

Apple is not a luxury brand - shawndumas
http://blog.yafla.com/The_Biggest_Lie_That_Ever_Was_Told/

======
jey
> Apple is no more exclusive than the GAP or Target or eating at Red Lobster.

Definitely true, but he also undermines his own argument here: Yes, Red
Lobster is not Chez Panisse and Apple is not Rolex, but to large parts of
society Red Lobster is considered expensive and not worth it. It's not
"exclusive", but it's still at the top of the "normal" bracket. There's a lot
of middle class people who'd rather shop at Kohl's than Gap and buy the
cheaper and equivalent-seeming Android device over the fancy expensive
iDevice.

Disclosure: I wrote this on a Mac.

~~~
baguasquirrel
There is a concept of a sub-luxury brand, a product that is not exclusive to
the rich, but still markets itself as a quality, high-end, status-worthy
product, and that is what I think the author is getting at.

An example of this could be Lincolns and Toyota Avalons, from the car world,
except Lincolns aren't designed to be simple and sexy and Toyota really didn't
know what they were doing with the Avalon. Say what you will about the
engineering and cost, but that is what Joe Schmoe thinks of Apple.

------
xentronium
In Russia and in some parts of EU, Apple really _is_ a luxury brand. For the
cost of iPhone4 I can get a notebook, a netbook _and_ a mobile phone. Or a
smartphone and notebook.

I'd never have bought a macbook ($2500, or ~110% of my current monthly salary;
I believe, I am in 80-85 percentile of Russian salary spectrum) if it weren't
for unix (which I need for work)+textmate (which I need for work)+ultimate
design (which I can't live without).

~~~
geekfactor
Ulimate design?

~~~
xentronium
Well, I believe that apple are the only guys that get industrial design right,
but I'm probably just a fanboy.

Their software design is also arguably the best there is.

~~~
geekfactor
Ah. Thought there was a new app, "Ultimate Design," that I needed to
investigate :-)

------
zdw
Not to get into semantics, but this meme has been going around for a while:
[http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/luxury-vs-
pr...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/luxury-vs-premium.html)

(link is from From DF a while ago:
<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/05/18/luxury-premium> )

------
chanux
_Pundits like Scoble (whose fame still confuses me)..._

I didn't know it feels this great to find out that I'm not alone.

~~~
revorad
What's with the Scoble bashing? He's famous for being famous, just like most
celebrities. I thought programmers got recursion.

~~~
chanux
Oh no. I'm no one to bash him. Perhaps it's just my ignorance.

------
Tichy
It's not a luxury brand because the iPod exists?

What if the iPod itself is a luxury item? "Normal" people are maybe lucky if
they can afford a phone, and then they wouldn't buy an extra device that does
the same thing the phone does. So the iPod is just 200 bucks thrown to the
wind - if that isn't luxury, what is?

Anyway, I had to flag this article, because in the history of mankind, I am
sure there have been much, much bigger lies than some connotations about
Apple. (Hubris of Apple fans my ass).

~~~
iamdave
The iPod used to be a luxury item. It wasn't until places like Wal-Mart
started the disconnect of labeling departments "iPods and MP3 Players" that it
turned into just another gadget you'll probably find in a stolen laptop case.

~~~
Tichy
As far as I am concerned the iPod has become completely superfluous. I am
surprised that people still buy them - what for?

Also I am not sure I follow the logic: because Walmart has a MP3 player
section, suddenly iPods are must-have items?

~~~
danieldk
_As far as I am concerned the iPod has become completely superfluous. I am
surprised that people still buy them - what for?_

My mother (honestly). She doesn't use computers (too difficult, no interest)
or smartphones (yet another subscription). But with the iPod Touch she can
listen to music, call her kids from the other side of the globe with Facetime
and the front facing camera, and send e-mails. The last two generations of the
iPod Touch brought her from 'never used a computer', well into the 21st
century, where she can manage to do stuff online that matter to her.

I bet that there are a lot of casual users, who just want an affordable device
to play games, write e-mails, and listen to music, without spending $$$s extra
on an iPhone, which also requires a relatively expensive subscription to
provide value over the iPod Touch.

~~~
kemayo
I actually bought an iPod touch for exactly that reason. I'm really not a
phone user (I spend $5/month on cell service), so buying an iPhone and
spending the money on a data plan does not appeal to me. For my purposes the
iPod touch is everything an iPhone does that I'd want, for $2000 less.

The only time I regret it is when I'm traveling, and I'd find it useful to be
able to access the internet. But this is rather uncommon.

Honestly, I would be happy to spend extra money on an iPhone without the phone
bits. The camera in the iPhone is much better, and the gps would be useful
even without an always-on connection.

------
revorad
I don't have spare money for a smartphone right now. But I desperately need a
new laptop. Will I spend £1,000 on a macbook? No, I think I will settle for a
£300 laptop.

I know one should not be penny wise and pound foolish. But when all you've got
is a penny...

