
The New Apple Advantage - aaronbrethorst
http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/new_apple_advantage
======
jellicle
What I grasp from this is that John Gruber and Peter Bright are just too dim
to understand basic online stores.

This qualifies for mockery from Gruber/Bright:

> "Everyday Computing"

But this is good understandable product description:

> "The ultimate everyday notebook"

(that second one is Apple's marketing copy for the Macbook Air).

The low-end Macbook Air is $999 in Canada. Let's compare. I just priced a
Lenovo X220 with a 50% faster processor, twice the ram, twice the SSD size,
larger, better screen - which are all minimum choices for this laptop, I can't
choose any lower to match the Macbook - and I came out to $84 more than the
Macbook. Let's see, if I look at the other versions... I'd say the Macbook has
about a $200-$300 price premium compared to the Lenovo. The two laptops weigh
almost exactly the same and are the same thickness at the thickest point,
although the Lenovo doesn't have the pretty tapered edge.

The economy of scale advantage that he's talking about doesn't exist, or at
least doesn't make it to the consumer (Apple may be keeping economy of scale
profits, but that's not the point Gruber is trying to make).

Gruber is just utterly full of shit and I fail to see why his articles merit
any discussion. "Apple is great because [make up bullshit reason of the
week]". Isn't that boring? Even if you love Apple products, isn't it boring?

~~~
socratic
I tried to make this point below in a more subtle way, but you take on the
issue more directly.

Gruber's arguments never make any sense. Historically, he changes his opinions
more or less based on what Apple is currently doing. He adds little value, and
it seems clear that he's making a lot of money as a pro-Apple cheerleader from
his blog posts. (Which is fine, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't make him a
good news source.)

However, I'm not sure how to get rid of Gruber posts. With certain types of
posts, HN can feel like an Eternal September.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September>

Certainly the first few times I read a Gruber post, I thought there was some
legitimate content there. But now, his posts feel largely like regurgitated
commentary on discussions had elsewhere, and his opinions feel utterly
discredited by their uniformity.

Without downvotes, and without flags removing Gruber posts, I'm not sure what
we can do. Could we possibly, as a community, just agree that a blacklist of
Gruber posts is good for us? How would we begin such a discussion?

~~~
dasil003
Nobody said Gruber wasn't biased, but he forms cogent arguments. The same can
not be said for Apple's consistent detractors who seem to have a real chip on
their shoulder and thus end up grasping at straws.

Granted there is a lot of valid Apple criticism that you won't get from Daring
Fireball, but everyone has their viewpoint. Gruber is far from the worst stuff
that shows up on HN.

~~~
bane
"but he forms cogent arguments"

No he doesn't. The majority of his posts are transparent fact twisting and
fantastically uninteresting (as are the predictable comment threads
surrounding most of his posts). On the rare occasion he's not outright
fanboying for Apple, he can be a decent and breezy writer.

Unless he's actually providing some interesting commentary (and yes I do give
his posts a read so I don't try and kill something that's genuinely useful)
I'm resigned to just flagging his mindlessly biased nonsense.

In other words, I don't flag all of his stuff, but I did flag this.

~~~
dasil003
He has his bias, you have yours.

~~~
bane
I think we're in violent agreement.

But we can summarize the vast majority of Grubers posts thusly:

"Something about Apple = Great"

then generate a dozen or so threads of nothing but either fawning praise for
Gruber or the same repeated complaints about his bias.

At this point Gruber posts and the follow up "conversation" (I'm using it
charitably at this point) are something one could probably machine generate,
then randomly insert the entire thing into HN's new queue and it would be
virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

in other words, Gruber fails the Turing test and I for one (among apparently
several HNers) are tired of having what are essentially Markov chains jamming
up the front page.

~~~
dasil003
The problem is everyone coming out and saying "let's ban Gruber" every time
one of his stories are posting. This compels people like me to respond because
I think he posts interesting stuff. If it weren't for the knee jerk reaction
from the haters then we could have a decent discussion. I certainly wouldn't
come in here unilaterally praising Gruber, I would respond to his points just
like I do _with any other post_ (except Dvorak, I always propose banning
Dvorak because he is actively corrosive to intelligent discourse).

~~~
bane
I ask this as an absolutely honest question, when Gruber writes (as he is
prone to do) a piece that consists pretty much entirely of Apple praise, what
exactly is it about that you find interesting?

I'm not trying to troll, it's clear that there is a minority here, including
myself that can't find any possible information in them, but the HN majority
clearly find his writing absolutely fascinating and full of all kinds of
information nuggets that pass me and others right by.

 _I always propose banning Dvorak because he is actively corrosive to
intelligent discourse_

No argument from me at all.

~~~
thenduks
Why can't his articles just be well written opinion pieces? He's making
observations and drawing conclusions from them about a company (and their
products) that he clearly loves.

If one isn't interested one can just move on just as I move on when I see a
post about Java or politics.

------
jballanc
There's a story that I've heard told about Tim Cook numerous times. I can't
remember the original source (there's a reference here:
[http://www.cultofmac.com/who-is-apples-new-ceo-tim-cook-
bio/...](http://www.cultofmac.com/who-is-apples-new-ceo-tim-cook-bio/110498)),
but I think it basically sums up Tim:

> When in a meeting discussing a problem in China, Tim Cook noted that the
> problem was “really bad” and that someone should be in China fixing it.
> Thirty minutes later, Cook then famously looked over at Apple’s operations
> manager, Sabih Khan, and asked “Why are you still here?” Khan was on the
> next flight to China.

But what's most remarkable is that like Jobs, Tim has managed to infuse this
attitude into the very fabric of Apple. Once, when I worked there, a friend
called and asked if I had plans for lunch. I replied that I did not. "Good,"
he said, "Can you drive me to SFO?" So I picked him up. He had a seat on the
1:30 PM flight and we were barely going to make it. "Do you think we have time
to stop by my place so I can grab a change of clothes?" he asked. I told him
that we did not, and his reply was "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to find a
store in Boston"...

~~~
microarchitect
I understand these things are partly symbolic, but besides that is this really
useful? I mean, is there a real business benefit to Apple by making Khan take
the next immediate flight to China rather than the one a few hours later.
Similarly, what was your friend doing that was so important that he couldn't
wait to get a change of clothes?

I personally do my best work when I'm relaxed and un-stressed. The apple
environment seems to be diametrically opposite to this. I can see that some
people might thrive in this environment, but I always wonder at what cost to
themselves.

~~~
glenra
Speaking from experience as somebody who has done this sort of trip: Yes, it's
hugely useful and there is a real business benefit.

First off, we're probably talking about a time when there were only a few
direct flights a day from SFO to the relevant airport so if he didn't go that
afternoon he'd have to wait until the next morning so instead of flying
through the night he'd be flying through the day - flying RIGHT THEN means
_one less day in which your product slips its schedule_.

