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I really enjoyed the first half talking about how Apple and Nintendo followed a blue ocean strategy. Then the second half ranting about removable batteries felt

I really enjoyed the first half talking about how Apple and Nintendo followed a blue ocean strategy. Then the second half ranting about removable batteries felt totally out of place. I’m not sure I buy the blue ocean strategy of that, although well written.

dangus 3y ago
I agree. It made no sense after the excellent first half. Apple has designed the Mac to become obsolete in approximately 10 years. That’s when you lose official OS support. And yes, you can get your battery serviced but nobody’s going to buy a $200 battery for a laptop worth $500. Adding it back wouldn’t be a blue ocean, it would just be Apple ceding profits to nobody. Apple’s blue ocean is stacking ecosystem benefits. If you have an iPhone it makes more sense to own a Mac or an Apple Watch. If you own a Mac or Apple Watch it makes more sense to own AirPods. If you own AirPods it makes more sense to own an Apple TV.
- jen20 3y ago
  I don't disagree with anything you've written, but (somewhat) regularly buy new batteries for my Lenovo X220, at about the same price to value ratio.
jldugger 3y ago
> I really enjoyed the first half talking about how Apple and Nintendo followed a blue ocean strategy. Let me fix that for you. Blue ocean is roughly the idea of inventing new markets. While it might apply to Nintendo, that's really a stretch and I view it as product differentiation in a highly entrenched market where Sony and Microsoft are clear sharks in the water. If you look at Apple's product and marketing history, blue ocean has not applied in two decades. The iPod was hardly the first MP3 player -- Diamond Rio was already in that space. There were several smartphones in the market before apple shipped iPhone, people were speculating on when for years before it was announced. Smartwatches supported android 2 years before Apple Watch Series 0 shipped. HomePod shipped 5 years after the first Amazon echo. What Apple does is wait for other people to prove out the market, and then produce an expensive high end version. This is an effective strategy that captures a lot of high margin & affluent demand, but it's very clearly a red ocean strategy. A blue ocean strategy doesn't have to shout "Think Different," your product uniqueness is obvious and usually confusing. A red ocean strategy means focusing on margins, inventory, and balancing product differentiation versus convention. It means keeping your product secret until the big announce and suing competitors who copy you. At one point Tim Cook was calling himself the Atilla the Hun of operations, and was quoted in articles as saying "inventory is the root of all evil."
- fckgw 3y ago
  This is very reductive of the impact the iPod and iPhone had on the market. Every product has little bits and pieces of other products in it's DNA but to say the something like the iPhone didn't create the Smartphone market just because the Blackberry or the Sidekick existed is a little silly. Even the iPad, which has clear lineage decades back to the horrible Windows XP tablets, create a whole new market category out of thin air.
  - jldugger 3y ago
    I'm not saying these are not great products, or that they didn't raise the bar. I'm saying they all launched with directly comparable competitors, and everyone knew what it was supposed to do. In popular imagination, the iPhone was supposed to make calls, send text messages, take pictures, and play music. A cameraphone, iPod and BlackBerry. The fact that I can make such an equation should be a hint that we're not talking blue ocean. > Even the iPad, which has clear lineage decades back to the horrible Windows XP tablets And maybe even the Newton. That was a better example of "blue ocean" product strategy.

dangus 3y ago

I agree. It made no sense after the excellent first half. Apple has designed the Mac to become obsolete in approximately 10 years. That’s when you lose official OS support. And yes, you can get your battery serviced but nobody’s going to buy a $200 battery for a laptop worth $500. Adding it back wouldn’t be a blue ocean, it would just be Apple ceding profits to nobody. Apple’s blue ocean is stacking ecosystem benefits. If you have an iPhone it makes more sense to own a Mac or an Apple Watch. If you own a Mac or Apple Watch it makes more sense to own AirPods. If you own AirPods it makes more sense to own an Apple TV.

jen20 3y ago
I don't disagree with anything you've written, but (somewhat) regularly buy new batteries for my Lenovo X220, at about the same price to value ratio.

jldugger 3y ago

> I really enjoyed the first half talking about how Apple and Nintendo followed a blue ocean strategy. Let me fix that for you. Blue ocean is roughly the idea of inventing new markets. While it might apply to Nintendo, that's really a stretch and I view it as product differentiation in a highly entrenched market where Sony and Microsoft are clear sharks in the water. If you look at Apple's product and marketing history, blue ocean has not applied in two decades. The iPod was hardly the first MP3 player -- Diamond Rio was already in that space. There were several smartphones in the market before apple shipped iPhone, people were speculating on when for years before it was announced. Smartwatches supported android 2 years before Apple Watch Series 0 shipped. HomePod shipped 5 years after the first Amazon echo. What Apple does is wait for other people to prove out the market, and then produce an expensive high end version. This is an effective strategy that captures a lot of high margin & affluent demand, but it's very clearly a red ocean strategy. A blue ocean strategy doesn't have to shout "Think Different," your product uniqueness is obvious and usually confusing. A red ocean strategy means focusing on margins, inventory, and balancing product differentiation versus convention. It means keeping your product secret until the big announce and suing competitors who copy you. At one point Tim Cook was calling himself the Atilla the Hun of operations, and was quoted in articles as saying "inventory is the root of all evil."

fckgw 3y ago
This is very reductive of the impact the iPod and iPhone had on the market. Every product has little bits and pieces of other products in it's DNA but to say the something like the iPhone didn't create the Smartphone market just because the Blackberry or the Sidekick existed is a little silly. Even the iPad, which has clear lineage decades back to the horrible Windows XP tablets, create a whole new market category out of thin air.
- jldugger 3y ago
  I'm not saying these are not great products, or that they didn't raise the bar. I'm saying they all launched with directly comparable competitors, and everyone knew what it was supposed to do. In popular imagination, the iPhone was supposed to make calls, send text messages, take pictures, and play music. A cameraphone, iPod and BlackBerry. The fact that I can make such an equation should be a hint that we're not talking blue ocean. > Even the iPad, which has clear lineage decades back to the horrible Windows XP tablets And maybe even the Newton. That was a better example of "blue ocean" product strategy.