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How Apple Came To Control the Component Market
An anonymous reader writes "Phillip Elmer-Dewitt draws on several sources to argue that 'Apple has become not a monopoly (a single seller), but a monopsony — the one buyer that can control an entire market.' According to Dewitt, Apple uses its $70 billion cash hoard to 'pay for the construction cost (or a significant fraction of it) of [tech factories] in exchange for exclusive rights to the output production of the factory for a set period of time...' This gives Apple 'access to new component technology months or years before its rivals and allows it to release groundbreaking products that are actually impossible to duplicate.'"
It would make sense that a term with somewhat dubious connotations would contain the word "Sony."
allows it to release groundbreaking products that are actually impossible to duplicate
Just because the design of an Apple product is distinctive doesn't mean that the product is automatically groundbreaking.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So with this, the argument is that monopsonies are as bad for free markets as monopolies are. Who'da thunk it?
That's why Apple's stuff looks so futuristic, they buy it before it exists.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
At least they put their cast to good use for the business, getting access to the best components, as opposed to just hording it to swim around in like Scrooge McDuck.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
... and which are groundbreaking for YEARS to come ...... they do have a ground breaking marketing department and followers who are ground breakingly gullible.
how much other manufacturers are really being stopped from using said components. My inclination from past experience is that most non-Apple companies would choose to use lesser quality components to keep prices down. LCD displays for example, have for the most part been a lot worse on laptops, music players, etc.
Yes, h4rr4r we know you hate Apple. Is your life so devoid of meaning that you have to remind us countless times a day about this? Seriously, you need to go see a psychiatrist to work out this unhealthy obsession you have with Apple and Steve Jobs.
Lots of people are crying anti-trust but the question I have is who did the R&D for the components in question? Did Apple do the development and contract with the fabricator or did the component company have something cool and Apple said "Okay, we'll back you in exchange for the first production runs."? If Apple did the development work, I see no grounds for anti-trust. Even if it's the latter, so what? It's not like other companies can't do the same thing with other fabricators.
What technology has apple gotten ahead of everyone else? They've combined some things, sure, but I don't know of anything single component that was exclusively theirs (their own ARM cores don't really count as they don't do anything uniquely innovative even though they're an exclusive part).
You just have to laugh when the "Apple is being monopolistic", or "Apple is being evil" stories roll.
They are the antithesis of FOSS, and geeks shouldn't give them the time of day.
...but can someone name one product for me that Apple has made which is "groundbreaking products that are actually impossible to duplicate"?
Sure but only if we include patents in the discussion. If we are just talking tech parts then no, there aren't any that are both groundbreaking and impossible to duplicate.
When they release the iPneumaticDrill next year.
This is well known, the reason the iPod got so big is because Apple dared to buy in such huge amounts they not only got the output of entire factories, they managed to drive the unit price they payed down so that nobody else could compete. This is why you there is no such thing as a 64GB mp3 player from Cowon and why Archos tends to go to HD, they just can't buy flash at the price that allows them to compete with apple and its 64gb offerings.
BUT Apple ain't got it all their way, they misjudged Amoled and for now it seems they can't just buy their way in. Samsung needs all the displays it can produce for itself. Small players like Cowon can get their displays but if Apple wants to use them, it better make some friends. Why should Samsung help Apple with the iPad3? They got their own tablets to sell.
Is amoled that hot? Well, I compared a nexus S with a iPhone and the nexus can easily be read in broad daylight, the iPhone not so much. As for all angle viewing, I can't always hold the screen steady or at an optimal angle. Enegery usage is claimed to be lower as well (can't verify this myself), they are thinner and lighter and resolutions might be higher for a lower cost.
So, Apple gets flash nobody else can afford at the same price but they don't get it all. It has always been the tradeoff for a company relying on parts from others. You can buy what you want, but will always be depended on others for what you can buy. The cutting edge will always be held ultimately by those who develop in house but at the huge risk that you bet on the wrong horse and end up with something nobody wants. Remember minitiature HD's? Not the ones that were in the first iPod's, even smaller ones, destined for the smartphones of the future... I seen them in some MP3 players but the risk those companies took didn't pay off, the world turned to flash instead.
And for all its market power, where is the real innovation with the iPod? What did it, does it do, nobody else did before them AND does it better?
In many ways the iPod is the wallmart player, it shows the power of bulk purchasing and putting it in a saleable package but little else.
Or maybe I am just defending my order for a Cowon d3.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Because Apple will sue the crap out of you if you create anything that looks remotely like their product. (Ex:http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-18-apple-samsung-suit.htm). They tried to sue Samsung because they too created a touchscreen tablet. They try to patent every and anything. I mean Jobs has a patent on the staircase of the Apple Store in Union Square, the iPod Nano box(yes, the box it comes in), and their power adapters.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Yeah, the "proof" is in the, uh, commodity hardware they spraypaint white and hawk to hipsters? They've got computers that are allegedly well-built versions of every other computer out there, and phones and iPods and tablets that are simply LCD panels with memory and some kind of ARM processor.
This gives Apple 'access to new component technology months or years before its rivals and allows it to release groundbreaking products that are actually impossible to duplicate
B.S. Due to economies of scale, Apples competitors could always produce the components for cheaper than Apple, assuming they know what they're doing, which apparently they do not.