Now recall that Apple used to have trouble getting enough media attention so
they would schedule product announcements around, say, MacWorld or the
Superbowl. Big events that _cannot be moved_. Every day the schedule slips
makes it that much more likely you miss the intended product launch window.
For Apple, if your product isn't ready to ship, it's not ready to show which
means you've wasted a lot of money - your next suitable launch window might be
months later by which time the product no longer has a compelling story to
tell. Missing the intended launch date can mean the difference between a
successful product and a failure.

Conference calls are expensive and tend to involve both high-level people and
lower-level people. If the schedule is slipping, the chinese engineers won't
necessarily tell you the truth about _why_ it's slipping in that sort of forum
- there's a face-saving issue. There are also communications difficulties when
people who don't speak english well just nod and say "yes, we'll do that"
without really understanding what they're agreeing to. Email can clarify and
puts things in writing but the time difference means most exchanges lose at
least a day.

Another factor is "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". The same factory is
trying to build products for you _and_ a variety of other companies. When some
other company's product totally unrelated to yours has a crisis, they might
choose to rationally pull engineering resources away from _your_ product to
serve somebody else...if you're not there to nag and check up on the schedule.

The bottom line is that if you don't have at least one person there most of
the time, your product stands a very very low chance of meeting your schedule
_or_ your quality targets.

~~~
jarek
> For Apple, if your product isn't ready to ship, it's not ready to show

Hm. I guess the iPad that shipped a couple of months after being shown is the
special butterfly exception that confirms your nice fluffy rule.

~~~
glenra
Standard exceptions to the rule in recent memory include:

\- products that depend on 3rd-party developer support. If the iPad 3 has a
new form factor and new hardware such that developers will want to rewrite
their apps to take best advantage, Apple might show it at the developer
conference and tell everybody "you've got 3 months to get your apps ready"

\- products that get accidentally leaked or need to be leaked early due to
regulatory requirements such as filing for FCC approval.

What Apple _doesn't_ do is float trial balloons just to have something to
show. Lot of companies will mock up some design that is _approximately_
similar to the expected final product and show/announce _that_ , then finish
figuring out how to build it. Apple's ideal is to make a big splash by showing
something unexpected that you can buy in the very very near future so people
run out and buy it, garnering additional publicity based on the big lines and
big numbers of customers.

Which is great if you can pull it off, though it seems inevitable that one of
these days they'll guess wrong. If and when they do blow it, it'll be at least
a billion-dollar mistake to have built up so much inventory in advance of
finding out whether people like the thing.

------
SandB0x
I've ranted about this previously
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1419896>).

Most manufacturers have vast and bewildering product lines. Treat yourself to
the Asus line-up: <http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/AllProducts/>

Most manufacturers have half-hearted and short lived attempts at introducing
premium lines or models (e.g. Dell's Adamo). Buying an expensive product only
to have the manufacturer discontinue the line soon after destroys faith in
consumers.

Most manufacturers have terribly designed products: hinges that wear out after
a few months, useless trimmings that simply fall off, air vents that are
_blocked when the screen is open_ (yes, this actually was the case on my old
Dell).

~~~
mgkimsal
I ranted about this too recently here - Apple's biggest business advantage is
the trust/faith people have in the brand to remain consistent, probably even
moreso than innovative. People will always come up with new stuff - other pc
manufacturers do it all the time. However, there's not a long term vision of
consistency to the other manufacturers, possibly because they are, in fact
manufacturers, not end to end designers, developers, manufacturers and
retailers.

Buying something from Apple, you have a strong case that it'll be supported
for at least a few years, the model likely won't go away entirely, and you'll
be able to get good support from them via phone, mail or in-store. Other
brands may offer some or all of those aspects, sometime, for some models, but
few have a multi-year history of providing all of those consistently.

Apple's advantage is the decade of experience they have in building trust with
consumers.

~~~
jseliger
Yeah. Elsewhere I posted this comment:

All three Macs I've owned were ready to use out of the box. No stickers, no
crapware, no nothing. Contrast this with a recent Anandtech review of a recent
Sony Vaio that, hardware-wise, is quite nice, but:

 _Because of that initial bloat I have a hard time recommending the VAIO S to
any end user that can't fix it (including but not limited to just plain
physically upgrading the hard drive) or doesn't know someone who can. This is
an otherwise fantastic notebook with a lot of potential just looking for the
right user, but if you're not comfortable getting elbow deep in cleaning it
out (or preferably doing a clean Windows 7 installation), it's not going to be
the notebook for you. For those of you who are willing and able to put in the
time, though, you'll likely be very well served by the Sony VAIO S._

([http://www.anandtech.com/show/4748/sony-vaio-sb-all-day-
cons...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/4748/sony-vaio-sb-all-day-consumer-
computing/7))

I read something like that and think, "Where's the MacBook Air link again..."

------
pkamb
I break out this link whenever the topic of PC manufacturing comes up:
[http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/2009/04/display-
rati...](http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/2009/04/display-ratio-change-
again/)

Thinkpads are (were) well known for their 4:3 screens. People are downright
fanatical about them, and continue to buy old T60s off craigslist rather than
buy new from Lenovo. Tall screens are better for documents and spreadsheets.
4:3 displays instantly differentiate _business_ -machine Thinkpads from all
other laptops.

But now Thinkpads are 16:9. They lost one of their defining features because
"these manufacturers make more selling TV displays than laptop displays, and
the PC vendors have almost zero say in this change. We simply have to adapt.
As much as I would like it to be so, 4:3 is not coming back."

Meanwhile, Apple goes and sources millions of 4:3 iPad displays simply because
_that's the best resolution for the iPad_.

~~~
wmf
Also, Apple buys a lot more of that panel than any panel that Lenovo buys. If
Lenovo ordered millions of 4:3 panels, they would suddenly become available.

~~~
Steko
I guess that's the difference we're talking about here:

PC makers' diverse offerings force them to buy components that are cheap while
Apple buys whatever components they want but get them even cheaper due to
scale.

The kicker is that at the same time Apple makes that component it's buying
even more expensive for everyone else and they know everyone else is copying
them.

------
dgallagher
Another way to put this, Apple loosely abides to the "Good, Better, Best"
lineup for their product offerings. They don't follow it exactly, but in
general, they keep selection simple. This doesn't confuse customers, and
allows them to easily compare one thing to another.

If you've ever eaten at Panera Bread, you'll usually see people staring at the
menu on the wall for a few minutes. Their menu is huge and all over the place.
Hot sandwiches, cold sandwiches, salads, specialty salads, bagels, breakfast
items, pastries, plus much more including ingredients. What's inside a
Strawberry Poppyseed & Chicken salad? Read the fine print under it. Do you
want apple, chips, or bread on the side? What type of bread do you want on
your sandwich? We have 20 different types. Cheese OK? Mayo OK? Fountain drink,
one of the 8 different bottled drinks in front of you you've never heard of,
or freshly squeezed OJ? Complex, like Dell/HP/Lenovo.

