
Is Apple too powerful? - malvosenior
http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-apple-too-powerful.html
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nfriedly
No?

Seriously, they own the music market because they have the best product around
and still do after giving the competition years to catch up.

Apple does not currently own the video market, and I honestly don't expect
them to any time soon.

I think that, if anything, it'll encourage innovation because suddenly there's
a clear target: "It has to be better than iPod. And not just a little better,
way better." Apple's not unbeatable.

~~~
wvenable
Apple going after the flip makes perfect sense; there's not a lot of
difference between them hardware-wise except for the camera. It might just
take another generation before the nano is superior to the flip (factoring in
it's size) -- It's already a pretty good value.

~~~
unalone
The Flip is already in HD. They're much more flexible than Apple because they
have only the one product focus. So far Apple doesn't have a camera good
enough to detract from the Flip, and the people who get nanos for the camera
won't be in the Flip's market.

~~~
netsp
What Apple can pull on though is the ability to edit. That'd be their
strength. They are good at that kind of thing.

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wmeredith
"The new iPod nano is a tour de force, the Swiss Army Knife of mobile
entertainment. I'm sure there's some obscure gadget from Japan that packs more
features per cubic millimeter, and chances are neither have you. This one's a
major consumer product, just in time for stimulating the economy this holiday
season."

I stopped there. Features per millimeter is not why the Nano is a threat.
Hardware and software integration and UX are what made Apple so powerful.

~~~
wvenable
The "nano" is all about size -- it's right there in the name!

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RyanMcGreal
> Think about that for a minute. "There's a big new market, and we want in."
> Not, "we're creating something new" or "we can vastly improve this
> category." Just, "we want a cut."

You know, there were MP3 players before the iPod. Apple improved on the design
and usability and coupled their MP3 player with an online store that had buy-
in from the music industry, but they were still essentially angling for a cut
on an existing market.

~~~
timcederman
It's funny. I've heard the whole "iPod made MP3 players usable" argument a few
times and I don't buy it. iRiver made a batch of very nice MP3 players, which
sold very well in Asia, and had more features and were just as user-friendly
as the iPod, if not more so.

So what's the difference? You nailed it by mentioning the online store. iTunes
was a unified interface backed by a large company with the ability to purchase
new music. The iPods themselves, at first, weren't that special. I'm actually
quite amazed with how nice the iPods have continued to get over the years, and
with the new Nano they provide a compelling reason to continue buying a
standalone music player.

~~~
blasdel
The original iPod predated even the flash-memory iRiver products by at least a
year.

When the iPod was released its sole competitors were the Nomad Jukebox and the
Compaq PJB-100 -- both of which were _HUEG_ (2.5" hard drives), had shit for
battery life, were made of the creakiest plastic, and took several minutes to
boot up and index your files (due to not having an index (drag-and-drop has
consequences!)).

~~~
joezydeco
I agree with Blasdel. Think about MP3 players back then and how awful the song
management software was. They were afterthoughts and it showed.

The bad experience dealing with those programs negated any benefit from HAVING
an MP3 player. I remember messing with my Nike/PSA's player and trying to load
my songs onto it, and I simply gave up.

Apple figured out that iTunes needed to be as easy to use as the iPod. That
was their win.

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Tiktaalik
There's some compelling points raised here. The iTunes connection is a bit on
the edge of crossing over to being used inappropriately I think.

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tholex
Apple simply abuses whatever power it has more so than other companies.
There's what, 30 million iPhone users out there? 40?

If any of them want to listen to music with legitimate headphones, they have
to buy adapters to fit the intentionally-small opening. It's the same for all
their proprietary plugs and devices. They exclude other RAM and hardware
manufacturers from their desktop, even those that produce better products at a
cheaper price.

~~~
wmeredith
Uh, it seems like you might not know WTF you're talking about... Every
headphone adapter I've ever tried to plug into my iPods has worked. What
you're talking about was a design flaw on the first-gen iPhone that was
corrected in the next model.

The RAM statement is false.

The "even even those that produce better products at a cheaper price"
statement is a matter of opinion. As a side note, I'm afraid it's an opinion
that few people share. There are a lot of points where you can pick on Apple;
industrial design is not a good place to start. (It's kind of like going after
Benjamin Franklin for being a crappy politician, instead of say slave
ownership or smoking pot. Industrial design may be what Apple is best at.)

They do exclude other computer makers from shipping computers running their
OS. A lot of companies do this, though; the only reason it seems weird of
Apple is that Microsoft doesn't do this and competitors are so small that it's
basically dual market. There are other examples, though: you can't port the
software running a Texas Instruments calculator or Mercedes Benz' iDrive
control system anywhere else. But I'm not sure it's an abuse of power, it's
just proprietary software. Go Linux if you want more freedom.

~~~
tjogin
Microsoft does that too, with their Xbox (which, not coincidentally, is far
less error and bug prone than their Windows PC offerings).