Given equal quality of management, etc, Apple will always get a lower rate of return on their cash that their competitors or a 3rd party would get.
The only reason for Apple to finance their own stuff, is because they have an extremely specific set of requirement for their individual device... Nothing stops Nokia or whoever from doing the same thing.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The interesting question is how did they get this virtuous cycle started and how could another company do something similar?
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This writer needs to join the rest of the world for a little while. Samsung just sold 3 million Galaxy S2 devices in 55 days (without a US launch http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/03/samsungs-galaxy-s-ii-becomes-companys-quickest-selling-phone/">Link ). Get your head out of Steve's ass and have a look around. This type of forward buying might actually limit Apple's abilities and agility.
Yeah, I hate them, you hate them, but you really have to think about everybody else in the world. They (the computer industry) have been trying to sell industrial and commercial level computers to home consumers since the advent of the computer. Apple is the first company to focus exclusively on the home user. This makes their products very attractive for a lot of people. While you may not like, and have no use for their products, there are many who like Apple products simple because they are designed from the ground up to be easy for the average person to use at home.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Its just another: "We build the factory, you operate it" agreement. Things like this exist in Mining, Oil refining, basically all kinds of manufacturing processes where some big company decides they need more resources of a certain type and sees the possibility to use some of their cash to invest in something where they know it will make revenue.
I hope for Apple that they don't exaggerate it to the level that the ties created by this investment will hinder their design. If some competitor produces something better, switching has an added cost.
This is a little similar to what Standard Oil could do: get much lower shipping rates on oil because of how much volume they produce. The difference being that Standard Oil had nearly 95% of the oil market whereas Apple isn't anywhere close to that.
| Why should Samsung help Apple with the iPad3? They got their own tablets to sell.
Maybe to recoup the losses they accumulate attempting to sell their own tablets?
So if Apple is fronting the money to build these factories, and gets exclusive rights to the output for several years, does that make Apple responsible for the treatment of the people who work in these factories, and who commit suicide by jumping off these factories? What about the impact these factories have on the environment?
Name one product made by ANYONE that is "groundbreaking and impossible to duplicate"
and no the evil "we patented it to hell and back" is not a reason to make it impossible to duplicate.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Case in point
Shortly after its release, iPod became synonymous with mp3 player. Sure, there were other mp3 players out there. However, Joe and Jane Public knew them as iPods or even worse "iPod knockoff." If im not mistake, Blackberry introduced the consumer market to the smartphone with the Curve. However, the market exploded with the release of the iPhone. In today's tablet market the iPad is king. I hate Apple products, because of their dependency on iTunes(ya, there are shitty alternatives) but im simply stating the facts.
Why are these products a staple within their respect markets? Its because they are advertised as such. People might like the fact that they are shiny. The fact that the UI remains consistent across product lines is nice too. The fact remains, if iProduct wasnt marketed so well it would be just another plain box on the retail shelf.
I hate apple and despise them for their lockdowns. Whining about this is just bullshit though. Basically all Apple has done is shown it's not stupid to keep cash on hand.
Other companies are free to continue their blatantly retarded path of buying up shitty companies for far more than they are worth. That's apparently the "proper" use of extra cash.
None of the competitors of Apple have any kind of cash hoard.
Bullshit
Google is sitting on $36B in cash, Microsoft has $50B, Nokia has $11.5B, HP has $12B, Dell has $14.4B.
Apple's doing well but they are hardly the only one sitting on a big pile of cash.
This is a great example of how a natural monopoly works. Patents were intended to give their owner a monopoly for a limited time to make back the R&D cost. This shows what I have always said. There are natural monopolies that exist when you do new things. First there is a time to see if the product will be successful in the market place and then more time to ramp up production to copy it. The beauty of a natural monopoly is that the time of the monopoly is proportional to the advancement of the idea. If it is something simple it gets copied quickly and easily. If it is radical it make take years. This is far better than our patent system which awards the same term to all patent classifications.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Whooosh
It's nothing that their competitors couldn't do. Investing in production to get a discount and/or exclusive supply is simply good business. The notable differences are that Apple seems to be doing it pretty often and that every time Apple tries it it's a home run (aluminum machining process = macbook air, capacitive touchscreen = iphone/ipad, etc.). But just because a competitor can't duplicate a product or component on their own and can't purchase from Apple's supplier doesn't make it anti-competitive. Also, it's not like they're doing this to cripple supply for other competitors. They're not buying all that DRAM in order to sit on it and starve the market. They're shoveling it into products and selling them. ( a notable exception might be LiquidMetal but we haven't seen any products using it yet except for the SIM eject tool in iPhones. LiquidMetal is protected by patents so competition couldn't make it if they could).
These products do get commoditized eventually. Does that happen faster or slower due to Apple's intervention? If it's slower then maybe competition isn't as serious as it should be. If it's faster then what's the problem?
Hate on Apple all you want, but if Dell, HP, or Acer wanted to invest in custom gear for a factory in order to get exclusive output, there's nothing preventing them. I'd be surprised if they haven't already, and it's just flying under the radar. The only reason this is news is because it's Apple.
bah.
