redstater

"The smart home space is heating up as tech giants like Amazon, Apple and most recently Google put their considerable weight behind in-house initiatives." Sure. Right. Google launched their IoT strategy in 2014. That was when they launched voice-driven wearables and smart TV/TV box products and oh yes paid $2.3 billion for Nest. It didn't get off the ground because Samsung and LG went their own way with their own IoT platforms; Samsung's based on Tizen and LG based on webOS (renamed lgOS). Then Google tried again by launching an IoT platform based on a stripped-down version of Android called Brillo and an API called Weave. That was slightly more successful, as Google's go-to gadget company Asus, Kwikset and a couple more companies have Brillo/Weave gadgets launching this year (a door lock, a smart bridge and a Wi-Fi chip). Speaking of Wi-Fi chips, Google's OnHub routers (built by Asus) run ChromeOS. LG, playing both sides of the aisle, committed to trying their hand at Brillo-based appliances this year in addition to their own platform, because their lgOS based devices haven't been as successful as Samsung's (insecure and hackable) Tizen ones. So considering that they bought Nest (who also owns Dropcam) and launched other products as part of their IoT strategy before Apple even announced HomeKit, saying "most recently Google" is ridiculous. Google's "most recent" development is merely adding a competitor to Amazon Echo to their platform. Incidentally, I always find it humorous that whenever someone else launches a product or feature after Apple, that player is accused of "copying" or "infringing" but when Apple is the second (or third or fourth) to the party, there are always claims that "Apple was researching our own product before the competition launched theirs." So ... right. The device launched nearly 2 years ago. How long does it take to put iOS in a speaker? When you have already been making iPods for 14 years and iPods have run iOS sincd 2007!!!. At the very most this was an idea that Apple considered but mothballed only to revive when other companies demonstrated that it was a good idea. Nothing wrong with Apple coming out with their own speaker because Apple was known for great audio even before the iPod, but feeling the need to claim "no we were first REALLY!" just diminishes the #1 company in the world.

MacBook Air as an entry level device for $700 or even $500 is a bad idea why? If Apple is able to manufacture the things for $250 and sell then for $500, what is the problem? Do you want Apple products to be for the masses or don't you? Or would you rather them remain a product for the elite? Another thing: an entry level MacBook Air wouldn't even need the A9 or another ARM chip, which everyone wants to see happen for geeky tech reasons, not because it fills an actual market need. (Never mind the fact that it would force Apple to tune one version of OS X for ARM and another for x86 and maintain two separate OS streams; something that has never been Apple's thing - it is more like what Microsoft and Google specialize in - and should never be.) Instead, it could simply use a cheaper Intel i-series chip (not a Pentium or Celeron type that is being used for Chromebooks and cheaper Windows 10 devices) than are in the MacBook Pros, which quite honestly should cost the same as an A9 anyway. It may even cost less! If Apple is able to build a quality machine that capably runs Mac OS X and sell it for $500-$700 and still make a large per-device margin, then why not? It could target Windows users, public schools and even the users of better Chromebooks (which run about $350-$400). If there is a downside, explain it to me. And if the claim is that Apple cannot POSSIBLY make a device with an i3 or i5 processor that capably runs OS X for that amount of money, make that case also. Kind of difficult to do so if you ask me when you consider that the Mac Mini already starts at $499. (Had I known of the Mac Mini's existence I would not have bought my last Windows PC. I am still hoping that the thing kicks the bucket soon so I can replace it with one.) http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/.

