chutzpah

9secondkox2 said:

Then I saw they’re using Unity as their 3D base. So it will only be Apple Arcade games.

tmay said:

avon b7 said:

tmay said:

avon b7 said:

designr said:

avon b7 said:

designr said:

avon b7 said:

tmay said:

avon b7 said:

Xed said:

avon b7 said:

Xed said:

avon b7 said:

anonymouse said:

danox said:

twolf2919 said:

Price is THE decider on whether this headset will be a success.  This author - and others who’ve made the same point that Apple has had supposed failures many times before turn into successes - doesn’t seem to realize this.  When has Apple *ever* introduced a completely new product category at an initial price point of $3k?  Maybe the original Apple 2 (adjusted for inflation) - but nothing since then.   Sure, there are several niche “pro” products in THS range and beyond, but nothing with hoped for mass market appeal.  And  Apple clearly wants this to eventually become the next iPhone.  And I think the AR glasses originally promised for this timeframe had/has this potential - but not some dorky headset costing as much as a used car.

The decider will be the hardware and software integration, and the quality of the programs designed to use the capabilities of the device, if Apple has those things nailed down, then the device will succeed, however no matter what price Apple sets, it will be too much and the complaining will go on and on because many people will want it, but will not be able to afford it.

Even to this day, there are still many financial analysts who think Apple should drop their prices on all products to pick up more marketshare, which, if you know anything about Apple, you know that isn’t their way of doing business.

Yeah, well, remember when all the analysts said that Apple is Doomed™ if they don't release a netbook? 

IMO, the lack of a true netbook was a huge miss. As was the original iMac with only USB1. As was, ironically, the delay in getting USB2 onto Macs. As was not buying Netflix. As was not opening up firewire. As was fiasco on 5G/QC...

Let's not forget the whole concept of NetBoot and where that could have gone for business and education.

The question should not be if Apple was doomed because of those 'errors' but how much more they could have achieved by following through with some moves.

How did that work out for netbook makers? Fizzled out before they ever achieved any decent profits.

Even Apple dropped their 11” MBA because it wasn’t popular enough at that size.

Now there's an ARM version of Windows and SoCs are considerably more powerful and power efficient, but you don't see netbooks making a comeback. Perhaps that's because it was never a great idea. 

The product category evolved. Just like the iPod. 

There was enough business to go around for many companies to sell their products for years before tablets caught on and phones became more versatile. And of course regular laptops are going for very low prices nowadays. 

Tablets of course required a physical keyboard to get close to what a netbook could do and were way behind when it came to could be presented through a browser. 

But the error here for Apple wasn't simply competing in that space but using the product as a hook to catch users. And then the possibility of following through on the NetBoot promise via OSX Server. 

That was a lost opportunity. 

And none of those are netbooks. Netbooks failed miserably. End of story.

It's evolution and netbooks were a huge success and had huge demand in there hey day. 2008/9 saw global sales triple, hitting a high of around 35 million. There was a time when all you basically saw were netbooks. 

It's obvious why, too. 

More hyperbole.

At its peak, netbooks were 20% of the market, but given how short a time span netbooks were "popular", they were a fail. Consumers bought them because they were cheap, but then they realized that they were limited.

Nobody bought a netbook thinking it was remotely more than it was.

Yes, they bought them mainly because they were cheap. That was the whole point. 

They had their moment and were a huge success.

No hyperbole. No fail.

They served a purpose and Apple could have used them in various ways to stimulate further growth. 

As it was, a $500 iPad came along and people swiftly looked for keyboards for them. And still do for anything more than passive or casual use.

And yet...Apple is the most valuable (publicly-traded) company in the world. It appears they survived this "missed opportunity."

And now back to "As you may expect, the internet already says that Apple's headset is doomed, apparently."

And let's not forget that the market cap has nothing really to do with laptops or iPads.

Nothing? Nothing at all? I agree that a majority of Apple's market cap is attributable to iPhone, but not 100%. Certainly, some of their market cap is attributable to their laptops and iPads.

Zippo. ;-) 

The iPad and Laptops are part of the billion dollar Apple, not the trillion dollar Apple. 

Without iPhone, Apple wouldn't have reached its current cap in a gazillion years.

At least when taken in the context of 'missed opportunities', which was your point here. 

If that was the point you were trying to make, you failed massively. 

For an example; Apple's market value on December 1, 1998 was $6B, but what happened that year?

https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/06/20-years-ago-the-imac-changed-the-world

The iMac's introduction is an important moment in Apple history. It came a year after Jobs returned to Apple following the company's purchase of his company NeXT; at the time of the keynote he was still interim CEO. The computer's success helped reverse of a decade of struggles for the company, leading into the the company's huge run of growth after the turn of the millennium. 

