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Apple To Face Challenge At WWDC
Amanda Callahan writes to tell us that Apple's upcoming WWDC could be quite a test for the Cupertino powerhouse. They will most likely be missing Steve Jobs for star-power and have extremely high expectations to meet in order to maintain their edge. Thankfully it looks like Jobs will be rejoining Apple later this month with a good prognosis after facing severe health issues. "The competition is now catching up. Palm, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, are all at varying stages of developing and introducing their own iPhone-like devices and software, along with easily accessible stores for the small programs known as applications, or apps, that run on those devices. In some cases, those companies are releasing a greater variety of phones, on more wireless carriers around the world, than Apple. To maintain its advantage, Apple must preserve the impression that it is far ahead of rivals when it comes to the capabilities and the 'cool' factor of its devices."
So the competition has millions of devices in user's hands, a unified and attractive app store, and an established ecosystem?
(And that's even ignoring the music juggernaut on the other side of the coin.)
Which competition is even close to this kind of market?
Not trolling, not flaming, just asking.
Seems like everyone nowadays is granted a writing/analyst position if they can predict the fall of apple, or gloat about the upcoming features coming from microsoft.
(I'm also not saying that competition is bad, just that Apple right now doesn't face any coherent competition. Take Palm Pre as an example... Different hardware models (for sprint and verizon networks), crashy app store, lack of apps, web-based apps, lack of actual customers, and worst of all, predicted shortages at introduction. WhoTF decided it would be a good idea to have that kind of a release against the upcoming iPhone v3?)
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
If their competition is rushing to follow what Apple's doing by making iPhone-like devices, then it's more than just an impression that they're ahead.
Apple is about profit margin. Apple has enjoyed much higher profit margins than its competitors. That's starting to slip as iPhone and iPod prices come down, and the cheaper competitors get better.
Apple's reaction so far has been to raise iTunes prices. Something better than that will have to be done next.
"Palm, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, are all at varying stages of developing and introducing their own iPhone-like devices."
So Apple, as a newcomer to the industry, is now making others in the same space play catch up to them. Real competition is a good thing. Definitely Palm, MS, Nokia and RIM had more than enough time and expertise to make a iPhone like device before Apple did, yet they didn't. So now they get to play catch up. I hope they do create real iPhone killers, because it then puts Apple on the spot to improve.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
A lot of people will weigh the cool factor quite heavily when buying a $200 (not $600) device. For that matter, a lot of people weigh the cool factor extremely heavily when buying cars, which are significantly more pricey than $200. Its why Apple has managed to dominate the market with a functionally inferior (in terms of feature set) MP3 player (and many would argue the same about the phone).
Multitasking, a memory card reader and installing non apple approved apps.
Features that apple COULD implement tomorrow, but won't.
That's why I'm rockin' android and will never buy an iphone in its current crippled state.
A real shame, as the device definetly has potential. It's not about hating apple, it's about hating that locked down feeling. That is probably not an issue for most people out there, but for me they are dealbreakers.
Search the whole device for something. There is a wedding coming up in the next couple of months. Only way to find it? Hunt for it manually.
That's coming. There will be a whole new search device page coming in OS 3.0. This was explained in the developer preview meeting they had back in march. You can download the video from Apple.com. Unfortunately that's the only thing on your list that was explained in any detail in this developer preview.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Its why Apple has managed to dominate the market with a functionally inferior (in terms of feature set) MP3 player (and many would argue the same about the phone).
Perhaps the device itself is functionally inferior (in the event you have things other than MP3s, AACs, or Apple Losslesseses), but due to its exposure, compatibility made my decision for me. As in, for effectively any modern make of car stereo, I can find some way to directly interface my iPod to it. Not through some line-in hack or other "just spit audio out the car speakers" method, but through some interface wherein I can keep the iPod itself stuffed in my glove box (negating the "cool" factor if nobody sees it) and control tracks and such from the radio's front panel. Anything else, I'd have to keep the player out in the open, make sure it's not going to fall all over the place, and fumble for it rather than the radio if I want to skip a track.
