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Why does every tech company wait for Apple?

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You guys are forgetting the main reason Apple products are successful: there is a whole group of Apple fanatics who will buy literally anything that Apple sells. These are people who bought an iPod HiFi on launch day and who buy the new version of the AppleTV to replace their old one because it's newer.
 
Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
You guys are forgetting the main reason Apple products are successful: there is a whole group of Apple fanatics who will buy literally anything that Apple sells. These are people who bought an iPod HiFi on launch day and who buy the new version of the AppleTV to replace their old one because it's newer.
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Maybe, but Apple fanatics are a very small segment of consumers. The iPod isn't dominating the MP3 player market because of Apple fanbois. It's dominating because of sleek design and persuasive marketing.
 
Other companies do it first. Apple is usually the first company to market it really well. For example, the iPod was far from the first mp3 player, but it was the most successful due to marketing.
 
Originally posted by: Leros
Other companies do it first. Apple is usually the first company to market it really well. For example, the iPod was far from the first mp3 player, but it was the most successful due to marketing.
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Also helps that the 2nd gen iPod was way better (as far as interface and whatnot) than anything else on the market as long as you didn't want an FM tuner.
 
Apple takes other people's ideas and polishes them up.

The GUI from Xerox PARC, portable music players from (Diamond?), tablet PCs from Microsoft, smart phones from others.

Your question might make more sense as something like "why is apple better at taking a device category from a niche to mainstream use?"
 
Originally posted by: swbsam
Originally posted by: mchammer187
Aren't there at least a dozen tablets on the market right now?
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Nothing that's finger friendly, easy to use, and slick/pretty. "Affordable" is relative, but most tablets seem to be priced near/above $2,000. They're currently niche products and I do see work to make them more mainstream, but we all know that apple will release an iTablet, the world will buy it, and Dell and HP will release products that compete with it, when they could have just released a netbook with a touch panel and been ahead of the game.
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Um... No they're not. $2000 is not even close. HP was selling one for $650 last year... It was decent for the price.
 
I think their CEO has a lot to do with it. He can be a perfectionist asshole who doesn't let a shitty product go out the door. This attitude starts at the top and filters through the company.

When someone else may be happy with just getting a product to market to make sales, Apple is willing to take the time to make sure it's done right.

Another example is the App store. Nothing special there right? You have a smartphone, you want to add some more apps to it. So lets make a store on the phone where you can do that. Why had no one done that before?! It's such an obvious thing, but no one had taken the time to do it right. Apple comes in, spends some time to do it the right way - and look what we have now, over 2 billion downloads. Eat it Palm/MS/RIM.

What's even worse is that the competition gets stuck trying to imitate Apple's success instead of focusing on their own initiatives. Look at RIM and the Storm, they put all that work into making a touchscreen very iPhone-esque device, for what? To be second place to Apple? IMO their efforts would have been better spend on starting on a new OS, which is badly needed.
 
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: swbsam
Originally posted by: mchammer187
Aren't there at least a dozen tablets on the market right now?
Click to expand...

Nothing that's finger friendly, easy to use, and slick/pretty. "Affordable" is relative, but most tablets seem to be priced near/above $2,000. They're currently niche products and I do see work to make them more mainstream, but we all know that apple will release an iTablet, the world will buy it, and Dell and HP will release products that compete with it, when they could have just released a netbook with a touch panel and been ahead of the game.
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Um... No they're not. $2000 is not even close. HP was selling one for $650 last year... It was decent for the price.
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Yep, and everyone's rockin' their HP tablet, right?
 
Basically he's saying why does every tech company wait for apple to get it right.

Apple's design philosophy is based. Most companies do put some thought into this but usually this is an afterthought. Apple does it from the ground up which is why pretty much every one of their products has been a hit. What was the last thing that bombed? Maybe the AppleTV.

That is why their products will have some features missing. Whatever they do though they do pretty damn well.
 
Originally posted by: Crusty
Because Apple is better than it's competitors at getting products designed and out teh door?
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and marketing. they werent first to the mp3 player market, but they marketed the hell out of ipods and thats what everyone thinks of when they think of an mp3 player. i dont even bother correcting people now when they ask about my sansa fuze...yeah, its an ipod. ok, whatever.
 
IMO apple is just surving off of the pods. And if they didnt make it PC friendly years ago I doubt they would even be around today. There latest pod JUST got FM radio, my sansa had it for years. They havent had anything significanly "new" or "innovative" in years.
 
Originally posted by: speg
I think their CEO has a lot to do with it. He can be a perfectionist asshole who doesn't let a shitty product go out the door. This attitude starts at the top and filters through the company.

When someone else may be happy with just getting a product to market to make sales, Apple is willing to take the time to make sure it's done right.

