Is Apple too powerful?

http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-apple-too-powerful.html

by malvosenior • 17 years ago

17 25 17 years ago

mobileopportunity.blogspot.com

Tiktaalik• 17 years ago

There's some compelling points raised here. The iTunes connection is a bit on the edge of crossing over to being used inappropriately I think.

RyanMcGreal• 17 years ago

> Think about that for a minute. "There's a big new market, and we want in." Not, "we're creating something new" or "we can vastly improve this category." Just, "we want a cut."

You know, there were MP3 players before the iPod. Apple improved on the design and usability and coupled their MP3 player with an online store that had buy-in from the music industry, but they were still essentially angling for a cut on an existing market.

netsp2• 17 years ago

These are not mutually exclusive.

timcederman2• 17 years ago

It's funny. I've heard the whole "iPod made MP3 players usable" argument a few times and I don't buy it. iRiver made a batch of very nice MP3 players, which sold very well in Asia, and had more features and were just as user-friendly as the iPod, if not more so.

So what's the difference? You nailed it by mentioning the online store. iTunes was a unified interface backed by a large company with the ability to purchase new music. The iPods themselves, at first, weren't that special. I'm actually quite amazed with how nice the iPods have continued to get over the years, and with the new Nano they provide a compelling reason to continue buying a standalone music player.

dasil003• 17 years ago

iPod launched in 2001 and by the end of 2002 it already dominated US market share. The music store was not launched until Q2 2003. Certainly the store helped Apple solidify their position, but the iPod stood on its own before that. You can argue whether it was design, usability or marketing (clearly all three had an impact), but you can't argue about the iPod's success even before the music store.

blasdel• 17 years ago

The original iPod predated even the flash-memory iRiver products by at least a year.

When the iPod was released its sole competitors were the Nomad Jukebox and the Compaq PJB-100 -- both of which were HUEG (2.5" hard drives), had shit for battery life, were made of the creakiest plastic, and took several minutes to boot up and index your files (due to not having an index (drag-and-drop has consequences!)).

timcederman2• 17 years ago

Wow, I didn't realise it was verboten here to say anything less than stellar about the iPod.

When the iPod first came out it was Mac only and very expensive. I knew plenty of people with MP3 players many years before getting an iPod. Saying they had "wrapped up" the market is pointless, since it was all early adopters at that stage.

When the iPod started to get REALLY popular (just prior to the Mini) and hit critical mass, there was plenty of good competition out there. So what made the difference for Apple? These original points. Not sure why I got downvoted to -2 for saying so. I thought we reserved downvotes for trolls, not dissenting opinion?

fatdog789• 17 years ago

I believe that Apple's real contribution to the MP3 field was the massive amounts of money it spent on advertising. Apple spends more per year on advertising than every other electronics company in the world...combined...$500 million+.

Apple doesn't make quality products. It makes quality marketing. And it proved that style trumps substance.

tjogin3• 17 years ago

As long as their competition continues to believe absurdities like that, they'll continue winning.

nfriedly• 17 years ago

No?

Seriously, they own the music market because they have the best product around and still do after giving the competition years to catch up.

Apple does not currently own the video market, and I honestly don't expect them to any time soon.

I think that, if anything, it'll encourage innovation because suddenly there's a clear target: "It has to be better than iPod. And not just a little better, way better." Apple's not unbeatable.

unalone2• 17 years ago

Agreed agreed agreed.

I'm a huge Apple fan, I root for them loudly and occasionally drunkenly, but they don't rule video. The nano release was a backstep for them in that it doesn't unify their product category. If they'd released a camera with the iPod touch, as I think they will, then suddenly they've got a chance for a powerhouse, but the nano is a music product, not a multimedia product, and this camera is as close to lackluster as Apple gets. It will sell nanos, but this isn't a competitive product like the touch-with-camera would have been.

wvenable2• 17 years ago

Apple going after the flip makes perfect sense; there's not a lot of difference between them hardware-wise except for the camera. It might just take another generation before the nano is superior to the flip (factoring in it's size) -- It's already a pretty good value.

