I don't think that millions and millions and millions of people buy Apple products based purely on marketing. I believe that the vast majority of initial iPad sales (since we're discussing tablets) occurred to people who enjoyed Apple's products in general and the "touch" products (iPhone/iPod Touch) specifically and had a "mobile computing device" (more than an iPod Touch but less than a laptop) need. Then, once the early adopters started telling their "on the fence" friends of their experience, more people bought in. Then, those people who never buy 1st generation products bought in because Apple released the iPad 2. Then the iPad continued to sell well.
People don't plunk down $500 because it's cool. They plunk down $500 because they're confident that they're going to get the product they want. They plunk down $500 because it's the right price for a product they want or need.
You don't have to like Apple and you don't have to like the iPad but you'd be foolish to ignore how and why the iPad is succeeding where other tablets are absolutely, utterly failing. No, really - the HP TouchPad is fire saled. The Blackberry Playbook is utterly floundering. The stories of failed tablet products abound. A _BLACKBERRY_ tablet is failing horribly while Apple can't keep iPad's in stock. Figure out why that's happening and don't stop analyzing why once you get to "marketing" because there are more reasons than that.
Please identify a manufacturer who remotely comes close to Apple's success and sales figures. Not an OS released by many manufacturers - please name a _manufacturer_ so we can compare apples to apples (so to speak).
Or, if you're going to try the Android vs iOS angle, at least view the entire iOS ecosystem which includes iPhones, iPads, _AND_ the iPod Touch (last number I saw, which was from March of 2011, was just shy of 200,000,000 - 170-ish, iirc). So, again, explain to me how Apple is getting its clock cleaned.
iPad... have devout worshipers that purchase as soon as their products come out. Android people are a bit pickier when it comes to buying something, they actually take time to evaluate the products instead of the hipsters who buy a label.
It simply boggles my mind that people continue to hold on to this gibberish. Here's a secret: Apple makes products people want. You can try to portray it as an army of mindless zombies shambling along giving Apple their money but the truth of the matter is that people buy products they want. Apple is succeeding (to say the least) because they have invested a lot of effort into figuring out what people want and making that product.
There's a reason why the typical geek has zero capacity to predict future trends and accurately determine what consumers want - because they hold onto falsehoods as if they're gospel and stick their heads in the sand when the truth is shown to them.
You don't have to like Apple (and your comments make it perfectly clear that you don't) but you're a blind fool if you ignore the reasons for Apple's success. You complain about Apple "worshipers" yet your disdain for Apple and its customers is the only fanatical thing I see here.
How is having the TWO best selling smart phones (iPhone 4 #1, iPhone 3GS #2) getting their clock cleaned? No. Really - explain to me how you can possibly make a statement like "Apple is getting it's clocked cleaned" when Apple has the #1 and #2 smartphone because, last time I checked, when you have the best selling _AND_ the second best selling product in a market, that's pretty damn successful. Perhaps you have a different definition of "success" however...
I have had 5 defective Moto Droids (and a bad Droid 3).
Please say those phones were for a team of people and that's not your personal experience because, if those were all your phones then you might want to look into a different manufacturer... One is a lemon, two is bad luck, three is a pattern, five is you're not paying attention. Heck, that many duds - even across a team of people - I'd be looking for a new manufacturer for my next set of phones...
I agree (which means I shouldn't reply and instead should just mod your post up but I have something to say so here I am:).
I'll use an example (not necessarily the best example but a good enough one to certainly support your point): Apple.
Apple invests an enormous amount of resources into R&D and it is paying off (to say the least). The most important resource that they're clearly investing into R&D? Time. While they're certainly interested in making lots of money now, they've clearly made the investment into making lots and lots and lots of money over the long haul. Thus, they are developing products until they are just right. Rumour has it the iPad was shown to Steve Jobs back before the iPhone at which point he put the iPad on a shelf and said "we can make a phone out of this." My point? The iPad had been in development (in one stage or another) for many years before it was launched. Most other companies seem to give their designers and engineers a year, two max, before they expect to see a product on store shelves. Apple is taking several years to polish a product before showing it to the public.