What about McDonalds? You order by number associated with a picture. At 10:30,
the breakfast pictures are replaced with the lunch/dinner pictures. Cheese or
no cheese? Coke, diet coke, sprite? Large, medium, small? Quick, easy
decisions. You know what a Big Mac is. And if you want to know what's in it,
you're out of luck! There are 10 pictures; pick one of them. Simple, like
Apple.

~~~
gcb
great analogy. and just like with food, anyone who has a clue about what they
are ordering, will never enter an apple store.

~~~
aashay
Presumptuous. I, just like many HNers like me, have more than just a "clue"
about what I'm ordering, and I love Apple products.

As a sidenote, I hear these types of statements a lot from those in the anti-
Apple crowd, but I can't remember the last time I heard someone switch _away_
from Apple products say things like this.

~~~
sid0
I am going to switch away from Apple's shitty notebooks and probably never use
one again, and I agree with the GP.

------
jsnell
It's hardly the first time logistics has been touted as the key competitive
advantage of a company. Take Nokia for example. Massive economies of scale,
designs taking maximum advantage of that, and incredible supply chain
management[1]. All this kept them going for a while even after the wheels fell
off, but by now they pretty much have no logistical advantage left.

Apple pundits seem to think that Apple's (undeniable) advantages are going to
be permanent, just because they get a great deal on Flash memory or tied up
the world's whole supply of 9.7" touch screens. It's a pretty ridiculous
position.

[1] As an example of this, there's this great story about how in the late 90s
there was a fire at a critical Philips chip factory, which they tried to cover
up since it was expected to be a quick repair. Someone at Nokia noticed that
there were irregularities in the shipments, investigated the matter, found out
about the fire, and started talks with Philips. Nokia decided that Philips
were talking bullshit about the repair schedules, and basically sucked up the
whole world's supply of the alternative components to replace this lost
capacity. Other phone manufacturers relying on this plant were left high and
dry for months, pretty much.

~~~
X-Istence
I don't think Apple's wheels are necessarily going to fall off. The reason why
they have tied up the worlds supply of touch screens and flash ram is because
they realised the potential early on and made massive commitments to the
manufacturers.

If Apple stops innovating then those people suggesting Apple will no longer
have an advantage are correct. So long as Apple is innovating and requires
newer and more modern technology that is going to cost millions of not
billions to get set up and running they can continue to have an advantage
mainly because they have that intense buying power required.

So long as Apple's competitors are always a step behind in seeking to make
their computers smallers/faster or inventing the next new gadget that
consumers want they will always have the first mover advantage.

~~~
LokiSnake
This is also one of the benefits of Apple's huge cash reserve. They can easily
make these commitments and investments as they see fit.

~~~
justincormack
These only work as no one is really competing. If other people were trying
harder they would be finding different components, as happened when ibm
cornered the 386 and everyone moved to the 486 instead.

~~~
X-Istence
It really depends on the technology. If Apple buys all of the production next
gen chips not much people can do about it, unless they beat Apple to the
punch, and so far they haven't.

------
martingordon
> It’s even worse if I just browse without searching. The options I get are
> just… meaningless. Yes, I want “Everyday Computing,” so I want an Inspiron.
> But hang on, I also want “Design & Performance,” so I want an XPS. Wait a
> second, I want “Thin & Powerful,” too.

This is the crux of the problem with all of Apple's competitors, in the PC
business and in mobile. Why choose when you can have everything? Apple's
lineup is consistently decreasing the trade-offs between models, which reduces
the number of reasons that exist for buyer's remorse.

Yes, us geeks may want the ability to choose between WiFi chipsets, but asking
my mom to choose a WiFi chipset will just scare her away. She might want to
make the best decision but she doesn't have the time to research it (or
doesn't know where to look), so she closes her browser and decides not to by a
Dell today. Tomorrow, she's at the mall and stops by the Apple Store, sees
that the only decisions she has to make are pretty clear cut (as in, amounts
of storage/RAM) and goes home with a new MacBook. She was never given the
ability to make the wrong decision and any barriers keeping her from buying a
computer disappeared.

~~~
rayiner
I'm a geek and I couldn't care less what WiFi chipset is in my laptop.

I was shopping for a ThinkPad X220 for someone, and it had the option of the
regular screen or the "premium" screen for $50 more. They don't tell you what
the "premium" screen is or why you'd want it. I presume the regular screen is
shitty. Can you even imagine Apple offering such an option? A $1000+ laptop
with a shitty screen, with a $50 option to upgrade to a non-shitty screen?

~~~
gergles
Yeah, it's pretty crazy, isn't it? Apple would never charge for an upgrade
from a shitty screen on a $1000+ laptop.

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40663/2011-09-09_2245.png>

~~~
yardie
The point is the Lenovo screen doesn't say what Premium gets you. Only that it
is a $50 option. Your pic has glossy, Hi-res glossy, and hi-res matte.

~~~
jarek
To be fair, briefly explaining the value of an IPS to those not familiar with
it is not trivial. If they just put "IPS" instead of "premium" they'd be
rightly maligned for using meaningless acronyms. I suppose something like "IPS
technology for truer colours" might work, but...

~~~
yardie
They could have said it was a 24-bit IPS panel instead of the cheaper, 18-bit
TN panel.

------
barrkel
"How could Dell, for example, possibly copy Apple’s operations when they
currently classify “Design & Performance” and “Thin & Powerful” as separate
laptop categories?"

The answer is pretty simple: the Powerful in "Thin & Powerful" is not as good
as the "Performance" in "Design & Performance".

There are approximately three different categories for laptops: desktop
replacements (powerful but very heavy, no battery life); netbooks (puny but
very light, good battery life); and executive machines (a blend of power and
weight with long battery life: Thinkpad, Portege). Before netbooks, there was
another category: el-cheapo (weak and not very light, mediocre battery), but
the hardware has advanced sufficiently that modern netbooks are viable web
browser machines for many people who only use them for such, and it has mostly
crowded out that segment. The PC laptop makers probably made most markup in
the executive class segment.

Apple has similar categories, but it markets them better and even more
precisely: the iPad is their netbook, the MBA their executive class, and the
MBP their desktop replacement. But with the latest generations of the MBA,
they've started to cut in towards the netbook market and eat into the margins
PC laptop makers were getting in the executive segment.

But meanwhile, PC laptop makers were already getting burned by netbook-class
machines getting more powerful. So what we're seeing is a slow disappearance
of a segment of the market, and that's tripping up the marketing messages from
the PC laptop manufacturers.

(FWIW, my relatively ancient Toshiba Portege is arguably a better machine than
my fairly new MBA; it's considerably lighter, more fully featured, with
Ethernet and DVD writer, and almost as fast. What it isn't is stylish: it
compromises by being made of relatively flimsy plastic. If it were sold today,
it could be made cheaply - a lot more cheaply than an MBA. But I don't think
it's profitable for Toshiba to make and market it (and their later Porteges
are much heavier as the market landscape shifts).

------
socratic
Gruber's argument confuses me:

1\. Steve Jobs, the only CEO to ever successfully lead Apple in the company's
25-year history, has resigned.

2\. Because of the current popularity of the iPad, iPhone, and MacBooks, Apple
has great economies of scale. (However, Gruber primarily gives us anecdotes to
support this.)

