6 ms·

Let me put it this way: How do you think Apple has become as big and successful as it is today, despite always releasing products that are technically inferior

Let me put it this way: How do you think Apple has become as big and successful as it is today, despite always releasing products that are technically inferior (ie. Mhz/megapixel/megawhatever) and often more expensive than the competition? Could there me more to a product than the hardware specs?

elblanco 17y ago
How many people pre-ordered one of these without ever touching or seeing one? Oh right, lots. That's how Apple became big again. People buying stuff sight unseen.
- rufo 17y ago
  I don't think most of the millions of iPhones and iPods that have been sold were purchased by people who buy Apple products on blind faith.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  And how many of those people have an iPhone and were able to do the extrapolation: "This multitouch is great with the Apps and the App store. What if we could have a bigger screen with that?" I was posting that idea well before the iPad was anything more than a rumor.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    You are right, the presence of good product in the marketplace tends to feed on itself. However, I think a good argument could be made that the first generation or so of iPods were sold sight unseen to a public with a fairly large number of mp3 players in the same marketplace. Few people remember that the original iPod was supposed to be a driver of consumers to the Macintosh platform. For a pretty long time you couldn't use one on any other platform other than a Macintosh. iPhones sold well because the competition in the marketplace wasn't really all that great. Palm hadn't really done anything interesting in the years prior and Windows mobile has always been a joke. But remember the long lines of people trying to buy up a dozen or so iPhones at the original price sight unseen? I remember one lady standing outside a store with a stack of cash trying to buy phones off of people who got one for 2x the original purchase price. And exactly like those two items, the iPad has people lined up getting as many as possible because their iPhones are so awesome. Even though the logic of blowing up a phone app onto a tablet makes little sense, and the iPad actually demonstrates a reduction in capability over the iPhone (no camera, seriously?). I'd wager that it'll be just enough that people will slurp up the next version that'll have a camera and USB even though they already own the original. The problem that people have is not that the iPad is a good product or not, it's that people are buying it without having any idea what it's like beyond "it's a bigger iPhone". If some other vendor had come out with exactly the same product, they wouldn't have flocked to it, because it's sight unseen. But stick an Apple logo on it, and have Jobs sit in a chair fiddling with it for 5 minutes, and it's sold out before it even hits the stores.
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      Well, from what I can tell, this is as slick or slicker than every other tablet, and no one else can match the App Store iTunes ecosystem. As I said before, extra screen real estate has a nonlinear effect on UIs. It's far more than a bigger iPhone already, and this is just a start.
      - elblanco 17y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree that the execution of the iPad is superior to other tablets. I'm just not sure it's been demonstrated yet that tablet computing is a "good idea" (TM).
        stcredzero 17y ago
        The success of the Kindle gets you 1/4th of the way there. I think Apple has a chance for a game changer with this.
        elblanco 17y ago
        honest question, do you think that Apple wouldn't have built the iPad if not for the Kindle?
        stcredzero 17y ago
        No. I think the iPhone multitouch (truly intuitive interface advance) plus the App Store (walled garden combining a significant degree of safety and convenience with usefully harnessed market forces) pointed the way to this. By mentioning the Kindle, I was replying to your comment.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
For every iPod and iPhone they have an AppleTV or Mighty Mouse where the magic just doesn't take and everyone buys something else instead. And the Sansas etc. had caught up with the iPod by the time they brought out the iPhone, Android has caught up with iPhone in time for the iPad. They better hope it's a big hit because Android, Chrome OS and Meego tablets are all coming soon in time to be evaluated carefully by the kind of people who don't buy first revision Apple products.
- snom370 17y ago
  "Caught up with" being the key point here. You don't always get to 70% market share by playing catch-up.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    70% market share was the iPod. The iPhone is not the iPod, and the iPad is not the iPhone. So you may not get 70% by playing catch-up, but you don't always get it by doing whatever Apple does, even in the case of their big successes like the iPhone.
    - snom370 17y ago
      Exactly, which is why it would be nice to see companies that try to not just copy the iPhone (and now the iPad), like most cell phone companies have tried to do the past couple of years. Likewise, it took the OLPC project and then Asus EEE to ignite the netbook market, and the Wii to show that gaming consoles could be fun for everyone. Most companies however avoid risks and only copy and incrementally improve on the status quo.

