How, and Why, Apple Overtook Microsoft 458
HughPickens.com writes James B. Stewart writes in the NYT that in 1998 Bill Gates said in an interview that he "couldn't imagine a situation in which Apple would ever be bigger and more profitable than Microsoft" but less than two decades later, Apple, with a market capitalization more than double Microsoft's, has won. The most successful companies need a vision, and both Apple and Microsoft have one. But according to Stewart, Apple's vision was more radical and, as it turns out, more farsighted. Where Microsoft foresaw a computer on every person's desk, Apple went a big step further: Its vision was a computer in every pocket. "Apple has been very visionary in creating and expanding significant new consumer electronics categories," says Toni Sacconaghi. "Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult." According to Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, Microsoft seemed to have the better business for a long time. "But in the end, it didn't create products of ethereal beauty. Steve believed you had to control every brush stroke from beginning to end. Not because he was a control freak, but because he had a passion for perfection." Can Apple continue to live by Jobs's disruptive creed now that the company is as successful as Microsoft once was? According to Robert Cihra it was one thing for Apple to cannibalize its iPod or Mac businesses, but quite another to risk its iPhone juggernaut. "The question investors have is, what's the next iPhone? There's no obvious answer. It's almost impossible to think of anything that will create a $140 billion business out of nothing."
Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh. They most certainly did NOT create the smartphone sector. And they sure as fuck didn't do it out of "nothing".
Now I admit, yes, Apple's been disruptive, in a good way, for the industry. But can we stop slobbing the Apple knob?
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:5, Interesting)
right and touchscreen smart phones were widely used before the iPhone? yes you had business phones. they had shitty web browsers, could barely display one email at a time, and were a joke.
The apple introduced the iPhone, and all those companies what had smartphones before are either gone, or fading away. So yes you are technically correct apple didn't create the smartphone sector. Apple turned a tiny niche, into a massive piece, showing companies how doing something right all the way through can lead to massive profits.
So when you turn a few thousand units a year into a few billion units it is building it out of nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Even when Microsoft tried to create entertainment products, they failed because they launched them from the business/productivity based platform.
XBox.
Re: (Score:2)
If Sony hadn't tried to hang themselves about a dozen times the Xbox would never have gotten off the ground. Despite the fact that Sony has shot themselves in the foot over and over the playstation 4 is outselling the xbox one. How a multibillion dollar corporation can be so inept and still make money is beyond me.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think its pretty simple. Microsoft overlooked the entertainment part of the market, and stuck with the business/productivity focus almost exclusively. Microsoft remains dominant in business. Apple got it when it came to entertainment and social aspects, and has reaped the benefits of addressing that part of the market.
That's part of it. Several years back, the MS fans bragged about their choice of peripherals, add ons, cards that they could buy, while the measly Apples were stuck with a few.
Now that same argument is used to try to explain why the MS PC is not as well integrated as the Apple product.
In addition, Apple is a hardware company first, and they have a lot of software that is knitted for the OS. I have used Final Cut Studio just about forever, and even iMovie to do video work. I've also run Adobe Premiere o
Re: (Score:2)
Apple got it when it came to entertainment and social aspects
Ahahah. No. Remember the original iPhone did not even allow you to install apps? Besides other people tried doing a gaming only phone before, e.g. Nokia N-Gage and flopped terribly.
It only started having success when it allowed you to install apps. Which were made by someone other than Apple. It's a pocket general purpose computer that's what it is.
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the iPhone was successful before they supported 3rd party apps. They already had the entertainment basics built in - which at the time meant playing your iTunes collection on your phone. But yeah, 3rd party apps are what prevented Microsoft from copying the iPhone and stealing the business. Apple won that one by playing one of Microsoft's games - lock in the developers and let them sell your system for you.
Microsoft tried to use Windows 8 to do that. They were able to count on selling Windows 8 to new PC buyers - and they figured that would get the deveopers back from Apple. Hasn't worked out, though. The desktop didn't need new phone apps.
In fact, other than the apps that are already there, desktops today may as well be Chromebooks. That's why Mac sales are also booming. Most home PC users are just using them for the web, email and streaming video. PC's, Macs and Chromebooks do all of these equally well. PC's still win for users that need 3rd party apps - and for gamers. Macs are fine if the particular 3rd party apps you need happen to be there. And even Linux is fine if the only 3rd party app you need is Office - and you find LibreOffice compatibility good enough for your needs.
For everybody else, Chromebooks get the job done. Even if many Slashdotters can't wrap their minds around that, Microsoft can. That's why they're trying to kill off Chromebooks with an equivalent stripped-down Windows platform. Not sure if it even matters any more, though, since it's the change in how PCs are used, not the specific competitor, that's changed the landscape.
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that Microsoft overlooked the entertainment part of the market. Microsoft routinely 'overlooked' all parts of the market when those parts were in their early stages.
Prior to the iPod, they were able to get away with letting everybody else figure out what the new areas of personal computing were going to be. Then they picked the already established winners and used their monopoly tying power to overcome them. It worked for integrated dev tools. It worked for office software. It even mostly worked for web browsers. It didn't work for the iPod, because there was nothing that Microsoft could use to tie their late-to-market Zune players to. Apple made an appealing product, and they won the market. Plus, most iPod users were tied by their music collections to Apple.
