A few thoughts from Apple’s announcements are underwhelming
NOT EVEN Apple messiah Steve Jobs could be bothered to get out of bed for the fruit-themed company’s announcements at its World Wide Developers Conference yesterday.
Fruit-themed? You mean the company that was named for the Beatle’s record label? I’ve always personally thought that Microsoft sounds like a male-enhancement/impotence clinic. While Jobs may not have been there, a record number of developers were.
Perhaps it was not his hormones playing up but he has developed an allergy to hype and a healthy contempt for the Apple cheerleading press that prints it without question. We can but hope that Steve’s brush with death might have led him to see what is really important.
The fact that he did not show up is telling. All he needed to do was take the stage and sit there. It would have made Apple’s fanbois and shareholders happy. One would think that if there were anything really new, or even something of substance, something Jobs wanted to personally unveil to the Apple faithful and be associated with, then he would have been there.
He didn’t show up at MacWorld in January either. Nor the announcement on the iPhone 3.0 software. Perhaps he’s embarrassed about those? It might be possible that the company is bigger than an ailing CEO.
Nothing in the stories that have been printed so far reveals anything earthshaking. One would think that reporters were covering a Tory party conference, where a leader breaking wind will get a standing ovation.
That’s true. The press didn’t get nearly as excited about Microsoft’s latest phone release or Zune update. They’re taking what people like and making it better. It’s surprising the press showed up at all.
Going by the list, Apple has cut the prices of its Iphones and Macs, bought in a super-fast version of the Iphone OS and gewgawed it up with shedloads more functions. It claims that its Snow Leopard is better than Windows 7 will ever be and therefore Apple Mac OS X users should go home and prepare for the pastel company’s imminent takeover of the entire computer market.
But lets look closer at what has happened. Apple has dropped the price of its Iphone to $99. However the price cut only applies if you are signed up to AT&T’s two year contract. This means that if you bought it, say only six months ago, then you will be royally annoyed.
This is called a subsidy. You get the phone for 1/2 price in exchange for a built-in repayment over the life of the 2-year contract. If you haven’t paid off your 2008 Sedan, you can’t be upset when the dealership won’t give you the new model at sticker price.
Apple isn’t trying to take over the computer market. Their price point and product range suggest that. Anyone who worked with a PC and a Mac in the 80’s would wonder if Macs did take over the market, at least in interface, UI, and interaction. But that’s another debate.
Besides, we reckon that few punters will want the $99 phone. Most of them will pay for the new Iphone 3GS model which has double the storage space and better battery life. It will be sold for the same price as the old Iphone.
What you are seeing here is not a price cut, but an outfit releasing a new phone whilst still attempting to flog off its inventory of obsolescent models. The dark satanic rumour mill says that Apple will not actually pay much for price reductions on the old Iphones but instead will saddle its US telco partner AT&T with the bill.
And what of this new Iphone 3GS? Apple says that the S stands for “speed” yet everyone knows that speed on a phone has more often to do with the network connection. The only way Apple is actually going to get any real speed increase is if it dumps AT&T, which is something it cannot easily and will not want to do.
Is Apple selling off old inventory? Sure. Do they have more inventory because people were anticipating a new iPhone? Definitely. Will they sell anyways? No doubt. Why wouldn’t a lower-cost phone be appealing? This is, after all, the same iPhone that has had appeal with the lower-income market already: The most significant nugget to take away from comScore’s study, called All about iPhone, is that the iPhone has seen a very high rate of adoption among households with lower rates of disposable incomes. Since June 2008, iPhone adoption has risen 48 percent among those earning $25,000 to $50,000 per year, and 46 percent among those making $25,000 to $75,000 per year. These growth rates are three times the rates of households that make more than $100,000 per year. (artstechnica). Besides, some of these users may end up buying a 3GS, lured into the store by the $99 model. And the network the 3GS runs on has twice the data rate. It may not be Sprint/Verizon, but it is faster.
And what of the new features on the Iphone 3GS? Well, there is a slight problem with most of these - they will not work on AT&T’s network.
Most of them? Like the compass? Video camera? New camera features? Voice recognition? 7.2 3G network? Increased storage space, speed, and memory?