But the point is that there's nothing in the iPod/iPhone/iPad/etc that uses "future technology". Most of it is off the shelf components (except where patent means they own the rights, but there's usually an off the shelf equivalent). I won't deny they have the edge in design and marketing, but rarely are their devices even at the bleeding edge of existing tech, let alone contain technology other devices won't have access to for months/years. Author comes across as a star cross'd fanboy.
I've heard for years that Apple stuff isn't worth the premium price because "it's made out of the same components everyone else uses".
So, some of Apple's hardware is literally made from unobtanium?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Apple designs appliances for the consumer masses--with well executed industrial design and software to go along with excellent hardware; instead of designing gadgets which non-technical people have trouble using.
The unwavering focus on the typical user experience is truley groundbreaking and that's why they are printing money.
It's okay that you don't get this, neither does HP, Dell, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.
Standard Oil also owned railroads, and would shift box cars in front of pipelines and disallow running pipelines under the railroad. This meant that other oil companies had to put the oil in barrels and carry it across the tracks... which of course is why they put box cars there.
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>> In many ways the iPod is the wallmart player, it shows the power of bulk purchasing and putting it in a saleable package but little else.
Usability. It's the feature that tech people don't think is a feature.
The example the author gives is not an example of a monopsony. Yes, Apple is a 600 pound gorilla, but they are nowhere near a monopsony when it comes to manufacturing components. Just because Foxcom builds factory A for Apple does not mean they [or anybody else for that matter] can’t build another factory.
Labor Unions are [or were] the classic example of a monopsony. If you wanted to buy labor you had to hire Union workers – they were the only supplier.
I suppose that an argument could be made for the ITunes store and IPhone/IPod, etc. [If you have developed an app only Apply will “buy” it – and then resell it] but I don’t think this is a good example because there are a lot of close substitutes.
So – 600 pound gorilla – Yes. Monopsony - No
They have to walk a very fine line where they claim that Apple doesn't actually produce products with any intrinsic value, but instead they trick billions of people into thinking that they do with "marketing". Oh and Apple is evil for locking down their devices eventhough the overwhelming majority of their customers are perfectly happy to have them locked down.
What a sad, pathetic little tribe.
Run along back to your Ruby coding.
Remember back when companies actually owned their own factories, made their own parts, and assembled them? Computer companies too, had all sorts of factories making tons of their own components. That set up exactly the same situation but worse, because to make an equivalent part you would have to build it elsewhere, as no one was going to sell to their competitor.
This outsourcing of all production is a new thing which was brought on by globalization and the availability of cheap labor in places like China and South Korea. So Apple invests in building a factory, and gets a big amount of its output, but in the end it is not Apple's factory, and they can make contracts with others once their deal with Apple expires.
Not that I like Apple doing this, but they have really figured out how to get the best of both worlds. They get the cheap prices of globalization, and the competitive edge of controlling their own production.
Some of the little things like their patented magsafe connectors on their laptops really are light years ahead. I can't wait until that patent expires.
In the world of High Definition, please abbreviate Hard Drive properly as HDD.
I was wondering what the hell you were talking about "Mini High Definitions"...
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Samsung would make a lot more money helping Apple then they ever would selling their own. I don't think Samsung is equipped to mk 50 million+ Amoled iPad displays anyway.
I am also not sure they are that desirable. Not sure on the daylight thing, but the iPhone 4 screen looks a lot better than the s2. The S2 oes look a little better then my 3GS though.
Display on e iPad is nice, I love mine. The viewing angle is about 180 degrees, not sure how Amoled would help there.
groundbreaking and impossible to duplicate as cheap as Apple.
Is why no one's really undercut Apple with a decent tablet yet. With their manufacturing/production deals, they're realizing really good profits on pretty low costs.
I drank what? -- Socrates
My child
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Usability lowers your geek/techie cred.
For example, what does a 10 hr battery life mean? The CPU and GPU are too feeble, it needs bigger numbers to have any g/t cred.
Did Steve Jobs create any jobs?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"...and allows it to release groundbreaking products that are actually impossible to duplicate." Like what, computers? MP3 players? Tablets??
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
Did Steve Jobs create any jobs?
Yes, he took some away from RIM, but the ones he actually created blow.
Whatever GP said completely flew over your head, didn't it? He was basically explaining why Apple iPads are as good as they are today. It's not because the engineers there are geniuses, but because their operations division is has made extremely bold and risky decisions that paid off.
The delicious food is always the first taken from the buffet. Not a surprise.
The problem with the flash argument is that you just need more chips. If you can only buy 32 gig chips, then use 2. And if 32 gig chips are made in vastly larger quantities than the 64 gig chips that only one OEM uses, then the prices for 2 32 gig chips approach 1 64 gig chip.
Another problem is that 64 gig in a portable device is unnecessary. Sure, you can carry around a lifetimes worth of music, but you'll never listen to it all before the end-of-life of the device. That's why most other OEMs add a micro SD slot, so the consumer can add more memory as he/she sees fit, at the price they can afford. In my eyes this is a much more elegant solution, since I can then take my memory out when needed in a camera or phone, or at the end-of-life of the device.
Apple II. If you think you can duplicate that, ask Franklin.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I doubt coherent thought has had a cloudier day...
