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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.
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.
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.
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.
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