And the iPod begat the iPhone - which was too complex for Microsoft to play quick-enough catch up and use, say, 'real IE' or exclusive connectivity to exchange to succeed. In fact, the success of the iPhone and iPad killed IE as a selling point by solidifying the notion that web sites had better not be IE specific if they wanted to get the hits. Once exchange connectivity and good enough MSOffice viewers became available on iOS and Android, the window of opportunity closed.
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:4, Insightful)
The web browsers and email in early smartphones were crap, but the phone part worked. The original iPhone was a crappy phone. Turned out people wanted a decent web browser and mail more than they did a decent phone.
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:4, Insightful)
They did it by striking when the iron was hot, as soon as there were well-performing touchscreens. Imagine there had been no Apple, or Apple had not seen the market. Do you really think the world would have missed the opportunity to make a similar phone? It might have been delayed one or two years at most.
But Apple's beating the competition in the market shows mainly one thing: they were working behind the scenes to realize a no-keys touchscreen smartphone before the parts were available. That shows real initiative.
Re: (Score:2)
all those companies what had smartphones before are either gone, or fading away
Like HTC?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The iPhone came out when it did mostly because the tech required for it to come out had recently developed to the point that it could. That is why there were so many "iPhone clones" that came out rapidly afterwards. Not because they were actual clones but because they were in development for years. Apple was just fastest. Of course they did a lot of great things and other products were modified to utilize a lot of the better ideas that Apple had. It wasn't something they invented, they were just first
Re: (Score:3)
But Jobs didn't want third party applications on it. There was no App Store. And when prompted about third party apps, Jobs envisioned some kind of web app system. But he didn't want the perfection of the iPhone soiled by third parties.
That is indeed what he said, but I suspect that was just spin. As evidence, I'd point to the yanking of a substantial portion of the OSX team onto iOS development to get those features added. I think he was just putting a positive spin on his not-quite-finished product. "Reality Distortion Field"
Re: (Score:2)
Jobs was a guy that could dazzle you with brilliance and baffle you with bullshit at the same time.
Re: (Score:3)
But Jobs didn't want third party applications on it. There was no App Store. And when prompted about third party apps, Jobs envisioned some kind of web app system. But he didn't want the perfection of the iPhone soiled by third parties.
I understand that's entirely wrong. Apple understand the danger of pre-announcing. The "no apps" position was to get people to buy the iPhone as it was in version 1, rather than wait. The "web apps" position was to have something to tell developers at a time when the SDK was far from ready to announce. But Apple were intending to have third party apps right from the point they selected a cut-down OSX OS.
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:5, Insightful)
One has to be careful about trusting accounts written later, whether written by the winners or the losers. But multiple sources have reported that the response to the introductory demo of the iPhone at the highest levels of both Nokia and Blackberry was "that's impossible - they must be faking it". Nokia and Ericsson at least did a reality reset within a year and tried to get back in the game, but Blackberry only realized the iPhone was for real 18 months ago - say early 2014, 7 years after the iPhone was introduced.
I'd call that creating, or recreating, a new segment.
sPh
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:4, Insightful)
It wasn't Apple that killed Nokia; it was Android. Their big niche was cheap feature phones. When Android came along, suddenly, there were cheap smartphones, and nobody wanted cheap feature phones when they could get cheap smartphones. To be fair, Apple had a lot to do with forcing the UI changes in Android that made it popular, but the mere existence of Android in any form would have pretty much cut the legs out from under Nokia.
As for Blackberry, Apple didn't really start killing them until much later, as iPhone hardware wasn't really all that welcome in the business world until after Apple started adding stuff like mobile device management. I always found it odd that they were a hardware manufacturer, given that their hardware was fairly boring, and most of their interesting creations involved software and services. I'd expect them to reinvent themselves as a software and services company fairly handily, and freed from the shackles of having to build their own hardware, I'd expect them to do fairly well.
Ericsson got bought out by Sony, who still builds plenty of phones and other devices. Given Sony's size, I wouldn't count them out just yet. But if somebody does drive them out of the market, it will be Samsung, by undercutting them.
Re: Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:4, Informative)
I can't seem to find the SD card slot in any Nexus Phone....
And as far as forced obsolescence, a 2011 iPhone 4s can still run the latest OS. How many Android phones that were sold during thst time period are still officially supported? Apple provided a security patch for the 3GS released 6/2009 on 2/2014. Android manufacturers and Google left security problems on Android phones less than 2 years old.
Re: (Score:3)
And in that one sentence, basically summarizes what Apple's skill is at.
Apple didn't invent the MP3 player. They made it usable. Apple didn't invent the computer, they made it usable. Apple didn't invent the smartphone, they made it usable.
Etc.
Apple's innovation is NOT in pushing the envelope hardware wise (usually), their innovation isn't in software, either. Or eve
Re: (Score:2)
Uh. They most certainly did NOT create the smartphone sector. And they sure as fuck didn't do it out of "nothing"
They certainly did give it a kick in the ass though.