3\. These economies of scale are evidence that the new CEO, an operations guy,
will be able to lead the company.

4\. In fact, design is copy-able.

5\. Therefore, because Apple's designs are copy-able, in terms of competitive
advantage, the new CEO has always been more important than Steve Jobs.

Is that correct?

~~~
ugh
You are reading way too much into it. This article is not trying to make the
argument that Steve Jobs was irrelevant or less important for Apple than Tim
Cook.

~~~
socratic
"But at this point, it seems clear to me that however superior Apple's design
is, it's their business and operations strength — the Cook side of the
equation — that is furthest ahead of their competition, and the more
sustainable advantage."

~~~
Fluxx
Right, but you can't discount the vision that Jobs had to show Apple and
everyone else that having products that are uncompromising on design + are
solid technically will lead to great success.

~~~
sambe
"at this point" refers to their advantages now, not when it became clear to
Gruber. It is not intended to discount anything that happened in the past.

------
lr
"The PC hardware market has historically focused on three factors: low prices,
tech specs, and configurability."

That pretty much could have been what was said about American car companies in
the late '80s and most of the '90s, and it is why they got their asses handed
to them on a plate by the Japanese car companies. If you wanted a Chevrolet,
you probably had about 1000 choices (not to mention that GM had at least 5
companies that all made pretty much the same cars, but with different logos
(Saturn not withstanding)). If you wanted a Honda, you had about 3 choices. I
don't think I have to tell you which business model was more successful.

------
ansy
I agree that Tim Cook is an advantage to Apple. I disagree that he is really
"new." Tim has been at Apple since 1998 and has been in a place of power since
at least 2004 when he took over for Steve Jobs as CEO the first time. Tim has
been part of the winning formula for the better part of a decade.

I think the glaring omission in Gruber's article, though, is Apple's lost
advantage in Steve Jobs. It could be argued in the 11 years Steve Jobs was
away from Apple that Mac hardware and software more or less coasted in terms
of innovation.

The simple unibody design splintered into a dozen different beige boxes
stacked on top of each other shortly after Job's departure in 1985. Mac OS
gained color, cooperative threading, and a few peripheral updates until Steve
Jobs came back in 1996. I'm not saying it was worse. I'm just saying it was
uninspired incremental refinement. The design language at Apple didn't change
from the day he left in 1985 until he finally came back in 1996.

And almost immediately after Steve comes back we've got OS 8 with its first UI
facelift in years. System 9 quickly led into OS X. On the hardware front we
got the bondi blue iMac. Then the iPod. Then the desk lamp-esque iMac G4. Not
to mention the short lived G4 cube. Apple was alive again.

Now that Steve's involvement has once again diminished, what will Apple look
like over the next decade? Will iOS 9 look that much different from iOS 5?
Will the MacBook Pro evolve beyond a giant sized MacBook Air? Will Apple
successfully branch out beyond phones, tablets and computers?

Tim Cook will keep Apple in fine shape. Apple will at worst be like Dell in
its heyday. Delivering products people want at prices nobody could compete
against, disrupting the traditional manufacturing process. But will Apple
continue to successfully innovate? Companies tend to change to reflect the
current leadership. HP was once a company that Steve Wozniak wanted to work at
forever. In less than a decade after the founders were gone the the HP Way was
gone and the company was never the same.

EDIT: I want to add this is mostly a counterpoint to Gruber who is clearly
trying to diminish Jobs and glorify Cook. His brief treatment of the subject
is to say Jobs brings "beautiful, elegant, innovative, and fun" before
seemingly dismissing Jobs as merely a designer whose designs are something
that get copied by other firms anyway therefore implying he is not a real
competitive advantage unlike the "can't-be-copied" Cook operational
competitive advantage.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Have we forgotten the Newton? The Newton had issues, but lack of daring design
innovation wasn't one of them. Now that Palm has boomed and iPads and iPhones
are everywhere, it's difficult to appreciate how crazy the Newton was at the
time. People didn't know that mobile book-sized computers were the future. The
Newton was a bit _too_ futuristic, too ambitious for its own hardware.

Apple also tried a bunch of things in the OS space before NeXT and Jobs rode
to the rescue. They just didn't succeed.

Which brings this right back to Tim Cook, and the unsung operational heroes
that _really_ built Apple: It isn't that Apple didn't try to innovate in the
Jobs-free interregnum. They just didn't _succeed_. It takes more than just
good intentions and "vision": It takes operational skill.

~~~
felipemnoa
OK, so if a Formula 1 driver wins the race, who gets the credit? The car or
the driver? I would say the car is Tim Cook and Steve jobs is the driver.

~~~
dasil003
That's a terrible analogy. There is not just one person making human decisions
in Apple. Jobs deserves a lot of credit, but there are hundreds (if not
thousands) of people doing the critical design work that make Apple products
great. It's easy to sit on the outside and imagine that Apple doesn't have a
decision-maker to equal Jobs, but only time will tell.

~~~
felipemnoa
>>Jobs deserves a lot of credit, but there are hundreds (if not thousands) of
people doing the critical design work that make Apple products great

You could say the same about the car-driver relationship.

"The driver deservers a lot of credit but the car has hundreds (if not
thousands) of parts doing the critical work of moving the car forward"

Or you could substitute parts with designers.

Keep in mind that Steve Jobs chose Tim Cook and Tim Cook worked only with the
approval of Steve Jobs. Had Tim Cook not performed (just like the car) be
assured that he would have been replaced by a better person (car)? This in no
way diminishes the person (car) but notice that the main person doing the
decisions is Steve Jobs (The driver).

Had Apple failed everybody would have blamed Steve Jobs not Tim Cook, so I
don't understand the double standard.

~~~
dasil003
Those parts are inanimate, they are not making decisions in and of themselves.
Even the engineers working on the cars are operating within the unchanging
constraints of physics. Also, if Apple fails people would blame Jobs, but if
the car suffers a mechanical failure people don't blame the driver. The driver
of a race car needs to push the machine to it's limit but not past it or he
will flame out spectacularly. Such is not the case of an established
technology company. In fact whole goal of a race is much more uniform than the
goal of a company operating in the consumer market where you are contending
with the fashion and whims of the public at large.

All in all I just don't see the point of such an analogy. It sheds no insight.
Racing cars and building tech companies are no more alike than skydiving and
underwater basket weaving.

~~~
felipemnoa
One can only take an analogy so far. I still think the analogy is good but
lets agree to disagree.

OK, lets look at it this way. I think Steve Jobs could have been successful
without Tim Cook, but Tim Cook could not have been successful without Steve
Jobs (In turning Apple around). The reason I say this is because Steve Jobs
use to do Tim Cook's job when he first returned to Apple. He did it himself,
along with his CEO job, until he found Cook. Had it not been Cook he would
have found somebody else.

Lets not take credit away from Cook though. The guy is good, otherwise Jobs
would not have given him the job. But I don't think that we can say that Apple
would not be as successful without Cook. However, is almost universally
accepted that Apple would not be here without Steve. Hence the Car-Driver
analogy >:)

------
pgroves
I know everyone likes to think Steve Jobs came up with the idea of focusing on
a few very good products, but it's actually an old idea.

"Indeed, the basic problem of U.S. competitive strength in the world economy
today may well be product clutter." - Peter Drucker, _Managing for Business
Effectiveness_ , 1963

Sorry I don't have a link to the original article, I had to look it up _in a
book_

~~~
revscat
"I know everyone likes to think Steve Jobs came up with the idea of focusing
on a few very good products, but it's actually an old idea."

