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Gruber is repeating the obvious, but in a convoluted way. Apple is about selling HW. Google is about selling ads. That's it. Everything else falls from that
by kenjackson 15y ago
Gruber is repeating the obvious, but in a convoluted way.
Apple is about selling HW. Google is about selling ads.
That's it. Everything else falls from that.
Google's goal is to commodotize HW, and I this is, at least theoretically, doable. Apple can't really commodotize ads, at least in no way I can think of.
- sshumaker 15y agoApple's goal isn't to commoditize ads, but to commoditize the software that runs on their hardware. And they've done an excellent job of that with the app store - with hundreds of thousands of apps available.
- pyre 15y agoI think that the point was that Google's revenue stream doesn't seem to be easily commodotizable, while Apple's (at least theoretically) is. update: Downvotes? In my HN? I was just clarifying what I thought the original author was getting at, which wasn't what the parent post to mine was arguing against. If you have a disagreement with what I say, then argue against it, rather than just down-voting. Then maybe we can both learn something, instead of "I disagree with you, and I want to let people know that, but I don't want to expose my ideas to possible ridicule so I'll lurk in the background."
- othermaciej 15y agoThe point of commoditization is to commoditize your complements. It's clear that hardware and software are a complement to ads, and software is a complement to hardware. Are ads a complement to hardware?
- pyre 15y agoIt's not necessarily a comparison of how Apple and Google will 'attack' each other. Just a statement of their situations. Apple's primary goal could be commoditized out from under it, while Google's is less likely to see that happen.
- ChrisLTD 15y agoExactly. A lot of Apple's big announcements today were about features that create lock-in. Your music is tied to a $25 iTunes subscriptions; your reading list, email, calendar, to do list, and office documents are tied to iCloud; they even want your text messaging tied to your iOS devices. Then there's all those apps you bought on the Mac and iOS App Stores that you'll never be able to transfer to another system. If you start using enough of these new features, switching away to Android, WebOS or Windows will be a nightmare.
- gfodor 15y agoThis is a striking point. Up until now, switching costs off of the iPhone were basically a matter of dealing with AT&T. Once the iCloud tentacles are in deep enough it will be nearly impossible to say goodbye to all the licensed content that I only can access through Apple devices.
- pyre 15y agoThough it depends on Apple's licensing terms, Apps that work on multiple platforms have an incentive to allow you to export the data that it syncs with iCloud. They want to keep you as a customer if you jump ship to Android.
- guptaneil 15y agoHow does iCloud make it harder to move away from iOS? All of my apps are already locked into iOS, regardless of iCloud. This is true of any OS though.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- mcherm 15y agoI'm not tethered to my apps... I can, if necessary, move to new apps. Once I did everything in Emacs, but I have moved on. I AM, however, tethered to my data.
- 15y ago
- bane 15y agoIt almost sounds like your conjecture is that, in the long run, Apple is destined to lose this.
- Tiomaidh 15y agoIf Google wins, hardware will be secondary, and Apple--that thrives on selling hardware--will decline. And it's possible that that will happen...it's also possible that it won't. Apple isn't destined to lose anything. It's just that they have the potential to lose much more than Google does--even if everyone uses Apple hardware, Google can still serve ads to a certain extent.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tedunangst 15y agoThe past is not always a good predictor of the future, but I think 10 years ago most people would have said that PC hardware was commoditized. You had your choice of a beige box running Windows from HP/Dell/Gateway. Apple has done a pretty good uncommoditizing it.
- zipdog 15y agoExcept that ads are not a core aspect of anything. Businesses don't need (many) ads if they can get targetted access to customers through other means (ie Facebook, Groupon). Applications don't need ads if they can get funding from other means (ie micropayments, app store dollars), and customers don't need ads, especially if they can become aware of interesting products in other ways (forums for the like-minded, such as reddit). Ads in the way that Google is selling them may be a declining market to dominate.
- extension 15y agoHardware is already commodotized but hardware+design is still Apple's monopoly. The thing that can change that is desktop manufacturing.
- philwelch 15y agoPeople don't want ads--but they do want hardware, and software, that's better than a mere commodity.
- norswap 15y agoAnd Gruber is about selling Apple. grin
- gaius 15y agoTrue but there is one crucial difference: people have to want a) Apple products and b) products advertised by Google. No end user actually wants ads.
- Tichy 15y agoI think Google is more about collecting data. Ads are just a byproduct.
- ordinary 15y agoI think you're confusing the end with the means. Collecting data is a method Google uses to be able to sell (more expensive) ads. The data collection is not where the money comes from, the ads are.
- Tichy 15y agoIt may be where most of the money comes from at the moment. But Google did not start out as an advertising company, and I don't think (from reading "In The Plex") they really want to be one, either. If they could kill ads, they would do it.
- sambeau 15y agoI don't agree. It's not just about money. Both companies are more complex & emotional than that. Apple really cares about creating well-designed technology and Google really care about indexing the world's information. It's in their DNAs.