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In my opinion, Apple has been a fashion company ever since the iPod. Remember the white earbud commercials? They've positioned themselves as a luxury brand, w

In my opinion, Apple has been a fashion company ever since the iPod. Remember the white earbud commercials? They've positioned themselves as a luxury brand, where it is considered fashionable among the general population to visibly own their devices. Sure, Mac-owning techies have additional reasons, but I don't think they drive the brunt of Apple sales.

minthd 12y ago
True, but at that time it was a combination of fashion and design(especially true for the iPhone's early years). But today the design arena is much tougher, with Google becoming very capable in design, and a lot of good ux/ui designers around(due to the difficulty of designing good apps and the importance of that). So now Apple is differentiating with what they can, which is fashion, and their unique positioning in the market.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
No, they've placed themselves as a premium but accessible fashion brand within the popular consumer tech market. Now, they're trying to sell a tech product to the status symbol market - which is a completely different proposition. I cannot see any way this can work, because Apple's upgrade cycle-driven minimalism is the exact opposite of the busily pointless lasting-heirloom-wannabe bling you get from brands like Vertu, Rolex, Patek Philippe, and the rest. Wrapping a thick layer of gold around a Mk 1 product that everyone suspects is going to be updated in a year or two isn't going to fix that. So it's a dangerous strategy. If it fails it's going to dampen sales of the cheaper models. IMO they should have stayed out of the fashion market until they had a model that truly qualified for heritage status, and then sold it as a very limited special edition, in something insanely expensive like diamond-coated aerospace platinum. If this turns into a 'This is still mass produced, but we made it shiny, gold, and very expensive as a thing' pitch, I think it will be completely wrong for that market.

minthd 12y ago

True, but at that time it was a combination of fashion and design(especially true for the iPhone's early years). But today the design arena is much tougher, with Google becoming very capable in design, and a lot of good ux/ui designers around(due to the difficulty of designing good apps and the importance of that). So now Apple is differentiating with what they can, which is fashion, and their unique positioning in the market.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

No, they've placed themselves as a premium but accessible fashion brand within the popular consumer tech market. Now, they're trying to sell a tech product to the status symbol market - which is a completely different proposition. I cannot see any way this can work, because Apple's upgrade cycle-driven minimalism is the exact opposite of the busily pointless lasting-heirloom-wannabe bling you get from brands like Vertu, Rolex, Patek Philippe, and the rest. Wrapping a thick layer of gold around a Mk 1 product that everyone suspects is going to be updated in a year or two isn't going to fix that. So it's a dangerous strategy. If it fails it's going to dampen sales of the cheaper models. IMO they should have stayed out of the fashion market until they had a model that truly qualified for heritage status, and then sold it as a very limited special edition, in something insanely expensive like diamond-coated aerospace platinum. If this turns into a 'This is still mass produced, but we made it shiny, gold, and very expensive as a thing' pitch, I think it will be completely wrong for that market.