So many companies want to do what Apple is doing but they seem to think that means "release products and make tons of money." No. What Apple is doing is making a solid commitment to R&D and releasing polished products that people want (among other things but the majority of those other things come after the R&D). Until other companies start to similarly invest time and effort into R&D, they will never be able to "do what Apple is doing."
As you said, if you want to rake in revenue, you have to invest in R&D. That simple.
People keep using the word "evil" in reference to corporations and it sickens me. It weakens the meaning of the word because, in a vast majority of cases, the corporation in question isn't "evil". They may be dicks or nasty or mean or "not right"but "evil" is a powerful word that applies to very specific situations. In almost every case where I see someone describing a corporation as "evil", I immediately ignore everything else the person has to say - if they can't understand how to properly use the word "evil" then they clearly can't form an opinion worth listening to.
You may not like ISPs dicking with your service in the quest of profits but that is far, far, far from evil.
Please, if you're going to use the word "evil", make sure that you're actually describing something that is evil.
More specifically (in my opinion), Apple is a company that lets people do their jobs. Business people run the business; engineers design the products; marketers make people want to buy the products. From the outside looking in, at least, Apple does not appear to be a company where one group has power over the other. They each do their specialized role and trust the other parts to do theirs, all towards the visions (as you discuss) that's laid out by upper management. In my opinion, when a company has the balance of those three facets of a company shift towards one of them, the company is doomed to fail. Bean counters in power will slowly result in products that suck that people don't want. Engineers in power will slowly result in products consumers don't care about and bad business. Marketers in power will result in shitty "design by focus group" products. In the short term, any one of those approaches may be good (which is why so many companies think the business people should make the decisions - because, on paper, it seems to be a great idea for the next business quarter) but, in the long term, the way to make an exceptionally successful company, it requires a balance between the three facets where each allows the other to do their thing. Apple, in my opinion, is a great example of a company doing that.
Thank you for the apology (didn't know that could happen on the internet:).
Are you defending patents, or Apple?
I'm neither defending Apple nor patents in this discussion. I was attacking the "it's obvious" claim which, in my opinion, is absolutely, 100% false. That would be akin to saying that the Blackberry was obvious when it first came out, which is a claim that I don't think anyone would make because it is wrong. But, when viewed in the same way as the iPhone, the Blackberry was just obvious technology put together into one package. Phone? Obvious. Portable computing device? Obvious. Check email on the go? Obvious. All together? Apparently not obvious because virtually nobody had done it and Blackberry came along, packed it up into a nice package, and took the industry by storm. They became the industry standard for smartphones. Apple did the same with the iPhone (supplanting Blackberry as the industry standard...). Someone else will do it with the next big thing. For some reason, however, people think the iPhone was obvious but, as I've explained, if it was obvious, why wasn't it being done by anyone else? Perhaps it wasn't obvious at all.
My opinions on patents have nothing at all to do with this line of conversation. I was purely discussing the assertion that the iPhone's form-and-function was obvious. It wasn't. It is now, but until it was launched, it wasn't.
...while I am claiming that it is, legally, just a collection of mostly obvious tweaks on existing technology.
And, again, the claim of "it's obvious." If it was obvious, it would have been done already. Just as the sliding door on both sides of a minivan. Some things are obvious, after you see them. Until then, they aren't obvious. If it was obvious, other manufacturers would have been doing it already.
If all you meant was to be an Apple Fan Boy...
Ah, the sign of a wonderfully intelligent discussion - insult the other person. Not sure why I warranted the insult, given that I've in no way insulted you nor your opinions. But, hey, thanks. Now I know where we stand.
If you were intending your statement to mean that the iPhone deserves patent protection because of its impact in the market...
Given that you've established how this discussion is going to unfold, you'll understand the tenor of my response to this. Namely: reading comprehension for the win! No, my statement wasn't meant to mean any of that. My statement was meant to clearly explain my opinion that "the iPhone was just a collection of mostly obvious teaks on existing technology" is a statement made by idiots or Apple-haters who aren't smart enough or honest enough to recognize the facts.
Again, you established that this isn't a polite discussion so any insults are a direct result of the twist in the conversation that you began. And with that, I'm done with you. Bye.