Technology like tethering is not on AT&T’s agenda, MMS which has been around for donkey’s years might be around later this summer. If you queue for your new 3GS you will not be able to send videos using the new 3GS technology.
You can send videos using the web, which is the more likely scenario anyway. AT&T is going to support these features later this summer. Is tethering going to cost an arm and a leg as it does with AT&T’s BlackBerry plans? Probably so. Does AT&T look bad, and, by extension, Apple to its US customers? Sure. Can they do anything about it? Not yet.
Not Apple’s fault? Yes it is. It locks in its users to oppressive contracts with suppliers who can’t really support it. Apple’s insistance sic that it must control every aspect of supply is entirely Apple’s fault.
Suppliers who can’t support it? Like the 20+ worldwide carriers who will support it? AT&T isn’t looking good here, but their issues aren’t Apples. Anyone watching the keynote saw the obvious jabs at AT&T. Apple made a poor choice, but has no choice until next year. Any they’re applying pressure.
Now to these price cuts. It generally looks as if they will be about $300 off a 15-inch Macbook and $100 off a lower price 13-inch unibody model. The Macbook Air dropped to $1,500. Trivial price cuts like these in the middle of a recession are not really going to do anyone any good.
Apple’s sales haven’t been hurting yet (one example). Stock doing ok this year, and not bad overall since recession. Should they take significant profit cuts because of the economy? They’ve never been for the budget-conscious, but it just might be worth it. Drastically decreased in-house repairs on our 2,000+ Macs compared to 8 years of data with IBM and Dell laptops.
Anyone who can afford $1,700 for a top of the range Macbook is still going to be a high-end market buyer and while the Air looks jolly nice it is still too expensive for what you get. Most people are going to be buying at the lower end of the market and they will probably walk away from just $100 worth of savings. That is nothing in today’s market and hardly qualify as the “drastic cuts” reported by Fox News.
Several hundred dollars of cuts are drastic. Whether the product is appropriately priced is another question.
Of course Apple and its tame press called this aggressive pricing. Most people would call it a token cut in the face of an overwhelmingly bad economic outlook.
Again, not concerned about that. Perhaps Apple should start selling $399 netbooks that people can afford and aren’t profitable. Maybe they should give their next laptops away, especially to the unemployed.
Likewise the claim that Apple was showing “no mercy” with its low price tag for Snow Leopard. Leopard users will only have to pay $30 for the upgrade.
This is good news given the price tag that Vista users will have to pay for their upgrade to Windows 7. But Snow Leopard offers few new features for most Apple users. The new version is being released mostly to cover up for the spotty performance Leopard brought on for its users - much like Windows 7 is to Vista. Most of the ‘improvements’ Snow Leopard is offering would be done for free by a Windows service pack.
Snow Leopard doesn’t claim to have any new features, except being re-tooled from the ground up, free Exchange support, 1/2 the disk footprint, increased 64-bit support, and performance enhancements. It’s also the 7th significant OS release in the last 9 years. And spotty performance? Evidence? More Mac users are running and are happy with Leopard than any prior release of the OS. Are there yet more Vista users than XP?
Perhaps Apple should call Snow Leopard Leopard SP1 and offer it in Home, Professional, Small Business, Medium Business, Self-employed, Corporate, and Ultimate editions. (My wife bought a copy of 7-year-old XP Home for $199 18 months ago after Vista came out. We could have bought a 5-pack for 6 month old Leopard for the same price.)
Apple chunked out its usual snide comment about Windows 7. It said that Windows 7 was just another version of Vista. One of the things about insulting people is you often reveal your own weaknesses, it’s called projection. Most people also recognize that Snow Leopard is just another version of Leopard, too.
Yep, there were a few snide remarks. Apple said several times Snow Leopard is not a new cat, but a better leopard. It’s not something people recognize, it’s Apple choosing to optimize for this OS release rather than create.
So why didn’t Jobs show up? He is supposed to be going back to work in about a week so he should have been there. Perhaps there was nothing going to be announced that he was proud of.
Why didn’t Jobs show up? Does he need to? Isn’t he still on medical leave? To prove the company/demos can be successful without him? What would he want announced to be proud of? If he’s embarrassed, he should just take his billions and go home. He’s coming back to the company, though, perhaps not ever to give a keynote again.