elblanco 17y ago

How many people pre-ordered one of these without ever touching or seeing one? Oh right, lots. That's how Apple became big again. People buying stuff sight unseen.

rufo 17y ago
I don't think most of the millions of iPhones and iPods that have been sold were purchased by people who buy Apple products on blind faith.
stcredzero 17y ago
And how many of those people have an iPhone and were able to do the extrapolation: "This multitouch is great with the Apps and the App store. What if we could have a bigger screen with that?" I was posting that idea well before the iPad was anything more than a rumor.
- elblanco 17y ago
  You are right, the presence of good product in the marketplace tends to feed on itself. However, I think a good argument could be made that the first generation or so of iPods were sold sight unseen to a public with a fairly large number of mp3 players in the same marketplace. Few people remember that the original iPod was supposed to be a driver of consumers to the Macintosh platform. For a pretty long time you couldn't use one on any other platform other than a Macintosh. iPhones sold well because the competition in the marketplace wasn't really all that great. Palm hadn't really done anything interesting in the years prior and Windows mobile has always been a joke. But remember the long lines of people trying to buy up a dozen or so iPhones at the original price sight unseen? I remember one lady standing outside a store with a stack of cash trying to buy phones off of people who got one for 2x the original purchase price. And exactly like those two items, the iPad has people lined up getting as many as possible because their iPhones are so awesome. Even though the logic of blowing up a phone app onto a tablet makes little sense, and the iPad actually demonstrates a reduction in capability over the iPhone (no camera, seriously?). I'd wager that it'll be just enough that people will slurp up the next version that'll have a camera and USB even though they already own the original. The problem that people have is not that the iPad is a good product or not, it's that people are buying it without having any idea what it's like beyond "it's a bigger iPhone". If some other vendor had come out with exactly the same product, they wouldn't have flocked to it, because it's sight unseen. But stick an Apple logo on it, and have Jobs sit in a chair fiddling with it for 5 minutes, and it's sold out before it even hits the stores.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    Well, from what I can tell, this is as slick or slicker than every other tablet, and no one else can match the App Store iTunes ecosystem. As I said before, extra screen real estate has a nonlinear effect on UIs. It's far more than a bigger iPhone already, and this is just a start.
    - elblanco 17y ago
      I wholeheartedly agree that the execution of the iPad is superior to other tablets. I'm just not sure it's been demonstrated yet that tablet computing is a "good idea" (TM).
      - stcredzero 17y ago
        The success of the Kindle gets you 1/4th of the way there. I think Apple has a chance for a game changer with this.
        elblanco 17y ago
        honest question, do you think that Apple wouldn't have built the iPad if not for the Kindle?
        stcredzero 17y ago
        No. I think the iPhone multitouch (truly intuitive interface advance) plus the App Store (walled garden combining a significant degree of safety and convenience with usefully harnessed market forces) pointed the way to this. By mentioning the Kindle, I was replying to your comment.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

For every iPod and iPhone they have an AppleTV or Mighty Mouse where the magic just doesn't take and everyone buys something else instead. And the Sansas etc. had caught up with the iPod by the time they brought out the iPhone, Android has caught up with iPhone in time for the iPad. They better hope it's a big hit because Android, Chrome OS and Meego tablets are all coming soon in time to be evaluated carefully by the kind of people who don't buy first revision Apple products.

snom370 17y ago
"Caught up with" being the key point here. You don't always get to 70% market share by playing catch-up.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  70% market share was the iPod. The iPhone is not the iPod, and the iPad is not the iPhone. So you may not get 70% by playing catch-up, but you don't always get it by doing whatever Apple does, even in the case of their big successes like the iPhone.
  - snom370 17y ago
    Exactly, which is why it would be nice to see companies that try to not just copy the iPhone (and now the iPad), like most cell phone companies have tried to do the past couple of years. Likewise, it took the OLPC project and then Asus EEE to ignite the netbook market, and the Wii to show that gaming consoles could be fun for everyone. Most companies however avoid risks and only copy and incrementally improve on the status quo.