But can we stop slobbing the Apple knob?
If in the ideal world of the apple hater, I wonder what version of DOS we would be using on our Blackberry's?
Re: (Score:2)
Uh. They most certainly did NOT create the smartphone sector. And they sure as fuck didn't do it out of "nothing"
They certainly did give it a kick in the ass though.
Oh! No doubt! I won't even waste anyone's time trying to deny this.
But can we stop slobbing the Apple knob?
If in the ideal world of the apple hater, I wonder what version of DOS we would be using on our Blackberry's?
I don't "hate" Apple.
Their products aren't my particular cup of tea. But I don't hate them.
I save my hatred for the circle-jerking culture club that grew up around it. Mostly because rampant idiocy and fanaticism annoy the fuck out of me.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe some other OS with a BSD Unix kernel underneath. Which was not developed by Apple either.
Re: (Score:3)
Not an Apple hater. But I still won't buy their devices for my own use. Apple offer me a guaranteed "experience" that they control. In other words, they offer safety in exchange for liberty, which is not a bargain that I'm willing to make.
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:5, Interesting)
I had some lame windows smart flip phone prior to the iPhones coming out. But, it wasn't subsidized by my employer. The browser was garbage, and the email was rudimentary. I lived in fear that something would misbehave and I'd get slammed with $100's of dollars in data fees from AT&T. I bought an early iPhone and lost that fear. Ultimately, the closed ecosystem drove me to Android. Now, I struggle to get to 10% of my monthly data cap.
For me, opening cell companies to reasonably priced data (by jumping in at the right time and locking in with AT&T) is what Apple did to open the market.
That was a big part for sure (Score:3)
My boss got us smartphones back in the Windows CE days, because he's a huge geek like the rest of us. The problem was that while work was willing to pay for the phone part the data was WAAAAY too expensive so we didn't have that. Combine that with lackluster wifi availability and the fact that you had to manually turn it on and off because it drained battery out of range, and we didn't end up using the "smart" portion much. Not because it was too hard to use or any of that BS, but because there just wan't t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hate all you want, but there's no denying the fact that the iPhone was the most revolutionary mobile phone there's ever been.
Look at phones the year the iPhone came out -- you clicked little plastic buttons or poked at (while hating) them with styli like Palm Pilots. Far and away the most satisfying one to use was the Blackberry which was essentially a candybar phone with full set of alphanumeric buttons instead of T9. All they were really good for beyond dialing numbers was writing emails.
Now everything'
Re: (Score:2)
Again. I don't hate Apple.
I just hate the fanboy bullshit.
Did Apple revolutionize the market?
YES! FUCK YES! HELL THE FUCK YES!
Did they CREATE the market out of "nothing"?
No.
Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're confusing inevitable industry evolution for copying Apple. The LG Prada did those things before the iPhone, because that's the way the industry was headed whether Apple ever released an iPhone or not. Apple won their case against Samsung only because the judge disallowed evidence Samsung had prepared showing phones they had in the design phase before the iPhone was announced, because they missed a filing deadline. Like I keep telling people, just because the first time you saw something was on an Apple product, doesn't mean Apple invented it. And likewise just because other companies started doing it after Apple, doesn't mean they copied Apple.
Wow, talk about Reality Distortion Field. Apple just had the biggest quarter in history. It came after they abandoned Steve "no one is going to buy a big phone" Jobs' arbitrary and damaging restrictions on what products the company could make. His ego was so inflated, he thought everyone should use the same product that best fit his needs. Since his death you've gotten an iPhone with a wider aspect ratio (something Jobs opposed), a smaller iPad (something Jobs opposed), giving buyers a choice of two different iPhones and iPads (something Jobs opposed - he thought you were so stupid you'd be confused by two choices), and a phablet iPhone (something Jobs opposed). And that's just on Apple's product lineup. If you don't see other changes and improvements in the market, it's because you're willfully ignoring them. (BTW, the MBA has one of the worst screens on any laptop above $500 - not sure why you're holding it up as your champion. The MBPs are much better.)
Most of us who don't like Apple dislike them not because they're Apple, but because they artificially restrict market choice. But Cook has been doing a good job giving users back the choice that Jobs took away. And as long as they continue down that path, there's little reason to continue to hate Apple. You folks who love Apple so much that you hate everything else OTOH...
Japan: and the $0.02 market analysis. (Score:5, Insightful)
NTT [wikipedia.org] had them in Japan.
Apple did make smartphones a mas consumer device, added more functionality, and made them easier to use than the others.
And there is their marketing - well, Jobs' - genius.
Jobs made the smartphones sleek, stylish and into a fashion statement and luxury product. Apple's market share is dwarfed by Android's, but Apple's profitability makes the Android people look like peasants.
Re:Japan: and the $0.02 market analysis. (Score:5, Informative)
Apple's market share is dwarfed by Android's, but Apple's profitability makes the Android people look like peasants.