No one thinks that. I, at least, have never read anyone who has made such
claim. Where did you get the impression that that is a widely-held belief?

~~~
pgroves
I got that impression from the article. I also get that impression from all
the companies that still do the opposite, today, as is discussed in the
article.

Perhaps I should have qualified that statement with "in terms of large
american companies", which is what Drucker was talking about.... Companies
whose product catalog became bloated over the years in an effort to serve
every need of every customer and ended up doing nothing terribly well.

~~~
philwelch
Japanese companies like Sony or Toshiba have the same problem. Adding insult
to injury, Sony's website is completely unusable--it has Flash, and when I
click on the flashblock to allow it, nothing seems to happen.

Maybe it's just computer companies? Toyota's website seemed easy enough to
use, but then again it was nearly as easy to choose and configure a Ford.

------
zeteo
There's nothing new about this. Apple has been doing vertical integration for
decades. When things went badly, pundits criticized it. Now it's the whole new
rage. There's nothing particularly enlightening in this article, nothing that
would be of any use to anyone hoping to replicate some of Apple's success.
Advice to have good design and a low price is just a platitude.

~~~
wavephorm
Apple's vertical model didn't work for the PC industry for a variety of
reasons. But now in the new mobile industry it is so successful, that
literally every big company is trying to go all vertical, all the time.

Hardware, software, development tools, operating system, mobile and desktop
platforms, app stores, single sign-on, cloud services, music, movies, and tv
delivery, voice and video communications...

Google, Apple, and Microsoft are all trying to build an entire computing
stack, back to front, and leave the other guys out. Nokia, Motorola, and HP
knew they weren't going to be able to compete in the new vertical world.
Samsung is trying to get into the OS game with their Bada and maybe something
after that.

~~~
philwelch
Apple's vertical model is working in the PC industry now, but only because
everyone else is fucking up so much. I think if any other PC manufacturer
handled these issues as well as Apple does, it wouldn't matter that they don't
make the operating system. Even Apple barely makes any of the actual hardware.

------
NaOH
I understand why it wasn't addressed in Gruber's post, but the customer-facing
points he made about online sites and how they compare to the Apple site could
just as well have been extended to the retail presence of the various
companies. The same design aspects which take place online are also present at
the retail level.

Step into an Apple Store, and the product differentiation is clear and
accessible. Step into a retailer of Windows computers (in the US), and it's
just rows and rows of barely distinguishable machines. Yes, Apple does include
a small display card of the basic specs near each machine, but their overall
setup is one that encourages visitors to use the machines and evaluate them
on-site to determine if a model is a fit. These design decisions extend to
other aspects of the retail experiences, from the setting, the available
staff, the sales experience, etc.

It's relatively easy to see how Apple uses vertical integration in things like
its product lines and manufacturing. But they've managed to combine that with
vertical design in nearly every place people interact with the company. That's
hard to do but always impressive to experience.

~~~
philwelch
_Yes, Apple does include a small display card of the basic specs near each
machine_

They've replaced the cards with iPads. No joke.

------
jrockway
I agree with this. What I like about Apple is that they don't try to be low
end, and they don't try to sell low end as high end. For years, I avoided
buying a Thinkpad because the screens were so shitty. "We're a Chinese
manufacturer owned by the Chinese government, so we won't use Korean LCDs."
Great. Now I can't see what I'm working on, making your computers completely
useless. Apple doesn't pull this shit. They good components and don't try to
convince you that a 1024x768 LCD with no backlight is a "high-end business
laptop".

The good news is that Lenovo got their act together and my X220 has a great
display (and great everything; it's much better than anything Apple can sell
you). But buying is still a shitty experience. The most popular blog post I
ever wrote was called "Lenovo Shipping Sucks". After navigating through their
detail-less website and 100 similar product lines ("it's a Thinkpad, but it
has a shitty keyboard and a non-removable battery. also, it's red, doesn't
have a roll cage or keyboard drainage holes, but it does have built in Dr. Dre
speakers. but we're calling it a Thinkpad, so there."), the buying experience
is horrible. They have a different sale every day, so every time you look at
the website, the laptop differs in cost by $400 and random options ("free hard
drive upgrade!"), so you always think "today's not the right day to buy, maybe
tomorrow it will be cheaper". Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're not.
Fuck your fucking sales. Set a price and let me pay it. Make it cost the same
at Amazon.

But the story doesn't end there. You've decided to buy the laptop. Now you
have to navigate through the configuration. Do you want a screen with a 3x3
wifi antenna, or one with a 2x2 wifi antenna with camera? Do you want a "super
LCD" or just a regular one (both at the same resolution)? Do you want an i7
with a USB 3.0 port, or an i5 with an always-on USB 2.0 port? It's insane. I
sort of know what these options mean after googling and reading forums and
asking people I know... but there's no information on their website. Just give
me the goddamn 3x3 antenna. How much does an extra fucking 2.4Ghz antenna in
every laptop cost? 1 cent? I'll pay it for the convenience. (Yes, I know 3x3
MIMO is. But why is the number of 802.11n streams I can run dependent on the
resolution of the screen I buy?) Anyway, you get the idea. I doubt even
Lenovo's engineers can confidently purchase the laptop configuration they
want.

So now you have a laptop configured and you want to pay for it. Type in your
credit card number or use Amazon payments. OK, I'm lazy and my wallet is over
on the kitchen table and I never remember my security code, for some reason.
We'll use Amazon payments. Oh sorry, we can't use your Amazon information
because you have dashes in the phone number you gave Amazon. What the fuck?
Fine, I'll go over to Amazon and remove your motherfucking dashes. Oh nice,
now all my subscribe-and-save orders are canceled because my address has
changed. And all I wanted to do is buy a laptop.

Ok, fine, I've fixed my 30 subscribe-and-save orders, and I'm back to buying
my laptop. Click "pay with Amazon payments" again. Session timeout.
Reconfigure (and check the wrong i5 processor among the 5 they offer), buy
successfully. Get order confirmation email. Estimated ship date: 6 weeks from
today.

What!?!?!?! They said it would arrive in 5-7 business days. I didn't pick any
configuration options that "may delay [my] order", and they've already charged
my credit card. And now I have to loan them money for two months AND not have
a Laptop!?

Long story short, I did get my laptop in 4 business days. (Order Tuesday,
receive next Monday.) But the process was terrible. Just god fucking awful. I
felt sad, confused, unhappy, and stressed throughout the entire process.

The good news is that the laptop is absolutely phenomenal. (except that I got
the i5 without AES acceleration, and use an encrypted filesystem on an SSD.
wrong fucking checkbox.) Thinkpads are the nicest laptop on the market that
provide the best user experience for someone like me. (One screw to swap the
hard drive out. No screws to swap the battery. 8 hours battery life. 2x2 MIMO
out of the box with Debian. Even the Sprint WiMAX works!) But that's the best
user experience you can have buying a laptop, and it was so unbelievably
shitty that my description here isn't even close to doing it justice. How can
any normal person buy a laptop!?

(Now, why don't I buy a Mac instead? That's easy. They're like those cars
where opening the hood to change the oil voids the warranty. I had a PowerBook
in college and was taking my first computer science class ever, MCS494 "UNIX
Security Holes". One day, I decided to run iTunes under GDB to see what it was
doing with my private information (and to look for buffer overflows in order
to receive a passing grade in the class). GDB segfaults. I run GDB under GDB.
I see that it is dying because the OS is intentionally refusing to let me run
the debugger on iTunes. Mac OS X is hard-coded to not let you do that. So that
was the end of OS X for me. If Apple wants to run code that looks at my data
and sends information back to Apple over SSL, then I should at least be able
to take a look at what it's up to. But Apple says no: it's their computer and
you are lucky to have it, so fuck you. That was the end of Apple for me that
night. I deleted OS X, installed Debian, and never looked back. I was going to
burn down the Apple Store just to teach them a lesson, but I realized that due
to Apple's architecture choices, Apple Stores are actually impossible to set
fire to.)

Anyway, the world sucks. Especially if all you want is a computer that fits in
your backpack, can run off a battery, and has a viewable screen.

(Yup, I had a few beers. If it works for Steve Yegge it can work for me too!)

