High end eReader saves Apple - well almost.

[HarryT]

There are many jobs that certainly require constant attention on the computer screen. Mine, as a computer programmer, for example.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

There are many jobs that certainly require constant attention on the computer screen. Mine, as a computer programmer, for example.

Mine doesn't. If reflective displays disappeared, I'd quit reading novels and switch to audiobooks.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Mine doesn't. If reflective displays disappeared, I'd quit reading novels and switch to audiobooks.

Presumably, however, someone who finds that LCD screens hurt their eyes would be unable to do a job like mine. They really should seek advice from an optician - there's absolutely no reason for LCD screens to cause pain.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Presumably, however, someone who finds that LCD screens hurt their eyes would be unable to do a job like mine. They really should seek advice from an optician - there's absolutely no reason for LCD screens to cause pain.

One point that isn't often made with regard to LCD vs eInk is that after spending all day staring at an LCD screen I'd rather read on eInk.

Since I stare at LCD screens most of every day that puts me firmly in the eInk camp.

I have enjoyed books on my Nexus 7, but thinking about this it tends to be when I'm on holiday, and away from the LCD screens to some extent.

Graham

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Presumably, however, someone who finds that LCD screens hurt their eyes would be unable to do a job like mine. They really should seek advice from an optician - there's absolutely no reason for LCD screens to cause pain.

Offices tend to be well lit, so the difference in brightness between screen and surroundings is minimal and people sit further away from the screen than they would reading a book. I also don't find myself glued to the screen when programming, I tend to look away, type, stare off into the middle distance while thinking etc. Whereas with a book I'm staring at the screen with no interruptions.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

I also don't find myself glued to the screen when programming, I tend to look away, type, stare off into the middle distance while thinking etc. Whereas with a book I'm staring at the screen with no interruptions.

Precisely

[WillysJeepMan]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Innovative premium products can be a sustainable business model if you have good people and invest in development. Most companies aren't willing to do that, preferring to pinch pennies and kill the golden goose. I have no doubt that Apple may eventually do that, but they have been on a pretty good run since the the iPod and iTunes came out. Supposedly they had some five years worth of products in the pipeline when Steve Jobs died. We will see what comes out this year.

Emphasis on the "supposedly". It makes for a good story and probably makes shareholders rest easy, but there is no proof that the claim is true. Plus it gives the current leadership a "pass" if a product isn't an astronomical success.... "after all, this was one of Steve's babies".

When the Apple falls back to earth, and it will, no one will see it coming but everyone will be able to look back and point to the steps that caused it to happen.

[Greg Anos]

I going to stick my oar in...(I haven't had enough rocks thrown at me lately...)

Apple's talent has always been at taken an exist product/niche, which was relatively small, and with relatively clunky products, and creating an elegant, smooth product/interface for it. And charging a premium price for the resulting product.

It usually took years for competition to create a similar product, and reduce Apple's product to a niche product among the cognoscenti. It has happened over and over. (The only product where Apple maintained a major lead is the iPod, due to being there "fustest with the mostest" with iTunes. But even there, the competition offered a compelling price/performance ratio.)

So the real question about Apple's current lack of product is...what is out there that needs a "spiffing up" to become a mainstream product? The only thing I can think of would be a streaming media player (a spiffed up Roku) But is the marketplace going to pay, say $400, for a replacement of a product that costs $80-$100 currently? Or is there some other product you can think of to be "spiffed up"? That's Apple's future. And it has been since 1982...

[frahse]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I going to stick my oar in...(I haven't had enough rocks thrown at me lately...)

Apple's talent has always been at taken an exist product/niche, which was relatively small, and with relatively clunky products, and creating an elegant, smooth product/interface for it. And charging a premium price for the resulting product.

It usually took years for competition to create a similar product, and reduce Apple's product to a niche product among the cognoscenti. It has happened over and over. (The only product where Apple maintained a major lead is the iPod, due to being there "fustest with the mostest" with iTunes. But even there, the competition offered a compelling price/performance ratio.)

So the real question about Apple's current lack of product is...what is out there that needs a "spiffing up" to become a mainstream product? The only thing I can think of would be a streaming media player (a spiffed up Roku) But is the marketplace going to pay, say $400, for a replacement of a product that costs $80-$100 currently? Or is there some other product you can think of to be "spiffed up"? That's Apple's future. And it has been since 1982...

Very good points.
Apple's thing these past 10 or so years has been to take a so so product and reinvent it.

iPod from the old mp3 players. (I had a mp3 player with 32 MB of memory and earphones. I would download songs, use a program to compress the songs and try to get as many as I could on my device. There was no selector dial and certainly no display. 16 songs was my usual limit.)

iPhone from PDAs, and simple feature clamshell and brick phones. ( I had both.)

iPad from a failed MS tablet

They are trying with TVs as I mentioned earlier, but like watches, and other wearable devices there hasn't been any signs of a "breakthrough" that would wow even the Apple faithful. (After all most are spending all their spare money on iPhones and iPads.)

[Greg Anos]

Frashe,

This isn't a current problem. It dates back to when Steve Jobs was running Apple. He didn't have a follow-on to the iPad either...

[frahse]

Some of us that watch the Stock Market were waiting for Apple's share price to go further and further below $500, maybe back to $400, and then all of a sudden the stock price starts to go up. About $520 right now.

Why? We wondered why.
Well now it is plain to see.

