a digital camera I really think there's no point in Apple going there. If we assume that such a thing requires a Mac (or PC) the people buying must already be pretty computer literate - so there's no market for a "dumbed down" camera.
This assumes that everyone - or even a plurality of people - who have Macs or PCs are computer literate.
Even among the ones that are, there's a basic wish on the part of most people to have something that just works. If enough people want that wish fulfilled enough to pay Apple's premium, there's a possibility there. couldn't possibly say whether the digital camera market satisfies any of the conditions I've posited as necessary, so keep in mind that I'm not arguing that Apple will or should release a digital camera, only that they could do a consumer camera better because of their position and their approach to design, and the time might become ripe for them to make an attempt.
It seems to me that whether any particular DLD succeeds as a permanent entry is a secondary concern. If it gooses the competition into releasing better stuff that's Mac compatible, that's a win for the platform too. The DLDs are all about enriching the platform.
In addition I think people criticising the digital camera "experience" fail to realise that this is a pretty immature market still, with an even more immature infrastructure. Once people get more used to it and the facilities are available to drop off your photos on disk at your newsagent's to go back and pick up your prints later, then the whole experience will be better and more mainstream.
That's certainly one way to do it, but the maturing of the infrastructure - or, following your example, the adaptation of the film infrastructure to digital media - still doesn't address the complexity of the camera. If you have to do a lot of fidgeting around to take pictures in the first place, you're not going to take them, and then all the infrastructure in the world won't matter. (I've seen this enough with film cameras...)
The reason there's an iPod is that it's breaking new ground, at a point in the not too distant future it no longer will be.
The iPod is a commodity product (in the sense that it's built almost entirely from commodity parts, running a commodity OS) that was a fairly late entry into a crowded enough market at a high enough price that a lot of people thought it would be an expensive flop. It wasn't.
As long as nobody takes the time to make the product as slick as Apple has, and as long as nobody can find a way to match Apple's ability to make a product appealing by building up other products around it (breaking the "chain of pain," to borrow the digital photo example), the iPod will remain a contender. It's difficult to understand, but nothing prevented anyone - certainly not the likes of Sony - from designing and building the iPod themselves. They didn't - and in large part they still haven't - and that's significant.
Many Mac users see non Apple products as designed more for PC and so are put off - they are soft targets for Apple. The iPod also shows that if a product is great, even PC buyers can be won over. I work in a high street electrical store and every week I get asked by about two people for an iPod, most of these guys are PC users.
However, many digital cameras are a step too far. The best digital cameras are now made by people who make SLRs and 35mm Cameras - Canon, Olympus etc. I can't see a novel new feature which Apple could use to enter this market like the did with the iPod (first big hard disk MP3 player) so there is little point in entering here.
If Apple can continue to come up with devices as good as the iPod for other markets however, I see no reason why they shouldn't enter - go on Apple, give as another iPod!