I've not used either the iPhone or the Blackberry, but isn't there some similarity between those two?
The iPhone and the Blackberry are about as far apart as you can get with the same end result in mind (ie: "check email"). The Blackberry is the iconic model of what a smartphone was prior to the iPhone. It was the dominant force in the market and all other smartphones modeled themselves, to one degree or another, on the Blackberry. The iPhone did much of the same but did virtually everything differently (touch screen, no physical keyboard, etc.).
After the iPhone came out, most other manufacturers stopped emulating the Blackberry and started emulating the iPhone. As an example, ask yourself how many Samsung, HTC, and Motorola phones looked and functioned similar to an iPhone before the iPhone came out vs after it launched. Then ask yourself how many of the same manufacturer's phones looked and functioned similar to a Blackberry both before and after the iPhone came out. You'll notice an interesting trend.
The Blackberry is a symbol of what was. The iPhone is a symbol of what is.
If you're going to tout Windows Mobile and Blackberry as examples of "it was done before the iPhone", it shows that you've completely missed the point. Here - I'll say it again - before the iPhone, virtually no phone on the market looked anything like nor functioned anything like the iPhone. After the iPhone, virtually every single smartphone released looks similar to as well as functions similar to the iPhone.
Or, to be more specific in my retort, I'll ask you to point out the Blackberry that existed pre-iPhone that looked or functioned anything like the iPhone. I'll bet a year's salary that you can't. I'll bet another year's salary that you can point out a Blackberry whose design, both hardware and software, is obviously inspired by the iPhone, but that came _after_ the iPhone.
If you can't recognize a definitive pre- vs post-iPhone influence on the entire phone market (especially smartphone market), then you are either very young and didn't know what the market looked like before the iPhone launched or you're just refusing to see the truth.
These are NOT inventions, in the sense viewed by the framers of the constitution. Most are little minor tweaks obvious to anyone working in the industry.
I see this argument all the time but let's be real for a second here - in the smartphone category, there's a very distinct "pre-iPhone" era and "post-iPhone" era. It may seem obvious _now_ but, until the iPhone came along, it clearly wasn't that obvious because damn near nobody else was doing it. Now? After the iPhone? Yeah - everyone and their cousin is producing a smartphone that looks and acts like an iPhone so it all seems so obvious. Until the iPhone came along, however, it wasn't obvious at all.
Here - I'll make it even easier to understand with an car analogy. Well, a minivan analogy, to be exact. At one point, minivans had one sliding door on one side of the minivan. That's what they all looked like. All of them. It was a holdover from the minivan's utilitarian predecessor - the cube van. Then, one day, someone got the bright idea of putting a sliding door on the other side of the minivan as well. And, low and behold, everyone started doing it because "it's so obvious." But, until the first one appeared, it wasn't obvious - if it had been, everyone would have been doing it. It wasn't obvious at all.
While many people want to believe that the iPhone is not inventive and is just a collection of obvious ideas, that's not even vaguely true because, if it was obvious, there would have been a ton of iPhone-like phones already on the market. It wasn't until the iPhone came along that suddenly "it's so obvious" happened followed by everyone doing what Apple had done because, you know, "it's so obvious."
Sliding doors on both sides of a minivan. iPhone. Obvious, only after you see it done.
Boy, those iPhones sure are pesky what with their ability to record video and whatnot. It's a good thing those sucky Android phones can't do things like that.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think that millions and millions and millions of people buy Apple products based purely on marketing. I believe that the vast majority of initial iPad sales (since we're discussing tablets) occurred to people who enjoyed Apple's products in general and the "touch" products (iPhone/iPod Touch) specifically and had a "mobile computing device" (more than an iPod Touch but less than a laptop) need. Then, once the early adopters started telling their "on the fence" friends of their experience, more people bought in. Then, those people who never buy 1st generation products bought in because Apple released the iPad 2. Then the iPad continued to sell well.
People don't plunk down $500 because it's cool. They plunk down $500 because they're confident that they're going to get the product they want. They plunk down $500 because it's the right price for a product they want or need.