~~~
SamReidHughes
> "it's a Thinkpad, but it has a shitty keyboard and a ...

The "Thinkpad Edge" and the X120e and X1 actually have very nice keyboards,
arguably nicer than the usual scissor switches. Except that the layout is
messed up.

~~~
pooriaazimi
I really love my MacBook Pro's keyboard. It's clean, with just as much keys as
I need. I hate laptops with 110 keys, most are useless keys like page up/down,
home/end, print screen, ... If I need to navigate to next page (which I often
do), I just hold down 'fn' and press the down arrow. End? 'cmd+right arrow'.
Admittedly, Print screen is a little harder to remember for the average user
('cmd+shift+3/4'), but MacBook's page up/down and home/end are very reasonable
and easy to remember even for non-technical users.

I agree that the 'return' on the British keyboard is very poorly designed
(there's an screenshot the original review at ars, but apart from that,
MacBook's keyboard is one of the reasons I would never buy a PC in the
foreseeable future (other reasons: OS X and trackpad).

Thinkpad's keyboard is much better than that the average PC laptop keyboard,
except for page up/down keys getting in the way all the time.

Oh and I absolutely hate the media keys on laptops...

~~~
SamReidHughes
> If I need to navigate to next page (which I often do), I just hold down 'fn'
> and press the down arrow. End? 'cmd+right arrow'.

So you have to use two hands instead of one, which is great, because two is
better than one. Do you disable right clicking on the trackpad and use
command+click for that, too?

> Thinkpad's keyboard is much better than that the average PC laptop keyboard,
> except for page up/down keys getting in the way all the time.

Yes, I often have that problem, where I'm in the middle of typing something,
and suddenly I think, _there's a Page Up key on this keyboard_. Just knowing
that the Page Up key is sitting there, all on its lonesome in the top right
corner, waiting, such a naughty little key that wants to snuggle in the brief
touch of scar tissue at the end of my pinky, distracted me for 15 minutes when
typing this reply.

> Oh and I absolutely hate the media keys on laptops...

This is where you reveal yourself to be a crazy person.

~~~
jrockway
I have that problem with Page Up also. I want to scroll up in my terminal and
I think "ah, this is a laptop, fuck it". Then I realize that I have a Page Up
key, and am able to scroll up. It Just Works!

You'd think I'd learn someday, but I never do.

(BTW, if you want "crazy person", I own two keyboards that don't even have
arrow keys. I don't think I've ever had a use for them!)

------
cubicle67
I wish HN had a way of presenting content but masking who wrote it, so we
could discuss what's written here without getting dragged down into the usual
(of late) bashing/defending John. I feel this is an interesting point he's
raised here, and I'm interested to see peoples take _on that point_ , not the
usual meaningless back and forth that goes on

~~~
X-Istence
So far there is no bashing of John in this thread, just a single anecdote and
story about Tim Cook and how his way of managing has started becoming part of
the fabric that is Apple.

Apple has a proven formula, they have been able to make consumer products that
people want without giving people a big choice.

~~~
cubicle67
_So far there is no bashing of John in this thread_

er yeah, I noticed that :) It was more of an "Ok, let's do it right this time"
thought written in reaction to previous threads

~~~
X-Istence
Unfortunately it did degrade to bashing John. Fuckin' shame really.

------
stretchwithme
The MacBook Air has that block of aluminum. Who else has that?

Yes, its stiffer and lighter, but it also makes it a more beautiful machine.
And that's definitely worth something to me.

As is the fact that I can develop on unix.

And it comes with Apple Care.

And I'm able to back up over the air using Time Capsule.

All of these things make life easier and more flexible.

This "new" Apple advantage is just one of the many advantages Apple has been
creating.

------
ethank
This is always my favorite page on Apple's site:
<http://www.apple.com/pr/products/>

------
ecaradec
The Apple way is to design amazing product, I do own an iphone and an ipad and
I really like them. Apple does an incredible job at designing products.

But the Apple way is also to not be at conferences or shows but their own, to
forbid developers to talk about the OS and to sue others companies using their
patents. I really dislike Apple, if there was some other company that could do
as amazing phones and tablets as they do, I would jump in their boat as
quickly as possible. As a customer, I have absolutly no loyalty to Apple.
Apple is like the crazy captain that is the only one that can pass the "Cap
Horn". He is amazing at what he do but if he need to jettison you at anytime,
he'll do it. You can't be safe near him.

I wished some PC maker should make a line of designed PC and deliver them with
a raw Windows, without any crapware installed. Actually I thought about it so
much that I considered doing just that. I talked about it with a friend who is
an Apple fan. His opinion was that it couldn't work because PC buyier didn't
care, he said they wanted blinking leds and things just like that and that
they actually like crapware. I might reconsider my idea seeing comments there.

~~~
technoslut
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. I'm sure that if you were in
Apple's position you wouldn't take too kindly to everyone imitating your
designs and technological innovations. Companies do have to make money.

You could argue that Apple is too controlling and sometimes they do go too far
but that controlling nature also allows for superior products as well. I don't
think the perfect solution exists out there for you.

>...forbid developers to talk about the OS...

I'm not exactly sure why you have a problem with this. Yes, devs are asked to
sign an NDA but it's their choice to do so and I've yet to see Apple publicly
go out after devs for violating their agreement.

> wished some PC maker should make a line of designed PC and deliver them with
> a raw Windows, without any crapware installed...I talked about it with a
> friend who is an Apple fan. His opinion was that it couldn't work because PC
> buyier didn't care...

They don't care. Have you ever tried teaching the average user how to use a
computer? The typical response is "I don't really care. I just want to do x".
Try selling them on spending a $1000+ on a computer that will only last 3-4
years. They don't see the value proposition and, for those that do, will buy
an Apple product because of the brand image. The PC has lost the high end for
almost a decade now and I don't think they can get it back. This, along with
Apple dominating the supply chain, makes it difficult to compete.

