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Why Apple Is So Sticky
Hugh Pickens writes "'Sticky,' in the social sciences and particularly economics, describes a situation in which a variable is resistant to change. For websites or products it usually means that visitors or customers keep coming back for more. Now Fortune Magazine reports on an analysis by Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore on what makes the (iTunes-based) iPhone-iPod-iPad platform so sticky and why it's going to get harder, not easier, for Apple users to switch, no matter what Google and the rest of Apple's competitors have up their sleeves. Whitmore says the investment Apple's customers have made in content for those devices in terms of apps, videos, and music purchased at the iTunes Store creates Apple's 'stickiness.' Apple has an installed base today of about 150 million iTunes-dependent devices that could grow to more than 200 million by the end of 2011. Whitmore comes up with a cumulative investment in those devices of about $15 billion today, growing to $25 billion by the end of next year. 'This averages to ~$100 of content for each installed device,' Whitmore writes, 'suggesting switching costs are relatively high (not to mention the time required to port). When Apple's best-in-class user experience is combined with these growing switching costs, the resulting customer loyalty is unparalleled.'"
Why is Slashdot so stuck on Apple?
Apple's continued success is mostly due to the fact that it all just works. Why would your average Joe Sixpack and his Mom want to switch to another product that is potentially harder to use? It's the Apple / iTunes ecosystem that is a major drawcard for your average consumer. iTunes being a one stop shop for Music / Apps / Updates / Synching etc
pretty much plays unprotected AACs, so there's no lock in there. As far as apps, many are used for a couple weeks and then forgotten or deleted. There may be a psychological lock in when looking at 100 apps, but in reality only a handful are used. At the iPad level, there are bigger and more useful apps which could be more of a lock-in factor, but there isn't much lock-in at the iPod and iPhone level. Hell, there will probably be a dozen comments in this story about slashdotters who switched from an iPhone to android.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Sounds like, at least in Apple's case, "sticky" is just another word for "vendor lockin"
apple needs to open mac osx to more hardware to get more switches.
It had for a business to switch all the systems to mac and even then mac cost more then pc's as well. But opening up osx will let them just buy the software.
Also AIO are not that good of a fit as business like to reuse displays and a AIO may be to big to fit into all desks.
The mini is ok but the price should be a little lower and have a easy to get to HDD as well. also why have desktop parts and a little bigger case?
apple also needs a good desktop at $800-$1500 with desktop parts. As there is a big gap from the mini to the mac pro and the imacs are that good in price $1200 for on board video + a core 2 laptop dual core? $1500 for core 2 laptop dual core + a low end 256 meg video card? also NO MATE SCREEN!
Whitmore says the investment Apple's customers have made in content for those devices in terms of apps, videos, and music purchased at the iTunes Store creates Apple's 'stickiness.'
Wow, it's almost like Windows where the thousands of dollars worth of Windows software I own are the only thing keeping me stuck to having a Windows PC in the house.
Build a product that is easy to use, reliable, has easy access to all the content most average people want, and is pretty to boot... and people keep buying it! It isn't rocket science.
For websites or products it usually means that visitors or customers keep coming back for more.
For some websites on the Internet, "sticky" has a completely different meaning. :-)
And by "some" I mean "most", and by "websites" I mean "porn". To quote Dr. Cox on Scrubs, "If you shutdown all the porn sites on the Internet, there would only be one site left and it would be called 'Bring back the porn.'"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Let's talk about applications only. Sure the average user may have purchased $100 worth of software, but how much of it do they actually use day to day? I think, just like a computer platform, that the cost of switching is lower than it would seem because most software does not need to be replaced, so the cost is lower than it would seem from simply examining purchase prices for everything you own.
Now throw in media... songs are pretty much sold DRM free these days, so there is no cost to migrate media. Video is tricker since through iTunes it is wrapped in DRM. But I wonder apart from children's video, how much video purchased online is really there to be watched again and again - I buy a lot of video online but after I watch it, I generally don't watch it more than once. I "buy" it knowing full well it's really more like a rental, and if I really like a video I'll buy it on physical media that I can load out or keep as long as I want.
There is something to the argument they make, I just don't think it's as strong on the value side as they make it out to be.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... in that people are stuck with DOS/Windows/Office because the cost to switch away are too great.