You don't have to like Apple and you don't have to like the iPad but you'd be foolish to ignore how and why the iPad is succeeding where other tablets are absolutely, utterly failing. No, really - the HP TouchPad is fire saled. The Blackberry Playbook is utterly floundering. The stories of failed tablet products abound. A _BLACKBERRY_ tablet is failing horribly while Apple can't keep iPad's in stock. Figure out why that's happening and don't stop analyzing why once you get to "marketing" because there are more reasons than that.
Please identify a manufacturer who remotely comes close to Apple's success and sales figures. Not an OS released by many manufacturers - please name a _manufacturer_ so we can compare apples to apples (so to speak).
Or, if you're going to try the Android vs iOS angle, at least view the entire iOS ecosystem which includes iPhones, iPads, _AND_ the iPod Touch (last number I saw, which was from March of 2011, was just shy of 200,000,000 - 170-ish, iirc). So, again, explain to me how Apple is getting its clock cleaned.
The facts simply do not support any such claim.
iPad ... have devout worshipers that purchase as soon as their products come out. Android people are a bit pickier when it comes to buying something, they actually take time to evaluate the products instead of the hipsters who buy a label.
It simply boggles my mind that people continue to hold on to this gibberish. Here's a secret: Apple makes products people want. You can try to portray it as an army of mindless zombies shambling along giving Apple their money but the truth of the matter is that people buy products they want. Apple is succeeding (to say the least) because they have invested a lot of effort into figuring out what people want and making that product.
There's a reason why the typical geek has zero capacity to predict future trends and accurately determine what consumers want - because they hold onto falsehoods as if they're gospel and stick their heads in the sand when the truth is shown to them.
You don't have to like Apple (and your comments make it perfectly clear that you don't) but you're a blind fool if you ignore the reasons for Apple's success. You complain about Apple "worshipers" yet your disdain for Apple and its customers is the only fanatical thing I see here.
What android needs is an army of fanbois who are as dedicated to android...
You mean Slashdot? ;)
How is having the TWO best selling smart phones (iPhone 4 #1, iPhone 3GS #2) getting their clock cleaned? No. Really - explain to me how you can possibly make a statement like "Apple is getting it's clocked cleaned" when Apple has the #1 and #2 smartphone because, last time I checked, when you have the best selling _AND_ the second best selling product in a market, that's pretty damn successful. Perhaps you have a different definition of "success" however...
Get off my lawn?
And you can't do a lot of non-standard things with an Android phone unless you root it. Your point?
Don't forget the iPod Touch. Its numbers are significant.
So that's why people are leaving their Iphone 3GS's for new Android handsets. The fastest selling OS is Android...
And the single most popular smartphone is the iPhone 4. The second most popular smartphone? The iPhone 3GS.
Sorry - you were trying to make a point. Silly of me to inject facts into your discussion.
I have had 5 defective Moto Droids (and a bad Droid 3).
Please say those phones were for a team of people and that's not your personal experience because, if those were all your phones then you might want to look into a different manufacturer... One is a lemon, two is bad luck, three is a pattern, five is you're not paying attention. Heck, that many duds - even across a team of people - I'd be looking for a new manufacturer for my next set of phones...
I agree (which means I shouldn't reply and instead should just mod your post up but I have something to say so here I am :).
I'll use an example (not necessarily the best example but a good enough one to certainly support your point): Apple.
Apple invests an enormous amount of resources into R&D and it is paying off (to say the least). The most important resource that they're clearly investing into R&D? Time. While they're certainly interested in making lots of money now, they've clearly made the investment into making lots and lots and lots of money over the long haul. Thus, they are developing products until they are just right. Rumour has it the iPad was shown to Steve Jobs back before the iPhone at which point he put the iPad on a shelf and said "we can make a phone out of this." My point? The iPad had been in development (in one stage or another) for many years before it was launched. Most other companies seem to give their designers and engineers a year, two max, before they expect to see a product on store shelves. Apple is taking several years to polish a product before showing it to the public.
