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Guest wellmont

 

It's funny that people can't grasp the simple concept of segmentation. Pointing to a Hyndai and saying that it offers the same experience as a Hyandai because it has 4 wheels, an engine , steering wheel and seats is plain stupid.

 

I totally understand that apple wants to be the Mercedes of smart devices. :) I guess we will see if that business model continues to work in fast changing consumer markets.

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Guest valueInv

 

It's funny that people can't grasp the simple concept of segmentation. Pointing to a Hyndai and saying that it offers the same experience as a Hyandai because it has 4 wheels, an engine , steering wheel and seats is plain stupid.

 

I totally understand that apple wants to be the Mercedes of smart devices. :)

If you do, stop saying that competitors offer the same products. I remember you comparing 7 inch Android tablets to the iPad mini. First, the screen on the mini is 30% bigger than a standard 7 inch. Second, go use the Android tablets, they are using smartphone apps on the tablet. The mini uses actual tablet apps. That is a big difference in experience. And you think that they are equivalent. Seriously?

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Guest wellmont

you're not factoring in price. the N7 is half the price. screen size doesn't matter. also tablet apps are now fine on android. you're reading too many backwards focused apple biased blogs. apple is losing huge share to android in tablets. cost matters to Most people. not so much to rich investors here.

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People will pay more for nice things. Why don't you get that? Not everybody of course, but a significant number do.

 

When you need a tablet, you want a good tablet, on a per dollar basis, maybe the N7 has more features, but it's not a per dollar basis, you're only going to buy one tablet which you plan on using for a while, and many will make the investment in a better product.

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Guest wellmont

most people don't care about upgrading on day one. besides if I want kitkat I could buy a nexus from play store, and that combined with the phone I already have would not be as expensive as a solid Gold Iphone. :)

 

The guys who buy high end phones do. Do you own a Nexus? I'm told that most of the high end Android market belongs to the Galaxy, which BTW got poor reviews for user experience.

 

people who write on tech blogs care about upgrades of OS for the 6 phones they carry. the people that buy galaxy 4 don't know or care about kitkat. they care about the next text they are going to send and the next video they are going to watch on Youtube or the next photo they are going to upload. they are not marking the calendar for the day kitkat comes out. people love their galaxies and notes. they are consciously choosing them over ip for the bigger screens which they love.

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Apple isn't trying to go after everyone. Apple has never gone after the very cost-sensitive people.

 

Think of it this way: If Porsche is going into China, are they going to make a Corolla-level vehicle just to sell to poorer people? Are they going to sell their 911s for half the price that they're selling them in the Western countries? Of course not. They'll just grab the premium and most lucrative slice at the top of the market and leave the rest to others. If the premium market is growing fast because the country is getting richer quickly, that'll just be an extra tailwind.

 

There's still tons of growth left to be had at the top of the market worldwide.

 

But even in a world where Apple owned 100% of the top market everywhere, they don't have to keep growing revenues forever to reward shareholders. As long as they have the most profitable part of the market (which developers will always flock to), they can use those profits to do buybacks and dividends and reward shareholders that way. No need to become a trillion+ dollar company if the sharecount keeps going down and they don't need that much cash for operations.

 

And that's just the phone and tablet market. There are also big opportunities in TV, cars, wearables, and other stuff we haven't thought of yet...

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Guest wellmont

People will pay more for nice things. Why don't you get that? Not everybody of course, but a significant number do.

 

When you need a tablet, you want a good tablet, on a per dollar basis, maybe the N7 has more features, but it's not a per dollar basis, you're only going to buy one tablet which you plan on using for a while, and many will make the investment in a better product.

 

I get that rich people pay more for nicer things. but there are only so many of them. n7 is a tremendous value, which is why it is taking share from way more expensive tablets.

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Not just rich people. I'm poorer than most of you, and I bought an iPad for my mother, and an iPhone 5 for myself....as my career progresses, you think I'm going to switch over to Kitkat and Nexus?

 

People at my office have iPhones, my cousin who's a student and doesnt have an FT job has an iPhone, the nurse at my grandpa's nursing facility has an iPhone. These aren't rich people.

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People will pay more for nice things. Why don't you get that? Not everybody of course, but a significant number do.

 

Yes clearly BMW's 3 series can't possibly compete against the Toyota Corolla which is the same size and close to half the price.  And the Hyundai Elantra is larger and closer to a third of the price. 

 

Just because more Elantra's and Corolla's will be sold every year, does that mean BMW needs a $15-20K car?