One major reason for this is that the Android market is inundated with very low-end Android phones. These phones are often underpowered and have very little storage. I work at a large public school corporation and have kids come to me asking for help on installing apps on their phones or asking why they can't load music or download games. The hardware just doesn't support it, which limits the app and content Android market.
Re: (Score:3)
Low-cost smartphones would be a good thing if all software could run on it without any problems, but right now it doesn't.
And hardware, powerful or not, is useless without software.
Re: Japan: and the $0.02 market analysis. (Score:2, Informative)
Newer apps expect beefier hardware (Score:3)
iPhone 4s was a $600 phone. Now you can get a much better device for under $50.
A $50 phone doesn't help if the current versions of applications don't run well on a $50 phone. Sure, applications from roughly the iPhone 4s era would have run well, but these applications have since been replaced with newer versions that expect beefier hardware to be available. (See Wirth's law [wikipedia.org].)
Re: Japan: and the $0.02 market analysis. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Bringing the utility of useless pocket computing to over 1 billion new people who would not have had it is hardly "no value".
FTFY
Re: (Score:3)
Every web site you log into on your iPhone does the same thing that it does when you log into it from your Android phone. Every major search engine sells targeted advertising based on what it knows about you - which is the only 'you' Google (or Bing, for that matter) sells to everyone. They DO NOT sell the information. But in any case, if you don't use the major search engines, or log into Google services, you have the same freedom from Google tracking on Apple or Android. It's not as if the services on
Re: (Score:3)
But in any case, if you don't use the major search engines, or log into Google services, you have the same freedom from Google tracking on Apple or Android.
Until you hit a web page with a +1 button, Google AdSense unit, or Google Analytics unit.
Apple Pay up next? (Score:3)
There were cell phone based payment systems before iPay, but now the point of sale terminals are going to finally happen. I think apple Pay is going to be a huge money maker as it becomes wide spread. It's timing is interesting. Credit card makers in the US are on the cusp of rolling out chip and pin and merchants will need to upgrade their point of sale terminals. . No one is excited about this mandated cost since analyses have shown didn't change the total amount of fraud (in the long run), it just s
Without Steve Jobs ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure they are working up a neurocannula down there in Cupertino...the iJack
Without Steve Jobs Apple is just like Microsoft
No matter how you hate Steve Jobs, that guy is the one with the radical views
The world already got its walkmans for decades but it was Steve Jobs who knew he could do much better than the Sony Walkman (and all the copycats) and iPod was the answer
There were already smartphones (actually what was available before iPhone should not be categorized as smartphones, they were more like featurephones than smartphones) with the a-z keyboard on the keypad
It was Steve Jobs who moved the keyboard from the keypad to the screen
Let's compare Bill Gates with Steve Jobs
Bill Gates is from a very wealthy family, with a mother who knows people in high places
Steve Jobs is adopted. His birth dad is from Lebanon, and after knocking up his birth mother, abandoned his birth mother and went back alone to the Middle East
That is why Steve was put up for adoption because his birth mother couldn't bring up a son on her own
Steve Job's adopted parents are middle class people. Financially stable, but in no way can be compared to the wealth of Bill Gates' family
Bill Gates was enrolled into the first class university, and dropped out - he dropped out because he has no fear, after all, he got his wealthy family to fall back on
Steve Jobs didn't make it to first class university - there wasn't enough $$$ anyway. His 'university' is Reed College in Portland, Oregon
When Steve Jobs dropped out, he did not have a $$$ filled family to support him, he needed to find the money himself
When Bill Gates created Microsoft he could afford to rent comfortable office space and hire people --- Bill Gates got so much money that he could even afford to buy a program, called QDOS, from Tim Paterson
On the other hand, Steve Jobs started Apple with his pal, Wozniak, in a garage
Bill Gates' successful break was from his mom's link to IBM's hotshot
Steve Jobs' break is based on his ingenuity and determination
Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple once - and without Steve Jobs around, Apple Inc turned into a pool of Apple jam - they actually brought out a dud - the Apple Newton
Only when the Apple Inc was in rock bottom that they brought Steve Jobs back --- and promptly with Steve's Macintosh Apple rebound
Microsoft ? With or without Bill Gates Microsoft will still be Microsoft, because Bill Gates, unlike Steve Jobs, has little or no vision
On the other hand, Apple with Steve Jobs is a jar of Apple jam
Since the departure of Steve Jobs, Apple Inc hasn't come up with any new stuff that make sense - all it got is iteration of the same-old-shit, iPad and iPhone, that's all
Re:Without Steve Jobs ... (Score:5, Interesting)
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.”
And whether Apple without Steve Jobs is just like Microsoft remains to be seen - he trained enough people to say no to half-baked products.
Reed College is nothing to sneeze at (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
There was NO smartphones before the iPhone. Speaking as a guy that used them all, everything else was utter garbage compared to the iPhone.
Ah. When in doubt, ad hominem it out!
They were garbagephones, not smartphones.
Please provide both qualitative and quantitative differentiation and proof that all the products you're slandering conform to those definitions.
Are you fucking kidding?
Do you want the NICE answer or the HONEST one?
