And that is why you are not, and will never lead a big company. Anyone who compares an iPod to an mp3 player that came before it, or even many that came after it, is deluded. I did own at one point a Cowon iAudio M5. And then I bought an iPod. Wasn't as good as the first iPhone even. The Zune might have come close.
And your priorities are really weird if you think it is more important to get the bit where you put music onto a player right, than the interface you use everyday. I hardly sync my iPhone nowdays, and hardly synced my iPod back in the day. The user interface is the most important part of an mp3 player. That is the part you have to deal with every day, many times a day. The syncing is not nearly as important.
The iPod was best because it was the most usable product, by a distance.
People want to make themselves feel good, by boycotting something, but they also want their smartphones, whether or not they are made in the very same factories. Basically, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Or in other words, they are hypocrites.
Yes, lets stop buying Apple products, that'll teach 'em. (Apple has 40,000 employees, and uses contract manufacturers). If Apple's sales and all mobile phone sales collapsed significantly, the only people in trouble would be Chinese workers, who would find themselves without jobs. Apple would still be profitable (Their costs are not fixed - they reduce the fewer gadgets they make). That would also swing the pendulum away from workers. Chinese companies are beginning to have to compete for workers. But if they suddenly found a nice surplus of workers, then could and would pay less again, because, well, there is someone prepared to take your job for less.
It is hypocritical. You are choosing one company to punish and assuage your 'conscience' whilst going to buy a product off another company that makes its product in the very same place, using the very same labour with the very same problems. Sounds more like picking on Apple. If I was being cynical, I would say Apple hasn't paid its dues enough to the media, maybe doesn't spend enough advertising dollars, or maybe isn't paying campaign contributions.
iPhones are not only sold in the USA. And besides, China will assemble electronics much cheaper than an American company. So if Apple was making its stuff in the USA, China would produce much cheaper goods, and sell those to you in the US again, and you would abandon your own brands to buy the cheaper and equal or better quality Chinese products. Don't believe me, look at what happened to your auto industry, and your consumer electronics industry.
Besides, this all sounds like protectionist bullshit. Americans want jobs, and they want them at the expense of Chinese workers, and on much higher salaries too. So they complain about how the Chinese are being treated, because lets face it, if Apple (or Del, or Microsoft or Walmart) was forced to pay comparable labour costs for Chinese labour, they would have no reason to produce in China, so China would remain poor.
Wages in China are already rising, and soon this won't be an issue, like it ceased to be an issue in Japan, and South Korea and Taiwan. It sounds mean to say it, but there is a generation of Chinese people who are never going to see prosperity, and not by their own fault. They were unlucky to be born before China became wealthy. They are barely educated, and can only do the most menial of work, for wages a fraction of what their counterparts in the West get. The next generation though will be much wealthier, will demand more and get more, and will compete on a more even footing with their Western counterparts. Then I guess it will be Africa's turn to become the world's factory, until the cycle completes, and maybe, just maybe, machines finally take over the boring rote work that we still need humans to do.
Making the OS ask users for permission is not a clever idea. Either every app they install aks for pretty much the same thing, and they are conditioned to press "Yes", or the users just click "Yes" because they want the app to work.
Curation mostly works. Yes, there are issues in terms of censorship that need to be overcome, but having a central party that at least tests the app and attempts to screen for malware can be a good thing.
Lest move the questions to the physical realm. Do HMV or Amazon have a responsibility to ensure that the physical CDs they sell are legal. Of course they do! A retailer cannot avoid liability for products they sell.
They are only on a "rampage to save their business models" because people think it is kosher to download music without paying for it. Why do you want to distribute _their_ music or _their_ movies? Why not make your own and defeat their business model that way?
But that is how Redigi will be defeated, because like it or not, retailers are responsible for what they sell. So the courts and the rightsholders could ask Redigi to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the resold tracks are now unavailable to the original buyer.
