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Apple have only had 1 successful product, and thats a flat device with a screen for media consumption. iPod, iPhone, and iPad are just different sizes of this d

by alt227 3y ago

Apple have only had 1 successful product, and thats a flat device with a screen for media consumption. iPod, iPhone, and iPad are just different sizes of this device. The only thing Apple have done which elevated themselves above their peers is have marketing which positioned them higher in the market. Remember those Black and White ads of Steve Jobs next to Ghandi, Malcolm X, and Charlie Chaplin? They are paying off now in spades.

swatcoder 3y ago
That interpretation seems pretty out of sync with their financial history across divisions, their operating margin across divisions, their customer loyalty across divisions, and pretty much everyone's experience of the world, but maybe you're right. You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something, but that's kind of the point of it all: by targetting high margins and precisely volume instead of low margins and maximum volume, they really don't need to care what you think. And that lets them approach products differently.
- alt227 3y ago
  >You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something. Thats quite a stretch to assume that opinion from my comment? I actually love Macbook Pros. IMO they are the best Laptop ever built. However in the global market of laptops they are not patrticularly successful. The entiety of the MacOS ecosystem (of which Macbook Pros are a small percentage) barely breaks 20% of the market share. Are their products more reliable, more fully featured, and objectivley better than their competitiors? No they are not. The reason they are regarded as a more premium option in the market is not because they make less product with more profit margin, its because they have had an incredibly clever marketing department for the last 20 years meticulously curating their brand presence and public perception into being the most premium tech company which produces the best products.
  - mcphage 3y ago
    > The entiety of the MacOS ecosystem (of which Macbook Pros are a small percentage) barely breaks 20% of the market share. Market share is the goal, making money is the goal. Market share helps, but it isn't the same thing. MacBooks do pretty well.
  - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
    That's the difference in strategy. Apple only cares about profits not about market share. Market share only matters when margins are low and you need volume to bring revenue numbers up. When your margins are high, you can have a much smaller market share but also use that to create a more opinionated brand image and drive brand loyalty.
    - alt227 3y ago
      Thats fine until your revenue growth stagnates. Its then that your shareholders come knocking demanding growth, at which point market share becomes incredibly important. When that happens, opinionated brand image needs to become much more generic brand image to start attracting more of the market. This is what happened with Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, and it will happen to Apple too.
      - onethought 3y ago
        It already happened to Apple in the 90s and Jobs explicitly killed it as a strategy and culture in Apple. I think if they went back to that they’ve lost a serious bit of their DNA. You mentioned Mac only having a 20% market share. Who has the bigger one?
      - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
        Xerox, IBM, and Microsoft were unable to stay innovative. All three brands had huge missteps entering emerging market categories. Xerox stumbled during the PC transition, IBM with commodity servers, and Microsoft with mobile. The risk of building a brand is building an inflexible brand that doesn't have the agility to change. It's true that trying to enter every market and own a huge market share in it can lead to lower risk of having to stay ahead of every innovation (as we can see with Google and its inability to productize AI properly) but since Apple's turnaround its execution has been top notch, and that was 20 years ago. With products like the Vision Pro Apple is explicitly trying to avoid losing the innovation race that Xerox, IBM, and Microsoft did.
astrange 3y ago
That's not what marketing is. Marketing is knowing what products people will enjoy buying, not just making ads after the fact. I also don't think most customers are old enough to remember those ads.

by alt227 3y ago

swatcoder 3y ago

That interpretation seems pretty out of sync with their financial history across divisions, their operating margin across divisions, their customer loyalty across divisions, and pretty much everyone's experience of the world, but maybe you're right. You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something, but that's kind of the point of it all: by targetting high margins and precisely volume instead of low margins and maximum volume, they really don't need to care what you think. And that lets them approach products differently.

alt227 3y ago
>You may not like their products, and you may think their customers are idiots hypnotized by villianous marketers or something. Thats quite a stretch to assume that opinion from my comment? I actually love Macbook Pros. IMO they are the best Laptop ever built. However in the global market of laptops they are not patrticularly successful. The entiety of the MacOS ecosystem (of which Macbook Pros are a small percentage) barely breaks 20% of the market share. Are their products more reliable, more fully featured, and objectivley better than their competitiors? No they are not. The reason they are regarded as a more premium option in the market is not because they make less product with more profit margin, its because they have had an incredibly clever marketing department for the last 20 years meticulously curating their brand presence and public perception into being the most premium tech company which produces the best products.
- mcphage 3y ago
  > The entiety of the MacOS ecosystem (of which Macbook Pros are a small percentage) barely breaks 20% of the market share. Market share is the goal, making money is the goal. Market share helps, but it isn't the same thing. MacBooks do pretty well.
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  That's the difference in strategy. Apple only cares about profits not about market share. Market share only matters when margins are low and you need volume to bring revenue numbers up. When your margins are high, you can have a much smaller market share but also use that to create a more opinionated brand image and drive brand loyalty.
  - alt227 3y ago
    Thats fine until your revenue growth stagnates. Its then that your shareholders come knocking demanding growth, at which point market share becomes incredibly important. When that happens, opinionated brand image needs to become much more generic brand image to start attracting more of the market. This is what happened with Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, and it will happen to Apple too.
    - onethought 3y ago
      It already happened to Apple in the 90s and Jobs explicitly killed it as a strategy and culture in Apple. I think if they went back to that they’ve lost a serious bit of their DNA. You mentioned Mac only having a 20% market share. Who has the bigger one?
    - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
      Xerox, IBM, and Microsoft were unable to stay innovative. All three brands had huge missteps entering emerging market categories. Xerox stumbled during the PC transition, IBM with commodity servers, and Microsoft with mobile. The risk of building a brand is building an inflexible brand that doesn't have the agility to change. It's true that trying to enter every market and own a huge market share in it can lead to lower risk of having to stay ahead of every innovation (as we can see with Google and its inability to productize AI properly) but since Apple's turnaround its execution has been top notch, and that was 20 years ago. With products like the Vision Pro Apple is explicitly trying to avoid losing the innovation race that Xerox, IBM, and Microsoft did.

astrange 3y ago

That's not what marketing is. Marketing is knowing what products people will enjoy buying, not just making ads after the fact. I also don't think most customers are old enough to remember those ads.