Apple spent $14Billion to buy shares over 2 weeks to reinvigorate the share price. Probably they were worried about that next "resistance" level at $400.

Here is one take on the situation:




"Apple's $14 billion stock buyback helps save money on dividend payments
by Yoni Heisler Feb 7th 2014 at 6:00PM

Tim Cook yesterday revealed that Apple in the last two weeks alone snatched up US$14 billion worth of its own shares. That's an astounding figure that really puts Carl Icahn's investment in Apple to shame. To help put the $14 billion buyback into context, this tweet from Sammy the Walrus IV certainly helps paint an interesting picture."

For more:
http://www.tuaw.com/2014/02/07/apple...on-dividend-p/

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

This isn't a current problem. It dates back to when Steve Jobs was running Apple. He didn't have a follow-on to the iPad either...

You almost wish Jobs had groomed a younger, savvier, trend-attuned version of himself to sniff out the Next Big Overlooked Thing.

But even if he had, the two of them probably would have locked arms at some point in a sort of bearded entrepreneureal death grip and mesmerized each other to death.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

You almost wish Jobs had groomed a younger, savvier, trend-attuned version of himself to sniff out the Next Big Overlooked Thing.

But even if he had, the two of them probably would have locked arms at some point in a sort of bearded entrepreneureal death grip and mesmerized each other to death.

Makes me think of the scene in Love at First Bite - "You are getting sleepy." "No, you are getting sleepy."

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I going to stick my oar in...(I haven't had enough rocks thrown at me lately...)

Apple's talent has always been at taken an exist product/niche, which was relatively small, and with relatively clunky products, and creating an elegant, smooth product/interface for it. And charging a premium price for the resulting product.

It usually took years for competition to create a similar product, and reduce Apple's product to a niche product among the cognoscenti. It has happened over and over. (The only product where Apple maintained a major lead is the iPod, due to being there "fustest with the mostest" with iTunes. But even there, the competition offered a compelling price/performance ratio.)

So the real question about Apple's current lack of product is...what is out there that needs a "spiffing up" to become a mainstream product? The only thing I can think of would be a streaming media player (a spiffed up Roku) But is the marketplace going to pay, say $400, for a replacement of a product that costs $80-$100 currently? Or is there some other product you can think of to be "spiffed up"? That's Apple's future. And it has been since 1982...

Perhaps, but then again, you could say the same about 99.9999 percent of the companies out there (well, except the elegant, smooth part of it). Most products are a refinement of some pre-existing product. I'm having a hard time thinking of a product in recent history that was genuinely new.

Before the iPod, iPhone and iPad all came out, people were having trouble imagining how Apple would make money on the rumored product or what would make that product a winner. That doesn't mean that Apple's next product is going to be a winner, lord knows they have had some real turkeys, but keep in mind that Jobs really wasn't the guy who came up with all those products. He just had a pretty good track record for picking products that were winners and then making sure that the final product was elegant and smooth, i.e. something that enough people would be willing to pay a premium for.

We forget that the iPod wasn't an instant success, it didn't really take off until the iTunes store became a reality. When the iPhone first came out, there was a pretty big revolt against the web apps model. It took Apple some 6 months to cave on opening up the iPhone to developers. I would say that the other thing that Jobs was good at was recognizing when they had screwed up and moving to correct the error. Not many companies will do that.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Perhaps, but then again, you could say the same about 99.9999 percent of the companies out there (well, except the elegant, smooth part of it). Most products are a refinement of some pre-existing product. I'm having a hard time thinking of a product in recent history that was genuinely new.

Sony, 1975-1985? Took parts and created more new categories than Jobs did. And kept trying to keep a tight rein on the technology and charging a premium price. Look where they ended up.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Before the iPod, iPhone and iPad all came out, people were having trouble imagining how Apple would make money on the rumored product or what would make that product a winner. That doesn't mean that Apple's next product is going to be a winner, lord knows they have had some real turkeys, but keep in mind that Jobs really wasn't the guy who came up with all those products. He just had a pretty good track record for picking products that were winners and then making sure that the final product was elegant and smooth, i.e. something that enough people would be willing to pay a premium for.

Like the Apple III, Lisa, (and when there was no market for a $10,000 executive toy, he went out and did it again - see NeXt), the NeXt computer, PIXAR (Yes, PIXAR. Jobs had already given up on it and was dismantling PIXAR when Disney bailed him out creatively. Lucky for Jobs that Disney just bailed him out and didn't buy him out for a song. He would have sold out cheap at that time, not the billions of dollars a decade or so later).

That leaves the Apple II (Wozniack), The Mac (a renegade project inside Apple that Jobs didn't find out about until 6 months before launch (Jobs was too busy with Lisa) after 12 months of clandestine development. At least that what was said at the product launch in BYTE magazine in 1983, with Jobs concurring - and yes, I really go back that far), and the iPod world (with iTunes) (strictly Jobs vision. Me 'at's off to Duke. Since he had worked nice with Hollywood, the music industry thought he'd play nice with them. Suuuuckers...)

Originally Posted by pwalker8

We forget that the iPod wasn't an instant success, it didn't really take off until the iTunes store became a reality. When the iPhone first came out, there was a pretty big revolt against the web apps model. It took Apple some 6 months to cave on opening up the iPhone to developers. I would say that the other thing that Jobs was good at was recognizing when they had screwed up and moving to correct the error. Not many companies will do that.

Yep. But this doesn't follow the legend of Saint Steve...So beat me with a wet noodle...