Why is an apple sticky? when you cut an apple and hold it with your bare hands, the juice will make your hand sticky, no question about it, that's what hand washing is for.
Oh, you are talking about the company? Same reason applies.
--
As for the truth of the statement, as much as for some people it is absolutely 'sticky', for others it's too sweet - sugary and unpleasant. I like my computers the way I like my coffee - no sugar. I can't stand Apple's products at all, it's a personal internal thing, when I see all of the Apple computers in all these movies, and all these 'creative' people with the logos all over the place - makes me cringe. You can't make me use an Apple product if you pay me.
You can't handle the truth.
This is an example of why we need media portability laws, just like laws were passed to allow you to port your cell number from one carrier to the other. Laws need me be made allowing media, software, music, books to be portable between platforms.
This is also another reason i believe music, movies, and likely now book should be sold with serialized licenses included. The license gives you access to the exact same content, no matter what medium or method it is distributed. You goto bestbuy, buy a physical CD, inside the case is included a license for the media with a unique serial/key. you could then goto itunes, amazon, etc. enter in this key and get instant access to a downloable version of the same content that you purchased on a physical disk. Same would work with say a bluray disk you buy at bestbuy. come home with the disc, plug the serial number into itunes and instant access to a downloadable, obviously lower bitate version for your ipod/iphone
3rd anti-apple story in a row. Keep it up! :]
...when the Apple fanbois get too excited right next to the company store...
I know many people with Iphones, Ipads and Ipods, nearly all of them love the devices but hate Itunes, using it as the only option available to them. Several of my more computer literate friends are unhappy with the restrictions thier Ipods place on them regarding PC transfer rights and lack of backup options for their content, but most never even consider what would happen if their device failed and won't until it does...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Burn your DRM ladden iTunes Music Store purchaces to disk then rip that disk to mp3 (or whatever format of your choice). OMG DRM free music from the iTunes Music Store that you can "jump ship" with! I know... it's almost rocket surgery, but come on! lol
In general geeks like to beat up on some large incorporeal entity that a segment of the community will defend to the death. Microsoft just isn't all that fun to kick around anymore, since the only people who still care about Windows are CTO's and those of us unfortunate enough to work in the dark section of IT known as Help Desk. Apple has become a juggernaut of shiny devices that sell to a large segment of the population that would have never even considered buying a Mac. An even smaller percentage of that give a crap about "lock-in" or other political stances. OS X geeks are a small and defensive breed, and they feel that these devices, ostensibly still computers, are an extension of their ecosystem. They're not, and they are a gateway drug for some. They were for me, but the large chunk of the iPhone and iPod populace doesn't care, and whenever the new must have gadget comes around, they'll move on. Previous generations re-bought their entire collections in several different mediums, this one will be no different. Lock in sucks, and hopefully video vendors come around on DRM, but I think streaming on demand will leapfrog them anyway. So the Apple fans will defend Steve Jobs unique vision as if it was their own, and the geeks will beat this topic to death until there something else that people love to bitch about on the Internet. It isn't principled, it's pointless. En mass much of the ecosystem has turned from Redmond Bad Cupertino Good to Curpertino Bad, Mountain View Good. That will last until some new hip kid on the block becomes the Geek chic and we will then decry Google's constant assault on our privacy. Here's to waiting until Cannonical is the bad guy.
Whitmore says: "the resulting customer loyalty is unparalleled"
For some Apple users it's loyalty, yes. For others, it's only loyalty in the sense of battered wife syndrome. Sure, they know they're in an abusive relationship and they should leave, but breaking the ties requires too great a shift of momentum.
I grew tired of Apple's behaviour so I switched to Android. It was easy for me because I never purchased any music or movies through iTunes, and I think I only ever paid for two apps so I didn't have any significant financial investment. People who have a substantial investment in iTunes-tied media or software will be exponentially less willing/able to move away from Apple. This is not loyalty.
These are the kind of people who allow their self-worth to be determined by others; their cool-factor by how many Facebook friends they have, and what parties they are/not invited to.
They have convinced themselves of a form of technical superiority, when in reality, their platform is too small to be noticed by virus\malware providers, or most productivity app venders save a few like Adobe.
They consider themselves "Counter-culture" when in reality, they are the worst kind of lemmings.
Just watch next year, as hundreds of thousands of them toss their iPad for another one, because it will have a camera, and once again in a few years, for another feature that should have been in v1.0.