Nothing lasts forever. But Apple have put together a quite amazing run. If Apple were to shut down tomorrow, and distribute all of its cash as dividends, it would be returning 100bn to its investors, and for anyone who invested in Apple 10 years ago, they would be getting a stupidly large return. That for what was already a mature company.
There doesn't have to be a geek gene. Just that you are more predisposed to it than others. There is not tennis gene either, but most of the world can't beat Roger Federer, no matter how hard they try.
I don't know what counts as a solid foundation to you, but for me, 90bn in well, cash, bonds and other short term marketable securities counts as a solid foundation to me. Apple is actually pretty conservatively valued EPS wise.
I don't read the phone manual. I turned the bloody thing off. I didn't need it in airplane mode. I wanted it off. I didn't want it on data off, I wanted the damn thing off. I didn't want to just leave wifi. I wanted to have it completely off.
My iPhone stays off when I turn it off. Why can't my BlackBerry?
Except that companies are now offering their employees a choice of smartphone. My company allows me to choose between iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia and Samsung. I unfortunately got a BB just before this change of policy and am stuck with it.
Except RIM and Nokia. RIM was still seeing sales growth, although their market share has taken a bettering. Nokia saw smartphone sales haemorrhage. It took them 4 years to bring out a product that is anywhere near competitive. It's proper facepalm failure.
I don't know about that. I took my BB out of the country, and switched it off, because I would otherwise incur stupidly steep data charges. I had a daily alarm turned on though...
First thing was the stupid phone woke up while I was in the plane. Now, that is probably not a big deal, but it turned itself on to ring the alarm. Old phone ued to only ring the alarm, but the blackberry has to turn everything on to ring the alarm. Ridiculous.
At the time I convinced myself that I had forgotten to turn the damn phone off, so I turned it off again. Very next day it woke up again. To ring the alarm, and proceeded to download my new emails and generally do the shit I had wanted to stop it doing by turning the phone off.
Bottom line, if I turn off my phone, I don't want the alarm going. If I need the alarm, I will keep the phone on.
Actually, owners of other devices can buy music on iTunes too, all without DRM. Video is another matter, but Apple has considerably less clout with the film companies.
As a former resident, and still a citizen of a developing country, I will say to you that that is the most protectionist bullshit I have ever heard. Poor countries have _one_ competitive advantage - the ability to charge and work for lower wages (including worse working conditions) than the developed countries. Any form of legislation that forces poor countries to raise conditions is in effect attempting to forcibly remove their competitive advantage and keep their people in perpetual poverty. Western capitalism is still a remarkable agent for development in the developing countries. If China could not sell to other countries, they would not develop. What many (possibly well meaning but ultimately misinformed) people in the west think is exploitation is, well, not too bad actually, compared to the alternatives faced by the people there. The context is that those people have two choices, work for what westerners consider to to be pitiful wages, in what westerners consider to be terrible conditions (and rightly they are from your perspective). But actually, it is an improvement on any other choice they have.
You don't legislate progress like that. People in China (or any other developing country in that situation) are going to become wealthier, and in response, they will begin to demand, of their own accord, better working conditions. Once China exhausts its current essentially limitless labour supply, companies will begin to compete for workers, rather than workers competing for jobs. Things like minimum wage and worker safety standards are fairly recent innovations in the west. It is not fair to impose that on developing countries, because it will stunt their development, and will leave their people worse off.
I don't think that's what the founder meant when he said he wants to be the next Google. It looks like he means to establish a successful company that stands alone, rather than selling out to the highest bidder.
However, I think they do have a tough sell. As Steve Jobs put it, they don't have a product, they have a feature. Once could storage is built into every device you can buy, and that storage is not drop box, they cease to be relevant.
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And that is why you are not, and will never lead a big company. Anyone who compares an iPod to an mp3 player that came before it, or even many that came after it, is deluded. I did own at one point a Cowon iAudio M5. And then I bought an iPod. Wasn't as good as the first iPhone even. The Zune might have come close.