All this columnist had to do was state that it took the best quarter ever for Chromebooks to surpass MacBook sales in a quarter where everyone is waiting for the new MacBooks come out and as such the only ones buying them are A) deal hunters and emergency purchases. That is something that is actually true. But instead, we get several paragraphs of caterwauling. Look, we know that Chrome OS is a failed product because Google failed to create compelling software and services for it, and third party developers similarly failed because either A) they are all developing for iOS or Google failed to create good Chrome OS products for them to model their own after. But it is curious: education is the one area where Google actually did make useful products and tools for ChromeOS. And it happens to be the only area where Google has made headway. Google is probably hoping that kids who use Chrome OS in school will buy them for home use, but there is no evidence of that happening. They are also probably hoping that making inroads in the education sector will lead to purchasing managers who acquire them also buying them when they leave government for the private sector, but Apple's longtime penetration in education didn't gain them private sector market share either. As for the "their analysis didn't include iPads" thing ... these same analysts reported that Chromebooks surpassed iPads in education 2 years ago. Many Apple advocates - including those on this very blog from searching past articles - disputed those findings, but now they are beyond dispute, and the only purpose that raising it here does is to ridiculously call the analysts biased. However, no one was calling these same analysts biased from 3Q 2014 until 4Q 2015 when they are all reporting record sales for iPhones and MacBooks and dropping Android and Windows market share. It is only when they report bad news - even if that news only seems bad in context - that everyone wants to knock and discredit them. But here is the reality: schools quickly found 3 things about iPads. 1. They lacked GOOD educational tools to supplement existing classroom instruction, and they lacked the time, money and resources to restructure their curriculum and pedagogy around iPads, especially when a viable alternative already existed. See the LAUSD/Pearson/iPad scandal - which this blog more than adequately covered - for a textbook illustration on that (very bad pun intended). 2. They lacked the IT tools to manage all the iPads. This is something that Apple has never provided for any of their products going back to the PC era and is one of the main reasons why PCs got entrenched in the enterprise to begin with. Only when it became possible to sync Apple devices with Microsoft's Active Directory and Exchange products did this begin to change in the enterprise, but surprise, surprise - public schools, who tend not to have the same IT resources as private companies do, especially at the school level as opposed to the school/government management office building level - find Google's tools for Chromebooks far more easier to manage than Windows Server also. Until Apple actually comes out with enterprise-type software and services for their hardware, something that they could have and should have done 25 years ago this is not going to change. 3. iPads mean tiny screens, no keyboards or mice, no multi-tasking and no USB drives. Meaning that unless you are a very technically skilled person - which 99% of teachers and their pupils tend not to be - they are very difficult to use for productivity type tasks. Yes, you can get an iPad Pro and trick it out with accessories like the keyboard and stylus but A) that doesn't remove the problem with quickly and easily transferring files and oh yes that increases the cost to like $1500. Which means you may as well get a MacBook. In fact, a school district recently replaced their iPad "toys" with MacBooks, as an article on this very site stated. Now note: this was a wealthy, suburban northeastern school districts who could afford $1500 per student on MacBooks. For 80% of school districts, including Tim Cook's own former high school, it is either a $250 iPad Mini (with the 7.9' screen and no input device beyond the touchscreen) and a $250 Chromebook with the keyboard, touchpad, and for which you can get cheap USB mice from anywhere. So relax. Chrome OS is still a failed product and MacBooks are still a very successful one. But this is primarily due to the failure of Google's "web and cloud based OS" strategy, not of any merit of Apple (or for that matter Microsoft, who by the way still has a much larger education presence than iOS, Mac OS X and Chrome OS combined). Had Google simply come out with a more user friendly version of Debian to accompany Chrome OS (right now you can only access Debian in developer mode and it isn't user-friendly; it is just Debian) with a compelling suite of apps and services to go with it, they might have gotten headway. As it is, they are going to just stick Android apps written for mobile phones in a memory and CPU-sucking Android VM container on a tablet OS, which will perform terribly and be thoroughly useless for everyone except the die-hard Google fans. Meaning that if you are looking for a cheap PC, a Windows one (whether Windows 10 or Windows 7 if you can find it) will continue to be a much better deal than anything in the Google ecosystem ... if for only because 80% of the benefits of ChromeOS can be had by simply running the Chrome browser on Windows. Sure, the Android apps won't be on the Chrome browser for Windows (only because Google is stupid enough to close off a potentially huge revenue stream but that is another issue for another day) but who cares ... those were developed for phones anyway, and there are a lot of much better Windows applications available that do the same thing.

foggyhill said:

The dumbest fracking thing ever posted on Apple Insider.