NICE: No. I'm not kidding you.
HONEST: No. I'm not kidding you. And if you weren't so hung up on brand fascism, you'd be adult enough to realize that I wasn't kidding in the first place.
Things like momentum scroll and pinch-to-zoom were made out of thin air by Apple. There was nothing like it.
Yes. You're talking about a singular FEATURE. Yes, the feature helped revolutionize the market
Re: (Score:2)
Funny how the Newton gets left off the canonical list of the giants upon whose shoulders we stand then.
sPh
Re: (Score:2)
Ah. Goalposts firmly moved into PDA-land now...
How refreshing...
Re:Kool-aid Overdose (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft still dominates the increasingly irrelevant and dying desktop PC market
Fallacy. The desktop is, and will remain relevant.
Fallacy. The PC market is NOT dying.
The PC market is in the midst of a correction.
Prior to the latest rounds of smartphone/tablet introduction, people were primarily using PCs in situations where a full-blown Wintel system was complete and utter overkill.
With touchscreen smartphones and tablets becoming more or less ubiquitous over the last 3-5 years, we're seeing people looking to replace their older desktop/media/laptop PCs with something, and finding that tablets and the like fit the need better and at a better price point than a full-blown desktop/laptop.
Additionally, in business, we're seeing virtualization starting to make inroads into reversing the trend of moving from centralized resources to localized resources.
As noted, modern Wintel hardware is GROTESQUELY overpowered for most office productivity uses. And in lots of businesses, servers are wasting massive power on idle cycles. On top of that, the support costs, even with dedicated personnel, can be astronomical.
So, instead of dropping a $500-1000 system on everyone's desk, they're virtualizing. Users get a thin client or RDP into a terminal server and work from there.
This way, the business can lock down their platform, deliver only the software needed for the business (saving them money), and allows them to be more agile, since they can set up an office pretty much ANYWHERE, so long as they have internet connectivity.
Now, neither the virtualization market, nor the smartphone/tablet markets have hit critical mass yet. So there's likely to be a bit more of a drain from the desktop PC market for a bit. But it'll eventually peter out and the PC market, while smaller, will still be there. Additionally, it'll allow PC manufacturers to better utilize their resources to deliver products that fit their new market. Rather than shotgunning product all over the place.
So, anyone who's trying to sell you the "The PC is dying" line, basically doesn't know what they're talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, maybe the home PC is dying then. I have both Windows 7 and Linux Mint on my home PC. I never even boot Windows 7 - though my partner uses it to fill his ipod. And when I work from home, I use remote desktop from my Mint system to get to my office PC. As long as you can get to your corporate VPN (big if - it took some doing for me to get it to work), even Chromebooks can do that.
And a lot of companies virtualizing Windows desktops would love to replace most of the traditional desktop software they u
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that very few OEMs are making money if at all. The DIY PC building niche isnt going to save the venerable PC.
Where are the profits? We easily see the market share, but the PC OEM industry has been this tenuous low margin for well over a decade and a half now.
If the PC is here to stay, who's going to build them?
Re: (Score:2)
Although Nokia lost the top spot to Android in 2011, Apple was still ahead of Samsung until 2012.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple also came with real security. There still has not been a single case of a non-jailbroken iDevice hacked and infected with malware, which is a sterling record.
Do you even know how jailbreaking works? If the picture viewing app or the browser allows remote code execution and everyone is using the same hardware architecture of course malware and spyware are perfectly doable. You never heard of one hacked and infected because you haven't searched well enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple didn't -create- the markets. What Apple did was get Joe and Jane Sixpack to buy stuff.
Right. This is the long and short of my point.
Apple also came with real security. There still has not been a single case of a non-jailbroken iDevice hacked and infected with malware, which is a sterling record.
http://time.com/3560875/iphone... [time.com]
You may want to check your factbook.
They always [conveniently] miss facts... (Score:5, Informative)
"Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult."
"Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult." That's why Apple has had its share of failures..."
Additions mine. This is one fact that a simple google search [businessinsider.com] would have shown. One may ask, are the authors of these pieces paid?
Re:They always [conveniently] miss facts... (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you notice how most of them were before the return of Jobs at an older and wiser stage of life?
I don't think the U2 ipod represents a huge flop given all the other ipods were doing well, and the cube is a fantastic design that was just too expensive (some would say it birthed the current Mac Mini).
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The younger and dumber Jobs bet the company on new shiny tech, forfeiting entire lines like the apple II in the process. The MacOS pre-quicktime also offered the most consistent user experience ever. If you wanted to do digital audio reliably, the ancient design of MacOS beat the much touted preemptive multitasking, memory protected Win systems.
Result: Apple on constant brink of collapse, saved by Microsoft who bought Apple stock so they could say We are not a monopoly.
The older Jobs, butthurt after being o
Re: (Score:2)
The older Jobs, butthurt after being ousted by Apple, returns as a control freak
No. Steve was ALWAYS a control freak.
Re: (Score:2)
So what was the response? Apple went with an older, slower, cheaper GPU instead of the Radeon. ATI lost some money, but the ones who really p
Different markets... (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft sell to people who want to use computers without learning how they work.