An iPOD isn't an MP3 player, although it does happen to play MP3s amongst other things. It is a portable music device, carefully crafted to be convenient, useful, and unobtrusive. For example, with little effort, I was able to operate the control wheel of a 2nd gen ipod through my ski jacket with my hand in a ski glove.
That isn't to say there isn't a place for toasters with a setting to burn the fucking bread. But simply exposing every capability of an underlying device should not be confused with usability. That is really just a lack of design, and directly sends the message "we can't be bothered to make it good, but at least its cheap".
Apple products aren't magically intuitive. For example, i can't seem to grok my girlfriends ipod. I don't think the wheel is a good way to navigate a linear list, at least not in the way they've presented it. Apple obviously doesn't either, since they haven't emulated this same interface into the iphone/ipad.
So just because you've learned to use apple products doesn't make then intuitive, it just means that you've learned their paradigms, and therefore perceive them as more intuitive.
Why should Samsung help Apple with the iPad3? They got their own tablets to sell.
Lets assume $50 profit on a Tab, and $5 profit on the display they sell to apple.
They my sell 1 million of their own tablets, but their going to sell 60 million Apple tables, so selling to Apple is still far more intelligent than not selling to them. The Tab offers nothing that make people want to buy it. Specifically 'its not an iPad' is why people won't buy it on any sort of quantity that would allow it to compete with the profit they stand to make selling iPad displays to Apple.
I sell my own software, but not enough of it to make a living, hence why I work as a developer full time as well.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Those unaware of history are doomed to make stupid statements...
I remember when some did. Contrary to popular belief, it's never been universal.
Nor is outsourcing as new as you think. Across the 20th century and right down to today production in the US was 'outsourced' to places like the West and the South because land and labor there was cheaper than in the East (especially the Northeast). (That's one of the reasons there are so many abandoned textile and lumber mills from the late 19th and early 20th centuries scattered across the Northeast.) Another key that most people miss is cheap bulk transportation - railroads through the 20th century to now, and container ships from the late 20th century. (Arguably, without containers, the whole 'globalization' things falls apart due to the high labor costs of handling individual boxes multiple times as they switch transportation modes.)
Sears & Roebuck was doing the same thing with production 'outsourced' to the (American) Midwest and the South as early as the 1920's.
There really is nothing new under the sun.
What is to prevent Apple's competitors from doing the same thing? Nothing really except a willingness to spend money.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The aqueduct.
This is kinda like arguing with a creationist.
There is literally no evidence one could present to you that would convince you that people buy Apple products because they are good products and not because they say Apple on them. Essentially you are making claims which are not falsifiable--which is pretty much the definition of a religon. Have fun with your religon.
Why would you put a clickwheel on a device with the front covered by a touchscreen?
Apple doesn't like extraneous buttons and a clickwheel on an iPod Touch would be just that.
It's hard to hear you through the walls of your crystal (cubic) cathedral.
I do it with a soldering iron, some dip switches, and a jumper wire.
I guess that makes you stupid.
Ahh, so geeks are free to do whatever, so long as you approve? Interesting concept of freedom you semi-espoused there.
The Cowon d3 is a thick, clunky device compared to an iPod, but if you want HDMI video playback and an NTFS filesystem, then sure, it's a nice device. I am not sure many people want all that in a media player. For them, they can get an ipod touch for $100 cheaper. Reviews on the internet indicate that the Cowon d3 is not as usable as an iPod, although for you it's probably not an issue.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"The thing was a bomb when it came out, and why it took off after several years of being one of the worst MP3 players on the market still baffles anyone capable of coherent thought."
Stupid much? The original iPod combined the new microdrive and the clickwheel interface into a small portable large-capacity long-lasting music player. This at a time when people like Creative where slapping full-sized NOTEBOOK drives onto batteries that would last for a couple of hours, and calling the resulting brick "portable".
Is this CmdrTaco? Still smarting over "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I've had both an iPod (mini) and other players. My current Sony's sound quality is superior (that's why I bought it), but the clickwheel iPod are almost perfect in terms of usability.
Getting music on them isn't all that difficult since they're well supported by many media players. I never used iTunes. FWIW, I think newbies are fairly happy with iTunes.
Many players these days don't have removable batteries; almost none of the nice ones do. Players that take AAA batteries suffer from poor battery runtime, so you better have replacement batteries with you. On the other hand, most players with built-in, non-replaceable batteries run a LONG time these days: 20, 30, 40 hours at a time. That's long enough for a fairly long vacation away from a USB port. FWIW, I replaced the built-in battery in my iPod mini, it's about a 10 minute job (but I imagine it's more difficult for the current iPods).
All the important controls (play/pause, forward/back, volume) are within easy reach on an iPod. The menu interface isn't much different from other players. The iPods also come with a lot of little niceties. For instance, my current Sony doesn't pause playing when I yank the headphone cord. It also doesn't have a timer for shutdown (wtf). That's stuff I didn't even think to check because I figured everyone could do it.