~~~
rsynnott
> I'm not exactly sure why you have a problem with this. Yes, devs are asked
> to sign an NDA but it's their choice to do so and I've yet to see Apple
> publicly go out after devs for violating their agreement.

It's also pretty much the industry standard. When we hear about Windows 8 from
the MSDN blogs, it is not because some developer decided to write it; it's
because it has been approved for public dissemination. Apple does much the
same thing at its developer conferences. Google, in ways, is even more
secretive; by the time we hear about what's in the latest Android, the first
devices with said version are often already on the shelves; Apple at least
gives developers a couple of months heads up.

------
nohat
The problem with the article he quotes is that it is wrong about the price of
the x220. The x220 with default specs on everything except the bluetooth,
webcam, ips screen (much nicer than an air btw), 128 GB ssd, and most
expensive wifi (includes wimax) is $1290.60 . The ars article claims $1999.

~~~
fjarlq
But that's a limited-time promotional discount. They are reporting the usual
price.

[http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2011/09/ultrabook-
intel...](http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2011/09/ultrabook-
intels-300-million-plan-to-beat-apple-at-its-own-
game.ars?comments=1&start=40#comment-22027869)

~~~
vacri
That's not quite fair either - adding to the complexity of pc purchases is the
dizzying array of weekly specials. It's entirely normal for a vendor to mark
stuff down from week to week.

~~~
joezydeco
Good point. You may not care for Apple's prices, but you know they will be
exactly the same between all outlets almost all the time. There are obvious
windows of exception, like just before a keynote, but those are pretty well
marked.

------
kennystone
"It’s the Jobs side of the equation that Apple’s rivals — phone, tablet,
laptop, whatever — are able to copy. Thus the patents and the lawsuits. Design
is copyable. But the Cook side of things — Apple’s economy of scale advantage
— cannot be copied by any company with a complex product lineup."

OK but there is a huge lag in time between Apple's delivery and the
competitor's copy. Android did a good job copying iOS but Apple had a two year
head start before an Android phone was on level ground with an iPhone. iPad
will probably be a year out before a decent competitor comes along. Dell came
out with an (ugly) MBP-like laptop a months ago.

They can copy Apple's designs, but if they only play catch-up, Apple will stay
way ahead.

~~~
sneak
> iPad will probably be a year out before a decent competitor comes along.

They've been saying that for a year.

------
mcantelon
>This realization sort of snuck up on me. I’ve always been interested in
Apple’s products because of their superior design; the business side of the
company was never of as much interest.

It's news that economies of scale helps keep Apple's parts costs down?

------
padobson
If you're going to attack Gruber for being an Apple apologist to the point of
utter irrationality, then you don't want to attack the substance of this post,
but rather its use in supporting his thesis: Apple is the best run business in
the world. More specifically to this post: Apple sells laptops better than
anyone else.

I refute it thus: [http://m.techcrunch.com/2011/07/14/apple-continues-slow-
but-...](http://m.techcrunch.com/2011/07/14/apple-continues-slow-but-steady-
growth-in-us-laptop-market-share/)

Apple is a distant third in US laptop market share and they don't even crack
the top 5 globally.

Whatever the user experience of their sales channel is, it hasn't stopped
their competitors from out selling them.

What Apple diehards like Gruber seem to forget when they discuss the merit of
Apple's marketplace strategy is that the product is only 1/4 of the equation.
Pricing, sales channel, and hype are the other three portions, and Apple has
been consistently beaten by the competition on these grounds for the entire
history of personal computing - their portable gadgets excluded.

The fact of the matter is that the average PC buyer doesn't get on a computer
at home and shop for a laptop. They either take the one that their workplace
gives them, or they go into a store and talk to a salesman about all the
nuances of buying a computer that have been covered here. They then purchase
the cheapest laptop that meets their needs, and they go home that day with it.

~~~
Artagra
You need to remember that Apple decides to avoid certain markets (want a
laptop less than $1000? Apple won't sell it to you). Also, sales do not equal
profit.

I think Apple is hugely successful, both in terms of selling computers to
individuals (Vast majority of Apple sales are above $1000, Apple has a 90%
market share of retail PCs sold that are above 90% [1]) And they are hugely
profitable [2].

1:
[http://macdailynews.com/2010/02/01/apple_mac_owns_90_market_...](http://macdailynews.com/2010/02/01/apple_mac_owns_90_market_share_for_premium_pcs_costing_over_1000/)
) 2: [http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-
vs-o...](http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-revenue-vs-operating-
profit-share-of-top-pc-vendors-2010-3)

~~~
jarek
What share of the retail PC market is the over $1000 part? 90% of, say, 20%
still wouldn't be much.

------
runjake
It really seems like an inferiority complex to me. Yes, Lenovo, Dell, etc all
have too many choices and it's confusing (for me, at least).

But after just a little research I was able to pick the perfect Thinkpad for
me. You want a Mac? Buy a Mac. You want something else? Buy something else.

Stop letting Gruber or the latest Windows pundit bait you into arguments that
don't do you any good -- all you do is boost their blog page views.

Just use whatever and get over the pissing matches. There's no one true path,
beware anyone who would tell you such.

------
ajg1977
If they're not already, PC manufacturers should be very scared.

~~~
sunchild
They were mocking Apple openly ten years ago. One of many factors leading to
Apple's success is the hubris of their competition.

~~~
philwelch
And now, starting with HP, they're bailing out.

------
penguinbroker
While I agree that the 'Tim Cook' advantage is very important I wouldn't
dismiss Steve Jobs' unique abilities so quickly. Yes there are many
exceptional designers in the world but to say that was Steve Jobs' biggest
influence is wrong. I would even go so far as to say that Ives is the bigger
design influence. What I admired about Steve Jobs was his ability to make the
right sacrifices. From ditching the floppy drive in the original iMac to
refusing to support Flash in the new iOS devices. These sacrifices, while
obvious in retrospect were decisions that no other hardware companies were
capable of making. While everyone was trying to build what the consumer
wanted, Jobs was always focused on what the consumer should want. A huge
difference.

As Henry Ford once said: If I had asked people what they wanted, they would
have said faster horses.

While everyone else tries to make faster horses, Jobs has kept Apple focused
on building cars of the future. He'll be missed.

------
comice
"Design is copyable. But the Cook side of things — Apple’s economy of scale
advantage — cannot be copied by any company with a complex product lineup."

What nonsense is this? If a company copied Apple's economy of scale, it would
no longer _have_ a complex product lineup.