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Guest valueInv

most people don't care about upgrading on day one. besides if I want kitkat I could buy a nexus from play store, and that combined with the phone I already have would not be as expensive as a solid Gold Iphone. :)

 

The guys who buy high end phones do. Do you own a Nexus? I'm told that most of the high end Android market belongs to the Galaxy, which BTW got poor reviews for user experience.

 

people who write on tech blogs care about upgrades of OS for the 6 phones they carry. the people that buy galaxy 4 don't know or care about kitkat. they care about the next text they are going to send and the next video they are going to watch on Youtube or the next photo they are going to upload. they are not marking the calendar for the day kitkat comes out. people love their galaxies and notes. they are consciously choosing them over ip for the bigger screens which they love.

 

Every gadget freak who wants the latest and great does. IIRC, something like 60% of  iPhone users upgrade their OS within the first week. Apparently, they caee enough to do so. That called a market segment. The guys who don't care but cheap phones. Simple concept.

 

Here's the evidence:

 

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/28/ios-6-adoption-at-just-over-one-week-60-for-iphone-and-41-for-ipad/

 

Pay attention to reality sometimes.

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Not just rich people. I'm poorer than most of you, and I bought an iPad for my mother, and an iPhone 5 for myself....as my career progresses, you think I'm going to switch over to Kitkat and Nexus?

 

People at my office have iPhones, my cousin who's a student and doesnt have an FT job has an iPhone, the nurse at my grandpa's nursing facility has an iPhone. These aren't rich people.

 

Apple isn't going after rich people. It's going after discerning people (lots of teenagers and students and starving artists use Apple stuff, and lots of rich people don't), those who can tell the difference between its products and others. If you can't tell the difference in the experience, Apple isn't targeting you because you won't pay for something you don't notice.

 

Wellmont obviously doesn't see it, and that's fine. Personally I won't pay up for a nicer car because I don't care about cars, but I care about my electronics. Really well made ones make my life significantly better.

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Guest valueInv

People will pay more for nice things. Why don't you get that? Not everybody of course, but a significant number do.

 

When you need a tablet, you want a good tablet, on a per dollar basis, maybe the N7 has more features, but it's not a per dollar basis, you're only going to buy one tablet which you plan on using for a while, and many will make the investment in a better product.

 

I get that rich people pay more for nicer things. but there are only so many of them. n7 is a tremendous value, which is why it is taking share from way more expensive tablets.

 

Which is why we pay little attention to marketshare if it is not qualified with segmentation.

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http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-slow-oems-step-aside-google-is-defragging-android/

 

I dont really find this relevant to Apple's valuation, but Android upgrade strategy is shifting to avoid reliance on OEMs

 

This workaround helps Google with its own apps, but third party app developers are still left with a fragmented target afaik. Better than nothing, though.

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Guest wellmont

Most importantly, wellmont's points are refuted by empirical data. People buy this stuff up like crazy, and have been doing so for years.

 

"like crazy" --- thanks for the quantitative analysis of what's going on out there. :)

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Guest valueInv

Most importantly, wellmont's points are refuted by empirical data. People buy this stuff up like crazy, and have been doing so for years.

 

"like crazy" --- thanks for the quantitative analysis of what's going on out there. :)

 

Oh please, like you have been presenting data that shows people don't care about upgrades.

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if it's "high end" how come I can get the same "experience" with my $220 smartphone that I can with a $645 iphone? this is a faddish business. bbry can attest to that.

 

Except you can't get the same experience with your $220 smartphone, just like you can't get the same experience with your Nexus 7 v iPad Mini. Apple's industrial design is far superior, their fit and finish is better, their software is simple, well thought out and fun to use. It just looks and feels great. The first time I saw a MBA up close (at my dr's office), it was like "WHOA that's sleek". Couldn't justify paying $500 more for that, but I'm not really their target customer.  ;D

 

actually in some ways I get a better experience (maps gmail etc). be that as it may, what you're talking about is something quite elusive---wow factor, it factor, status factor. hard to maintain for makers of gadgets which undergo rapid technology change. sony had it at one point. I'm fine with that strategy. but it's time for apple to innovate beyond phones and tablets, where competition has caught up.