Okay, now the big one: the clickwheel fucking ROCKS. Holding a button to scroll faster is TERRIBLE. Isn't that blindingly obvious? Ever had to move the mouse cursor using a keyboard? The wheel is, basically, an analogue control. It's hugely superior for both controlling volume and skipping to a position in a DJ set or audiobook. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to skip to the middle of a one hour lecture with a button-based player.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Though another way of putting it is that Apple has focused on generating a race to the bottom in terms of functionality. It's a little bit different than a race to the bottom in terms of quality, because all it means now is that the person who decides some day that they want to do more no longer has the economies of scale behind the tools to do more, which has been the great benefit of computers for years now. Many talented people I know started out only needing their computer to watch movies, check their email, and welll, back in the day I guess it was more blog than facebook - but it's the kind of stuff that frankly doesn't require a lot of power in the machine to do. And if someone had sold them a machine that only did those things, they never would have been able to: really delve in to 3D modelling and video effects work; experiment with computer illustrating skills that lead to a career in advertising; record an album on their own, leading to a career in music; create a home photography business with stunning results through the use of Photoshop; etc.
These are people who - because their computers could do more than what they needed when they bought them, more than they were even interested in doing at the time - were able, with bog standard computers, to become inspired and eventually learn skills that have actually lead somewhere that not only benefits them, but frankly benefits the economy. These are people who were able to develop from amateurs to professionals on simliar hardware, by investing only in different software, because their machines were "industrial/commercial level machines."
But Apple is trying to convince the consumer that they aren't a professional. Even look at their page advertising the new Final Cut Pro X - They refer more than once to FCPX being "like professional software". Again - a race to the bottom in terms of features - yes FCPX has many features professional software has, but frankly it misses out on some, and if that were the only option, you'd never be able to do certain tasks. Thankfully there are non-Apple options.
So when you think about everyone else in the world - you have to think not what their needs are now, but what they might be inspired to do over the lifetime of their machine. And realise that perhaps if those people all spend money on machines that can only do what they need, but frankly not at a significant cost savings, that there might be some long term economic consequences.
The first thing that comes to mind here is that Intel owns process technology (3D 22nm chips) that no other company can produce. Unless Intel produces a line of processors exclusively for Apple's toys, other people could make products with Intel chips that Apple cannot reproduce until the rest of the semiconductor fab industry catches up in 2 years.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
While I think AMOLED has better colors than LCD, I think the early models were not very bright and they used more power to display white. Also they are still more expensive to build and there was possibility of burn in. It is possible that Apple will switch to AMOLED once all of these have been addressed.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
But the point is that there's nothing in the iPod/iPhone/iPad/etc that uses "future technology". Most of it is off the shelf components (except where patent means they own the rights, but there's usually an off the shelf equivalent).
I think you may be reading too much into "future technology", maybe "new process" would be more accurate. A new process is used to manufacture a newer higher density memory chip. Initially production is limited. If Apple has a lock on the initial production runs they can have a competitive advantage for a little while. Similar story for a new process that yields a higher density screen.
Growing your own food, however, is astonishingly easy. You plant it, make sure it's watered, make sure it's weeded, and it produces nearly all of the time. You don't have to do anything else. It's not rocket science.
Please share your secrets with the farmers. They seem to think it takes a lot more work and is far less predictable. ;-)
You desperately want innovative to mean "gee whiz techno features". It literally means doing something that hasn't been done before, which Apple does constantly.
Apple is innovative in how they integrate new technology, how it's packaged, how it is exposed to the user. You are right that most other tech companies haven't figured this out.
Another problem is that 64 gig in a portable device is unnecessary. Sure, you can carry around a lifetimes worth of music, but you'll never listen to it all before the end-of-life of the device.
That is not the point. Having a lifetime of music on you allows you listen to any song from your library at any time without having to know in advance what you might want to listen to at some later time.
Well, if Apple is first rate hardware and Android is third rate with windows phones being fourth rate.....who's the second rate company?
The "problem" that other companies have is that they loathe to do R&D themselves. They rather spew out similar-looking products that are slightly cheaper but miss half the functionality than build something themselves. They are making more profit per unit initially but when the market starts working and the prices start going down (as has been the case over the last decade), Apple has positioned themselves better over the long term while the management of eg. HP has been replaced 3 times already because they got good quarterly results but lost the war in the end.
By standard, companies without much competition are very risk-averse while Apple is not. This translates in the pricing (Dell being ~10% cheaper than Apple to remain competitive) but also translates in the quality (Dell's having less than half the battery life, much heavier, getting much hotter and breaking as soon as you drop it).
However Apple has to make enormous risks for this. In order to remain competitive with their products, they bought these factories which if the iPod/iPad/iPhone had been too early or too late to market or too expensive or not functional enough or the economy collapsed they would be in much trouble as these things are not cheap to either build or run.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
...but can someone name one product for me that Apple has made which is "groundbreaking products that are actually impossible to duplicate"?
iDunno - Does "Be the first with affordable PC's, then lock them down tighter than a waterfowls arse, and watch an open platform slide your marketshare into low single digit percentages" count as a product?
...
Because, you see, I've seen this movie before back in the 80's
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
I didn't imply that they would include one, but that they could emulate the clickwheel, if they thought it was so intuitive.
They killed the clickwheel on the smaller iPods too. You now have a mini-touchscreen on every iPod, because apparently the clickwheel was so "easy to use" that A) no one else has ever produced a product that uses one and B) they had to completely remove it from every iPod they currently sell.
