7 ms·
iPad 2 wasn't Apple's big March 2nd announcement
- rkudeshi 16y agoHis 3rd point, regarding color, is to me one of the most compelling reasons Apple maintains such a large market share of portable products over time. No one likes to own the exact same thing everyone else has and so by using color to differentiate, consumers can still feel unique when purchasing mass-produced items. Has any other company used color in such a way? (the only example that comes to my mind is the original Pokemon games)
- george_morgan 16y agoWithin consumer electronics, Nokia were good at letting customers differentiate their phones by allowing interchangeable facias. Didn't Sony also release various colours of Walkmen? I imagine the ability to mass produce a product in multiple colours was made vastly easier with the introduction plastics. So I could see Tupperware being a contender for one of the first?
- jonknee 16y ago> Has any other company used color in such a way? (the only example that comes to my mind is the original Pokemon games) Nintendo seems to, I have seen their DS units in a lot of colors. Related to Apple and the iPod, SanDisk offers the Sansa in a range of colors. It can be a challenge though, as Apple showed with the mythical white iPhone 4.
- rkudeshi 16y agoAh, good one. Completely forgot about Nintendo. /proud owner of a Game Boy Micro with swappable color faceplates. (Also just remembered that you could change the faceplate on the Xbox 360, at least before the slim version.)
- jcitme 16y agodon't forget the TI84
- jimbokun 16y agoMy kids have standard White Wii, but talk longingly about owning the Red Wii.
- hnhg 16y agoThe Gamecube was also released in a range of colours. http://www.gamecubeconsole.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/GameCube-Console-colors.jpg http://www.gamecubeconsole.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/G...
- mambodog 16y agoNintendo has been doing this kind of individualisation-through-colours for a long while in both their hand-helds[1] and consoles[2]. [1] http://www.dijitalfix.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/gameboy02.jpeg http://www.dijitalfix.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ga... [2] http://www.oldskool.tv/images/OLDSKOOL/november/nintendo_64_image.jpg http://www.oldskool.tv/images/OLDSKOOL/november/nintendo_64_...
- smackfu 16y agoYeah, all the $30 MP3 players come in a wide range of colors.
- bkudria 16y agoIf Apple were so serious about color, they'd let you see all the colors and black/white iPad 2 combinations.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ghurlman 16y agoSomehow, I think you'll see exactly that in the retail stores come March 11.
- bkudria 16y agoI looked but I can't find a link to this "retail stores". Where is it?
- ugh 16y agohttp://store.apple.com/us/product/MC947LL/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC947LL/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY All colors with the two iPads in ridiculously high resolution. Click (twice!) to zoom in all the way.
- bkudria 16y agoThank you. I think I like White iPad + Red Leather.
- jodrellblank 16y agoThere you go, you're no longer thinking about whether an iPad is right for you, you're thinking whether a Black iPad with brown cover is more right than a White iPad with Red leather. "I'd like to schedule a meeting with you, is Wednesday afternoon, or Friday morning better for you?" ;)
- MaysonL 16y agoAh, the power of framing and anchoring.
- julianz 16y agoCars? Pretty much every other consumer product in history? Other than those two, I totally see your point.
- angelbob 16y agoAnd yet in electronics (computers, smartphones) this is still innovation, alas.
- moe 16y agoSmartphones perhaps, but other mobile phones have had swappable covers forever (e.g. nokia).
- dekz 16y ago"great artists steal"
- sjs 16y agoDell has offered a range of colours on their notebooks for at least a few years. It's rare but not unheard of. Also the Panasonic Shockwave walkmans and discmans of the 90s. There are 2 off the top of my head.
