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One advantage could be the sales channel. Through Apple store they can easily get the products into the hand of customers. This might be quite valuable with pro

One advantage could be the sales channel. Through Apple store they can easily get the products into the hand of customers. This might be quite valuable with products which you need to experience in order to understand them. Apple's share of mobile phone market can be helpful if they want to bring in functionality that requires special features from the handset. Also if we think about some more down to earth stuff, Apple could become "number one AR vendor" by just putting the features to next iPhone models. If the stuff actually works and if Apple allows, this might bring in 3rd party developers.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
Nope. Apple's biggest advantages were always a sensitivity to untapped consumer interest, and marketing genius to get consumers excited about products that integrated smoothly into their lives. The latter has certainly disappeared. See e.g. the stampede away from the Mac. For the former: it's debatable how much untapped consumer interest there is in AR. Glasses would work if they were slim and stylish. But if the motivation is to "beam content into the eyes of the user" and not to empower users to do non-gimmicky cool new things they couldn't before - that's not going to happen. It's the difference between a power tool approach and a menu approach. If you give people power tools and let them play with them, they'll do amazing things. If you give people a menu of options - tweak a photo, tweak a photo a different way, take a 180 degree panorama, passively watch a VR movie - that's extremely unexciting. Cook has always been more of the latter type than the former.
- eastWestMath 10y ago
  "Stampede away from the mac" is a complete overstatement, Apple still makes the most profits of any computer manufacturer.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Agreed. There is a lot of ranting in the tech community, but for your average user they seem as popular as ever.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

Nope. Apple's biggest advantages were always a sensitivity to untapped consumer interest, and marketing genius to get consumers excited about products that integrated smoothly into their lives. The latter has certainly disappeared. See e.g. the stampede away from the Mac. For the former: it's debatable how much untapped consumer interest there is in AR. Glasses would work if they were slim and stylish. But if the motivation is to "beam content into the eyes of the user" and not to empower users to do non-gimmicky cool new things they couldn't before - that's not going to happen. It's the difference between a power tool approach and a menu approach. If you give people power tools and let them play with them, they'll do amazing things. If you give people a menu of options - tweak a photo, tweak a photo a different way, take a 180 degree panorama, passively watch a VR movie - that's extremely unexciting. Cook has always been more of the latter type than the former.

eastWestMath 10y ago
"Stampede away from the mac" is a complete overstatement, Apple still makes the most profits of any computer manufacturer.
- collyw 10y ago
  Agreed. There is a lot of ranting in the tech community, but for your average user they seem as popular as ever.