Does Apple have good technology? Sure. Is it beyond what anyone else could do? Never has been.
Can they market their platform beyond all common fucking sense to people seeking validation through faddish participation? Fuckin A!
Wanna see an Apple user's head explode? Ask them if their device supports IPv6, and watch them strain to answer without giving away that they dont know what the fuck you are talking about.
then apple needs a desktop mid tower at $800-$1000+
or at least have a Imac with mate display.
Speaking as an iPhone user that has considered Android and as a longtime Linux user that has considered Windows/MacOS, a big part of the value is in the assemblage of applications/widgets/etc. that the user has collected.
This is not the same thing as a "learning curve," and it is not about the value of the applications/apps. It's a matter of the investment of time and configuration required to "transition" to another platform and duplicate the work environment that you've constructed. For example, on the iPhone I have about 100 apps, about 30 of which I constantly use. Not all of them have 1:1 equivalents on Android, but by collecting a few dozen Android apps I could probably duplicate the total set of functions that I get from my collection of iPhone apps.
But in terms of time spent downloading, configuring, linking, etc., it's just too much time. There is a definite cost in time imposed on platform switching that isn't a matter of learning curves, but rather a matter of simple labor. I figure it would take me 5-8 hours of purchasing/reinstalling apps, opening/configuring accounts, arranging icons, etc. to get Android up and running for myself. That's an extra $250-$400 of time, not to mention the drudgery/pain-in-the-ass factor, which is not to be underestimated as a significant discouragement.
It's when you add it all together (app costs + learning curve costs + time reinstalling/reconfiguring/re-assembling costs + drudgery/pain-in-ass costs) that you get a real calculation about platform lock-in, and often the learning curve and app costs are smaller than the other two in real, day-to-day life.
There's an old saying for this:
"If it ain't [too] broke, don't fix it."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I agree with your points, but the article was about monetary value, not more abstract forms of value as you were outlining - I agree that it's these abstract kinds of value that are more the real factor that keeps a user on a platform.
I am impressed you have 30 applications you use with regularity, I do not have nearly that many. I have not taken as much advantage of the platform as I might at this point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd like to know where you got your kool-aid
This motherfucker jumped through my wall screaming "OHHHH YEEEAAAHHH" and then poured me a glass of kool-aid.
I reject this statement because it is fundamentally not true.
Case in point, the iTunes interface is not intuitive and neither are many of the features.
For novice users, I reject that any solution that is based around files (which I know you would prefer and sounds like what you are using) is easier for non-technical users to understand than the way iTunes works. You stated that you saw novice users confused by iTunes, but they got over it. Well I have seen a lot of novice users that never get over the confusion of how to deal with files.
iTunes "just works" for most users despite being somewhat nonintuitive, because the other solutions are either more clunky to set up or less intuitive still.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Duh.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
You can run dual monitors with an iMac. They have a mini DVI output just like a Mac Mini. I know quite a few graphics artists that recently went from older g5 towers to 24" and now 27" iMacs. Some still use their old monitors with an adaptor as a second monitor. Others find the 27" screens has plenty of real estate.
Personally I replaced my G5 tower with a Mac Mini. Since I'm not editing video any more, I found the Mac Mini has plenty of horse power and ram for what I need. Hell I use my iPad more than anything now.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
"Whitmore says the investment Apple's customers have made in content for those devices in terms of apps, videos, and music purchased at the iTunes Store creates Apple's 'stickiness.' "
Music - burn to audio disk
Videos - http://www.aimersoft.com/tutorial/burn-itunes-movie-to-dvd.html
Apps - Your SoL, but isn't that the case for any user switching between operating systems/platforms?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've been saying for a while that the iPhone is no longer a "premium" brand. High school kids have them. If $100 is "relatively high", then those iPhone customers are not what Apple makes them out to be, especially when amortized over the cost of a 3-year phone plan - $100 is less than $3 a month. Less than $0.10 a day. How much cheaper can you get? Are iPhone customers reduced to saying "Buddy, can you spare a dime?"
People just say, "How do I use this? This iTunes program? Oh, OK."
Lock In = iTunes AAC w/FairPlay DRM
Sticky = I don't want to figure out how to migrate my iTunes mp3's to Windows Media Player
Lock In = Outlook Encrypted PST files.