unalone2• 17 years ago

The Flip is already in HD. They're much more flexible than Apple because they have only the one product focus. So far Apple doesn't have a camera good enough to detract from the Flip, and the people who get nanos for the camera won't be in the Flip's market.

tjogin3• 17 years ago

It does make a lot of sense. I'm just surprised that they decided to tack a video camera on an mp3-player. When you've decided to get a video camera, you look for video cameras, not mp3-players. I'm surprised they didn't decide to simply make a video camera instead; an even better Flip.

tholex2• 17 years ago

Apple simply abuses whatever power it has more so than other companies. There's what, 30 million iPhone users out there? 40?

If any of them want to listen to music with legitimate headphones, they have to buy adapters to fit the intentionally-small opening. It's the same for all their proprietary plugs and devices. They exclude other RAM and hardware manufacturers from their desktop, even those that produce better products at a cheaper price.

larrykubin• 17 years ago

Legitimate headphones? I personally use the Sony MDR-V6 headphones and they fit perfectly in my iPod Touch. It's just a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Is it not? If you go to the Apple Store, all of the iPods have Bose headphones plugged in... It's the G1 Android phone that required a special adapter.

I've also bought plenty of cheap RAM and hard drives for Apple products. Just bought a Seagate hard drive for a MacBook last week. Apple doesn't manufacture their own hard drives.

wmeredith2• 17 years ago

Uh, it seems like you might not know WTF you're talking about... Every headphone adapter I've ever tried to plug into my iPods has worked. What you're talking about was a design flaw on the first-gen iPhone that was corrected in the next model.

The RAM statement is false.

The "even even those that produce better products at a cheaper price" statement is a matter of opinion. As a side note, I'm afraid it's an opinion that few people share. There are a lot of points where you can pick on Apple; industrial design is not a good place to start. (It's kind of like going after Benjamin Franklin for being a crappy politician, instead of say slave ownership or smoking pot. Industrial design may be what Apple is best at.)

They do exclude other computer makers from shipping computers running their OS. A lot of companies do this, though; the only reason it seems weird of Apple is that Microsoft doesn't do this and competitors are so small that it's basically dual market. There are other examples, though: you can't port the software running a Texas Instruments calculator or Mercedes Benz' iDrive control system anywhere else. But I'm not sure it's an abuse of power, it's just proprietary software. Go Linux if you want more freedom.

tjogin3• 17 years ago

Microsoft does that too, with their Xbox (which, not coincidentally, is far less error and bug prone than their Windows PC offerings).

jws• 17 years ago

The tiny bit of truth that you seem to have choked on is that the 1st generation iPhones in 2007 had an issue with the case interfering with large plugs.

The contacts were all standard, but most existing cables had big clunky molded plastic plugs that wouldn't fit past the case to fully engage. The iPhone case was redesigned in 2008 and no longer required the recessed jack.

It's all tradeoffs. Extending the jack would have had it protrude past the semicircular profile of the case, that would make a lump and spoil the look and feel.

So every time you notice that your new headphones no longer have a giant molded lump on the end of the cord to make it look like a serious 1970's 1/4" jack, you can thank us 2007 iPhone purchasers. It's ok, I can wait.

tholex2• 17 years ago

Oh hey. Yea, I have a pair of HD280's that I wear around, and the plug is extremely nice, with a really well-thought-out adapter, and it really pissed me off with the 1st gen iPhone (http://images.techtree.com/ttimages/story/89158_002.jpg). but it's Ok. I didn't know they fixed it on gen 2, that's good.

wmeredith2• 17 years ago

"The new iPod nano is a tour de force, the Swiss Army Knife of mobile entertainment. I'm sure there's some obscure gadget from Japan that packs more features per cubic millimeter, and chances are neither have you. This one's a major consumer product, just in time for stimulating the economy this holiday season."

I stopped there. Features per millimeter is not why the Nano is a threat. Hardware and software integration and UX are what made Apple so powerful.

wvenable2• 17 years ago

The "nano" is all about size -- it's right there in the name!

Is Apple too powerful?

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