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CNET Accuses Apple of Over-Hyping Launch
An anonymous reader writes "A columnist at CNET is questioning whether Apple over-hyped last week's launch. From the article: 'Jobs' announcement of a new leather case for the iPod was especially ridiculous. Like the queen announcing a new toaster in Buckingham Palace. It seemed odd that Jobs was troubling himself to introduce fashion accessories to Apple's products.' Is Apple a victim of its own success? Can it hold a low-profile product launch anymore -- or do we inevitably expect too much?"
A pocket-sized, full-screen device needs some sort of screen protection--especially a touchscreen, which are notoriously fragile. The leather sleeve is an accessory to the touchscreen full-screen iPod, whatever it ends up being called. It's Apple's answer to the obvious question of "how do you protect the screen?"
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
It's ridiculous to think Apple using that auditorium should automatically mean "earth-shattering announcement."
I can see overhype being if Apple did a HUGE announcement at the Flint Center or something. Or they launched a website site teasing about a product. Or did something on their front page to hint at something.
However, they did nothing like that.
Yet, Microsoft did with Origami and no one paid any attention at all. That is sad.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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My biggest complain is that these nimrods keep calling that stereo thing a "ghetto-blster"
I'm assuming that most of these bloggers and columnists lived through the 80's and should know WTF a Ghetto-Blaster looks like
For those of you who lived sheltered lives during the 80's and early 90's, a Google Image Search for Ghetto Blaster is highly informative.
Oddly enough, the GIS turned up no pictures of automatic weapons in the first few pages. Cause that's the other thing that comes to mind when I think about ghetto-blasters.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
However the Apple sites, along with other sites (I bet CNET is guilty of this too) instantly took this as "They are announcing the tablet Mac!", or "They are announcing the video iPod", or "The new Newton is coming!".
They were responsible for all the hype.
And the announcement of the Mini wasn't anything to sneeze at either. It means that now all consumer Apple computers (except the Laptops) are on Intel processors.
On a side note, I wish they would make a new Newton. I would love one. Apple is so good at interfaces.
PS: Also, the guys over a Penny-Arcade have gone Mac and they really like it so far. Check out their post about it (and the comic). They said they'd provide more details tomorrow (Monday).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Yes, it's a fair charge. Fashion is fickle and every comment that the iPod phenomenon is turning tacky is a warning that no company can sit on its laurels for long. The iPod's leather posing pouch and the ghetto-blaster model are tacky, too.
During 2006, it's quite likely we'll see an increasing number of articles saying the iPod thing is over. When every kid on the block is toting one, it's time to get rid of it and buy something reassuringly "exclusive" instead. Never underestimate snob appeal.
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Wall St. Geek.com has some analysis up that shows that Apple stock rises before annoucements, but rarely keeps the momentum afterwards. In fact, after major announcements (including the original iPod), the stock sank. Here's the link.
So what, specifically, does this DRM hardware prohibit you from doing with the machine? People have already begin running other operating systems on Intel Macs So if you want the machine to be "totally under your control," all you need to do is dump the Apple software and install your own.
Apple has never been about fashion, image, and looking cool.
Apple is about style, design, and being cool. Get it right. (n.b. that's also the difference with Microsoft.)
Investors aren't happy about this.
It should be even more basic than that.
'Jobs' announcement of a new leather case for the iPod was especially ridiculous. Like the queen announcing a new toaster in Buckingham Palace. It seemed odd that Jobs was troubling himself to introduce fashion accessories to Apple's products.
Think about it.
A marketer tried to get the best currently-new offering from a company to sell better.
It's the exact same thing that any marketer, anywhere around the world would do.
If you watch QVC, you can see salesmen doing the same deal for thing after thing, time after time. ("This ball of twine is the most amazing, lifechanging thing ever!")
It's just good business. Apple isn't going to churn out something like the introduction of the Apple, the Macintosh, or the iPod every year. Matter of fact, if you count those lines, they've been managing better than one lucrative industry-changing product line a decade, which is pretty damn good.
The only unusual thing is that some Mac users seem to take a polling approach instead of a event-triggered approach to being notified about new Apple products (which means that sometimes, there isn't much there).
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
You start hyping. You have to make sure that your customers know that YOUR, and only YOUR accessories offer the value they're looking for. You NEED those earplugs, because they're original and without, the iPod is no longer cool. You NEED our case because only with it, you show the world that you have the original and only then you are part of the family.
Apple may be pretty good at herding consumers, but they're absolutely nothing compared to, say, De Beers. De Beers created the diamond ring as a cultural item less than a hundred years ago. Now, you have to give your lady love a diamond ring -- no alternatives.
The story I linked to is pretty interesting -- if you have a couple minutes, it's a worthwhile read.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Slashdot coverage of the iPod.
from the well-thats-not-very-exciting dept.
Get off my launchpad!
The Mini was definitely the most important part of the announcement. I guess Mac-heads aren't used to thinking like this, but remember - Intel releases new chips all the time, and sells them directly to consumers. The Mini and iMac are both socketed, so whether you think a Core Solo or 1.67Ghz Core Duo is a big deal or not in a Mini, XtremeSystems has already upgraded theirs to 2.16Ghz. An upgradeable CPU that doesn't require some third-party solution a year or two later? Not a big deal to PC users, but for the Mac, its the first in a hopefully long line of greater flexibility in Mac hardware.
I loved how the Queen told a Sony representative that their remotes had too many buttons. I guess she is a devout Apple fanbo...gir...queen; fanqueen.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Anyone wondering if the disappointment in this announcement is just what Steve wanted. The hype has gotten so big around Steve's announcements latley the only way he could suprise anyone is to announce a new product by showing up unannounced at a random apple store and giving them away. Reducing the expectations would make easier to Steve to wow everyone with the unexpected.