Sticky = I don't want to figure out how to get my e-mail archive transferred from Hotmail to Mac Mail.
Lock In mean you can't get your own data out because it is wrapped in something proprietary. Sticky means you can, but it isn't worth your time and effort.
Apple increases sticky by making it work across multiple devices. My music "just appears" on my computer, ipod and iPhone. Switching all three means migrating my songs to a new desktop os, a new phone os and a new media player with possibly thee new interfaces. That's a powerful incentive to not migrate.
That's why I use Apple stuff, anyway. I'm on my second MacBook Pro (my wife took over the old one after 4 years of merciless use, and my son took over her MacBook). We also have two iPhones and an iPad. As if this wasn't enough, my company-issued laptop is also a MacBook Pro. You can tell I'm a satisfied customer.
The reason why I like Apple is their attention to detail. Backlit keyboard, fans that you can't hear (on a Core i7), gorgeous aluminum enclosure, pretty good (for a laptop) display, 7 hours of battery life, 1 inch thick. And it goes on and on from there. GPU acceleration in Aperture and core imaging APIs. Great PDF and color management support. Great audio subsystem. Great UI toolkit. GCC tool chain (and LLVM/Clang in Snow Leopard). Quick to wake up from sleep. Quick to start up and shut down. Automatic, transparent, on-the-fly versioned backups. Software bundle which is actually enjoyable to use (imagine that!). Drag-and-drop installation of apps (for most apps, anyway). And so on and so forth.
AND it's a certified Unix. Sure, you could probably hack it to run on something else (giving up power management and a few other "irrelevant" features), but if you have the dough, the attraction is undeniable. And Apple is perfectly fine with targeting only those who don't mind to pay for the best.
Why do people see it as loyalty? I have friends who always said Apple was great, but after talking to them in private, they say they only say it because they are ashamed to admit that they got locked in. It is why I diversify and never purchase any product that locks me in, No DRM laden music or movies. I prefer that vendors provide high quality without hooks, to get my business.
Sure, there is some value to consider when switching a mobile device, but that has always been the case and users have always continued to make switches despite. They do a little internal cost analysis, and if it makes sense, they switch.
A few reasons why this isn't a big deal:
1) App makers could easily decide to "port" your registration to the Android or Windows Mobile markets and not make you pay again -- or give you a considerable discount perhaps. This might require approval from the app store, but certainly Google and Microsoft would want elminate this barrier to entry.
2) Every time I've switched phones I've had to consider the accessories. A new memory card, new case, new chargers, new batteries, etc. This can add up, and yet we still switch phones.
3) The perceived value of switching to get the "latest and greatest" might outweight the cost of buying things again. If the new ABC PhonePadPro 2.0 Ultra does more than my iDevice, then it might be advantageous to switch. Apple will have to continue to outpace competitors to provide a reason to stay.
4) I would bet that a growing number of downloadable content was music/books/whatever, and that is increasingly becoming open. That open stuff will likely transfer to the new device without a penny being exchanged.
So no, the only thing sticky about apples is sugar. (Different apple.)
-David
When my IPod Nano locked up. (Figures it happened when I was on a trip and I had to wait until I got home before I could get the stupid thing workign again. It's the only time I've seen an MP3 actually crash.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
that's typical behavior for apple -- making it expensive and inconvenient to switch. even in the 80s and '90s apple was notorious not only for that kind behavior and but also for doing what some call 'planned obscelenscence[sp]'. specifically, every year it seemed like, they redesigned their pcs with new architecutre, giving them new hardware that was imcompatible with the previous year's equipment--- maknig upgrading and modifying them imposible.
at a lot of cost and a lot of desk space to do that.
So pay $1200 for a dual core cpu with on board video + a add on screen or for $900-$1200 build a amd 4 or 6 core or a Intel i7 with a good video card.
Thats stupid, people have used floppy disks.
Yes, and people put eery file on that floppy disk in the root directory. They had a physical device with them that they knew had all their stuff.
These days people COULD do that with a USB drive, but generally they do not. They keep it all in the Desktop, or if they are particularly savvy they MIGHT put some data in the system supplied Documents directory.