- jodrellblank 16y agoColoured plastic gadgets are rare and new? Pardon? http://images.google.com/images?q=digital+camera+colours http://images.google.com/images?q=digital+camera+colours http://www.homedosh.com/wp-content/uploads/bodum-bistro-colored-toaster1.jpg http://www.homedosh.com/wp-content/uploads/bodum-bistro-colo... http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu6/economix/Sony%20Reader/sonycolors.png http://i628.photobucket.com/albums/uu6/economix/Sony%20Reade... http://www.equip-u.com/shop/images/products_computers/bstk-Bumpy-USB-mouse.jpg http://www.equip-u.com/shop/images/products_computers/bstk-B... http://de-en.sonoro-audio.com/tl_files/images/site/de/cubo_2010/gallery/cubo_2010_colours_front.jpg http://de-en.sonoro-audio.com/tl_files/images/site/de/cubo_2... - clock radio and iPod dock. http://images.google.com/images?q=swatch http://images.google.com/images?q=swatch http://www.avreview.co.uk/news/images/elegante_range_big.jpg http://www.avreview.co.uk/news/images/elegante_range_big.jpg - loudspeakers http://images.teamsugar.com/files/users/1/15111/34_2007/Colorful-Panasonic-Phones.jpg http://images.teamsugar.com/files/users/1/15111/34_2007/Colo... http://www.tuccistore.co.uk/mens-1/accessories-11/paul-smith-unisex-toothbrush-234649-87379.jpg http://www.tuccistore.co.uk/mens-1/accessories-11/paul-smith... http://www.lovingoutdoors.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/600x600/4e3061b3f3826cd42fa026f4dde98714/p/o/powermonkey_explorer_06.jpg http://www.lovingoutdoors.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/... http://www.techshout.com/images/dell-inspiron-colors.jpg http://www.techshout.com/images/dell-inspiron-colors.jpg OK, so you can't get the same ADSL router in a choice of colours that I know of, or the same book with a choice of covers, but choice of colours in stuff is not innovation.
- Charuru 16y agoErr, choice is either good or bad, pick one. Every company from Nokia to Dell has colorful variations of most devices. What I remember was people praising Apple for their simplicity and elegance in deciding your color for you.
- Florin_Andrei 16y ago> Has any other company used color in such a way? Compared to Apple, all the other computer companies look socially inept. It's like the difference between someone who actually understands how people work, and a bunch of Mr. Nerd McDorky.
- GHFigs 16y agoThe article mentions Kodak in 1927, which is an important year for color in the design of products. 1927 was the year that Catalin plastic was introduced. It was like Bakelite without the sawdust filler, so it could be produced in colors other than black and brown, and could be left translucent or marbled, as well. This was used to great effect all over the place, but the staggering variety of beautiful radio sets of the 30s to 50s are a particularly good example.
- Hoff 16y agoThe business PC gear has been dull, but some of the consumer gear has had color options. Dell has had various colors available for their systems for a number of years, and HP was selling designer-labeled minis for a while. Here's the Dell Color site, for example: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/dell_color http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/dell_color AlienWare (now at Dell) VoodooPC (now at HP) and other high-end vendors have some pretty wild cases and color schemes.
- 6ren 16y agoFord
- Semiapies 16y ago"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."
- InclinedPlane 16y agoCompact point & shoot digicams typically have a variety of color options (Canon, Fuji, and Sony at least do).
- dagw 16y agoPentax has been also been pushing this strategy with their low end DSLRs. See http://www.aperturedaily.com/get-bored-with-black-pentax-k-x-dslr-gives-you-100-colours/ http://www.aperturedaily.com/get-bored-with-black-pentax-k-x... for some examples. Although I can't find any data on how successful they've been.
- enjo 16y agoIsn't that what cases and the like are for cell phones? Incidentally, it's precisely this is why I think Android wins:)
- mayukh 16y agoThe biggest takeaway for me from the event was Steve Jobs
- aufreak3 16y agoAbsolutely spot on! Around the time the iPad1 launched, I told one of my close friends "imagine GarageBand on this!" and it is absolutely thrilling to see such a lovely implementation come to the iPad2. Using the accelerometer to detect the force with which you hit the piano keys is really clever!
- krig 16y agoI just watched the video from the event, and as someone who likes to record music once in a while, Garageband looks completely amazing. As it is, most of the time when I have spare time to spend on making songs I'm not around all the equipment that I need to do that. If it holds up to the promise of the video, it looks like I can go on vacation and just bring the ipad and a guitar, and I can record full song ideas with basic drumming, chords and singing parts, arrange different parts etc. This looks like it'll be huge for song writers, really. Sure, an acoustic guitar and a simple four-track recorder does the same basic thing, but this is like a mini pro tools. Can't wait to play with it.