It's like saying "Design cannot be copied by any company with ugly products".

------
charlieok
I'm not sure that Gruber explicitly stated this, but it also seems clear to me
that a key design element -- making the device _small_ \-- is also enabled by
the lack of configurability. If there's no concern for assembling
interchangeable parts, the parts can be integrated into a tighter enclosure.

------
jgh
Had a similar experience about a month ago when my wife said she wanted a new
laptop for school, but wanted it small and light.

So she thought Netbook. I told her she'd be pretty unhappy with a netbook's
performance. So I began looking for an "ultraportable" laptop in the 11" range
that was nice and light/small for her, but still fast enough to have the
performance she would expect and be happy with.

I considered the Lenovo X220 or whatever it was, it was on sale from like
$1400 or whatever to $900, but unavailable in any stores around here and she
really wanted to see it first. There is an Acer(?) one that just came out, but
it was like $1700 or so. The new MBA? $1000 and does exactly what she wants. I
was pretty shocked to find that the MacBook Air was the most reasonably priced
laptop in that size range.

------
yonasb
Author should have linked to this article, can't believe he didn't. Probably
the best I've read on Apple's supply chain, this post comes in second:
<http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-supply-chain-2011-7>

------
sakura_k
Apple delivers better value than their competitors in part because they master
the supply chain. They buy such a large quantity of parts for their focused
product lines, nobody can compete on scale.

------
rafski
I find it funny people don't realize Apple sells 18 kinds of iPad 2.

~~~
philwelch
Color, storage space, and 3G are the only options though. If you count all the
options for Macbook Air, there's roughly 524288 combinations.

------
apinstein
What Apple is doing is textbook strategy, right out of Michael Porter's
playbook. If you are an entrepreneur and haven't read "What is Stragegy?"
before, stop everything you're doing and go read it right now.

<http://hbr.org/product/what-is-strategy/an/96608-PDF-ENG>

HINT: if you google to title you'll find a link to the full PDF, though I am
not sure of it's legitimacy.

------
saurabhnanda
To all those who are comparing a computer/laptop with a
car/television/refrigerator/wherever. There's a big difference between the two
classes of machines. Cars don't deal with your personal data. Talk about not
caring what your car does (or how it works) when it's connected to the
internet and stores the details of each location you drove to, who you were
with, and how long you stayed there.

------
mathattack
This does capture yet another benefit of Apple's model of simplicity. Sales
and operations become more streamlined when it's not management by committee.
It puts a lot of pressure on the top and can make for being a difficult
business partner, but the results are obvious.

------
rayiner
It's hilarious that Lenovo's answer to the Macbook Air is the Lenovo Air:
[http://www1.pcmag.com/media/images/268742-7-the-u300-s-vivid...](http://www1.pcmag.com/media/images/268742-7-the-u300-s-vivid-13-inch-
widescreen.jpg)

------
Artagra
I think another important factor to remember, is that Apple simply able to
spend more on development for each computer they sell. No-one else makes as
much profit per machine as Apple does, and no one else sells as many of each
SKU as Apple does.

------
billmcneale
Gruber's analysis is flawed because there is currently no competitor to the
Apple products he's discussing, so necessarily, anything the competition has
to offer today looks silly.

But this will change, as it always has when Apple's competition catches up.
When this happens, Apple's simplistic "one size fits all" strategy will
backfire again like it always has in the past.

~~~
toadkick
You mean like how the competition has caught up with the iPad? Oh, wait...

edit: Also, they've been selling the iPhone 4 for a long time now, it has sold
better than all of the previous models, and it's still selling incredibly well
in spite of the expectations that a new model will be released soon. Doesn't
really seem like the "one size fits all" approach has backfired on them at
all, especially when that one size fits so well...

another edit: "there is currently no competitor to the Apple products he's
discussing"...isn't that part of the point he was trying to make? That other
companies are unable to compete currently because they don't control their
supply chain as well or as tightly as Apple is able to, as Apple only offers a
few options as opposed to the overwhelming amount of near-useless (to the
average laptop buyer) options that the other guys offer?

------
georgieporgie
I see four reasons for PC laptop makers being so weird:

1) The illusion of control that options give. "My toaster goes to 11!"

2) Building to specs. "This laptop has 20% more pixels than the Macbook. IPS?
What's that mean?"

3) Backward compatibility obsession. "I have to have VGA-out because my
enterprise customer has VGA projectors. They have VGA projectors because
laptops all have VGA-out." Apple will happily pave away old cruft every few
years (OS X, dumping 32-bit support in Lion, move to Thunderbolt) for the sake
of simplicity and optimal solutions.

4) Consumer confusion. These people aren't stupid, there _must_ be some
advantage to having such horribly convoluted online stores. I suspect that
it's easier to unload undesirable machines by putting them confusingly next to
more desirable ones.

------
olalonde
I have to agree with Arrington, this Gruber needs to get some help.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KNGtGLP7g0&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KNGtGLP7g0&feature=player_detailpage#t=253s)

------
blinkingled
The problem with what Apple does to its advantage is that it isnt really
always in the consumer's best interest. Gruber shines light only on how it is
working great for Apple but ignores the fact that people have by and large
benefited from having choices.

For people who get real work done the specs matter. The fact that Peter Bright
wanted anything but an Apple says something. But there is also a section of
users that value form more than anything and barely do anything other than
browsing/email/videos - Apple caters to them and does well. That doesnt mean
every other manufacturer should start doing the same thing. That we can have
cheaper, configurable and user serviceable laptops today is a good thing. That
we can buy any hardware peripheral today and reasonably expect it to work with
our PCs is a great thing.

Gruber should boast if Apple was able to offer more choice at competitive
price because then it will be also good for the consumer. I for one dont want
to see the world go to doing less with more where I cannot service my laptop
by visiting manufacturers support site, where I cannot have the ports I need
on my laptop reasonably spaced from each other etc. Having the ability to have
USB3 port for next to no additional buck and having cheap peripherals
available today is a result of choice culture and mindlessly praising some
$CORP for limiting choice and maximising their profits just suppresses that.

Thats the whole issue with Gruber and company ~ They seldom think rationally
from a consumer standpoint and just seek to blindly rally their followers to
the corporation's cause.

~~~
bignoggins
I don't follow your logic. How does Apple catering to a subset of consumers
mean they are not acting in the consumer's best interest. From the standpoint
of the consumers they cater to, they are. From the standpoint of those they
don't cater to, I suppose they don't. Having more choice at a competitive
price is not "good for the consumer", it's only good for consumers who want
more choice at a competitive price. And as Apple has shown, that isn't
everybody.

~~~
philwelch
_How does Apple catering to a subset of consumers mean they are not acting in
the consumer's best interest. From the standpoint of the consumers they cater
to, they are. From the standpoint of those they don't cater to, I suppose they
don't._

No, even from the standpoint of customers they don't cater to. You can't be
all things to all people. You make the products that you can make best, and
the products you can't make best, you let other people make. If your needs
don't fit what Apple is good at making, then you shouldn't buy an Apple even
if they try to make something in your category.