Before, you were saving files to one place (the disk) instead of migrating them across several...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So Slashdot historically loves Apple. Reason is twofold:
1) Apple is a historic underdog and Slashdot likes underdogs. They were the small guys fighting the evil that is MS, and Slashdot REALLY hates MS. As such they like Apple, or at least what Apple was.
2) Apple provides an easy to use alternative to Windows with some UNIX underpinnings. While many are loathe to admit it, Linux is a PITA for many desktop uses. Some of the people who use(d) it do so out of anti-MS zealotry and/or a UNIX superiority complex. Well, Apple offers an OS you can pretend is UNIX (even though that is just a minor foundation) that is easy to use and not MS. So, it is the sort of thing many /.ers like.
However, Apple is, and nearly always has been, a company far more controlling than MS. They want to dictate everything about your computer usage. They want you to have to buy hardware from them, in the configurations they specify only. They want you to use only their OS. They want to control where you get your applications and media, they want to tell you when to upgrade, etc.
This is, of course, counter to what Slashdot likes. However it was something that wasn't that apparent, nor that onerous back when Apple was the little guy. However as Apple has grown, it has become more and more obvious that their vision of the future of technology is one where they run everything.
So because of these two things, you see a lot of Apple stories, and a lot of stories on their lock in strategies. Don't expect it to change any time soon as Apple isn't likely going anywhere and the combination of love/hate will continue here.
So you picked Apple as an alternative to Linux and that makes you fucking l33t, but people who picked it as an alternative to Windows are n00bs and everyone else is a shallow brand-fucking 'Mactard'.
(nt)
I got sick of Windows (prior to 7) and wanted to be on an Unix platform I didn't have to muck with.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Force Quit wouldn't be on the menu in OSX, and Apple wouldn't continually be on the receiving end of class action lawsuits for faulty hardware/design issues when they bring out new hardware.
Apple is a company with a lot of investments in hardware and software...with products as new, sophisticated, and complex as the various lines of business they are involved in are, there is no such thing as a product that "just works." There is only a lot of circumstantial evidence where it just works "in most cases."
Windows 7 might be awesome, I haven't really tried it yet. How many fucking failed Windows versions do I have to go through before I earn (in your eyes) moral authority to use Mac OS? Once I'm using OSX, do I have to try out each new version of Windows to see if it still has 8 trillion viruses and pop-ups and "Please insert floppy in drive A:" bullshit?
I still have to use Windows on my work laptop, and one in three times when I close the lid it won't wake back up when I reopen the lid later. I've had that same problem off and on across many PC brands and versions of Windows for the last ten years. That kind of shit wouldn't fly on Mac--because you and I know that the first time it happened to Steve Jobs he would murder someone.
I just tried, 17 in a row opens and closes on my MacBook and it happily wakes up every fucking time. Guess what? no pop-ups either.
His buddy comes around from time to time too. He pops in the asks "How about a Hawaiian Punch?" Don't worry, it a drink and not physical confrontation.
He's a crazy little straw hatted son of the bitch though!
then apple needs a desktop mid tower at $800-$1000+
Apple won't do this, it would hurt their brand image. Part of Apples brand image is in the price, aka 'you get what you pay for' theme. The price is higher to give the idea that your paying for a higher-then-normal quality item (even though thats questionable). Its like many other brand items, like Calvin Klein jeans (made in china with other lower brand jeans), many perfumes are sold at a high price to seem more exclusive, drug companies do this even though generic brands will be identical just lower prices, even brand name food items at the grocery store do this (they typically add a more salt so they 'taste better' and seem like they must be better foods)
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Fucking awesome post. Made my night. Well that and finally getting around to watching Sherlock Holmes and Zombieland. The only thing that'd be better is if I had an iPad to mess around with via Appcellerator Titanium.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
This just in: "Vendor lock-in makes it harder to switch to a competitor's products!"
Wow!!!! Story at 10!!!
My bicyles
I know you are an appropriately labeled AC troll, but really. It is stealing. People actually worked to create that music. Many, and in fact most of us here on /. take issue with the way RIAA extorts money out of alleged filesharers. I think you will find support for people stealing music is in fact rather limited.
Most people already have a cell phone so the only real obligation is the full data plan. That is $30/month x 24 months, or $720. Certainly more than $100 but nowhere near "several thousand".
The article is trying to claim that because people spent $100 on downloaded stuff (music, etc) they won't change to another phone and lose their content.