Another example is the App store. Nothing special there right? You have a smartphone, you want to add some more apps to it. So lets make a store on the phone where you can do that. Why had no one done that before?! It's such an obvious thing, but no one had taken the time to do it right. Apple comes in, spends some time to do it the right way - and look what we have now, over 2 billion downloads. Eat it Palm/MS/RIM.

What's even worse is that the competition gets stuck trying to imitate Apple's success instead of focusing on their own initiatives. Look at RIM and the Storm, they put all that work into making a touchscreen very iPhone-esque device, for what? To be second place to Apple? IMO their efforts would have been better spend on starting on a new OS, which is badly needed.
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Which is why the headphone jack on all the I-touch's nearly always break, right? :roll:

They sell product based on brand loyalty and "chic" - not on innovation or perfection.
 
Originally posted by: swbsam
Originally posted by: mchammer187
Aren't there at least a dozen tablets on the market right now?
Click to expand...

Nothing that's finger friendly, easy to use, and slick/pretty. "Affordable" is relative, but most tablets seem to be priced near/above $2,000. They're currently niche products and I do see work to make them more mainstream, but we all know that apple will release an iTablet, the world will buy it, and Dell and HP will release products that compete with it, when they could have just released a netbook with a touch panel and been ahead of the game.
Click to expand...

Multitouch tablet netbook that should be out around the win7 launch. The 1 finger touch version has already been out for months.

HP tx2 - Multitouch tablet that's been out for a year already. As low as ~$600 with the right deals, it's priced very competitively for its features and specs.

Lenovo x200t - The multitouch version has been out for a month and can get as low as $1200 new. With an IPS screen, the best keyboard in its class, and superior Thinkpad build quality, I'd take this any day over a macbook.

There's also the upcoming multitouch tablet version of the Acer 1810T that should be priced around the range of the HP tx2. Dell, Fujistu, and Toshiba have or have announced multitouch laptops as well. None of them have a base price above $2k. The only thing Apple has going for it is better marketing.
 
Originally posted by: xSauronx
Originally posted by: Crusty
Because Apple is better than it's competitors at getting products designed and out teh door?
Click to expand...

and marketing. they werent first to the mp3 player market, but they marketed the hell out of ipods and thats what everyone thinks of when they think of an mp3 player. i dont even bother correcting people now when they ask about my sansa fuze...yeah, its an ipod. ok, whatever.
Click to expand...

I don't consider my Zune to be an iPod 😛
 
Originally posted by: CottonRabbit
Originally posted by: swbsam
Originally posted by: mchammer187
Aren't there at least a dozen tablets on the market right now?
Click to expand...

Nothing that's finger friendly, easy to use, and slick/pretty. "Affordable" is relative, but most tablets seem to be priced near/above $2,000. They're currently niche products and I do see work to make them more mainstream, but we all know that apple will release an iTablet, the world will buy it, and Dell and HP will release products that compete with it, when they could have just released a netbook with a touch panel and been ahead of the game.
Click to expand...

Multitouch tablet netbook that should be out around the win7 launch. The 1 finger touch version has already been out for months.

HP tx2 - Multitouch tablet that's been out for a year already. As low as ~$600 with the right deals, it's priced very competitively for its features and specs.

Lenovo x200t - The multitouch version has been out for a month and can get as low as $1200 new. With an IPS screen, the best keyboard in its class, and superior Thinkpad build quality, I'd take this any day over a macbook.

There's also the upcoming multitouch tablet version of the Acer 1810T that should be priced around the range of the HP tx2. Dell, Fujistu, and Toshiba have or have announced multitouch laptops as well. None of them have a base price above $2k. The only thing Apple has going for it is better marketing.
Click to expand...

I was under the assumption that the Apple tablet would be running a trimmed down "tablet" version of OS X. That may or may not be true, but I do know that running Windows on a tablet sounds like pure hell.
 
Originally posted by: Oyeve
IMO apple is just surving off of the pods. And if they didnt make it PC friendly years ago I doubt they would even be around today. There latest pod JUST got FM radio, my sansa had it for years. They havent had anything significanly "new" or "innovative" in years.
Click to expand...
And how often do you use FM radio? 😉

It may be a feature some people use, but most don't. I'm actually surprised Apple even bothered adding it to the latest gen. It's one of those things I might use occasionally, but it's definitely isn't a deal breaker if an MP3 player doesn't have it. I bought my MP3 player to listen to my own music, not the radio.
 
Originally posted by: swbsam
Originally posted by: TridenT
Originally posted by: swbsam
Originally posted by: mchammer187
Aren't there at least a dozen tablets on the market right now?
Click to expand...

