4 ms·

Then why not connect all those thoughts together? If it was so easy and if the hardware was so widely available and if the stuff here is a commodity and if use

by Hoff 16y ago

Then why not connect all those thoughts together? If it was so easy and if the hardware was so widely available and if the stuff here is a commodity and if user interface design and fit and finish was so easy, then why is Apple the bunch that is rolling in cash, and not looking like roadkill? From what I've encountered with many of the low-margin commodity products, various manufacturers reach the "it works and meets our minimal specs, ship it" stage, and we get lids and covers and doors and other pieces that don't fit or quickly break and fall off, software and firmware incompatibility or crashes, fuzzy displays, sloppy switch mechanisms, user interfaces that are somewhere between truly bizarre and purely inscrutable, and related, well, dreck. And for the consumers, a low-margin business means plug-compatible race-to-the-bottom no-name interchangeable and irrelevant product vendors, too. Sure. There's a market for dreck. But as you've noticed, it doesn't pay well.

ergo98 16y ago
>Then why not connect all those thoughts together? If it was so easy Who are you responding to? I didn't say it was "easy". I further said that Apple is a software company, not a hardware company. They do software well. Their hardware superiority is 90% myth, 10% reality. There were excellent Windows Mobile devices with high resolution displays, better processors, more RAM, and on and on, long before Apple brought that "innovation". You could directly attribute the fact that Apple isn't responsible for most of that hardware R&D for their high profit margins. They know to buy the cutting edge from the rest of the industry, put some software on it, and they've got a product. Apple puts some great software on it and made a well integrated device. Their only innovation is in software. In hardware they're not much more than a VAR. >From what I've encountered with many of the low-margin commodity products I like the addition of the editorialized "commodity" there. However your core point is utter nonsense. Almost every bit of extremely high quality electronics hardware you can buy in the industry, from ultra-high end LED televisions to audio equipment to high performance routers to digital cameras, came from a company making very low margins, yet managing to yield a very respectable billion or so in profit. Apple has a short time where they essentially could go to the bank on the backs of a cult-like following. That isn't a scalable business model, which is exactly why Apple is warning about reduced margins going forward.
- bbgm 16y ago
  I partly agree. The design on MacBook Pros was not sufficient to make me switch, although it was very tempting. It was the combination of hardware and software that did the trick. However, I think you are underestimating their hardware prowess. There is a certain joy to using hardware (computers, musical instruments, name it). You get that with Apple hardware because of the little things. Apple things about the whole experience, which includes software, but even on the hardware side, there are few that actually pay attention to the whole. No one does it better. Packing features into a product shows you are not thinking as a whole, but just checking boxes. Innovation comes from thinking about the end result and user experience, not from features.
  - snom370 16y ago
    Agreed. Yet, to a lot of the readers here, it's impossible to understand why the "little things" make a big difference. They simply cannot understand why this attention to detail in a product is worth paying for. And I think this is key to Apples success, because I suspect that a lot of CEOs and product managers in other companies simply don't see this either. You see this with a lot of laptops where the only attention to detail is in the obviously visible parts. Compare this to Steve Jobs / Jony Ive that obsess over how their products look on the _inside_ (http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=PC_Board_Esthetics.txt&characters=Steve%20Jobs&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=high&showcomments=1 http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...)
- snom370 16y ago
  Sure, they buy a lot of components off the shelf. But they are extremely involved in the design and manufacturing process of their products, and often work with the manufacturers to push the manufacturing technology forward to meet their design goals (machine milling is nothing new, but machine milling a $999 laptop requires quite a bit of innovation). Unlike many other companies, Apple _doesn't_ just take various technologies and piece them together to make a product. And they do a lot of core technologies in-house, which is why they've bought companies like FingerWorks and PA Sami. The interview with Jony Ive in the Objectified movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU) shows some of the thought process that is involved in Apples hardware design process. By your logic, other PC/mobile manufacturers should have similar profit margins to Apple, but they don't. Now, the usual answer is that Apple has a "cult-like following" that will pay a higher price for "more or less the same hardware in a different box". A better explanation, given that the "cult following" has only increased the last few years, is that Apple manages to make more appealing products by being extremely involved in _both_ hardware and software, leaving other companies to compete by sticking together commodity components. Apple did not say that they expected decreased profit margins because they would have to slash their prices, what they did warn was that their forthcoming products would have higher hardware costs. But of course, time will show.