The same goes for a whole horde of other "iPod compatible" devices (countertop radios, alarm clocks, etc); they all go through the docking interface, allowing them to control playback in addition to playing the music, and not resulting in a line-in hack that just drags out another redundant set of buttons.
I've seen it said before on Slashdot: If the rest of the MP3 player market would get together and make a single, unified interface and protocol like the iPod's docking cable that allowed control and audio output without having to care who made the device, what model it is, etc, etc, THEN Apple would be on the run. But as it stands now, you have the iPod and you have a bajillion other viciously incompatible MP3 players. Will I be able to get an interface cable for my three-year-old Kenwood car stereo for a Zen? What model Zen? How about a Zune? The no-name piece of junk that came free with my Dell? Who knows? But I can Google "Kenwood iPod adapter" and quickly figure out what MP3 player I'm picking up without hassles or guessing.
Make no mistake, I'd rather have a cheaper MP3 player available to me, but for compatibility's sake, I'm sticking with my iPod.
Remember, Apple managed to vault from late-comer to leadership in the first place. The blurb is just hand-wringing about things being as they have always been! Competitors are at "all at varying stages of developing and introducing their own iPhone-like devices and software, along with easily accessible stores for [] apps"... "In some cases, those companies are releasing a greater variety of phones, on more wireless carriers around the world, than Apple." That was all true even before the iPhone; Apple was among the last companies to introduce an iPhone-like device! Just as the iPod was one of the later mp3 players on the market, yet became the standard by which others were measured.
"Amazing insight from Mr Genius"
"If they start making products people don't want, and start losing users, then Apple's strategy will run into problems," said Benjamin Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays Capital.
Microsoft
To be fair, everyone seems to hate the company and have nothing but bitter contempt for all of their products... but Microsoft is indeed doing OK.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
"the competition is now catching up"
Assuming they've kept their edge, that statement is the key: They lead, they don't follow. That's why the competition are catching up to them, and not the reverse. Provided they keep doing that, there is little room for error to occur
That's an amazingly arrogant attitude that Apple would do well to not share. Apple may have the edge in ease of use, but they never had an edge in anything else. If the competition can catch up on designing good user interfaces before Apple can catch up on hardware and features, there is actually very much room for error.
I get that the UI is most important for many, but it's lame to ignore everything else.
My Sig: SEGV
It's nice to have contracts binding all major PC OEMs to install whatever you shovel out the door. Apple doesn't have that luxury in the smartphone market, so it must continually improve the product, service, and value to the customer. What a concept!
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
If you're one of those text-while-you-drive people, tactile feedback is a must -- it's impossible to touch-type reliably on the iPhone (you can do it, just expect some gibberish).
I swear if I ever see you in public I will kick you straight in the balls (assuming you have them). If you text while you drive you should be summarily dismembered while still alive and fed to demons in the farthest depths of hell.
Hang up your god damn phone and drive you stupid piece of shit!
You're right, but you're missing the piece that a lot of people don't see. Creating good software is hard. Cramming a new piece of hardware into a piece of plastic is the easy part. Designing an interface that makes that piece of hardware more useful can be a lot harder.
That's the only reason why a computer company was able to walk right into the phone market, and on their first try create something that all those old phone manufacturers are now rushing to catch up to. I'm willing to bet that Apple's employees overall spent way more time getting the software right than they did deciding what hardware to put into the iPhone.
And then the app store is a whole other beast. Apple had a lot of experience from the iTMS, they had a ton of infrastructure in place, and they even already had end-user software in place to tie it all together. Most of their competitors have to build similar systems from scratch. They've got a good example to follow now, but they've still got plenty to figure out.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Yes, there were other mp3 players before the iPod. But arguably Apple was the first to do it right. As in, make something that people actually wanted to use, and was easy to use.