Nothing that's finger friendly, easy to use, and slick/pretty. "Affordable" is relative, but most tablets seem to be priced near/above $2,000. They're currently niche products and I do see work to make them more mainstream, but we all know that apple will release an iTablet, the world will buy it, and Dell and HP will release products that compete with it, when they could have just released a netbook with a touch panel and been ahead of the game.
Click to expand...

Um... No they're not. $2000 is not even close. HP was selling one for $650 last year... It was decent for the price.
Click to expand...

Yep, and everyone's rockin' their HP tablet, right?
Click to expand...

How many HP tablet commercials have you seen? Apple has a huge marketing campaign, which is why everyone knows about their products and thinks Apple is the first one to make everything.
 
As many people have said several times, Apple does not innovate nor "perfect" a technology. They, however, have an absolutely fantastic marketing team, that when combined with their "image" makes a once niche and forgotten about product the next new "thing" to have.
 
Originally posted by: thecrecarc
As many people have said several times, Apple does not innovate nor "perfect" a technology. They, however, have an absolutely fantastic marketing team, that when combined with their "image" makes a once niche and forgotten about product the next new "thing" to have.
Click to expand...

You make it sound like their products are the same as the others with fancy marketing.

It is far from that. Their ad campaigns are great I'll admit but you have to admit their products are innovative or at the very least quite different from the competition.
 
Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
Originally posted by: Parasitic
Because in this world, business and money talk. As much as people love to hate on Apple, they're obviously doing something right.
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They market to the ever increasing gay/metro demographic.
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I'd call you a wise and beautiful woman if you weren't correct. lulz
Mindset surveyed 7500 Mac and PC-owners and found that Mac users were more self-important, intellectually curious, and felt themselves to be extraordinary and superior. Mac users are more likely to use teeth-whitening kits (vanity!), buy organic food, be politically liberal, be willing to pay more for green technology, buy a hybrid car, drink Starbucks, and have bought more than 5 new pairs of sneakers in the past year.
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Apple does well because the company has a good image. Apple products are generally pretty good even when they're ridiculously overpriced. Companies like HP might be just as innovative as Apple, but I see HP as a bunch of bastards who make garbage products. If I see HP make something amazing, I won't buy it because in the back of my mind I know there's a very good chance it will suck. The gay/metro crowd seem to view things the same way I do; it's worth it to pay more for something if I have some assurance that it's going to work. It might be an iPod, a Macbook, a Toyota truck, Starbucks coffee, etc.
 
Hey, did the iPod ever get a REAL GQ? Or is it still presets? Last pod I got was the 160GB version, not the new 160, but the one from about 1 1/2 years ago. I would LOVE for a 5 band or better yet, a 10 band equalizer, that would be sweeeeet!
 
Originally posted by: swbsam
I notice this time and again - Apple releases a product that seems fairly obvious, and the rest of the industry reacts by releasing me-too products, always remaining one step behind Apple.

Why?

For example, the iTablet - tablets have come and gone but now we have the technology (capacitive touch, cheap/low power processors) to really make low-cost, high utility tablets mainstream. Heck, windows 7 already has great tablet support. Instead of just releasing a sub-$1,000 slab of plastic, the industry's just waiting for Apple to do it first.

Why?

The iPhone was another product that anyone else could have done, but only now are the competitors catching up. Hell, it seems like if I was MS (and faced threats from google and Apple), I'd cram some developers in a room for 6 months to make a great, low-bloat and touch friendly OS that will make them competitive again, vs. annoying point releases of an aging platform. I know it's more complicated then that, but I really wonder what's stopping others from innovating
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The LG Prada was actually before the iPhone, touch screen / similar form factor. Didn't have the OS / application structure but it looks like the iPhone was influenced by LG as well.
 
The reason Apple gets thier products out first (though the only FIRST I can think of for apple is a touch screen phone) is because they are willing to cram thier customers in a box, and only apple customers are WILLING to get shoved into a box.

Was the idea of a touch screen phone something no one had over thought of? Of course not, blackberry, Palm, Samsung, etc, have all thought of this already. The problem was, they needed to get it to work just right. For RIM, they couldnt imagine releasing a blackberry that didnt let their business centric users cut and paste. They would have a mass revolt on thier hands. No SMS? Do you think Samsung/Palm/MS would dare release a NEW phone without SMS? Hell no there would be brand name lynchings in the media. Every tech website would have articles about what a DISASTER they new smart phone was that didnt have frikkin sms or cut/paste.

Apple was willing to cut corners to be the first. And they were willing to release a phone/OS that made people change to fit the phone instead of the other way around. When they do this they are considered revolutionary, when their competitors do this, they are considered bastards who hate consumers.
 
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