At 10 cents a day amortized over 3 years, that's cheap!
The thing is, we (and you and I share a disapproval for downloading music without paying for it while being opposed to the RIAA and other IP-mafiaas) have a difficult contradiction to work out. We oppose something, but also oppose all the effective mechanisms for dealing with it. What alternatives are there to what the RIAA is doing? Realistic alternatives, at least - knowing full well that an economically very significant number of people will choose "free" if they think they can get away with it.
Personally, I'm in favor of a system by which musicians are funded by other means, including public funds - but I'm also a socialist, and I know that a greatly expanded NEA that funds pop musicians isn't going to be too popular any time soon. So, how do you resolve the contradiction? What is the enforcement mechanism?
Premature appleculation is a serious thing, not to be joked about.
Then you know which way to point. :-)
The conspiracy is bigger than you think :)
Surely no-one here is naive enough to think that the entire iphone/ipod/ipad/itunes/app store ecosystem happened by accident?
Whether or not you like the vendor lock-in (if you're a shareholder you do, if you're a customer you shouldn't), a lot of work has gone into designing this system so that each piece hangs together well, and there is more value in the sum of the parts than in each component. Definitely apple has succeeded in their intent.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
The quote in the grandparent refers to neither the cost of an iPhone nor the downpayment for it. It refers to the amount an iPhone customer invests in software for their device, on average.
Somebody will try to switch.
And he/she will feel the pain trying to unstick from Apple.
Some people will stay because the pain will be too great or they will not care that much.
And others will get pissed off. Very pissed off.
And I bet they will never come back.
My cost of rebuying my wife's music collection on Amazon was around $60, fortunately the rest was on CDs. (And no, recoding it with these programs that fake burning to a CD is not good option although she would probably not know any difference).
No, it's not "stealing". He referred only to P2P, which makes copies. Making a copy of something cannot by definition steal it, since the original owner is not deprived of the possession.
It is, on the other hand, copyright infringement, if the copyright holder did not agree to the making of the copy and does not license under a license which blanket allows it. But words have meanings. What the poster up there described is copyright infringement, and calling it stealing, rape, murder, drunk driving, or anything else that makes it sound "worse" in lieu of using the perfectly good and precise term that describes it exactly is dishonest.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
The reason Apple is doing so well is that they turn out devices that suit the people's needs and are well-designed and reliable. This marketing bullshit about how Apple has some "secret sauce" is just nonsense promoted by those who can't research the stories they write - or those who want to turn out the same old junk and think they should be competitive just because they showed up.
The so-called competitors have been shown up for what they really are and they're squealing. Ever use a Motorola phone? How did you like their excuse for a user interface? Or have you ever used a Blackberry? How many times a week do you have to pull the battery to reboot it? Even the newer Droid phones - great concept, but they leave a lot to be desired in the execution. And that's just the cell phones.
How about tablets? I've used a HP TX series tablet and after that I bought an iPad. There's lots of noise from vaporware vendors but anything like competition for the iPad is nowhere in sight. At least HP looked at the way things are and killed their Windows tablet - they'll bring it out running Web/OS sometime in the future. Probably it'll be delivered by virgins riding unicorns.
Creating and building fully developed and well rounded products isn't a trivial task - Apple spent a lot of time and money making their iThingies good. For those companies who want to compete with Apple on this ground - they're going to have to get rid of their "good enough" mentality and create great products. And even then, they'll be months or years behind Apple. This isn't wrong or unfair; when all the geeks were kicking Apple while they were down, they had some good stuff brewing in the labs. Now that it's out on the street it's a different day and a different game.
I'm hoping that other corporations will be impelled to improve their game and actually compete with Apple. That would be good for everyone - but until they can compete in the market, the promotional BS is nothing more than vapor that isn't worth listening to.
I can tell you're not living in Sweden :p
We have over 3 million illegal file sharers out of a population of 9 million, many consider the the current copyright regime ridiculous, and many see the Pirate Bay founders as a kind of martyrs.
The strongest arguments against copyright come from economists. There is a strong agreement that the current terms (50 years or more after the creator's death) are far too long to be beneficial to society, and some economists argue that society as a whole would benefit from abolishing copyright completely.
