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This is all the more amazing since they have one super-high end product vs the balanced product portfolio of Nokia. You'd have to imagine this makes Apple's po

This is all the more amazing since they have one super-high end product vs the balanced product portfolio of Nokia. You'd have to imagine this makes Apple's position a bit tenuous.

unalone 17y ago
Really? I'd argue the opposite. I argued the opposite last year, when everybody said that Apple's focusing on the high end would crash them during the recession. Apple focuses on quality, and charges decently for what they offer, I bought this computer a year ago, and it's still performing splendidly, and I expect it to continue for a long while. Meanwhile, the people I know who are looking for computers are thinking more and more about the low-end Macs, because while they're expensive, they're not computers you'll have to replace any time soon. If you only have a little money, you make sure it goes to something really good instead of to waste. Apple's position is only tenuous if you think another company can make a better phone and price it more cheaply. I think neither will happen.
- dschobel 17y ago
  The $999 macbook is an example of exactly the sort of downward market movement which I'm speaking about.
  - unalone 17y ago
    You mentioned no downward market movement whatsoever. Reread your comment.
    - dschobel 17y ago
      The reasonably rational person would infer from my comparison of Apple's two high-end product offerings vs Nokia's balanced offering and my saying that the former leads to a more tenuous market position that the intent was clearly to advocate introducing a lower-end unit with a cheaper data plan (the analogue to the $999 macbook).
      - unalone 17y ago
        No, they wouldn't, because you didn't say that. They would instead infer merely that you were suggesting Apple wouldn't remain in their position long, because that's all you said.
        deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - allwein 17y ago
        I think unalone has a point. My reading of your comment was along the lines of "With only 1 product (essentially), Apple is in a tenuous position because if the iPhone is unsuccessful or is beaten (by Android or whatever) then they're completely out of the market. Whereas if Nokia had 50% of their phones fail completely, they'd still have 60+ phones to enable them to compete in the market."
        bjelkeman-again 17y ago
        So if a handset manufacturer manages to build a better iPhone then suddenly Apple will sell no more iPhones? I don't think so. None of the handset manufacturers have the Apple ecosystem: App store, iTunes Store (video+music), nice desktop integration, OS X. A phone with worse camera, less memory, slower processor, more expensive etc. than the rivals, from Apple I think could still outsell them, because of the Apple ecosystem. Oh wait... ;)
      - ghshephard 17y ago
        Well, for what it's worth, I inferred that what you were saying was that Apple, betting everything on a single, high end product was risky, and that if people decided to start focusing on value purchases, or Apple couldn't convince people that their brand/product was so much better, that they would have come crashing down.
ohhmaagawd 17y ago
$99/199/299 is not "super high end".
- dschobel 17y ago
  The subsidized price is not what I was referring to.
  - cakesy 17y ago
    But it is how most people get an apple.
danek 17y ago
Nokia has a balanced portfolio of crap. I used nokia phones for 4 years before getting an iPhone. Their menu systems look like they are designed by programmers. They are so hard to use. I mean, you learn to live with it, but it got to the point where I was checking days off my calendar until the 3gs was released (figuratively speaking, I don't own a calendar). I had one phone that would always call people from my pocket because it had these 2 buttons on the side that if pressed at the same time, would activate voice dialing, and it would pick up random words from conversation and call whoever it thought you said. That made for some awkward moments. Oh, and there was no way to disable that "feature". When you are choosing between $79 anything phone + 2yr contract, or a $199 iPhone + 2yr contract, it's kind of a no-brainer, unless you want a cheap phone for some reason, like you happen to be really accident prone.
- blub 17y ago
  What happens if you lose the cheap 200$ phone, do you still have to pay for the 2yr contract? Do you get another phone for the same contract or do you have to make another contract? Anyway, that is not my experience at all with Nokia. They are very popular here in Europe because there is no carrier lock-in and anyone can get any phone that they want. This means that the best phones tend to win, not the ones that are the most subsidized. The high-end Nokia series are N (multimedia) and E (business). Your two-button key combination is either a bug, or you didn't lock your keypad.
  - danek 17y ago
    It was a flip phone and the buttons were on the side. no way to lock them. I checked the manual and that combination was the way to activate voice mode... Before I got my iPhone, I considered Nokias to be the best. In Europe the situation is different. You guys get way better phones than we do. I lived in France for a while and when I came back to the US, all the phones I could buy here looked 5 years old. Our contracts aren't tied to a specific phone (except for the iPhone), so if you lose your phone you can replace it with just about anything that would work with that carrier. I have a friend who loses his phone every few months and he usually buys a cheap replacement on eBay.
jsz0 17y ago
Apple is pretty good at staying ahead of the pack. A good example is the iPod line. The Classic was the original and the only iPod for several years. It was a high-end product selling for over $300. Eventually the market shifted towards smaller/cheaper players the Apple was able to make the Mini/Nano the most successful iPod while the Classic is now a niche product. Now the market is shifting towards convergence so the Nano gets more features and the Touch/iPhone become the future of the iPod. It will be interesting to see where they go from here. I don't think they'll make any big moves towards diversity until the market proves there is demand for it.

