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Apple (AAPL) roundup: 1) Folowing a year in which the iPhone 5, iPad Mini, and new iMac all saw...
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Sunday, February 3, 2:28 PM ETApple (AAPL) roundup: 1) Folowing a year in which the iPhone 5, iPad Mini, and new iMac all saw big supply constraints due to their use of advanced designs/materials, Paul Kedrosky thinks Apple's design team has gained too much influence relative to its manufacturing team (video). 2) Apple VP John Couch recently met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul. They reportedly talked about a deal to supply up to 15M iPads to Turkish students. 3) Apple has won a patent for a plastic-bodied phone with no home button or front camera. Is this the rumored cheaper iPhone?
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"Wow. How do Apple get "patents" for existing ideas? A "protective cover for small form factor electronics" pretty much covers every after market case available. Apple have corrupted the USPTO and the patent process."
I think Apple attorneys are now the most innovative people at the company. ;)
Described as a "light isolating protective cover for small form factor electronic device," the patent states: "A portable device has a rear facing camera assembly and a front facing display assembly that includes at least a protective cover layer, a display stack that includes a plurality of display components arranged in a plurality of interconnected layers, the display stack providing an imaging service, and a flat support chassis arranged to provide support for the display stack."
"It should be appreciated, however, that other transparent materials such as clear plastic can be used," Apple described. "The back of the device is embroiled by a protective cover that Apple says "can wrap around and protect at least the rear portion of the portable device without adversely affecting an image capture process carried out by the rear facing camera assembly."
The only path to success in consumer electronics is to have a good idea, get it to the market quickly at a price that will grow share quickly, then repeat the process, constantly. If others start to do that better, faster and cheaper than you do (what's happening to Apple) then, you have trouble. Loyalty is ephemeral in the end. Ask Sony, or Panasonic, or Toshiba, or Palm or RIMM, or Nokia, etc.
Actually, this is not true. Certain brands in the consumer electronics space commanded a premium for decades.
There is overwhelming evidence of the value of brand loyalty to consumers in just about any category you can think of. It's not mindless loyalty - but it is loyalty and it is of value for those companies that continue to deliver for their customers.
The Samsung brand was a cheapo Korean brand 20 or so years ago - and they spent billions to get where they are today. Better products, certainly. But also significant investments in brand building including a major media schedule in NFL football.
As an Apple user, I find Samsung products to be not very well designed - though I have two of their flat-screen TVs. Apple claims to be on the path to fundamentally transforming the viewing experience. I have two Apple TV boxes attached to the Samsung TVs and they are extremely good at expanding what a TV can do. So, you know, who is a threat to who?
One question is the role of loyalty in intelligent devices like smartphones that bridge the gap between multi-functional, customizable computers and dedicated-device, what-it-is-is-what-it-... flip phones.
Loyalty to the Mac OS certainly saved Apple in the past. And RIM continues to hold onto millions of loyalists - their problem is that growth has stopped. They failed to seize the momentum when they had it. Apple, so far, continues to grow at a very rapid pace.
Apple has repeatedly proven the ability to attract new users and retain them in massive numbers.
Apple has also proven its ability to sell new products to existing users - which IS growth. When an iPhone user buys an iPad mini, that's growth. When an iPad user who bought three apps last year buys 10 apps next year, that's growth. When an iMac user gives his kids iPods for Christmas, that's growth.
Six years ago, Apple didn't make a phone. Last quarter, they sold 47.8 million of them. Are you seriously suggesting they were all replacement sales?
Most companies that sell products to consumers (and a lot of b2b companies too) have hits and misses. The Ford F-150 is a hit. The Ford Fairmont is a dog. Sony flat screen TVs are a hit. Sony MP3 players a dog. And so on.
Apple has had dogs in the past. The Mac Cube, for example. Or Apple TV.
IBM stock is at an all time high. HP is struggling but still sells billions of dollars of computers and services. Oracle is a monster. Cisco continues to grow and prosper. These companies have been around for decades.
You know, Studebaker went out of business. Does that guarantee that Ford will too?
As people purchase successive generations of AAPL products, they will be wary of switching to Android. Non-tech people will cringe at the thought of moving all their music, apps, and general know how to another device system. Of course, the reverse is true for Android users.
The ecosystem will rapidly become more important than the hardware when the market matures (probably 5 years away in the US and 10+ years away in developing countries).
I, for one, just switched to an iPhone from a Blackberry 2.5 years ago...but, now I'm hooked mostly because of the ecosystem (I have a MacBook Air, an AAPL TV, and 2 iPads; the devices sync automatically, share information, and share music)
It use to be tough to go from one Apple computer to a newer Apple computer. The switch from OS 9 to OS X was not smooth. Over the last several year, getting your information and settings from one Apple laptop to a newer version has been fairly easy. That leaves software compatibility, and unfortunately each new operating system change does leave some third party software behind.