 

Everyone wants apple to "innovate" or revolutionize. WTF, the long term profits lie in being able to make small evolutionary changes before having to revolutionize anything. Constantly revolutionizing products makes no economical sense. While Apple made many small improvements/innovations in various products lines and in some cases created new product lines -- they've really made less than a handful of major innovations in the last decade.  I consider the major innovations the ipod/itunes and iPHone/iOS/Appstore. If you look at the ipod, it did not have first mover advantage, nor was it the price leader -- it did have nice design, a large hard drive, and itunes. Apple ended up selling 350 million ipods. The iPhone also did not have first mover advantage, nor was it the cheapest, but it had a nice design and iOS and the app store. 6 years later they've sold about 400 million iphones -- not bad.

 

Apple is basically following the same road map that the ipod laid out for them. 

 

Apple has presumably sold many iphone 4/4s that are basically a generation behind and realized that if they launch a nice new phone (that costs them a lot less to produce than the 5)  for $549 ($99 subsidized), that they will make a killing selling it -- even more next year when it's free with contract. (I'm assuming they've built a product that will offer them nice margins now, and even better or nearly as good a year from now even with a $100 haircut on price)

 

Apple has never competed directly on price or by tech specs. They flaunt this all the time -- this time with the new camera on the iphone 5s (I had iphone 1/3g/4 and left to Nokia for camera -- if this camera is great -- I'm going back to Apple despite liking windows 8 phone the apps suck). I own a macbook air -- for 1 main reason -- acer, asus, lenovo, etc. are clueless when it comes to making a touchpad that works well -- forget about the processor, the graphics card, if I can't easily move the mouse where I want to go I can't buy your laptop.

 

What opportunity to does everyone think Apple and in particular iOS has in the corporate market? (forget about touch ID for a second). I'm assuming Android is too fragmented to do well in corporate IT.

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I own a macbook air -- for 1 main reason -- acer, asus, lenovo, etc. are clueless when it comes to making a touchpad that works well -- forget about the processor, the graphics card, if I can't easily move the mouse where I want to go I can't buy your laptop.

 

Krazeenyc, your quote above about the "simplistic" issue of a proper mouse tracker being a decision-maker made me think of a post I made back in June...

 

I am not betting on Apple being able to come out with a new innovative a product. The ipad wasn't the first portable music device. But it had the best human-computer interface. Apple owns the game of putting people and machines together in a way that is easy to use and fun for the human! Whatever the hot consumer tech that comes out in 10 years happens to be, I am betting that Apple make it in such a way that it is easy, intuitive, and fun for people to use.

 

It's interesting why people buy tech products. Some treat it purely as a tool. A device to complete a task. But the more people use it, the more people want to experience the device. They see it as an extension of themselves. Their personality is part of the device, they use it to express themselves. A mouse pad on a laptop...just being able to have the computer move exactly as you want it to move as you send a nervous signal from your brain to your forefinger...that is a critical factor for the Apple customer. The more in tune the device is with our own brain, the more pleasurable experience it is to learn, communicate, and work with!

 

Take a hammer: hammer's aren't made with straight handles anymore. They're ergonomic. The interfacing between us and the tool is an important factor for professionals who use hammers daily. For those who use cell phones daily, the same argument may apply...

 

This is the reason I own Apple. I own them because they are able to create the most natural relationship/interfacing/"syncing" between humans and computers that the world has ever seen.

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Each time I use in-house softwares at work, I am wondering if some developers live on another planet..most of the time, it seems to me like it is meant to be so no intuitive to use! And each time I think about Steve Jobs which wanted to make technology available to those who don't want or are not interested to think about how it works. This is Apple and this is what they need to continue to achieve in order to stay meaningful...enabling technology to be a seamless tool, not an end.

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Guest valueInv

Each time I use in-house softwares at work, I am wondering if some developers live on another planet..most of the time, it seems to me like it is meant to be so no intuitive to use! And each time I think about Steve Jobs which wanted to make technology available to those who don't want or are not interested to think about how it works. This is Apple and this is what they need to continue to achieve in order to stay meaningful...enabling technology to be a seamless tool, not an end.

 

This is a key point that so few people understand. Apple has built its business on making technology human, simple and accessible. They just did that with fingerprint sensors, a huge step. People want to be blown away by something impressive. But Apple is going the exact opposite direction, making things simple. They have said that again and again. Anybody who has spent some time studying Apple should know that this is the ethos of the company and a large part of its success - simplicity. Yet, inevitably, after every product release you hear - "they haven't released anything impressive". Of course, not. They have taken a technology and honed and polished it until it has become simple enough for everyone to use without even having to think about it. Yes, that's why it doesn't look impressive.

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