And your priorities are really weird if you think it is more important to get the bit where you put music onto a player right, than the interface you use everyday. I hardly sync my iPhone nowdays, and hardly synced my iPod back in the day. The user interface is the most important part of an mp3 player. That is the part you have to deal with every day, many times a day. The syncing is not nearly as important.
The iPod was best because it was the most usable product, by a distance.
People want to make themselves feel good, by boycotting something, but they also want their smartphones, whether or not they are made in the very same factories. Basically, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Or in other words, they are hypocrites.
China is unabashedly capitalist.
Yes, lets stop buying Apple products, that'll teach 'em. (Apple has 40,000 employees, and uses contract manufacturers). If Apple's sales and all mobile phone sales collapsed significantly, the only people in trouble would be Chinese workers, who would find themselves without jobs. Apple would still be profitable (Their costs are not fixed - they reduce the fewer gadgets they make). That would also swing the pendulum away from workers. Chinese companies are beginning to have to compete for workers. But if they suddenly found a nice surplus of workers, then could and would pay less again, because, well, there is someone prepared to take your job for less.
That's economics for you.
It is hypocritical. You are choosing one company to punish and assuage your 'conscience' whilst going to buy a product off another company that makes its product in the very same place, using the very same labour with the very same problems. Sounds more like picking on Apple. If I was being cynical, I would say Apple hasn't paid its dues enough to the media, maybe doesn't spend enough advertising dollars, or maybe isn't paying campaign contributions.
iPhones are not only sold in the USA. And besides, China will assemble electronics much cheaper than an American company. So if Apple was making its stuff in the USA, China would produce much cheaper goods, and sell those to you in the US again, and you would abandon your own brands to buy the cheaper and equal or better quality Chinese products. Don't believe me, look at what happened to your auto industry, and your consumer electronics industry.
Besides, this all sounds like protectionist bullshit. Americans want jobs, and they want them at the expense of Chinese workers, and on much higher salaries too. So they complain about how the Chinese are being treated, because lets face it, if Apple (or Del, or Microsoft or Walmart) was forced to pay comparable labour costs for Chinese labour, they would have no reason to produce in China, so China would remain poor.
Wages in China are already rising, and soon this won't be an issue, like it ceased to be an issue in Japan, and South Korea and Taiwan. It sounds mean to say it, but there is a generation of Chinese people who are never going to see prosperity, and not by their own fault. They were unlucky to be born before China became wealthy. They are barely educated, and can only do the most menial of work, for wages a fraction of what their counterparts in the West get. The next generation though will be much wealthier, will demand more and get more, and will compete on a more even footing with their Western counterparts. Then I guess it will be Africa's turn to become the world's factory, until the cycle completes, and maybe, just maybe, machines finally take over the boring rote work that we still need humans to do.
Making the OS ask users for permission is not a clever idea. Either every app they install aks for pretty much the same thing, and they are conditioned to press "Yes", or the users just click "Yes" because they want the app to work.
Curation mostly works. Yes, there are issues in terms of censorship that need to be overcome, but having a central party that at least tests the app and attempts to screen for malware can be a good thing.
Lest move the questions to the physical realm. Do HMV or Amazon have a responsibility to ensure that the physical CDs they sell are legal. Of course they do! A retailer cannot avoid liability for products they sell.
They are only on a "rampage to save their business models" because people think it is kosher to download music without paying for it. Why do you want to distribute _their_ music or _their_ movies? Why not make your own and defeat their business model that way?
But that is how Redigi will be defeated, because like it or not, retailers are responsible for what they sell. So the courts and the rightsholders could ask Redigi to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the resold tracks are now unavailable to the original buyer.
The iPhone.