It's been interesting to watch people try to recast Wintel as an "open" platform in order to (1) draw unfounded parallels with Android and (2) sweep under the rug the simple fact that the Wintel hegemony was bad for users.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Sigh. :-)
I never said it was good, did I?
Anyway, it was not a wintel hegemony that clobbered apple in the 80's, it was the fact that anyone could (and frequently did) build x86 machines, and anyone could (and frequently did) license MSDOS for those cheap machines. The "open" part was the BIOS, and an OS that you could run on any x86 machine, whether that machine was built by IBM or Compaq or whether the chip was Intel or AMD.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Then why not 1TB, or 5? When does it become unnecessary, in your opinion?
the probability of you listening to some of those songs in your library during your ownership of the device is infinitesimally small. You will have plugged the device into your computer many, many times before you listen to some of those songs. The benefit is marginal, and is no justification to build a factory.
That's insightful. If everything worked properly when I started using computers, I would never have had an interest in them now. As a child many things did not make sense, I thought things could be improved.
I feel sorry for the children who have everything working properly when they start using a computer. There will be less space for inspiration. I don't doubt they will be very capable users, perhaps in graphical programs for example. However they will be like my generation with cars and fridges - we buy a new one rather than try to learn how it works and how to fix it. Of course that might be an argument that relates more to complexity than 'everything being done for you'.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
Other MP3 players: you connect them to your computer. You drag your music onto them. Done.
iPod: You connect it to your computer. Oops, but first you need to install iTunes. So do that. A half-hour later, you find out that first you have to drag your music INTO ITUNES. An hour or so after that, you discover you can't say what music iTunes should copy unless the iPod is already connected. So you connect it, and wait a few HOURS for iTunes to copy whatever it wants to over, and only THEN can you tell iTunes which music you REALLY wanted over. So then you get to wait a couple of hours again.
Not to interrupt your rant, but playlists are a much easier way to manage music rather than copying files all over the place. You can make lots of playlists in iTunes [1], plug in your ipod tell it to sync those lists and you're done. Even a very large ipod doesn't take hours to sync. Best part is that you can manage those playlists (ignoring files...ugh) and the next time you plug in your ipod it will sync again. iOS5 is bringing OTA syncing so you won't even need to plug it into the computer, just a power source.
[1] Other music management software I assume now does it the same way with playlists.
Then why not 1TB, or 5? When does it become unnecessary, in your opinion?
Personally, when my entire library fits with room to grow.
the probability of you listening to some of those songs in your library during your ownership of the device is infinitesimally small.
For any particular song, perhaps, though I listen to my collection both ways to work (1 hour per day), so my current 30-40 GB of music gets listened to in its entirety. Also, if the capacity is too small, the chances of having the song I want on the iPod is infinitesimally small, yielding a poor user experience. You slippery-slope up to 5 TB, so I slippery-slope you down to 5 MB
The benefit is marginal, and is no justification to build a factory.
Perhaps not to you. Apple, with oodles of money, begs to differ.
Apple has made a lot of wise moves under Jobs. Building up the large cash reserve is one of them. This lets them do some very interesting things. Things that are benefiting us all as they benefit Apple. Other companies are able to ride the coat tails.
again, a setting to burn the bread isn't a feature; its just the result of lazy designers.
Making something work well, is the result of good design.
It is a pain that cap touch screens don't work through gloves, or even with wet fingers...
As for reality distortion; take a look at what people chose, overwhelmingly to pay for. It isn't an accident, mass hypnosis, or some grand conspiracy. People simply chose the better product, and grumbling in a state of denial that they are all clowns and you are part of the exclusive club that knows better is childish at best.
You just have to laugh when the "Apple is being monopolistic", or "Apple is being evil" stories roll.
They are the antithesis of FOSS, and geeks shouldn't give them the time of day.
That word you used - I don't think you know what it means. http://opensource.apple.com/
Fandroids hate facts.
Apple is not the only company with the financial means to employ that strategy; therefore, the strategy is not to blame for the difficulty of duplicating its products.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Like others have said, nobody stops any competitors from doing the same, but they haven't so far, for it is an immense gamble. Apple also could fail and buy out the full capacity of some widget that ends up in a landfill somewhere, but that hasn't happen so far either.
Look up the fate of the Apple "Twiggy" drives for old Lisa.
The most important thing that Apple (as a company) does is pay attention to detail at every level. Back when Jobs was in charge of the initial Macintosh, he even complained if the motherboard looked messy. Most companies will cover up shoddy work with a shiny case or flashy interface, cheaping out on everything not visible to the end customer. I saw an Apple Store in Chicago, it had a bus stop with one of those scrolling billboards. Every add on that scroll was an Apple ad.
Jobs has always been fanatic that everything must be done well, from the sweeping the floors to the design of the head office building. Apple is not unique in that, it's pretty typical of Japanese companies like Toyota or Sony, but Apple takes it a little further. When everything looks good from the inside out, mistakes really stand out.
One thing that Apple does is not waste time on "lower end" products. Every "stripped down" version of a product that companies typically make has engineering, marketing, logistical and other costs. Apple typically won't produce a produce that has any overlap - there is no "iPod Touch Lite" between the Touch and the Nano (say, missing a camera or WiFi or less functional apps... memory size aside - that's a legitimate consumer preference), because the Touch would do everything the "lite" version does (a Nano is physically different enough that it has different uses than a Touch), so why bother?