At the same time, the media companies successfully lobby for badly thought-through legislation that encroach the freedoms of everyone, file sharers and law-abiding citizens alike, and increase the risk of abuse of power from the state. They buy legislation that extend copyright terms retroactively, effectively taking works belonging to the public and placing them in their own pockets.
Once you realise that copyright is not beneficial to society as a whole, and the ones doing damage to society are the media companies, not the file sharers, copyright infringement changes from being a crime to being an act of civil disobedience - a way to strike back at the real crooks. Even though there is no evidence the media companies lose financially from pirating, file sharing loosens their control over distribution and acts as a symbolic protest.
For example, the founders of the Pirate Bay made a point of speaking publicly about file sharing, choosing a provocative name for their site, replying impolitely to frivolous legal demands, and so on.
Whether we like it or not, file sharing is not just a bunch of people breaking the law, it is also a movement with an ideology and political goals.
I don't know about other users, but not being able to read my own non DRM stuff from my own device and not being able to even put stuff from more than one PC on the device, without completely overwriting the content, is not "best in class user experience" for me. I use Sony Walkman 828 which not only lacks draconian restrictions, but also, god forbid, supports folders.
Of course, it could have *nothing* to do with people actually liking Apple products...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
News today mentioned a number of companies making content (not much out yet I hear) for the iPad in Japan. The one that surprised me was a company selling time-limited viewing rights to a library of comics (manga). The price, about 1 dollar for 48 hours per title, is what I would expect to pay to fully own a manga if you didn't have to pay for paper, printing and distribution.
FYI, it's "obsolescence." I couldn't spell it either, I looked it up :)
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
The very things discussed in TFA are the things that keep me from owning anything made by Apple. I have a music player, I have a laptop, I have a couple of desktops, I have a neat-o phone. Not one of them are dependent upon Apple, or anyone else, for content or applications (the sole exception being the phone, but anyone can make a mistake once in a while). I place a higher value than some people - including, apparently, people who buy Apple products - on my ability to acquire and create software and content without needing the blessing of a particular corporation.
Of course I avoid Google and Yahoo Groups, Gmail, Google Apps, etc for the same reason. I don't single out Apple for special treatment.
the various institutions and individuals out there felt that as a company Apple Computer was worth more than Microsoft
These are the same people that ran up the valuations of so many ridiculous stocks ten years ago during a previous episode of irrational exuberance?
Da Blog
How on earth can you screw up the capitalisation where then is only four letters in the word !
Maybe the poster decided s/he'd rather prefer to continue using English and its rules of capitalisation in the correct fashion, and not the way Mr Jobs would prefer you refer to his branded commodities?
Also, it's like waving a red flag at appletards.
Da Blog
...or Unix-like: RIM now uses QNX, Apple uses an OS X core, Android uses Linux. These put together outnumber Microsoft's mobile platform by a large margin.
All MS makes money from today is Office and Windows, and their Office market share is being slowly eaten away. They are hugely rich, but in a hugely precarious position as well. And they're freaking out over the fact that throwing money at new markets isn't working out for them; They just fired a large swath of management.
As far as their sources of profit go, MS is still existing in dinosaur PC land. And the current crop of young adults HATE! PCs because they're unruly and malware-infested (IOW they're "just gross!"). Its clear by now that MS is going to take down the whole PC paradigm with it.
There's usually a higher alcohol content, which you can clearly smell, and they're usually pressed into cider trading. More rarely still, wine develops. I'm seeing increasing levels of wine amongst my artsy Apple friends.
It is the Windows market that has the very fast upgrade cycles built into it; Mac users are known to take considerably longer to upgrade.
And your remark about malware is a common fallacy among PC dittoheads: Before OS X, Mac OS had quite a problem with viruses and other malware. The difference between then and now is not market share, its the Unix architecture. But I can understand how architecture determining a system's level of security would be lost on a PC dittohead.
As for mobiles, you also need to realize they're not only becoming more important but that Unix-like platforms are dominating that market now that RIM is moving to QNX. Microsoft is getting left in the dust.
Wanna see an Apple user's head explode? Ask them if their device supports IPv6, and watch them strain to answer without giving away that they dont know what the fuck you are talking about.
This is the stupidest thing I've read on /. in a while. You must seem like quite the conversationalist at barbecues and birthday parties (assuming these aren't the lemming-like activities you are referring to): "My GOD man! Haven't you prepared for the IPv4 apocalypse yet?!!" Other guy: "I don't work in IT, remember? If you'll excuse me, I just remembered I have to talk to that person waaay over there..."
