theothergeoff

fasterquieter said:

macxpress said:

I'd like to see how Amazon can match the HomePod in features and keep the same $180 price tag. If they want to retain the $180 price tag, something will have to suffer.

Shouldn't be too much of an issue, given Amazon doesn't need any profit margin. The Echo serves mainly as a hook to get people into the Amazon ecosystem. Same as all their tablets. They were selling the cheapest tablet for $30 on Prime Day. That shows how much they care about profit from hardware.

In general, all consumer electronics drives to a commodity pricing tier [crap, good, better] pretty quick.   Amazon knows this, Apple knows this.  Google knows this.  Microsoft is learning this.   you can optimize your supply chain, assembly and sales chains, but in the end, everything becomes pretty much those 3 tiers.

The difference is why you sell your hardware.

Amazon sells cheap hardware and systems to get people into their transactional ecosystem, with the goal of  eventually getting a % of every $ spent on everything that has value in the universe.  It's the Visa Model (we make it easy to get what you want)  Car analogy: (they build a car that can drive just about everywhere, but if you go to their store, you just have to think about what you want, and it ends up in your trunk, and automatically pops out of the trunk and positions itself by your front door when you get home... and if you're at home, the car will listen to what you say, and tell another car to deliver the goods to the same door)

    their not-so-secret sauce... eliminating the friction between your desires and the sale.

Apple sells high priced hardware and subsidizes the software development to build systems that can be infinitely integrated into other systems for seamless, enabling, user experience.  The want to change the world, and hence need more cash on hand to live through the long periods of non-change and the occasional mistakes (RAZR), but when the do deliver greatness, the rest of the world adapts to them or dies.   In the car model, they have made cars drivable at 200mph by mere mortals, and built an aftermarket so that car can be modified for $1.99 by a click of a button to customized experiences for each part of your driving live, and parts of your life that you didn't think had anything to do with driving ("my car can take pictures... my car knows where I am at).  On top of that, I can put a watch on and my car knows if it needs to drive me to the hospital or the gym).

   Apple's not so secret sauce... eliminating the frustration (dare say try to introduce 'joy') of using digital information to enhance your real life, but by solving your needs, not catering to your wants.

Google gives away 'free information' in exchange for putting a indelible mark on the end user's digital soul, and selling curated access to that mark to the digital devils, in exchange for money.  They sell cheap hardware to ensure they are not shut out of the individual<->digital service delivery, because that is their Real product..  

Google's not so secret sauce.   people want something for nothing, and are willing to give up their privacy and security to do so.

(they sell cheap cars and give away free gas at their gas station(stolen from other gas stations), or minimally the path the gas station you want, but in doing so, they reprogram your car's radio and map for their paying customers, so even if you want Shell Gas, you're first 5 choices are something else).

In the end.  the cheap cars will drive 200 miles per hour, all have apps, all have 8 gyros, and optional watches, or Matrix like BrainStem Implants (because hey, watch or brain stem implant, or even bulldozer skid steer controls , because some old school customers want interchangeable choice [right, Microsoft?]), all will start with a press of your fingerprint (or the dashboard recognizes you)...  and they will sell because there are a vast majority of people who don't care or can't afford a better car.

And Apple will then make the 500mph car, and after ten years of not innovating will make self-driving planes that fly 600mph (too slow) 40,000 ft (too low), and only carry 4 passengers (Lame!),  but 2 years later the Series 2 comes out flying at mach2, has a robotic flight attendant, and then   all the ultralights and commuter airlines go out of business.  And someone complains about the solar charging  requiring you to fly above the clouds, and ask for replaceable batteries, because Samsung planes have them.

analogjack said:

Absolutely impossible to believe. The whole raison d'être of the iPhone was predicated on two things, 1. a proper OS and 2. no keyboard.

yes, but there is no reason not to believe that there was a massive internal struggle getting to those two things.  There is the possibility that Schiller did take the devil's advocate position (he had to market the thing against the blackberry, taking the adversarial position to have the engineers and designers 'sell him' on an touch screen solution, so he could sell investors, set marketing themes, etc.)

slurpy said:

Also, I don't trust a word that comes out of Faddels mouth. It's well known that he consistently exaggerated his role and accomplishments at Apple in order to bring more legitimacy and hype to his new company (now sold out to Google of course). 

One thing pointed out is that Fadell's denial is also a non-denial (from twitter and @daringfireball) ... Fadell is not denying he told Merchant FALSE story (and is now asking Merchant to change the story to the truth), Fadell could be stating that he told a false story [thinking he would not be quoted verbatim] and has been caught [and is now under legal threat from Apple/Schiller] and is asking Merchant to change it.

bloggerblog said:

Btw, Microsoft was never a monopoly, they tried to be one but obviously couldn't. They just knew how to market their products through the right channels. They bested out Solaris, UNIX, MacOS, IRIX, NeXT, AmigaOS, BeOS and others in 5 short years.

Case Law disagrees with you.

United States V. Microsoft (1998) [Wikipedia]
  "Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly"

Rayz2016 said:

ivanh said:

It's all about a tiny sensor. When it's invented, Apple or Samsung uses it, integrate it and write codes for it.  If this kind of sensor has been there, at least one "real" Glucose Level monitor should be using it without a smartphone. Have you ever seen Apple makes even one electronic component in the past?

Er … yes. 
Let's start with the A processors, move on to the display controllers in the 5K iMac, the W1 chip in the headphones…

I think the original question should be "one 'bio-electronic' component." The sensor is the key.  Chips are the last step.

They usually buy this tech.  Authentec is that sort of purchase... everyone was stuck in 'classic' fingerprint readers until Apple spent 2 years investing in Authentec's technology, and building in the tech to make it 'insanely great'

The question is, what companies have they bought that we don't know about yet (they usually have several smaller acquisitions that don't get found out for upwards of a year) that have compelling bench technology that requires Apple's skill to miniaturize into a chip. and build at scale.

GeorgeBMac said:

Fewer and fewer people want to be chained to a clunky laptop that is itself chained to the box that gives it access to the world...

But, the laptop hangs on -- and will -- because Apple and Google have yet to offer a viable alternative to the things that it does well (without also dealing with its chain-gang mentality).

... Steve!   Wherever you are!   Come Back!   We need you!

and steve would say, if people want to buy old trucks, let them.  He's building cars (and nice new trucks).