That means that rather than a dozen different screens or boards or cases for a dozen products, Apple needs one. That means it purchases a dozen times more of what it does buy, and that leads to economies of scale, allowing it to make these gambles successfully more often.
I never said it was good, did I?
You're arguing that it's normative, preferable to the other available outcomes (the duck's ass outcome in particular), and that Wintel succeded becasue of a position that manifests a moral value, openness. The word did not excape your lips but your argument is a functional value judgement.
Anyway, it was not a wintel hegemony that clobbered apple in the 80's
This is where I'm supposed to sit and let you pretend that people actually were successful selling x86 ISA computers that didn't run MS-DOS and Windows -- the hardware platform was open (GOOD) but none of that openness filtered down to the application developers or end users (BAD). MS leveraged an open platform to sell a closed one, and the combination was the thing people bought, because that was how the market worked. Granted it wasn't in their long-term interest to buy the same OS everyone else did, but adverse selection is a tough mistress, and just because someone could sell other OS's, and other people could buy them and use them, this doesn't dispose of the fact that no one did, and all that openness really didn't benefit anyone but the largest market participants.
And there's really no evidence Android will turn out any different, with an open OS, built to the carrier's orders, selling closed services on locked phones; all the while the fanboys reminding us that people can run cyanogenmod, while at no time realizing that no one does and thus no one enjoys the benefits.
"Openness" is a statement of potential, nothing more. It says almost nothing about what actually is available in the market, or what an end user can do.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I never said it was good, did I?
You're arguing that it's normative, preferable to the other available outcomes (the duck's ass outcome in particular), and that Wintel succeded becasue of a position that manifests a moral value, openness. The word did not excape your lips but your argument is a functional value judgement.
I did no such thing. I'm not really sure how you come to that conclusion by my mostly /snarky/ remark.
Anyway, it was not a wintel hegemony that clobbered apple in the 80's
This is where I'm supposed to sit and let you pretend that people actually were successful selling x86 ISA computers that didn't run MS-DOS and Windows
Hang on, I never said that either - I *said* that they were successful in selling x86 + MSDOS. Where are you getting all this from?
-- the hardware platform was open (GOOD) but none of that openness filtered down to the application developers or end users (BAD).
I'm not sure how to respond to this; how "closed" would you call the software when it could run on a variety of machines from different manufacturers? Contrast with Apple, where the software would run on only a single manufacturers hardware.
This was my original point, btw (since you seemed to have missed it in your haste) - the software (closed or open) could run on any machine the user bought. Not so different from Android as compared with Apple.
MS leveraged an open platform to sell a closed one, and the combination was the thing people bought, because that was how the market worked. Granted it wasn't in their long-term interest to buy the same OS everyone else did, but adverse selection is a tough mistress, and just because someone could sell other OS's, and other people could buy them and use them, this doesn't dispose of the fact that no one did, and all that openness really didn't benefit anyone but the largest market participants.
And there's really no evidence Android will turn out any different, with an open OS,
What makes you think Android is all that open? I'm no expert in Android internals, but I hear that it has its own closed secret stuff?
built to the carrier's orders, selling closed services on locked phones; all the while the fanboys reminding us that people can run cyanogenmod,
I don't even know what this is :-)
while at no time realizing that no one does and thus no one enjoys the benefits.
"Openness" is a statement of potential, nothing more. It says almost nothing about what actually is available in the market, or what an end user can do.
Fair enough, but the analogy I was drawing (which I thought was obvious, but perhaps not) is that I've seen this situation before. The "commodity software" + "hardware from anywhere" did, in the past, beat out Apples "Our software, on our hardware only!!! model.
While you are correct that there is no evidence that "Android will turn out different", there is equally no evidence that the model that failed in the past will succeed now. In fact, since no one can predict the future, if we make any WEAK extrapolations from the past, it comes out slightly in Androids favour (assuming that the argument is Android vs iOS).
IOW, is there any reason to believe that the failed model from the past will now work?
(ps. You stopped just short of calling me a fanboi. Good on you mate :-) I'm no fan of either business, and am currently investigating the options available to get into iOS development. I've written exactly one Android application, and would like to write it for iOS as well. Targetting both at the same time, in addition to making me anything but a fanboi, is a little under twice the effort. I hope they both do equally well, for my sake, else I would've doubled my effort for less than double the reward.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
So, how come when I go shopping, the iPods are usually the most expensive players for a given feature set?I don't remind this being different in any point in time either. I always went for the cheap stuff. iPod never was cheap.
Apple does use entirely off-the-shelf technology... they just buy so much, they can sometimes get their own shelf. They're not going to make their own Wifi chip, for example, but if they want some changes make, Broadcom will happily do a custom spin. Same with Samsung, on the A4 processor.
Apple's certainly now doing their own chip designs... these are still essentially off the shelf, but based on off-the-shelf designs (ARM Cortex A9, etc) just like most of the other chip makers in the mobile space. They don't actually make the chips.. but then again, neither does nVidia. And I'd expect Apple to move in that direction over time, doing more in custom, but only when they find an advantage to it. The big advantage of going to their own design in the A5 is that they don't have to let Samsung (an emerging rival who, unlike Apple, actually makes nearly every part in a smartphone or tablet) benefit from Apple's huge volumes.