Paying lots of money to Apple for a lot of value. I thought that _is_ a luxury
brand.

~~~
Create
when you have money, you have the _luxury_ to make savings (clubs, economies
of scale, discounts and other "special treatment" etc.)

AAPL is a luxury brand, and this does not exclude, that it delivers value.

------
jrdrake
I'm not exactly sure on this analysis. Mr. Forbes is making several
presumptions I'm not comfortable in confirming either way. Mostly, this is
from not hearing this myths about the iPhone. Ever. I think the strength
behind Android market will be its variety and competitiveness versus Apple's
production model (though some might say this is also Apple's strength). When
someone says Apple products are a luxury device I usually hear that as a
detriment to their PCs.

------
tzs
A $150 million investment in a company that had around $5 billion cash is not
a bail out.

~~~
Tycho
And wasn't paid to settle the QuickTime lawsuit anyway?

------
mcritz
Apple definitely controls the mind share of users and developers everywhere.
Not because it's a luxury brand, per se, but because of the hard work by
developers, engineers, scientists, and yes, even designers and artists.

It’s not one thing (like “luxury”) it’s everything working together.

This manifests itself by how everyone — even other device manufactures —
compare all other smart phones to the iPhone.

------
Confusion
The biggest attention-grabbing-headline to content-supporting-that-headline
ratio to reach #1 today.

~~~
revorad
It would be a fun experiment to replace the headlines on HN with topic tags,
author and source.

------
uptown
The biggest lie ever told may involve an apple ... but it's not the one in
Cupertino.

~~~
Charuru
Gravity is a lie?

~~~
RyanDScott
Perhaps he's refuting the claim that one bad apple will spoil the bunch :P

~~~
chairface
I'm gonna guess that it was a Garden of Eden reference.

~~~
uptown
ding ding ding!

------
ThomPete
Yes apple used to be a luxury brand. That is until they developed the worlds
first consumer iOS and started selling consumer hardware (entire iFamily).

The real question is whether Apple will continue to develop osX for the
workstation market. Personally I think that apple has been slacking on any
interesting development for those of us who work professionally with
computers.

Where is the improvement & innovations in workflow automation, file browsing
etc.?

~~~
sudont
Automator, Time Machine, Spotlight.

All are major developments, all are so well-defined that they’re banal. A good
design is one for the ages, and I assume “improvement” is _churn._

Apple’s work with WebKit, LLVM and OpenCL is the interesting development for
those working professionally with computers.

~~~
ThomPete
Banal to developers not to everyone else. Spotlight hopefully isn't the last
word in document/app handling

------
Anechoic
He talks about "myths that somehow bear truth only through repeated assertion"
and then he goes ahead and repeats such a myth: "At one point in Steve Jobs'
reign they were effectively bailed out by Microsoft."

It wasn't a bailout (especially since the amount MS paid was negligible
compared to the couple of billion dollars Apple had in the bank at the time)
so much as it was a settlement:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company>

------
bourdine
I worked in the citadel of machinery to promote luxury brands - in GQ, my wife
- in Vogue. And we have a very simple view on this matter - if you share the
view that there are luxury brands, and there are the usual brands, then
propaganda reached up to you. And this discussion is very sad, because here
assembled smart people, well aware that the main thing - it's functional, not
design, and luxury designed for people who do not understand it.

------
hardik988
In India, the iPhone 4 is supposed to start selling at around Rs. 40,000+
(almost US$ 900) , that's _much_ higher than an average middle-class person's
monthly salary. So, I guess this post only applies to North America / Western
Europe.

------
cletus
I couldn't agree more with this post: I've long said the competitive
advantages of iOS are the iTunes ecosystem and gaming.

Gaming is already huge and is only getting bigger. My 9 year old nephew has an
iPod Touch as do all his friends. Ot a PSP, not a DS but an iPod. That should
scare Sony, Nintendo and the Android handset manufacturers witless.

It's an area where hardware consistency is critical. Apparently games
development on Android with different resolutions, CPUs and (perhaps most
importantly) the graphics chipset is a nightmare.

What's more people seem less inclined to pay for Android apps than on iOS.

So Apple has the iPod Touch and the iPad, neither of which really has an
answer yet (no the Galaxy tab doesn't quite compare wit the iPad).

~~~
zach
I know this is a topic John Gruber has mentioned many times, but I think the
persistent lack of an Android competitor to the iPod touch is still little-
mentioned and revealing.

However, I just saw that Samsung is looking to fill this role, which will be
very interesting in its effect on the Android Market. It's basically a Galaxy
S, de-phoned.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2043171>

I agree this is a pretty dire but little-noticed situation for Android.
Everyone in middle school who is attached to the iPod touch is going to want
or have an iPhone in five years.

------
macco
"Android is poised capture much of that growth." - UUh, the biggest lie ever
told. :)

------
beej71
Race to the bottom! ;-)

