Last week, another iPad competitor bit the dust, and so far no vendor has even come close to bothering Apple in the tablet space. In the smartphone space, the only thing that seems to hurt Apple is the carrier and the anticipation of its next phone, which is due shortly but rumored to be delayed. If this were a poker game or any kind of sport, this kind of winning streak would have us wondering if the winner were cheating. I’ve joked about Apple’s 5th column before, but doesn’t it seem like Apple’s competitors are increasingly doing brain-dead stupid things?
I don't know about espionage, but Apple does weild huge advantage both in economies of scale the inherited from the iPod and their willingness to bet huge on logistics. That gives Apple inherent price advantages.
But beyond that, Apple is simply executing better than anyone else. Apple does not often release half-baked products. It took two years before Android phones worked well enough to really be viable, for instance ... But they were selling them anyway. If Apple had not been locked into a deal with the devil (their only way to break into the business at all) and could have sold multi-carrier the Droid would have done much, much worse.
We're seeing what happens when Apple is not restricted by carrier lock with the iPad, and it's looking a lot like the iPod ... a product that no one can argue did not win on its merits, against all expectation. The iPad, like the iPod, was conceived in secret literally years before launch, and not released until it worked well. Can we say that about even one of the would-be usurpers?
Jobs is legendarily viscious about product quality, something very rarely seen in business. It certainly shows in the products, and when Apple is able to achieve economy of scale they leverage that for all its worth to keep the competition from killing them on price.
Are the other guys idiots? Well, yes. They're releasing me-too products long before they are ready. They're not willing to commit to large component purchases so they're getting lousy prices and that keeps prices high and margins low. They have bought into constant product updates that mean high R&D and production set-up costs relative to product run time whereas Apple's annual refresh keeps those costs to a minimum ... but at the cost of the competitors getting next-generation products out several months earlier (like 3G, and dual-core processors), so the products have to be able to compete on function rather than specs.
You mention the Pre, and claim lousy reviews. I don't remember it that way at all - most reviews of the Pre seemed positive to me, and the software was certainly well done. Product quality, though, wasn't -- the warranty rates were horrible (well into the double digits!) and people remember having to get their phone fixed the next time they get to the store. Then, as you say, there was also the suckage that was Sprint, but that may well have been the fault of being so late to market -- with AT&T betting on the iPhone and Verizon on Droid who was left for Palm? That's the phone business for you -- if Apple hadn't been locked to AT&T, don't you think it would have seriously blunted Android? Especially in the early days when Android was pretty lousy?
It doesn't take conspiracy theories. It's easy to see, just looking at the execution of the various companies, how bad Apple's competitors' approaches have been. The products are released way too early, missing major features and with significant stability problems, at the wrong price points, pushing specs over function, with no long-term or even medium-term commitment to supporting any particular product. This is mediocrity at best, and incompetence at worst. That works fine as long as you can beat the other guy significantly on price, and your product works well enough, but if you can't ... it's a recipe for those disasters you're seeing.
Apple really doesn't have to sabotage the other guys' efforts. I mean, have you used these other products? Mostly they just suck, seriously, and often in ways that are obvious to even naive consumers.
Apple is trendy with loyal customers, And that combined with the mentality that if it cost more its better. Has made them rich, if your willing to venture offbrand and not look as cool. You can get better hardware with more storage ect for a fraction of the price. But no one wants to oppose the cool, honestly I worked with a no name company for while that actually had a much better phone more user friendly on a 4g network for half the price and released almost a month before the iphone. But the iphone got the in points and stomped the little company into the ground. Most people by stuff cause of the people around them. And never base it of logic,
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So, Is Apple Cheating?
Posted by: Rob Enderle April 11, 2011 05:00 AMLast week, another iPad competitor bit the dust, and so far no vendor has even come close to bothering Apple in the tablet space. In the smartphone space, the only thing that seems to hurt Apple is the carrier and the anticipation of its next phone, which is due shortly but rumored to be delayed. If this were a poker game or any kind of sport, this kind of winning streak would have us wondering if the winner were cheating. I’ve joked about Apple’s 5th column before, but doesn’t it seem like Apple’s competitors are increasingly doing brain-dead stupid things?
But beyond that, Apple is simply executing better than anyone else. Apple does not often release half-baked products. It took two years before Android phones worked well enough to really be viable, for instance ... But they were selling them anyway. If Apple had not been locked into a deal with the devil (their only way to break into the business at all) and could have sold multi-carrier the Droid would have done much, much worse.
We're seeing what happens when Apple is not restricted by carrier lock with the iPad, and it's looking a lot like the iPod ... a product that no one can argue did not win on its merits, against all expectation. The iPad, like the iPod, was conceived in secret literally years before launch, and not released until it worked well. Can we say that about even one of the would-be usurpers?
Jobs is legendarily viscious about product quality, something very rarely seen in business. It certainly shows in the products, and when Apple is able to achieve economy of scale they leverage that for all its worth to keep the competition from killing them on price.
Are the other guys idiots? Well, yes. They're releasing me-too products long before they are ready. They're not willing to commit to large component purchases so they're getting lousy prices and that keeps prices high and margins low. They have bought into constant product updates that mean high R&D and production set-up costs relative to product run time whereas Apple's annual refresh keeps those costs to a minimum ... but at the cost of the competitors getting next-generation products out several months earlier (like 3G, and dual-core processors), so the products have to be able to compete on function rather than specs.
You mention the Pre, and claim lousy reviews. I don't remember it that way at all - most reviews of the Pre seemed positive to me, and the software was certainly well done. Product quality, though, wasn't -- the warranty rates were horrible (well into the double digits!) and people remember having to get their phone fixed the next time they get to the store. Then, as you say, there was also the suckage that was Sprint, but that may well have been the fault of being so late to market -- with AT&T betting on the iPhone and Verizon on Droid who was left for Palm? That's the phone business for you -- if Apple hadn't been locked to AT&T, don't you think it would have seriously blunted Android? Especially in the early days when Android was pretty lousy?
It doesn't take conspiracy theories. It's easy to see, just looking at the execution of the various companies, how bad Apple's competitors' approaches have been. The products are released way too early, missing major features and with significant stability problems, at the wrong price points, pushing specs over function, with no long-term or even medium-term commitment to supporting any particular product. This is mediocrity at best, and incompetence at worst. That works fine as long as you can beat the other guy significantly on price, and your product works well enough, but if you can't ... it's a recipe for those disasters you're seeing.
Apple really doesn't have to sabotage the other guys' efforts. I mean, have you used these other products? Mostly they just suck, seriously, and often in ways that are obvious to even naive consumers.
jim frost
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