Apple sells to people who want to look richer than they really are.
In reality, Apple is competing with the makers of fake jewelery.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I work in IT, like many people here, and everyone in my department has a Macbook, except one guy with a Lenovo. No one is trying to look rich, or even gives a shit what anyone else thinks.
Re: (Score:2)
Why haven't you gone the cost effective route and built a hackintosh?
Utter waste of time. Hackintosh is something you mess around for a weekend, but not something for your daily driver. It breaks as easily as a house of cards. It even makes Linux look like a robust desktop OS.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, here's my anecdote:
I know nine people who own MacBooks.
Seven of them run Linux on them full-time. They're all programmers.
The two who don't are both retirees, neither of whom has much experience with computers.
Re: Different markets... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagreed about apple being jewelry alone. Microsoft made products that people grumblingly put up with - so they could get the job done and be more productive.
Apple made products that people finally liked to use, and could use it easily enough, and fairly intuitively. When you create a great user experience like this, especially with a very low learning curve, people will adopt and use it in extraordinary ways. Once they feel good about using your products, they will feel special, like it was their private special thing. They will then become your biggest marketing team.
If anything, the industrial design aspect of Apple's products and even high price were side effects. The first was a nice to have, the second not so nice to have. But it didn't change a damn thing. It was always about the core user experience.. And how even most of the third party apps gave you the same sense of familiarity and consistency.
In a cynical way, this is like marketing a drug. You give the first few doses for free and make people realize how easy it is to use the drug and how shiny their world becomes when they use it regularly. Then step back and enjoy the fun. Apple gave people a tiny little pill yto swallow and even gave them little travel packs. Microsoft made people goto the doctor and get the drug injected up their backsides.
Re: (Score:2)
If anything, the industrial design aspect of Apple's products and even high price were side effects. The first was a nice to have, the second not so nice to have. But it didn't change a damn thing. It was always about the core user experience.
Yes. I've spent a lot of time futzing with my PC's a lot working with my Macs. There is a reason why companies have a lot of people keeping their PCs running. People who use PCs at work probably give a big boost to Apple for their home products.
The price. After watching two nerds nearly come to blows over a 5 cent difference in the price of a RAM stick some years ago, I find the whole thing rather silly. I get the impression that all slashdotters drive around in Toyota Corollas, or whatever else the cheap
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft sell to people who want to use computers without learning how they work.
What? Isn't it the opposite? Apple Sells Computers to people who just want to do work and not spend hours figuring out how to use the OS. Example, I have spent countless hours showing people how to do the simplest of things on Windows 8.0 / 8.1.
Re: (Score:3)
Microsoft sell to people who want to use computers without learning how they work.
What? Isn't it the opposite? Apple Sells Computers to people who just want to do work and not spend hours figuring out how to use the OS. Example, I have spent countless hours showing people how to do the simplest of things on Windows 8.0 / 8.1.
I have no idea where he got that idea, because my experience was much more like yours. The PC was fragile, updates broke programs and reset options, people had to constantly re-learn things to do what they had already been doing (ribbon and 8/8.1) and other productivity killers that necessitated many PC support people.
But one thing. I use terminal in OSX a lot to do quite a bit of stuff. It can do a lot of cool stuff very quickly. You just have to look at OSX as the biggest Linux distro out there.
Re: (Score:2)
I've known a lot of people who bought mac computers because they just got tired of all the malware and even worse junkware on PCs. All the people I know that went from PC to Mac were amazed at how there is absolutely zero crapware on new Macs. None...nada.....zilch! Why PC makers insist on crippling their own product I just don't get.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Different markets... (Score:5, Informative)
No, Microsoft are making Windows 95 with a few tweaks and Office 97 with a terrible icon bar added they call a ribbon, minor tweaks to two decade old products. Apple make popular well designed products. You might want to dismiss them as mere trinkets, but users with money know better.
From the one-button mouse to the hockey puck mouse, the "style over functionality" of the toaster mac to the gooseneck mac, the oh-so-greatly engineered antennagate phone to the latest bendable phone ... so let's look at the software side. From updates that crash the computer to phone updates that didn't check to see if there was enough free space before attempting to install ... and lets not forget the holes in their cloud storage ...
Every player in the industry has had products that are poorly designed and/or poorly implemented. And that includes the free / open source ones. The price you pay is not a direct correlation with the quality of what you get in the end.
Inflation Adjusted (Score:2, Insightful)
Technically if you adjust for inflation MSFT from 1999 still has the market cap crown. AAPL is likely to pass them later on this year.
Some things are just before their time as well (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple Newton was AFAIK, one of their first PDAs on the market in the early 90s. It's not much of a stretch to say that a smartphone is essentially an internet-enabled PDA that can also make calls. While the Newton failed, the iPhone was eventually a big success due to technology advances allowing for a smaller footprint and appealing design aesthetic.
Re: (Score:2)
PDA's really didn't become smartphones, but rather phones migrated to add PDA functionality and make them obsolete.