So many companies want to do what Apple is doing but they seem to think that means "release products and make tons of money." No. What Apple is doing is making a solid commitment to R&D and releasing polished products that people want (among other things but the majority of those other things come after the R&D). Until other companies start to similarly invest time and effort into R&D, they will never be able to "do what Apple is doing."
As you said, if you want to rake in revenue, you have to invest in R&D. That simple.
People keep using the word "evil" in reference to corporations and it sickens me. It weakens the meaning of the word because, in a vast majority of cases, the corporation in question isn't "evil". They may be dicks or nasty or mean or "not right"but "evil" is a powerful word that applies to very specific situations. In almost every case where I see someone describing a corporation as "evil", I immediately ignore everything else the person has to say - if they can't understand how to properly use the word "evil" then they clearly can't form an opinion worth listening to.
You may not like ISPs dicking with your service in the quest of profits but that is far, far, far from evil.
Please, if you're going to use the word "evil", make sure that you're actually describing something that is evil.
More specifically (in my opinion), Apple is a company that lets people do their jobs. Business people run the business; engineers design the products; marketers make people want to buy the products. From the outside looking in, at least, Apple does not appear to be a company where one group has power over the other. They each do their specialized role and trust the other parts to do theirs, all towards the visions (as you discuss) that's laid out by upper management. In my opinion, when a company has the balance of those three facets of a company shift towards one of them, the company is doomed to fail. Bean counters in power will slowly result in products that suck that people don't want. Engineers in power will slowly result in products consumers don't care about and bad business. Marketers in power will result in shitty "design by focus group" products. In the short term, any one of those approaches may be good (which is why so many companies think the business people should make the decisions - because, on paper, it seems to be a great idea for the next business quarter) but, in the long term, the way to make an exceptionally successful company, it requires a balance between the three facets where each allows the other to do their thing. Apple, in my opinion, is a great example of a company doing that.
People probably thought the same thing years ago when the "other" Steve left Apple, and yet they certainly aren't suffering these days.
Uh, that's because Jobs returned to Apple.
:)
Oh. You mean the OTHER other Steve. Too many Steve's working in the tech industry!
Are you defending patents, or Apple?
I'm neither defending Apple nor patents in this discussion. I was attacking the "it's obvious" claim which, in my opinion, is absolutely, 100% false. That would be akin to saying that the Blackberry was obvious when it first came out, which is a claim that I don't think anyone would make because it is wrong. But, when viewed in the same way as the iPhone, the Blackberry was just obvious technology put together into one package. Phone? Obvious. Portable computing device? Obvious. Check email on the go? Obvious. All together? Apparently not obvious because virtually nobody had done it and Blackberry came along, packed it up into a nice package, and took the industry by storm. They became the industry standard for smartphones. Apple did the same with the iPhone (supplanting Blackberry as the industry standard...). Someone else will do it with the next big thing. For some reason, however, people think the iPhone was obvious but, as I've explained, if it was obvious, why wasn't it being done by anyone else? Perhaps it wasn't obvious at all.
My opinions on patents have nothing at all to do with this line of conversation. I was purely discussing the assertion that the iPhone's form-and-function was obvious. It wasn't. It is now, but until it was launched, it wasn't.
...while I am claiming that it is, legally, just a collection of mostly obvious tweaks on existing technology.
And, again, the claim of "it's obvious." If it was obvious, it would have been done already. Just as the sliding door on both sides of a minivan. Some things are obvious, after you see them. Until then, they aren't obvious. If it was obvious, other manufacturers would have been doing it already.
If all you meant was to be an Apple Fan Boy...
Ah, the sign of a wonderfully intelligent discussion - insult the other person. Not sure why I warranted the insult, given that I've in no way insulted you nor your opinions. But, hey, thanks. Now I know where we stand.
If you were intending your statement to mean that the iPhone deserves patent protection because of its impact in the market...
Given that you've established how this discussion is going to unfold, you'll understand the tenor of my response to this. Namely: reading comprehension for the win! No, my statement wasn't meant to mean any of that. My statement was meant to clearly explain my opinion that "the iPhone was just a collection of mostly obvious teaks on existing technology" is a statement made by idiots or Apple-haters who aren't smart enough or honest enough to recognize the facts.