If Apple continue to leave iOS simple for users to switch from an older device to a newer device, then they run the risk of the operating system becoming somewhat locked in time. While older individuals are often seen to dislike change, and it could help retain those people, newer users may be put off a bit. Sometimes what is old and familiar can be seen as no longer fresh and inspiring.
The "ecosystem" is already proving to lack support from developers. It is becoming tougher to monetize apps. Over 80% of app downloads are now free or "freemium" apps. There is not enough density of exclusive pay-for apps on any platform to "lock in" more than a small percentage of users. So I will respectfully disagree with you about the "ecosystem" because it is dying fast. As we near better HTML5 capabilities, even the app model will suffer in 5 to 10 years, if not much sooner.
It might sound weird, but I am actually considering getting a Microsoft Surface Pro for travel usage. The competing choice would be a MacBook Air, of which I am not really much of a fan. This should be an interesting year.
I have bought and used Apple products since the 80s, starting with an Apple IIc. Every single one has annoyed and frustrated me. Even when I have attempted to consciously avoid the products, I somehow end up roped into their ecosystem: my wife picked up a used 3g iPhone from a friend a few years back and I needed to jailbreak/unlock it to get it to play nice with T-Mobile, and had to then move her contacts from her Blackberry over to it.
Every interaction with Apple's closed ecosystem has been a lesson in patience. My wife sure enjoyed her iPhone while she had it (she now uses a Galaxy3) but she never dealt with it on anything but a user level.
That said, I hate that google and msft are both following the same pattern. They are closing their ecosystems to bring more business into their fold, requiring tight integration of their products with your personal identity and direct access to your wallet.
But my point above is that many of the Apple faithful are recent devotees to the company and have yet to honestly observe the speed with which tech can rise and fall from grace, and frankly just don't get it. The longer term fans, like yourself, are rarer than casual observation honestly presents.
http://seekingalpha.co...
I do think that with smartphones we will see a move towards more HTML5 development. I covered that in a few articles. One issue is that programmers (app coding specialists) are more expensive than web designers. I would also expect Adobe, or another company, to make simple drag-and-drop visual software to allow app development. Another issue is the variability of smartphone platforms. We might see some standardization of screen sizes, but the delivery of content in many cases could move beyond apps and towards HTML5 based mobile web content, which can function and interact like apps for many users. Obviously many more issues around this, probably enough for another article.
I don't completely see myself leaving Apple behind, but I liked the company much more under Steve Jobs than I do with Tim Cook in charge. Difficult to service laptops are a bad trend. I still think the iMac is a great home/office computer choice. I never thought Microsoft could impress me with anything, though Windows 8 is an interesting direction in operating systems and how we interact with computers. Undoubtedly Windows 9 will fix many issues, but the basis is quite good. Considering that 3rd party software works about the same on Windows or OS X, and many file types are portable across operating systems, I can see myself with a mixed operating system set-up in the future. Probably never would have even thought about that a couple years ago.
You want to see the ultimate in an elegant, simple and reliable system, try out a Chromebook and the Chrome OS. No more software bugs, no more viruses, no more updates from multiple sources, instant on, all data safe and secure in the web, lots of useful apps, automatic identical configuration on any machine on which you log into your Google account, etc.
Best of all, at $249, they are a raging steal. They're selling like hotcakes at Amazon (#1 notebook seller).
As a sophisticated computer user, who's used just about every system ever devised, these are elegant machines.
More third-party support is on the horizon. It is rumored that Google will soon merge Chrome and Android; then, the party will really start.
Locally-based software capabilities are almost entirely unnecessary in today's world. In fact, they're a liability because they have to be updated, they get invaded by viruses, they get corrupted and their work product always has to be backed up by some secondary measure, often overlooked, to the despair of many.
Chrome/Android is a huge Trojan horse in the current Apple-Microsoft wars.
I have no idea about Chrome OS numbers.
When you say application support for Adobe, what do you mean, the ability to create documents? view? other? And, can those issues be done via the cloud?
http://adobe.ly/W4g8y0
Not everything can be accomplished through a browser. The "cloud" provides storage and software updates. I cannot imagine someone trying to run Photoshop (for example) with large files through a WiFi connection and the application sitting on a server; not everyone has broadband available everywhere.
Yes, nobody is going to spend a career Photoshopping or video editing via the Internet, at least as we know it, but that's a picayune segment of the overall market compared to what average consumers and some office workers need.
As a long-time Windows user ( and a little Apple), I can attest to the wonderful simplicity and elegance of the Chrome approach to things. I was happy to give it a go when I realized that i run local software about 2-3 times a year, and even then I probably use software that has counterparts online. In essence, the average person needs a terminal and some apps, and that's what Chrome provides.
Last night, my wife and I streamed an Amazon movie to our TV using the Chromebook's built-in HDMI port. Worked like a charm. Can't say enough good things about this slick, little machine.
No need for an 'Apploid' cheaper iPhone too.