Apple should 100% create a A chip laptop, that would kill Chrome books in an instant because they're margins is so thin the wouldn't be able to compete.

The dumbest thing ever posted is the continual claims about "thin margins." Apple fans seem to think that the tech market A) began with Apple and consists only of devices that Apple makes and sells. So obviously, because Apple sells PCs, TV boxes, smartphones, tablets, headphones etc. at high margins, that is the only way to make money in consumer products generally and electronics specifically. Right? Right? Except that companies have been selling cheap PCs at low margins FOR THIRTY YEARS. The companies that do it ... Lenovo, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, Vaio ... are still in business and are doing fine. The only major ones to go out of business were not only cheap PC competitors like Compaq and Packard Bell, but IBM, the one manufacturer with an Apple-like premium-only with high margins and extensive support strategy! They were undercut by the competition and wound up having to sell both their PC and small server divisions to Lenovo! But that is just PCs, right? Well, no. Headphones and accessories? Companies that make cheap ones have always been around and will always be around. LG reports that they make more money on accessories for their smartphones than they do on smartphones, even though they aren't "premium" like Beats! (Which is one of the reasons why they will never stop making smartphones, because if they do, their smartphones accessories business will dry up. Buy LG accessories to go with a Samsung, Motorola or Huawei smartphone? Why, when Samsung, Motoroal and Huawei make their own accessories?) All right. Let us get into stuff that Apple doesn't make. TVs? Well you can either pay $5000 for an LG, Sony or Samsung HDTV ... or you can spend $250 for a Haier or RCA one. RCA, Haier and the other cheap TV manufacturers MUST be going out of business because of the low margins right? Nope. They've been in the market for years - though most of the cheap TV brands sell primarily in Asia - and some of them (like Huawei) are finally getting into the premium electronics market for the first time after decades of existing on the fringes as budget electronics and appliance manufacturers by selling Android smartphones! Stereos? More of the same. The companies that were making cheap analog stereos and speakers to plug into (similarly cheap) TVs a decade ago are now making cheap bluetooth and NFC TVs to sync with cheap Android phones and Chromecast Audio dongles. Some of these companies are now building cheap speakers with Chromecast Audio built in. Watches? Timex, Armitron and Casio have been in business for decades and will remain so, and at least a couple of them are now either making Android Wear smartwatches (like Casio and Swatch) or are investigating their own smartwatch/IoT platform. Look, if budget and cheap devices have always existed with the companies making them turning profits, that's not going to change. So please. Stop it with the "the margins are too low to stay in business" thing. It is not true. It has never been true. Decades and decades of consumer and electronics devices prove otherwise. You even have (or had) entire retail chains that specialize in cheap electronics. So long as Wal-Mart (for example) stays in business, companies will exist to sell Chromebooks and Android phones and tablets to their patrons. Who knows, some of them may even use Walmart Pay to buy them! That immutable fact of commerce isn't going to be changed by Apple fans - who obviously by the comments on here never shop at Wal-Mart or any place like it anyway - wishing it to.

Herbivore2 said:

Google really is headed for a crisis. They desperately need to move the user base to web based search. The iOS keyboard is essentially a Hail Mary pass. 

They missed on their revenue numbers for the last quarter. Cost per click revenue is down and Facebook allows for far more precise targeting of digital ads. Amazon is moving its membership to their app, bypassing Google search all together. 

Chromebooks going into schools aren't going to do anything to fix Google's long term problems. 

Google is going in multiple directions, including some that involve very major capital investments like fiber. Other than digital search ads, they do not dominate the profits in any other segment. And Microsoft is beginning to take search marketshare with Bing. The company is unfocused and undisciplined. 

