5 ms·

Apple figured this shit out over a decade ago. Macbook and macbook pro. iMac and Mac Pro. They sell benefits not features. You don't see them referring to th

Apple figured this shit out over a decade ago. Macbook and macbook pro. iMac and Mac Pro. They sell benefits not features. You don't see them referring to the 13 inch macbook pro as the Apple MB986*/A like the PC oems, right?

rbanffy 16y ago
It's more like they have only few variations of 5 notebooks. Dell has dozens of models for each market segment, each of them with a dozen variations. We got a bunch of E4300 Latitudes with the same SKU. Most of them have glossy LCDs. Mine is matte. Go figure...
- megablast 16y ago
  This annoyed the hell out of me, when I had to get a HP for work. It had to be HP, so there were 20 different models. What is the point of 20 different models? Sure, I understand screen size, but everything else if configurable, from HDD size, to Ram. All the processors are fast enough for development work, as far as I am concerned. This is one area where Apple got it right. 5 different types of laptop.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > What is the point of 20 different models? It's much more interesting than that: out of the 20 models, 12 won't run X decently, 8 will take 2 minutes to boot, 4 random models will be very fast and everything will work out of the box. You won't be able to identify any pattern. In the next revision of the lineup, the 4 that work well will be another random subset of the batch. Again, nobody will be able to see a clear pattern. Rinse and repeat. My previous Dell was absolutely Linux-proof. This one runs it perfectly well. It's however, slower than my netbook for everything but disk IO. This one has a Core 2 Duo. The netbook has an Atom z270. I really want to to away with this overly complex PC compatibles. If hardware vendors insist on using x86 processors, fine, but we no longer need, or want, to boot MS-DOS 1.0 unless under a hardware emulator.
    - megablast 16y ago
      I was lucky then, my HP just would not suspend. Never had a problem on my IBM.
- ugh 16y ago
  Oh, you shouldn’t underestimate the ability of companies to make even the simplest of product line ups confusing :) Try and buy a Kenwood food mixer. They basically only have three or so models, all with numbers in their names.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    The Jobs-less era of Apple also had its fair share of very confusing lineups. IIRC, when Jobs was brought in in the late 90's, Apple had more than a dozen different models of Macintosh, two or three Newtons, a camera and half a dozen printers, with model names and numbers that gave little clue as to what good they were.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Apple figured out how to make high profit margin on a niche business. That's great, but they aren't exactly dominating the laptop or desktop market, not even close.
- andrewtj 16y ago
  I think you're understating their achievement — what's the point in having the largest share in a market if a niche player makes more money than you?
  - czhiddy 16y ago
    Agreed. http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market-for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624 http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-ma... I'd much rather have low market share and much higher profits than vice versa.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    The point is that with a smaller market share you can lose it all extremely fast. Profitability is important of course, but resistance to the changing market / emerging technologies that invalidate your business is also important for big companies. For all the ranting about how Microsoft has lost momentum and mind-share and influence, it's still here and it's still making a shit-load of money, just because of their marketshare ... yes, they aren't innovating fast enough, but that's because they don't need to. Apple is highly profitable, but because they are a niche player their only hope is to keep innovating. IMHO the iPhone was a defensive move to keep them relevant. Kudos to them for seeing it coming, but I hope they won't rest on laurels because it won't last long.
    - andrewtj 16y ago
      It's a trade off — I'd disagree that a niche player can lose their position any faster than the incumbent. The incumbent, as you allude to, tends to only see change as having the potential for loss and hence tries to avoid it; often to their detriment. Also, given Apple Computer Inc are now Apple Inc, a major OS X release has been stunted by a phone and an update of their laptops has been pushed aside for the release of a tablet, I wouldn't characterise the iPhone/iPad strategy as a defensive one.

rbanffy 16y ago

It's more like they have only few variations of 5 notebooks. Dell has dozens of models for each market segment, each of them with a dozen variations. We got a bunch of E4300 Latitudes with the same SKU. Most of them have glossy LCDs. Mine is matte. Go figure...

megablast 16y ago
This annoyed the hell out of me, when I had to get a HP for work. It had to be HP, so there were 20 different models. What is the point of 20 different models? Sure, I understand screen size, but everything else if configurable, from HDD size, to Ram. All the processors are fast enough for development work, as far as I am concerned. This is one area where Apple got it right. 5 different types of laptop.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > What is the point of 20 different models? It's much more interesting than that: out of the 20 models, 12 won't run X decently, 8 will take 2 minutes to boot, 4 random models will be very fast and everything will work out of the box. You won't be able to identify any pattern. In the next revision of the lineup, the 4 that work well will be another random subset of the batch. Again, nobody will be able to see a clear pattern. Rinse and repeat. My previous Dell was absolutely Linux-proof. This one runs it perfectly well. It's however, slower than my netbook for everything but disk IO. This one has a Core 2 Duo. The netbook has an Atom z270. I really want to to away with this overly complex PC compatibles. If hardware vendors insist on using x86 processors, fine, but we no longer need, or want, to boot MS-DOS 1.0 unless under a hardware emulator.
  - megablast 16y ago
    I was lucky then, my HP just would not suspend. Never had a problem on my IBM.
ugh 16y ago
Oh, you shouldn’t underestimate the ability of companies to make even the simplest of product line ups confusing :) Try and buy a Kenwood food mixer. They basically only have three or so models, all with numbers in their names.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  The Jobs-less era of Apple also had its fair share of very confusing lineups. IIRC, when Jobs was brought in in the late 90's, Apple had more than a dozen different models of Macintosh, two or three Newtons, a camera and half a dozen printers, with model names and numbers that gave little clue as to what good they were.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Apple figured out how to make high profit margin on a niche business. That's great, but they aren't exactly dominating the laptop or desktop market, not even close.

andrewtj 16y ago
I think you're understating their achievement — what's the point in having the largest share in a market if a niche player makes more money than you?
- czhiddy 16y ago
  Agreed. http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market-for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624 http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-ma... I'd much rather have low market share and much higher profits than vice versa.
- bad_user 16y ago
  The point is that with a smaller market share you can lose it all extremely fast. Profitability is important of course, but resistance to the changing market / emerging technologies that invalidate your business is also important for big companies. For all the ranting about how Microsoft has lost momentum and mind-share and influence, it's still here and it's still making a shit-load of money, just because of their marketshare ... yes, they aren't innovating fast enough, but that's because they don't need to. Apple is highly profitable, but because they are a niche player their only hope is to keep innovating. IMHO the iPhone was a defensive move to keep them relevant. Kudos to them for seeing it coming, but I hope they won't rest on laurels because it won't last long.
  - andrewtj 16y ago
    It's a trade off — I'd disagree that a niche player can lose their position any faster than the incumbent. The incumbent, as you allude to, tends to only see change as having the potential for loss and hence tries to avoid it; often to their detriment. Also, given Apple Computer Inc are now Apple Inc, a major OS X release has been stunted by a phone and an update of their laptops has been pushed aside for the release of a tablet, I wouldn't characterise the iPhone/iPad strategy as a defensive one.