This is all the more amazing since they have one super-high end product vs the balanced product portfolio of Nokia. You'd have to imagine this makes Apple's position a bit tenuous.

unalone 17y ago

Really? I'd argue the opposite. I argued the opposite last year, when everybody said that Apple's focusing on the high end would crash them during the recession. Apple focuses on quality, and charges decently for what they offer, I bought this computer a year ago, and it's still performing splendidly, and I expect it to continue for a long while. Meanwhile, the people I know who are looking for computers are thinking more and more about the low-end Macs, because while they're expensive, they're not computers you'll have to replace any time soon. If you only have a little money, you make sure it goes to something really good instead of to waste. Apple's position is only tenuous if you think another company can make a better phone and price it more cheaply. I think neither will happen.

dschobel 17y ago
The $999 macbook is an example of exactly the sort of downward market movement which I'm speaking about.
- unalone 17y ago
  You mentioned no downward market movement whatsoever. Reread your comment.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    The reasonably rational person would infer from my comparison of Apple's two high-end product offerings vs Nokia's balanced offering and my saying that the former leads to a more tenuous market position that the intent was clearly to advocate introducing a lower-end unit with a cheaper data plan (the analogue to the $999 macbook).
    - unalone 17y ago
      No, they wouldn't, because you didn't say that. They would instead infer merely that you were suggesting Apple wouldn't remain in their position long, because that's all you said.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
    - allwein 17y ago
      I think unalone has a point. My reading of your comment was along the lines of "With only 1 product (essentially), Apple is in a tenuous position because if the iPhone is unsuccessful or is beaten (by Android or whatever) then they're completely out of the market. Whereas if Nokia had 50% of their phones fail completely, they'd still have 60+ phones to enable them to compete in the market."
      - bjelkeman-again 17y ago
        So if a handset manufacturer manages to build a better iPhone then suddenly Apple will sell no more iPhones? I don't think so. None of the handset manufacturers have the Apple ecosystem: App store, iTunes Store (video+music), nice desktop integration, OS X. A phone with worse camera, less memory, slower processor, more expensive etc. than the rivals, from Apple I think could still outsell them, because of the Apple ecosystem. Oh wait... ;)
    - ghshephard 17y ago
      Well, for what it's worth, I inferred that what you were saying was that Apple, betting everything on a single, high end product was risky, and that if people decided to start focusing on value purchases, or Apple couldn't convince people that their brand/product was so much better, that they would have come crashing down.

ohhmaagawd 17y ago

$99/199/299 is not "super high end".

dschobel 17y ago
The subsidized price is not what I was referring to.
- cakesy 17y ago
  But it is how most people get an apple.

danek 17y ago

Nokia has a balanced portfolio of crap. I used nokia phones for 4 years before getting an iPhone. Their menu systems look like they are designed by programmers. They are so hard to use. I mean, you learn to live with it, but it got to the point where I was checking days off my calendar until the 3gs was released (figuratively speaking, I don't own a calendar). I had one phone that would always call people from my pocket because it had these 2 buttons on the side that if pressed at the same time, would activate voice dialing, and it would pick up random words from conversation and call whoever it thought you said. That made for some awkward moments. Oh, and there was no way to disable that "feature". When you are choosing between $79 anything phone + 2yr contract, or a $199 iPhone + 2yr contract, it's kind of a no-brainer, unless you want a cheap phone for some reason, like you happen to be really accident prone.

blub 17y ago
What happens if you lose the cheap 200$ phone, do you still have to pay for the 2yr contract? Do you get another phone for the same contract or do you have to make another contract? Anyway, that is not my experience at all with Nokia. They are very popular here in Europe because there is no carrier lock-in and anyone can get any phone that they want. This means that the best phones tend to win, not the ones that are the most subsidized. The high-end Nokia series are N (multimedia) and E (business). Your two-button key combination is either a bug, or you didn't lock your keypad.
- danek 17y ago
  It was a flip phone and the buttons were on the side. no way to lock them. I checked the manual and that combination was the way to activate voice mode... Before I got my iPhone, I considered Nokias to be the best. In Europe the situation is different. You guys get way better phones than we do. I lived in France for a while and when I came back to the US, all the phones I could buy here looked 5 years old. Our contracts aren't tied to a specific phone (except for the iPhone), so if you lose your phone you can replace it with just about anything that would work with that carrier. I have a friend who loses his phone every few months and he usually buys a cheap replacement on eBay.

jsz0 17y ago

Apple is pretty good at staying ahead of the pack. A good example is the iPod line. The Classic was the original and the only iPod for several years. It was a high-end product selling for over $300. Eventually the market shifted towards smaller/cheaper players the Apple was able to make the Mini/Nano the most successful iPod while the Classic is now a niche product. Now the market is shifting towards convergence so the Nano gets more features and the Touch/iPhone become the future of the iPod. It will be interesting to see where they go from here. I don't think they'll make any big moves towards diversity until the market proves there is demand for it.