Nothing lasts forever. But Apple have put together a quite amazing run. If Apple were to shut down tomorrow, and distribute all of its cash as dividends, it would be returning 100bn to its investors, and for anyone who invested in Apple 10 years ago, they would be getting a stupidly large return. That for what was already a mature company.
Nokia and RIM should read and weep. This should have been them.
There doesn't have to be a geek gene. Just that you are more predisposed to it than others. There is not tennis gene either, but most of the world can't beat Roger Federer, no matter how hard they try.
I don't know what counts as a solid foundation to you, but for me, 90bn in well, cash, bonds and other short term marketable securities counts as a solid foundation to me. Apple is actually pretty conservatively valued EPS wise.
He is happy with the job that Jobs did. Get it?
I don't read the phone manual. I turned the bloody thing off. I didn't need it in airplane mode. I wanted it off. I didn't want it on data off, I wanted the damn thing off. I didn't want to just leave wifi. I wanted to have it completely off.
My iPhone stays off when I turn it off. Why can't my BlackBerry?
Except that companies are now offering their employees a choice of smartphone. My company allows me to choose between iPhone, Blackberry, Nokia and Samsung. I unfortunately got a BB just before this change of policy and am stuck with it.
Except RIM and Nokia. RIM was still seeing sales growth, although their market share has taken a bettering. Nokia saw smartphone sales haemorrhage. It took them 4 years to bring out a product that is anywhere near competitive. It's proper facepalm failure.
I don't know about that. I took my BB out of the country, and switched it off, because I would otherwise incur stupidly steep data charges. I had a daily alarm turned on though...
First thing was the stupid phone woke up while I was in the plane. Now, that is probably not a big deal, but it turned itself on to ring the alarm. Old phone ued to only ring the alarm, but the blackberry has to turn everything on to ring the alarm. Ridiculous.
At the time I convinced myself that I had forgotten to turn the damn phone off, so I turned it off again. Very next day it woke up again. To ring the alarm, and proceeded to download my new emails and generally do the shit I had wanted to stop it doing by turning the phone off.
Bottom line, if I turn off my phone, I don't want the alarm going. If I need the alarm, I will keep the phone on.
Actually, owners of other devices can buy music on iTunes too, all without DRM. Video is another matter, but Apple has considerably less clout with the film companies.
As a former resident, and still a citizen of a developing country, I will say to you that that is the most protectionist bullshit I have ever heard. Poor countries have _one_ competitive advantage - the ability to charge and work for lower wages (including worse working conditions) than the developed countries. Any form of legislation that forces poor countries to raise conditions is in effect attempting to forcibly remove their competitive advantage and keep their people in perpetual poverty. Western capitalism is still a remarkable agent for development in the developing countries. If China could not sell to other countries, they would not develop. What many (possibly well meaning but ultimately misinformed) people in the west think is exploitation is, well, not too bad actually, compared to the alternatives faced by the people there. The context is that those people have two choices, work for what westerners consider to to be pitiful wages, in what westerners consider to be terrible conditions (and rightly they are from your perspective). But actually, it is an improvement on any other choice they have.
You don't legislate progress like that. People in China (or any other developing country in that situation) are going to become wealthier, and in response, they will begin to demand, of their own accord, better working conditions. Once China exhausts its current essentially limitless labour supply, companies will begin to compete for workers, rather than workers competing for jobs. Things like minimum wage and worker safety standards are fairly recent innovations in the west. It is not fair to impose that on developing countries, because it will stunt their development, and will leave their people worse off.
I don't think that's what the founder meant when he said he wants to be the next Google. It looks like he means to establish a successful company that stands alone, rather than selling out to the highest bidder.
However, I think they do have a tough sell. As Steve Jobs put it, they don't have a product, they have a feature. Once could storage is built into every device you can buy, and that storage is not drop box, they cease to be relevant.
So true. it doesn't have to be that drastic though. However, a significant downside is that DOS'ing become too easy.
Japan ending its nuclear program? Source?