Windows Media Center edition?
I actually run PowerCinema. It does more than Front Row in much the same way.
Everybody expected them to be releasing an Intel iBook. They did not expect a Mac Mini, and then a contingent of people are fervently bitching that it doesn't have a Radeon X1600 on top of that.
The iBook sells a lot of units to college students. Inbound freshmen get the acceptence letters in like April-May for public universities. We'll see the launch of the MacBook Regular at a time that capitalizes on that. Just like we'll see a MacBook Pro that allows the video professionals to do editing while sipping a latte at Starbucks when the software to do this is actually available: the end of the year.
See, this is the problem: people are thinking, "Wow, this is what I've got a big boner for," and thinking that's what Apple's going to do, rather than Apple doing what will maximize Apple's profits and hit the target the best. "The new MBP doesn't have a firewire 800 or a super-fast smartcard interface!" they say. Yeah, of course. Because it's a programmer's notebook. Programmers have no use for firewire 800, and it would only drive up costs and cause delays.
Raise your hand if you have iTunes ...
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/. visionary. Taken from http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22940&ci d=2467504
Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port
Raise your hand if you have both
Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device
There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.
Another
While I agree with you that the Media (and the Apple faithful) are primarily to blame for the over-hype, it's clear that Apple share some of the blame as well. While the event was perhaps smaller than usual, they still invited the press to show up to a live event rather than just sending out announcements and putting up some new info on their web pages. Perhaps I'm wrong, but this seems a bit unusual given the products being announced. What other company would have a live event with the CEO of the company to announce a couple of ho-hum computers, a crappy set of speakers, and an overpriced leather case?
Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Even if some people were dissappointed after all the hype, Apple got a lot of publicity out of this. Given the announcement invitations, it was pretty predictable that the tech media, and the Apple faithful would hype this. I think Apple knowly took advantage of that to get a lot of publicity milage out of some minor product announcements.
rather than a CNET editor's overinflated idea of him or herself, let's expand more on the razor phenom. To whit: I don't know how many of you remember the first stainless steel razor. It was called the Wilkinson, it came from England, and because it was stainless, I could use it for maybe two weeks per. Okay, my beard was lighter back then, too. It was great, and it put Gilette Blue Blades out of business. Within a decade, the razor wars began. The trick they played: giving away the razor, and selling you the blades. The Blue Blades were maybe .25 a pack. The Wilkinsons were around a dollar.
Then there were two blades. They cut closer, but they don't last as long. Price of a package: four or five bucks when introduced. Now, they're up to FIVE, and going. But now, with five blades, I know it only works the way it's supposed to for two or three days, and a pack is over ten bucks!
All of this made me do something I always said I never would: I bought an electric razor. Sure, it was about 50 bucks, but it's good for two, three years. Oil it and replace the blade about once a year.
The razor companies need to learn a new trick when keeping their free razor in blades costs more than an electric that doesn't need perpetual refilling.
There's a lesson in there for all corporations, including Apple, and the stupid tech tabloid, CNET.
A leather case for 100 USD can add up to some serious profit (my Samsung mp3 player cost 88 USD). What would it cost to make and ship a zillion of those buggers? What is the return rate for failed components? I can't blame Apple even though I dont like the way media fawns over anything Apple does. I have seen Apple on major US news magazine covers twice, and cant remember seeing another makers computer on the cover of Time like I saw the iMac (the one that looked like a lamp).
There is a lot of expectation and focus on Apple now since people are waiting for the Intel iBooks and such. So Jobs and Apple ran with that. I can't blame Apple. Look at all the exposure they got when the Nanos scratched easy. Media loves to follow Jobs and Apple. I can't ever find a compelling reason to buy any of their products (they make great stuff but always come with a kick in the shins since th9ings are either too expensive or missing features) but I like their attempts at innovation.
Now CNET is a place that REALLY generates more heat than light!
Not including an x1600 in the Mini was a very good idea, imo. Why? Well, the remote and S/PDIF optical ports would indicate that it's very much intended for use as a media center type machine (though needing to buy an adaptor for composite/S-video/component is a bit disturbing), whether as a more-or-less thin client (ie, snagging the media off a fileserver located elsewhere) or a more typical machine. While you want a high quality video output, 3D acceleraton is really pointless until the high-def content is out, and by that point the'll have updated it with a BD/HDDVD drive and some sort of h.264 hardware acceleration chip (dedicated card or not, I'd imagine not as a dedicated chip would almost certainly be both cheaper and cooler).
While having your devices ready for content is good, the fact is that only the deep-pocketed are going to be buying them until content is readily available. iPod? Not too successful until iTMS became available (not to mention the Windows version, but that was inevitable once it had some decent Mac success). Why did iTMSv6 launch at the same time as the G5 iPod? Who needs a video player if there's no videos to play? Who's going to buy portable-quality videos if you're tethered to the computer to watch them?
The living room computers are fast becoming the next big thing, and Apple wanted in. The form factor is nothing short of perfect and it was given the features it would need to succeed? How often do you use the fifty buttons on your DVD player? I use play/pause and, on occasion, eject. Menu if it isn't one of my reauthored backups. It has DVI out and digital audio output support, while it easily doubles as a media library and good front-end for showing all of your content. While it doesn't have a tuner, I think that's due to the fact that we're at a very awkward point regarding PVRs, IP and the broadcast flag (etc). I have enough trouble sitting through the crap that's on the first time as it is, recording it is well beyond my scope of understanding.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?