Re: (Score:2)
As an addendum to this: The Newton even has a very similar function and form-factor to the current-day Samsung Note series.
Let's glorify genius when incompetence is to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Apple is wrecking any other company in the industry. $18B quarter earnings with a goldmine in sight is the sign of business genius. Most everything they come out with translates into money raining down from the sky.
So yes, they're really a genius. Ballmer was incompetent, but Apple is a powerhouse in the tech industry.
Re: (Score:2)
Ineptness? While he is large, boisterous, and a bit of a buffoon, you have to give Balmer credit for greatly increasing Microsoft's market value over the length of his tenure as CEO and for starting many of the initiatives that are coming to fruition under Nadella.
Apple hasn't really overtaken Microsoft. Apple focuses on consumer tech. That takes large R&D budgets, large design budgets, and a lot of risk. It is also a segment where you have to continually invent new markets or else you will become irrel
You may not have noticed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those that follow, are exactly that, followers. Neither Apple nor Microsoft has anybody capable of the vision thing.
My money is on the Next Big Thing coming out of the Maker movement.
Both Apple and Microsof started as "Makers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs was just Driven. (Score:3)
Steve believed you had to control every brush stroke from beginning to end. Not because he was a control freak, but because he had a passion for perfection.
Errr, the two conditions may not be mutually exclusive, but perfection is in the eye of the beholder.
The company alpha can control every brush stroke to his complete satisfaction and still be mistaken in his vision.
Eased out of the company he started in a garage, I believe Jobs was just the right mix of had something to prove and accurate vision. Being a hands-on-every-stage individual often implies an inability to delegate to or trust coworkers, so it isn't always a successful way to manage.
Not sure its true. (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple ships mid and low end tech today - at high commodity pricing. In that, it has won a battle, and its reward is very large profits. But aside from the media conglomerate driven apple store - and both reside largely in consumer/prosumer space - what is apple shipping? Its IPad sale numbers are falling. There are some harsh limits where Apple lives in a box it can't escape just like its users. It relies heavily on others being Mac friendly. The Mac server is an afterthought.
As for a computer in every pocket? No, not on your nelly. Apple have a long long way to go before its an apple that sits in everyone's pocket. It fundamentally hates the 'cheap market' - yet ships ram soldered into the board and disk not much better - stuff you see at chromebook sale level. And aside from the consumer based shop level, Apple is out of the big players the worst placed for cloud.
When it comes to future tech and cloud, Apple doesn't have answers. Its just the end device. While that continues to certainly make good sales money, it means that its potentially at the mercy of amazon, google, azure. Potentially. No one is going to drop support for good end client structures, but it means Apple will be forced to play nice with people it hates.
In the meantime, despite being at farce level in terms of windows - MS is making large steps with azure and the application stacks its working on.
Not a Control Freak? (Score:3)
That is precisely what a control freak is - someone who believes that things should be a certain way and refuses to compromise. Everything must bow down to the vision of that person. You can try to spin it as a "passion for perfection" but ultimately it's exactly the same thing.
Re: (Score:2)
>> Not because he was a control freak, but because he had a passion for perfection.
>. That is precisely what a control freak is
Suppose someone wants perfection, so they hire the very best for everything - they have Pavarotti do the voices, and put Ted T'so in charge of designing their storage. They then trust Pavarotti and T'so to do their jobs well. Would that not be a passion for perfection, but not being a control freak?
What a piece of doodoo (Score:2)
My heading reads like the article. When looking back it's amazing what we can prove. Apple almost disappeared because of that mentality. Apple was the biggest PC maker when they lost the market. Apple was the biggest smartphone maker when it lost the market. The reason they were successful, as well as reason for their downfall is the same. Give the user what they want.
When Apple was leading in PC sales they produced an economical system which allowed the user to own a computer. IBM took that away because th
Re: (Score:2)
Here's what Apple learnt from John Sculley's time at Pepsi: If your competitor counts the number of bottles sold, while you count the revenue and profit, you let your competitor win in the sales of small bottles. Let them think they are winning while you rake in the money.
In terms of the smartphone market which Apple lost in your opinion, Apple made about 7 to 8 times more profit in that m
Re: (Score:2)
Here's what Apple learnt from John Sculley's time at Pepsi: If your competitor counts the number of bottles sold, while you count the revenue and profit, you let your competitor win in the sales of small bottles. Let them think they are winning while you rake in the money.
Someone needs to mod you up now dammit.
While fanbois love to have a Vietnam war style body count, isn't it supposed to be about profits?
Otherwise we'd be eating crap, because 50 million flies can't be wrong.
Potential $140B markets (Score:2)
Yes and no (Score:2)
> The most successful companies need a vision
Agree. Otherwise people start pulling in different directions. Like Apple in the 1990s.
> and both Apple and Microsoft have one
Disagree.
Apple's early 1980s vision was to put the GUI on the desktop. They did that, and then spend the next decade floundering.
MS's vision was to put the NT kernel everywhere. They did that, and then spent the next decade floundering.
Apple's resurgence may be smart, or it might just be better timing.