It also helped set a template for a long run of products, that caught the eye with beautiful design. Apple touted that introductory event as "Back on Track," and it certainly was, even though it would take several years for Apple to return to significant profitability.

How about the Powerbook G4 Titanium? 

https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/11/20-macs-for-2020-5-titanium-powerbook-g4/

The other big move was the one away from plastic, at least on premium laptops. (Keep in mind, every single Apple product in 2001 was completely wrapped in plastic, from the Power Macs to PowerBook to iMac to iBook.) Eventually, Apple would migrate every Mac to a metallic design, and this is where the move started.

Ive and his design lab had been experimenting with interesting materials for a while now. The obsession with translucent plastic originally evinced in the eMate and some late-model beige Power Macs led to the iMac and Blue and White Power Mac G3. But there were other materials in the mix. The Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh had an aluminum stand and leather wrist rests, and even its plastic body had a metallic sparkle.

So the decision was made: The new PowerBook G4 would prioritize thinness and lightness, and would be sheathed in metal, not plastic. And Apple chose to use a very light metal— titanium—to build it. “It’s stronger than steel, yet lighter than aluminum,” Jobs said on stage when introducing the laptop. “Like they build airplanes out of.”

It was a mistake.

The Titanium PowerBook G4 was a mind-blowing product when it was announced. It looked great, offered enormous power for a laptop, and everyone wanted one. But it turned out to also be a great teacher for Apple.

Titanium is light, but it also proved to be brittle. The PowerBook’s hinges had an unfortunate tendency to snap. My daughter, who was a toddler at the time, grabbed the top of my Titanium PowerBook G4 one day and snapped it clean off.

And to get the two-toned look that Apple wanted, the computer was painted silver and white. Titanium is not that great at holding paint or resisting scratches, so the surface of the laptop eventually became marred by scratches and flaked-off paint. Companies began selling color-matched Titanium PowerBook paint for touch-up jobs.

Having learned its lesson, Apple shifted gears a couple of years later and released a PowerBook G4 sheathed in aluminum. Over time, Apple would become one of the world’s most expert companies in working with aluminum, and every Mac would get an aluminum shell. At the time, the choice of using aluminum probably came down to its strength and lightness. It was also possible to anodize it, creating a nearly impervious surface coating that doesn’t require any paint. 

Color can even be added as part of the anodization process, a feature that Apple would use across several generations of the iPod mini and nano later in the decade.

Though it was hampered by quality issues that would emerge over time, the Titanium PowerBook G4 was an immediate hit, showing Apple that it was on the right track. Though a laptop that’s an inch thick and weighs 5.4 pounds seems ridiculously chunky today, in 2001 terms it was shockingly thin and light. (The PowerBook G3 it replaced was 1.7 inches thick, and about half a pound heavier.)

It also feels like a trailblazer in terms of the display itself. It was Apple’s first real widescreen laptop, and the bezels around the display are small even by today’s standards. The screen is also impressively thin, even viewed from 2020.

Finally, in another example of style over substance, the Titanium PowerBook G4 was the first Apple laptop to reorient the Apple logo on the back of the display so that it was upright when opened. At the time, the orientation of the Apple logo on laptops was heavily debated. Some people felt it was too weird to have the Apple logo upside-down when you were using it, while others took the view that it was weird to have the logo upside-down when you were reaching to open it up.

Guess which one looked better on television and in movies during product placement, as well as in cafes full of potential laptop buyers. Who knows how many products that glowing Apple logo on the back of a laptop sold over the years?

In Apple, after Jobs return, I see a continuum of design and development, and a culture, that almost inevitably lead to the iPod, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, and Watch, all massive successes for Apple. 

Apple's market value growth acknowledges those early successes, as much as the iPhone, and later successes, but sure, the iPhone was the Black Swan of success.

The question that has to be asked; why is it Apple that always seems to find success, and not those competitors that you constantly shill for?

Erm. Re-read my post. Slowly. 

Without the iPhone Apple would not be a trillion dollar company.

Aside from that absolute truth, my comment was also somewhat tongue in cheek.

I love the old Mac laptops. I have a few of them but unfortunately, not my all time favourite: The Pismo. 

LOL!

In your alternate universe where iPhone doesn't exist, Apple may very well have created a tablet first, that then goes on to evolve into a diminutive version that becomes the mobile device of choice for 28% of the world's population. 

But please keep attempting to make the obvious point that everyone is aware of, and continue leaving out any context of how Apple achieved that, while so many others failed. That's the real point, that Apple succeeded, time and time again, while others failed.