Again, you established that this isn't a polite discussion so any insults are a direct result of the twist in the conversation that you began. And with that, I'm done with you. Bye.
I've not used either the iPhone or the Blackberry, but isn't there some similarity between those two?
The iPhone and the Blackberry are about as far apart as you can get with the same end result in mind (ie: "check email"). The Blackberry is the iconic model of what a smartphone was prior to the iPhone. It was the dominant force in the market and all other smartphones modeled themselves, to one degree or another, on the Blackberry. The iPhone did much of the same but did virtually everything differently (touch screen, no physical keyboard, etc.).
After the iPhone came out, most other manufacturers stopped emulating the Blackberry and started emulating the iPhone. As an example, ask yourself how many Samsung, HTC, and Motorola phones looked and functioned similar to an iPhone before the iPhone came out vs after it launched. Then ask yourself how many of the same manufacturer's phones looked and functioned similar to a Blackberry both before and after the iPhone came out. You'll notice an interesting trend.
The Blackberry is a symbol of what was. The iPhone is a symbol of what is.
I think you're replying to someone who is not me because your reply has damn near nothing to do with my post.
If you're going to tout Windows Mobile and Blackberry as examples of "it was done before the iPhone", it shows that you've completely missed the point. Here - I'll say it again - before the iPhone, virtually no phone on the market looked anything like nor functioned anything like the iPhone. After the iPhone, virtually every single smartphone released looks similar to as well as functions similar to the iPhone.
Or, to be more specific in my retort, I'll ask you to point out the Blackberry that existed pre-iPhone that looked or functioned anything like the iPhone. I'll bet a year's salary that you can't. I'll bet another year's salary that you can point out a Blackberry whose design, both hardware and software, is obviously inspired by the iPhone, but that came _after_ the iPhone.
If you can't recognize a definitive pre- vs post-iPhone influence on the entire phone market (especially smartphone market), then you are either very young and didn't know what the market looked like before the iPhone launched or you're just refusing to see the truth.
These are NOT inventions, in the sense viewed by the framers of the constitution. Most are little minor tweaks obvious to anyone working in the industry.
I see this argument all the time but let's be real for a second here - in the smartphone category, there's a very distinct "pre-iPhone" era and "post-iPhone" era. It may seem obvious _now_ but, until the iPhone came along, it clearly wasn't that obvious because damn near nobody else was doing it. Now? After the iPhone? Yeah - everyone and their cousin is producing a smartphone that looks and acts like an iPhone so it all seems so obvious. Until the iPhone came along, however, it wasn't obvious at all.
Here - I'll make it even easier to understand with an car analogy. Well, a minivan analogy, to be exact. At one point, minivans had one sliding door on one side of the minivan. That's what they all looked like. All of them. It was a holdover from the minivan's utilitarian predecessor - the cube van. Then, one day, someone got the bright idea of putting a sliding door on the other side of the minivan as well. And, low and behold, everyone started doing it because "it's so obvious." But, until the first one appeared, it wasn't obvious - if it had been, everyone would have been doing it. It wasn't obvious at all.
While many people want to believe that the iPhone is not inventive and is just a collection of obvious ideas, that's not even vaguely true because, if it was obvious, there would have been a ton of iPhone-like phones already on the market. It wasn't until the iPhone came along that suddenly "it's so obvious" happened followed by everyone doing what Apple had done because, you know, "it's so obvious."
Sliding doors on both sides of a minivan. iPhone. Obvious, only after you see it done.
Subscribers are leaving in droves.
Citation please. And anecdotal evidence is not proof, before you reply.
I haven't read this but I'd wager it answers all of your questions - it is, after all, called the iPhone OS Enterprise Deployment Guide: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Enterprise_Deployment_Guide.pdf
You forgot to end your post correct. Simply add "Now, get off my lawn!" and everything will be set right.
You might as well post "Apple Stops Jailbreaking".
And, somehow, that's how some people will view it.
They'd be wrong, but some will find a way to view it that way.
Boy, those iPhones sure are pesky what with their ability to record video and whatnot. It's a good thing those sucky Android phones can't do things like that.
Sorry. What's that?...