- ranebo 16y agoI agree it looks stellar. But as a developer of songwriting applications ( I believe the "Smart Instruments" are a basic implementation of our ideas ) my heart dropped when I saw the price. $4.99 for this amount of content is amazing, but also impossible for smaller devs to compete with head on. With that in mind I hope shortly after release Apple publishes some sort of easy way to export directly to Garage Band so that more niche products can ride the coat tails.
- flyosity 16y agoGreat article with a unique viewpoint. Tech blogs, geeks like us and pundits are obsessing over RAM and minute details of the spec sheet while consumers will be playing with the new software, trying on Smart Covers and imagining an iPad 2 as a fashion accessory.
- brudgers 16y ago>"One measure of the suite's success is journalism school." Journalism and other departments within US universities push Apple products because of the high profits those schools earn on Macs and iPods sold through on campus bookstores to incoming freshman using their student (and parental) loans.
- YooLi 16y agoYes, it has to be that. It can't be that they are the best tool for the job.
- mirkules 16y agoNot sure why the gp got down voted, I think his point is valid, albeit wrong. Student bookstores sell computers, hardware and software at a student discount - my uni sold macbooks at a $100 discount from retail price. This stuff is sold (or sometimes even given away) for the purpose of locking students into a platform. For example, my uni gave away ms software, like visual studio, to try to encourage adoption, train the students to use ms tools (so when they graduate, they are more likely to find a job using ms tools), and to thereby lock us into their platform. It used to be Sun, then MS. Apple is now doing it, and whoever comes after Apple will do it...
- ugh 16y agoI think pretty much every company on the planet has student discounts. It’s nothing special, it’s nothing specific about Apple. (And it makes, economically speaking, a lot of sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination)
- brudgers 16y agoFor on campus bookstores, computer sales to students correlate to x computers per student not y dollars of total sales. Thus even after discounts, the higher price of Apple products means a greater revenue for the bookstore than Windows or Linux based machines (and greater net earnings assuming constant margins). The amount a student is able to borrow depends on the costs calculated by the University. Therefore, the higher cost of Macs can be built in to the student's loan package - with the university receiving a portion of that additional money back with fewer restrictions on how it is spent (unlike tuition and fees). That is particularly attractive to public universities. In smaller college towns, the University may be the only bookstore which sells Macs due to the difficulty an independent bookstore has in qualifying as a Mac dealer as Apple has shifted its retail strategy over the past few years. This again gives the university a financial incentive to require Macs and other Apple products.
- jodrellblank 16y agoSpeaking of Apple polish, why is the cover choice between "leather" (luxury car seats, fashionable gloves, sexy clothing) and "polyurethane" (chemical plant, medical inspection, man made, dystopia). Why haven't they given it a pleasing, desirable, luxury name?
- Semiapies 16y agoProbably because people would just say, "They're trying to sell it to us as PoshSoundingName, but it's just nasty old polyurethane!"
- mhb 16y agoSo that everyone will buy the more expensive leather.
- cubicle67 16y agobut it's what spacesuits are made of :)
- mambodog 16y agoPeople who want a COLOURFUL!!! case don't really care what the material is called. It's colourful! People who want the leather case care very much that it is leather. Similarly people buying the white Macbook don't care what 'polycarbonate' means, but to the Macbook Pro buyer, 'precision aluminium unibody', 'edge-to-edge glass' and previously 'titanium' are/were selling points.
- js4all 16y agoGreat article. I never thought about the colors. I always chose black and wondered about the other colors. Suddenly it all makes sense.
- AngeloAnolin 16y agoNo offense intended, but my first impression on the headline was that it was probably announcing that Steve Jobs health concerns are concerns no more, after he presided over the launch. That to me is a big announcement considering that a lot of investors and apple product loyalists have a sense of urgency when it comes the apple chief's health.