-Dave Haynie
They still use more power to display white, so far as I know. White is basically all subpixel OLEDs on the screen engaged at 100% brightness. But then, as soon as it's not full bright, or it's not white, the power usage goes down significantly.
Is amoled that hot? Well, I compared a nexus S with a iPhone and the nexus can easily be read in broad daylight, the iPhone not so much. As for all angle viewing, I can't always hold the screen steady or at an optimal angle. Enegery usage is claimed to be lower as well (can't verify this myself), they are thinner and lighter and resolutions might be higher for a lower cost.
The problem with AMOLED until very recently has been that its physical resolution was crap. Sure, Samsung was declaring 800x480, but that is for a PenTile arrangement which skimps on color subpixels, so the actual resolution is lower (just how much depends on the color you need to display). This was particularly visible on a black-on-white or white-on-black text, which is what most websites use.
Samsung now has real 800x480 screens without that PenTile crap - what they call "Super AMOLED Plus" - Galaxy S2 ships with one. I owned Nexus One (PenTile OLED) before SGS2, and the difference really is night and day. But, as is usual with AMOLED, Samsung reserves the most recent generation for their flagship phones, and only sells the older screens to competitors.
The other issue with 64 gigs of music is; how are you gonna navigate and select on that little postage-stamp of a screen? Using what UI paradigm? Shuffle? You will literally spend more time browsing your library looking for a specific song, than you will listening. And they'll spend time and $$$ rewriting UI software to try to make it work.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Can someone say patents>
And secondly, they completely dominated the mp3 player market with their click wheel player.
Lastly, user interfaces moved on, and the click wheel has been superseded. It's called the march of progress, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the best in its time.
The slower runner is the first eaten by a lion. Not a surprise
FTFY
What do you mean? if iPhones and iPads suddenly where to just vanish from the face of the earth.. the world just go on a grinding halt! The blogosphere would just go into nuclear winter mode! What would Gizmodo write about? OMG shut up! I don't even want to imagine. /s
Cue downmoding to hell from the endless stream of mod points from "the chosen". Guess it's an awkward position to own several Apple toys and not seeing anything special about them so I can get with the program. I don't even know if I'm missing something about them *stares to turned off iPod classic* I still have to go and make my coffee!.
I didn't imply that they would include one, but that they could emulate the clickwheel, if they thought it was so intuitive.
What an intelligent argument! Let's see - all the other interfaces to operate an media player that are so much better than the scroll wheel, they must all be emulated on the modern touch wheel devices then, right? Yeah, superb argument that the scroll wheel was so fucking bad - that all the others now more or less imitate what Apple replaced it with.
Fandroids hate facts.
Wow, talk about over analysis. I thought the (well known) reason iPods got so big was because all the competitors suck, basically. If I want an mp3 player that doesn't suck and isn't fabricated to look like a giant brick of turd, then I get an iPod. If I don't want the Apple ecosystem, then I buy a giant turd brick mp3 player with an interface designed by a preschooler, made of plastic that breaks the first time it is dropped.
>> In many ways the iPod is the wallmart player, it shows the power of bulk purchasing and putting it in a saleable package but little else.
Usability. It's the feature that tech people don't think is a feature.
mod up +infinity for best/most succinct comment ever. Man I've been trying for 20 years to verbalize exactly what you just wrote in 12 words.
Man, you should just stay away from any conversation about usability. The reason they stopped using the clickwheel is because...wait for it...they found a BETTER way. It's called improving an already good product...something Apple is good at and that sets them apart from most other giant tech companies. (I'm ignoring you, Final Cut X)
STOP WITH THE ONE BUTTON MOUSE ARGUMENT ALREADY!!! The last 1 button mouse was produced in 2000 or 2001...you know, TEN YEARS ago. And even then, multi-button mice where supported al the way back to OS 7.6(?)
Seriously? I just checked out the Cowon D3 (never heard of it until today) and it's more expensive than the most expensive iPod.
iPods were $10-$20 more than equivalent Zunes. Most people were comfortable paying the extra bills for Apple over Microsoft on that one.
All the other stuff...is there other stuff?
The Mighty Mouse that replaced the one-button mouse was introduced in 2005 or so, I think.
When I bought my Mac Pro, the 3.0 GHz Xeon chips were not available in any other machine. I wondered how Apple got the exclusive on the new chip from Intel.
"phones and iPods and tablets that are simply LCD panels with memory and some kind of ARM processor." ... and an OS, with loads of developers behind it.
That's the only reason they've done well so far - they managed to convince enough devlopers to gain a virtual monopoly, like how Windows has the same sort of monopoly in the x86 market.
Well, until Android came on scene, cheaper and more developer friendly anyway...
Locating a specific song in my 64 GB library takes me a couple of seconds. Typing the first few letters of the song title brings me right to it.
Duh.
Yes indeed , you are correct. I got the form factor confused because they were similar. Still, you could hold down the modifier key or buy a 3rd party mouse since about 1995. Stupid, stupid argument I wish would die in a fire.