Posted on 01/07/2011 11:01:32 PM PST by Swordmaker
Excellent article. I will look forward to next week's article.
“Android isn’t an attempt to build the best mobile platform and sell it on its merits; it’s a play to control the vast majority of the mobile market, secure eyeballs for Google advertising and eliminate any threat to Google.”
I read this as nothing more that “Google is just a greedy company trying to push garbage to get ad dollars, making it oh so hard for Apple to do what is best for us. Next week I will explore how Apple can stop these b@stards”.
So, from what your saying, I gather that Google builds services like Google Maps, Gmail and Docs and gives them away for free not because they have a philosophical belief that web applications should be free, but rather because giving them away for free gives them a competitive advantage.
Good article. Google will likely find out other ways to make money beyond advertising. Android will be good for Google.
There are a lot of cheap but good tablets coming out running android 2.2. These are the generic noname devices coming out now. http://www.dhgate.com/wholesale/tablet+1080p+2.2.html#search
“Moreover, why would Google be so willing to empower network providers by giving them so much control over Android? Because it means wider adoption of Android, and as more Android-based devices flood the market, the hardware manufacturers themselves are increasingly irrelevant. As Android spreads, and the differences between different devices decrease as a result, there will be less competitive differentiation between manufacturers—consumers will, like they do in the PC market, shop based more on price than on who makes the device. At that point, hardware will be commoditized, and building a mobile device business based on a different OS than Android will be incredibly difficult. Profit potential will shift from selling actual devices (where margins will be small) to providing services for those devices—quite convenient for Google, who’s in the business of making web services and providing advertising. “
Great analysis.
It’s history repeating itself. Google is doing to Apple what Microsoft did to it a decade ago. Only Jobs genius to come up with the “next greatest thing” kept it from going under.
Can he do it again?
You would.
Android 2.2... the operating system that Google says is NOT DESIGNED nor Optimized, nor proper to use with Tablets. Right... Sure.
I looked at those on your drop shipper's list... not one of them would I consider "good."
Double that. By 2001, Apple was well into its rebound.
Only Jobs genius to come up with the “next greatest thing” kept it from going under.
That certainly helped, and that's the reason Apple is bigger (measured by market cap) than Microsoft today. But the central innovation that Jobs brought when he came back to Apple was its philosophy.
In the post-Jobs, pre-Jobs years, Apple tried to compete with Windows PCs on price. They offered a dizzying array of beige boxes whose lack of aesthetic design mirrored the uninspired engineering inside. During the Jobs interregnum, Apple tried and failed to become just another PC.
Jobs' first product launch when he came back was the iMac. It did not try to compete with the cheapest PCs, but offered a unique machine. Apple survives by differentiating its products; it is a unique, distinctive brand where its competitors are offering an interchangeable commodity.
That differentiation has been phenomenally successful with the iPod, which still has a dominant market position despite a decade of cheaper alternatives. It has done well for the Mac, which has had steady and accelerating market share growth for the last decade. I expect the iPhone to settle in somewhere between the two; it won't have the 70% share the iPod enjoys, but it won't drop to the 5-10% the Mac has.
Apple doesn't do commodity hardware. It doesn't do minuscule margins in a market where price is the only differentiating factor. That almost certainly means that Android phones will have greater unit sales, while Apple will have to console itself by setting the bar and making all the money.
Sure, there were other MP3 players before the iPod, but it took Apple to make it easy to use. The click wheel interface was amazingly simple and effective to use, and no other portable media player has come close since then in terms of usability.
Apple's decision to open the iTunes Music Store also completely changed the music industry, especially since 2007 when Apple dropped the FairPlay DRM restriction on music files and made the iTunes Plus (256 kbps variable bit rate AAC compression) format standard.
Today, the iPod ecosystem is gigantic, and it's not a coincidence that many "all in one" home theater systems and many car stereo systems--including OEM systems that come with the automobile from the factory!--include iPod-specific connections.
Sure, there were other MP3 players before the iPod, but it took Apple to make it easy to use. The click wheel interface was amazingly simple and effective to use, and no other portable media player has come close since then in terms of usability.
Apple's decision to open the iTunes Music Store also completely changed the music industry, especially since 2007 when Apple dropped the FairPlay DRM restriction on music files and made the iTunes Plus (256 kbps variable bit rate AAC compression) format standard.
Today, the iPod ecosystem is gigantic, and it's not a coincidence that many "all in one" home theater systems and many car stereo systems--including OEM systems that come with the automobile from the factory!--include iPod-specific connections.
Right, well, you are noticing the wide variety of devices there, right? That’s the manifestation of the trend.
Almost all agree that Android is just going to get better and better.
Android 2.2 is the first with the flash I understand. I also hear that 2.3 is going to be better, and that some will be waiting for 3.0 Many are happy with their sub $200 android 2.2 tablets, even if 2.2 isn’t optimized to run tablets.
They're going to "make all the money" by catering to high end of the hardware snob market?
Sometimes Apple's proponents are enough to make me want to avoid their products.
By making a better product that does not have to compete based on rock-bottom price. Is every car maker other than Kia "catering to the high end of the hardware snob market?" Is anyone who buys name brand instead of store brand canned soup a snob?
Sometimes Apple's proponents are enough to make me want to avoid their products.
Ditto the Windows proponents who seem to believe that you're a snob, or a hipster, or a befuddled fanboy if you buy what you consider a better option rather than the cheapest available option.
By making a better product that does not have to compete based on rock-bottom price. Is every car maker other than Kia "catering to the high end of the hardware snob market?" Is anyone who buys name brand instead of store brand canned soup a snob?
Sometimes Apple's proponents are enough to make me want to avoid their products.
Ditto the Windows proponents who seem to believe that you're a snob, or a hipster, or a befuddled fanboy if you buy what you consider a better option rather than the cheapest available option.
Does Mercedez-Benz "make all the money" in the automobile market? There's a place for the product. There's no place for stupid claims about what it does.
I don't care what you buy. Just don't try to tell me that it, or the company that makes it does things they don't do.
And I more than sure you posted it because it said the exact opposite, right? Riiiiight?
I just don’t understand the big attraction of having flash on a mobile device. If experiences with flash on my laptop are any indication, it will suck the life out of your battery in no time flat. At which point your mobile device becomes dependent more on being tethered to a wall socket, or other power source, than it is at being “mobile”.
But hey, if that’s what floats your boat, have it. As for me, I buy and use a mobile device to be “mobile”.
I don’t miss flash at all. And as for those websites that still want to rely on it; my business is going elsewhere.
I posted it because it is an excellent analysis economically. As a trained economist, I recognize excellence in such analysis... And I thought it worthy of posting. I'm sorry your Apple derangement syndrome bars you from appreciating it. Too bad.
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