by Hoff 16y ago

ergo98 16y ago

>Then why not connect all those thoughts together? If it was so easy Who are you responding to? I didn't say it was "easy". I further said that Apple is a software company, not a hardware company. They do software well. Their hardware superiority is 90% myth, 10% reality. There were excellent Windows Mobile devices with high resolution displays, better processors, more RAM, and on and on, long before Apple brought that "innovation". You could directly attribute the fact that Apple isn't responsible for most of that hardware R&D for their high profit margins. They know to buy the cutting edge from the rest of the industry, put some software on it, and they've got a product. Apple puts some great software on it and made a well integrated device. Their only innovation is in software. In hardware they're not much more than a VAR. >From what I've encountered with many of the low-margin commodity products I like the addition of the editorialized "commodity" there. However your core point is utter nonsense. Almost every bit of extremely high quality electronics hardware you can buy in the industry, from ultra-high end LED televisions to audio equipment to high performance routers to digital cameras, came from a company making very low margins, yet managing to yield a very respectable billion or so in profit. Apple has a short time where they essentially could go to the bank on the backs of a cult-like following. That isn't a scalable business model, which is exactly why Apple is warning about reduced margins going forward.

bbgm 16y ago
I partly agree. The design on MacBook Pros was not sufficient to make me switch, although it was very tempting. It was the combination of hardware and software that did the trick. However, I think you are underestimating their hardware prowess. There is a certain joy to using hardware (computers, musical instruments, name it). You get that with Apple hardware because of the little things. Apple things about the whole experience, which includes software, but even on the hardware side, there are few that actually pay attention to the whole. No one does it better. Packing features into a product shows you are not thinking as a whole, but just checking boxes. Innovation comes from thinking about the end result and user experience, not from features.
- snom370 16y ago
  Agreed. Yet, to a lot of the readers here, it's impossible to understand why the "little things" make a big difference. They simply cannot understand why this attention to detail in a product is worth paying for. And I think this is key to Apples success, because I suspect that a lot of CEOs and product managers in other companies simply don't see this either. You see this with a lot of laptops where the only attention to detail is in the obviously visible parts. Compare this to Steve Jobs / Jony Ive that obsess over how their products look on the _inside_ (http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=PC_Board_Esthetics.txt&characters=Steve%20Jobs&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=high&showcomments=1 http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...)
snom370 16y ago
Sure, they buy a lot of components off the shelf. But they are extremely involved in the design and manufacturing process of their products, and often work with the manufacturers to push the manufacturing technology forward to meet their design goals (machine milling is nothing new, but machine milling a $999 laptop requires quite a bit of innovation). Unlike many other companies, Apple _doesn't_ just take various technologies and piece them together to make a product. And they do a lot of core technologies in-house, which is why they've bought companies like FingerWorks and PA Sami. The interview with Jony Ive in the Objectified movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fe800C2CU) shows some of the thought process that is involved in Apples hardware design process. By your logic, other PC/mobile manufacturers should have similar profit margins to Apple, but they don't. Now, the usual answer is that Apple has a "cult-like following" that will pay a higher price for "more or less the same hardware in a different box". A better explanation, given that the "cult following" has only increased the last few years, is that Apple manages to make more appealing products by being extremely involved in _both_ hardware and software, leaving other companies to compete by sticking together commodity components. Apple did not say that they expected decreased profit margins because they would have to slash their prices, what they did warn was that their forthcoming products would have higher hardware costs. But of course, time will show.