Because Apple is the biggest tech company now. You should read Slashdot more often :D
Why aren't we mentioning time to port? I think that's a significant variable.
heres the scenario creating "sticky" in this case .. or what he is referring to..
... when you go to switch from the old to the new... all you are looking at is "the cost of the device" since theres nothing attached to that device that wont transfer.. so your not "tied in" by anything beyond the merits of the devices when choosing whether to replace a Sansa MP3 player with another brand.. since the new device will still play all your old MP3 players they are not "tied" to the brand or the device... the same sort of situation applies to PC's .. as long as the NEW PC runs windows, then your still only comparing the old hardware to the new.. "will I go with HP again? build it myself? or go with Dell?"
Say you buy a generic dumbphone, or a non apple MP3 player
The situation turns when you are comparing stuff like MP3s bought with DRM that only works on idevices/macs, or switching from a PC to Mac and having to justify swapping out what could be many thousands in software that you will have to replace.. the iDevices definately have alot of stickyness in this regard.. even though the avg person may spend only 10 cents a day on additional content.. the fact remains that its a huge psychological barrier to making the jump from platform to platform..
At any rate thats where "relatively high" comes into play, the funny thing is.. that between the psychological factors, and the inherent "goodness" (in the eyes of the user) and the merits of the "new" platform all come into play.. this is not new, we have known this for many many many years.. and its not limited to merely PCs and Smartphones.. we saw it with the music industry format switches over the years, the VHS to DVD to HD-DVD/Blueray switches.. *not* all of the changes went as one would expect.. for a variety of reasons. I mean many people would have bet that HD DVD would have won based on the sony track record with attempting to rule format shifts in the past which where essentially.. disasters, and yet blue ray came out on top.. i suspect that the fact that you could play standard dvd's on both formats was the ultimate decision maker for most people (they took the "investment in prior tech" out of the equation)
Anyhow thats the long winded way of saying why "high" is relative to "nonexistant" heh
Of course it also works the other way around - once bitten, twice shy. People who haven't bought an iPhone have other options that are just as good, but less iApple-y, and people who found that most of the $100 of downloaded content is either crap, or something they can do without, there's a better version on the "other" platforms, or that it's just obsolete, will realize that their $100 "investment" is really only $20.
If you're relying on people not junking an "investment" that's worth less than $100 as the way to keep them tied to you, you're doomed to competitors offering something better for free.
With all the supposed lock-in, Apple sure is doing a good job at making it easy for me to operate 4 Macs and one Windows 7 PC running in my house. With all this lock-in, you'd think it would be impossible to use any of my Apple media on my Win7 computer, but this simply isn't true.
Sticky relates to Apple's "world class UI" and the customers' willingness to trust an Apple device, even when untested, because stuff has just worked in the past.
Sticky has nothing to do with the difficulty of moving away from Apple due to vendor lock-in, but everything to do with staying with Apple. I bought a Airport Extreme based on this exact logic. I know there are better/cheaper wireless routers out there, but I knew I could just drop my 500GB Airport Extreme in the closet with the wireless router and it would just work.
Apple is an amusement company, not a computing machinery one... thats why people get crazy about the Apple stuff - it amuses them... Latest Ubuntu on my MacBook looks better than OSX, ergo my new amusement..
Want a free iPad, iPhone, iPod or another Free Apple Gadget? Just singup, complete a trial offer, then get some friends to do the same: http://freeapplegadgets.co.cc/
No one was going to buy music cassettes or CDs because of the 'stickiness' (installed base) of record-players.
Most of the folks who _have_ a zillion tunes don't listen to them anymore and essentially are carrying a warehouse of unused items around with them on their iPod. The relief that comes from starting over fresh, like throwing out most everything in a drawer, more than balances the stickiness of crap you bought years ago.
Apple keeps it's customers because the majority of their market knows nothing, and doesn't want to know anything about computers. They aren't going to switch because it would involve learning how to operate new technology, which for Apple users is much more difficult than just paying twice as much for a computer-like object that does things when you press it's one button.
I can't STAND iTunes. It's the worst media player I've ever used and a constant source of frustration. Best-in-class user experience my ass. Apple used to be a great company. used to be.