08-14-2011, 07:26 AM | #121 | |
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"Consumers are sheep." It has nothing to do with Apple or memes at all. To suggest that the iPhone's success has absolutely nothing to do with trends, or "my BFF has one so I simply must have one or I'll just shrivel up and die, mommy" is ludicrous. Of course being a solidly designed device is a big part of it... it just ain't the whole picture. And I'm not saying "trendy" is bad or wrong or deplorable... I'm just saying it is a big factor. Why does crediting Apple's marketing campaigns with hitting home runs have to be construed as being critical of Apple, their products, or their designs? Why do you seem to see haters lurking everywhere? |
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08-14-2011, 10:15 AM | #122 | |
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I actually left out a major factor why the Ipod continues to dominate: Itunes. Prioor to 2003, there were hardware manufacturers and digital music sellers, but they were seperate businesses. It was Apple's genius to create an integrated solution and, through software, to make it as simple and seamless to consumers as possible. When your wife bought her Rio, it was up to her to find new content. She could depend on her techie hubby to rip CDs to her Rio and to find digital music stores online, of course. The ipod customer had Itunes. If the customer wanted to rip CDs , Itunes could that: if the customer wanted to buy and download new music, Itunes could do that: if the customer wanted to make fancy playlists, Itunes could even do that. And all without leaving the trusted Apple system (which Apple haters deride as the "walled garden"). Later , Apple customers through Itunes would move on to be able to buy movies, TV shows, and audiobooks. It is really the Apple ecosystem that is driving Apple's profits now. Apple may be "brilliantly marketing" the benefits of being in that ecosystem: but for many people, those benefits are real. |
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08-14-2011, 10:31 AM | #123 | |
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Apple's successful products are always lauded for their intuitive interface and great design. Reviewers and consumers praise them for this, again and again. Do they market these advantages well? Sure, but they aren't marketing what's non-existent. |
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08-14-2011, 10:52 AM | #124 | ||
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Last edited by DiapDealer; 08-14-2011 at 11:07 AM. |
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08-14-2011, 12:37 PM | #125 | |
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You stated -not implied- the latter. I think I'll leave it there. I'm inferring from the tone of your comment that further discussion would be unpleasant. |
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08-14-2011, 12:58 PM | #126 | ||
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Again, just for clarity's sake... are you're saying that there's just absolutely no way your opinion could be wrong? |
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08-14-2011, 02:08 PM | #127 | |
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The point of our little dispute is whether Apple's MASSIVE success is chiefly due to product quality and secondarily due to marketing (My view) or chiefly due to marketing and secondarily due to product quality (your view). Now the logic of your view is that Apple can succeed through great marketing of even inferior products. Indeed, there are many on Internet that put it precisely that way-no inference or implication needed. Now, I think one of the problems of Apple's success is that when people, particularly of the geekier sort, look at Apple products in isolation, they see products that are "flawed," "limited", and "crippled" .More charitably, they(like you do), see well designed products that are nevertheless inferior, spec wise, to many competitors' products. Yet consumer flock by the tens of millions to Apple products. How can that be, they say. Well, it must be that wonderful Apple marketing that leads around those consumer sheep. THAT's the major secret of Apple's success. Those who hold that view can also get to congratulate themselves on not being one of those "sheep". I think too that such folk tend to miss that Apple's success is not mainly through the creation of individual products that are great: what Apple has built up over that last 10 years is a SYSTEM that is great. The Ios platform is a system for distribution and sale of digital content through Ios devices. THAT is what consumers love, and they love it because it is demonstrably superior in terms of ease of use and content to the systems built by competitors, even though the competitor's PRODUCTS are superior in various ways. Does Apple's marketing help to make that point to consumers? OF COUUURSE! But if the SYSTEM was not in fact superior, Apple's marketing would not make it so. Why are Apple's "There's an app for that" commercials so successful? Because there really IS a app for just about everything you want to do in the App Store, whether you're a family man, a backpacker, or a pet lover. |
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08-14-2011, 03:22 PM | #128 | |||
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If you go back and read what was actually said you'll see that I was questioning the contention that non-Apple products were 'just for geeks' since the features that the 'average user' was likely to be concerned with (battery life, storage capacity, sound quality) were better in the competing products. I proposed that brilliant marketing was a major part of the reason that the competitors couldn't get a real foot in the door. You've countered with extremely valid points about the head start with iPod adoption and the strong ecosystem. That's all fine. But please don't attack me for perceived slights against Apple customers that simply don't exist in my posts. Graham Last edited by Graham; 08-14-2011 at 03:24 PM. |
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08-14-2011, 03:26 PM | #129 | |
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Thanks, stonetools. It seems we're not so far apart in our positions after all.
My only beef was that you were speaking in absolutes. Namely that Apple HAS the easiest and MOST intuitive interface and that somehow that "fact" was easily proven by the huge number of units sold... The End. Quote:
And I have done quite a bit of messing around with Amazon's new Cloud Reader. I like it. I can't see me utilizing it very often, but I can definitely see a lot of lunch-hour readers using it. It's a solid addition to their reader app fleet. |
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08-14-2011, 03:36 PM | #130 | ||
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08-14-2011, 03:58 PM | #131 |
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I've heard the term "walled garden" used in many contexts, and not only by people who hated the system being described. Way back when, I remember AOL and Compuserve being descried as walled gardens. I dare say Apple haters use it in a derogatory manner, but I think you're making a mistake if you assume that everyone who uses it to describe the Apple system hates Apple.
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08-14-2011, 08:34 PM | #132 | ||
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08-14-2011, 10:19 PM | #133 |
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RDM, don't you know that everything Amazon does is wonderful, because low prices, whereas Apple is EVUUL because it brought in agency pricing, all by itself, with Google , independent booksellers , and EVERYONE but Amazon being innocent bystanders?
Its worth noting , once again, that all these booksellers could have HTML 5 apps from day one, with all the Buy buttons they wanted. They decided to go native app instead, knowing that this put them at risk of Apple changing its approval policy. I don't agree with everything in the Macalope article, but his take is mostly spot on. |
08-14-2011, 10:32 PM | #134 | ||
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Last edited by RockdaMan; 08-14-2011 at 10:34 PM. |
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08-14-2011, 10:43 PM | #135 | |
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There is more to it. |
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