Overtake? (Score:2)
Maybe it had nothing to do with Apple. Maybe Microsoft just got lazy.
Two potential markets. (Score:2, Informative)
2. More than 70% of credit transactions are not loans,
Market capitalization != Profit (Score:2)
As usual, Apple Fanboyism rewrites history. (Score:2)
IBM Simon: 1992.
iPhone: 2007
Elisha Gray (the guy who actually invented the telephone! Bell beat him to the patent office by a mere twenty minutes) patented an electronic handwriting capture system in 1888(!).
Cadre marketed the first commercial predecessor for the tablet/slate PC (which was just a tablet input device for a desktop) in 1982. The first x86-based tablet that used a commercial OS was the 1985 Pencept. Not having a touchscreen it required an electronic stylus. The first tablet touchscreen (AKA sl
It's all about the user experience (Score:2)
For those of us old enough to have witnessed the last 40 years of computer evolution, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it's all about the user experience and not about low cost or availability. Apple's successful products are a pleasure to use. Apple's failures weren't. IMHO, nothing that Microsoft makes is a pleasure to use. There was a time when the computer nerd in me enjoyed dinking around in the OS or the hardware but no longer. I have work that I need to get done and anything that impedes
Taipei Geeks Get Shit On Again (Score:4, Interesting)
Dammit, please. I watched the touchscreen market, via DigiTimes, for years. The geeks in Taiwan who were carving the niche for ATM touchscreen displays were the top of the touchscreen pyramid. Apple was buying IPods (pods not pads) from Taiwan contract manufacturers, who would show other "cool stuff" they had. Apple saw it quickly and wrote software and gets a lot of credit, but designed Taiwanese inventions into it. I was told the small firm Apple claims did it for them in Vancouver was from the Taipei outfit.
Apple basically did to Taiwan what Bill Gates did to IBM. Which is great, I have no problem with it, but please give Terry Gou and Simon Lin (the Jobs and Gates counterparts in Taipei) some credit for what happened. They are the reason the Samsung vs. Apple patents go nowhere - its because Taiwan geeks made the hardware. It's less the invention of the hardware than it is the licensing fees. Control of the licensing fees is what made Gates and Jobs, and that's largely a legal play. Again, fine, but it just pains me to see the actual engineers ignored.
MS gained critical mass as the PC market boomed (Score:2)
MS gained critical mass as the PC market boomed - that's the only reason they are around. Until a few years ago they were also able to help hardware vendors sell new stuff by deliberately turning each new OS into a performance hog, helping vendors justify selling new stuff. Vendors in turn helping MS push their new OS because of reasons.
That aside, MS is mostly known for stifling innovation rather than bringing it on. The odd kinect or something aside.
Apple on the other hand always did well when the control
Apple was always innovative (Score:2)
Sometime in 2000 there was a coffee table sized book of non production apple designs with early ereaders, cheque book size computers etc that never made it into production etc.
Those ideas pre internet shopping have now been translated into reality in other things. Microsoft instead looked at pc boxes, ignored the internet and killed its competitors like novell to sell 'servers'. The average apple buyer knows what his/her thing can do, and the cloud and how it powers the naked selfies is something they don
Re:They did not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Apples customers pay more so they make more money. Desktops with Windows still dominate the market.
But do Apple customers pay more in the long run? It's still the case that Macs tend to just "work", no weird crashes due to bad drivers, Windows has come a long way in reliability, but I know in my office, the desktop support calls from Windows outnumber those for Mac, and we have about 5 times more mac desktops than windows desktops. By controlling the hardware and the software, Apple can provide the customers with a smoother experience, at the expense of flexibility - you can't build your own mac, or add new hardware to it... which is fine for almost all consumers.
But Microsoft is a software company which are plagued by piracy - non paying customers.
If Microsoft could get every Windows user to pay a license cost as low as the OS X cost - their revenue would overcome Apple:s revenue with ease.
Since it's nearly impossible to buy a PC without Windows installed (or at least a license to run windows), it's hard to believe that piracy is affecting operating system sales, at least in the USA. I know that China has a high piracy rate, but those users probably aren't going to buy a Windows license anyway. I know I have license keys for WinXP, Win7, and Win8 that are completely unused because the computer I wanted wasn't available without a Windows license (well in one case it *was* available unbundled, but the computer was cheaper *with* the license.
Microsoft still has a lock on the corporate desktop, that's where they have the most to fear from Apple since the consumers that use and love apple hardware at home want to use that same hardware at the office.
If you sum up the Microsoft sphere. Microsoft, Spotify, Netflix, Adobe etc and you will find them a lot larger. Include all "partner" companies and Microsoft becomes quite large compared to Apple.
How is Adobe part of the "Microsoft Sphere" when the likely sell more photoshop licenses for Mac than Windows? Likewise, why is Netflix on the Microsoft side when their product is cross platform?
Re: (Score:2)
You mean this guy?
http://youtu.be/I25UeVXrEHQ?t=... [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
Would you rather have that or some rich dude who pays to get in front of the transplant queue to get someone else's liver only to ignore the doctors advice and stop taking his medication hence making said transplant useless?