The more I analyze Google, the more I realize that the company is headed for a crash. 

Apple is going to take Qualcomm's modem business and give it to Intel. It means that QCOM's profits rapidly decline. Intel gets into the iPhone and has a guaranteed source of profits on the dominant mobile platform. Apple continues to invest in TSMC and in return TSMC produces state of the art CPUs that no one else can touch for mobile performance. Snapdragon performance won't keep up. Either for CPU performance or for modem performance. 

Android gets relegated to second tier hardware with the Snapdragon and Exynos CPUs being built on a less capable process. 

And if Apple gets exclusivity for Intel's 3D XPoint memory on mobile devices, all of the air will be sucked out of the Android market. 

Honestly, practically none of this is true. The iOS keyboard is a hail-mary pass when A) Apple has just now copied Android by allowing third party keyboards and Google has ALWAYS placed their apps on iOS and Mac OS X and C) Google's revenue from Apple is increasing, not decreasing? Google missed their revenue target, but only slightly. Unlike Apple, their YoY profit increased, as it has for the past several years in a row. Yes, Google gets competition from Amazon and Facebook, but the latter two are siloed. Cost per click has been going down for years; Google has compensated by getting more clicks. Chromebook's going to schools doesn't fix Google's "long term problems" but you have failed to list a single "long term problem" ... just wishful thinking about Apple's only (non)competitor in mobile magically lowing away. Microsoft is beginning to take marketshare with Bing? First off this isn't true, as Microsoft's market share has fluctuated from their very small base for years, and second isn't Microsoft vulnerable to the same issues with Amazon and Facebook, or even more so? The issue is that unlike Google, for whom Bing has NEVER made a profit which is why Microsoft has renamed it 3 times, Microsoft is more likely to just give up on losing money. And when that happens - and when Yahoo finally goes belly up - Google will be the last man standing, with their biggest problem being the resulting anti-trust issues (which is why Google has given cash to Yahoo in the past to keep them going, the same reason why Microsoft gave Apple cash to stay afloat in the 1990s). Apple is going to take Qualcomm's modem business and give it to Intel? Well gee, that is going to leave poor Qualcomm with the 80% worldwide market share that is Android! Just remember that Qualcomm gets far money from their CPUs than Intel will get from the modems. No one can touch TSMC for performance? The truth is that both Qualcomm and Samsung can. Again, 80% of devices made are Android, and they go to Qualcomm, Samsung and MediaTek for their chips. None of them go to TSMC, so what TSMC does with Apple is irrelevant. The air will get sucked out of the Android market? How? They can either just keep going to the same component manufacturers that they have been since 2008 and let Apple go to theirs. Or they can switch to TSMC and Intel just like Apple! Or is Apple going to sign some sort of exclusive deal with Intel and TSMC to keep Samsung, Huawei and the rest from signing up? Sure, like Intel and TSMC would do that in a million years. They would be far more likely to tell Apple - who has a long history of leaving their suppliers high and dry to the point where some even declared bankruptcy - to go take a hike. You are aware that A LOT of the companies that make Android devices also make Windows PCs and Chromebooks with Intel CPUs? Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Samsung, Sony, Huawei, Xiaomi ... you name it. Why on earth would Intel threaten their PC chip business - which is where they make their most money by far - in order to be the exclusive supplier to Apple for VERY CHEAP modem chips? Knowing full well that fickle Apple reserves the right to drop Intel for another modem chip supplier 5 years from now, leaving Intel with NEITHER Apple OR the Android and Windows business? But hey, you guys have been predicting doom and gloom for Google and Android for the past 8 years. I guess one more theory that makes absolutely no sense from a technology or business standpoint on why the owner of Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Google Cloud Services (which is doing just fine in the enterprise with APPLE among their customers ... not that this article mentioned that), Google Maps and Android is just as good as any.