iPad

apple / apple news / iMac / iPad / iPhone / iPod / itunes / mac / observatory / steve jobs / strategy / tablets / technology — 3 Comments
7
Jun 11

WWDC 2011: the morning after

Ah, the joy of software. This really is the stuff that makes Apple Apple, and it was fun to see such widespread improvements in one fell swoop.

As usual, some random day-after thoughts.

Mac OS X

Full-screen apps. This is a personal favorite. Can’t wait to see it in action. I currently use full-screen with all apps that enable it, and always appreciate the focus it brings. We’ve got the screen space — it’s a shame not to use it all.

Auto-Save. I look forward to not repeating some of the more humbling failures of my past. Turning the window title into a pop-up menu to access past versions is a nice touch. Being able to copy and paste from old versions is even nicer.

The feature count. Poor Lion. Only 250 new features. Leopard had 300.

Lion power, kitty price. $29 is amazing. Snow Leopard was the aberration at $29, compared to all the $129 Mac OS X upgrades before. But there was a reason for that — Snow Leopard’s changes were mostly in the plumbing. Lion is as rich an upgrade as any upgrade in history, but the price stays remarkably low. Why? My guess is that (a) Apple wants to move the entire base forward, because (b) there is far more money to be made down the road with a new foundation. I’m not being cynical, it’s just good business. The more people shopping in the Mac App Store and purchasing future iCloud capabilities, the merrier.

Space travel. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of the current log-in star field and Time Machine theme. It wore out its welcome a long time ago, so I expected it to be replaced — but not by another space scene. Apparently, now we have a galaxy image. Apple has always delivered simplicity and elegance, and the space thing always felt like someone else’s idea of “cool.” Can’t we just pick our own backgrounds?

iOS

Feature count, revisited. Only 200 new features in iOS, compared to Lion’s 250 features. Obviously it’s harder to fit new features in a smaller screen.

The big payoff. To excite the crowd, Forstall showed off a slide stating that Apple has paid developers a total of $2.5 billion. It’s a great number until you do the math with the slide right before: customers have downloaded 14 billion apps from the App Store. Let’s see … 2.4 billion divided by 14 billion … that’s about 18 cents an app. Obviously, this says a lot about how many free apps are downloaded.

Notifications. Yippee! At last! It’s interesting that Forstall first confessed that there are problems current notifications, and then said, “We’ve built something that solves some of the problems…” Some?

Safari Reader. One of my favorite features. People may accept that ads pay the bills, but the ultimate reading experience will always be an ad-free zone.

Reading List. Love it. File away an article to be read later, and have that list appear on all your devices.

The geo-fence. Probably my favorite new term from the show (and very cool feature). In telling how Reminders work, Forstall talked about setting up a geo-fence around Moscone, so when he left the building he’d get a reminder. Hopefully, by winter we’ll have geothermal fences.

Camera. Despite talk about the quality of the iPhone camera, I rarely use it. One reason is the damn shutter button on the screen. Sorry, it’s awkward and just not the way we’re accustomed to using cameras. Using the hard Volume Up button as a shutter button makes me an instant fan. Photo-taking is also way improved by the new editing capabilities.

iMessage. It was presented as working across all iOS devices. What about the Mac? Wouldn’t I want to text people while I’m stuck at my desk?

iPhone 5 clue. With iOS 5 coming in the fall, the obvious conclusion is that it will come hand-in-hand with iPhone 5. I can hang in there that long.

iCloud

Demoting the PC. What a great example of Steve Jobs’ ability to simplify in the boldest way. He said they were demoting computers to be just devices, and moving the center of your digital life to the cloud. You get it in a second. And what PC company CEO on earth would say they’re “demoting” one of their biggest moneymakers?

Facing facts. When promoting iCloud, Steve paused to say: “Now why should I believe them? They’re the ones who brought me MobileMe … MobileMe was not our finest hour.” Say what you will about Steve, he dares to be honest.

DropBox killer? Nope. At least not yet. And I’m glad, because DropBox remains one of the greatest Mac utilities ever created. DropBox far out-iDisked iDisk, and its makers deserve to be rewarded, not obsoleted.

What about Me? Obviously the me.com site will ultimately be the icloud.com site. Do we still want me.com email addresses (did we ever?). Does the “me” word really have a place in the iCloud concept? We’ll soon find out…

Documents in the Cloud. Not the shortest name Apple has come up with. But it does have that “gorillas in the mist” meter going for it.

iTunes Match. Huge question mark. No one seems to know if this is a way to subscribe to iTunes versions of the songs you already own, or if your $24.99/year allows you to download the higher-quality versions of your songs to your own computer forever. So $24.99 is either one of the world’s great bargains — or not.

Antiquities. On one of the slides appearing behind Steve Jobs is a stack of CDs. Damn, they’re hideous. Did we ever actually use those things?

AAPL is down. It dropped five bucks yesterday. Down another $3.50 as I write this. Call this “iPad Syndrome.” Remember the industry’s reaction to the original iPad? “Just a big iPhone.” “No surprises, no new breakthroughs.” “Apple’s first dud.” The stock dropped. In broad strokes, just about everything we saw yesterday was “expected.” However, what’s expected can be the start of a whole new world. Like iPad.

The prognosticators. Not that we need to be reminded to take people’s opinions with a grain of salt, but… John Gruber’s pre-WWDC idea was “Think of iCloud as the new iTunes.” In fact, he’s still describing it that way after the show. It’s a good sound bite, but not totally accurate. In truth, iCloud is exactly what Steve Jobs said: the new hub of your digital life. Yes, that includes your iTunes content, but it also includes the things you create. For now, that includes the documents you create in iWork, but that capability will no doubt expand. iCloud is about your whole life — documents, photos, contacts, calendars, etc. — not just your entertainment. The Cult of Mac’s “exclusive” was obviously absurd, yet was quoted by many blogs and news services. They said iCloud would not be hosted in Apple’s new data center after all, but instead would reside on your Time Capsule (purchase required if you don’t already own one). Somehow it never struck them that Apple was signing contracts with the music companies for the rights to do something new with their music, not just store it on a personal hard disk.

All in all, good show. Let’s do it again sometime.

advertising / blackberry / creative / iPad / observatory / tablets — 5 Comments
19
May 11

PlayBook’s bad ad: it takes a village

When you see a particularly painful headline out there, it’s easy to blame the writer.

However, every ad — good or bad — has a long list of accomplices, without whom it could never, ever see the light of day.

The bad headline I focus on today is the one that RIM has proudly wrapped around their new PlayBook tablet: Amateur hour is over.

Let us first admire the irony of it.

Just Google “PlayBook review” and pick a review at random. There’s an 80% chance it’ll be a negative one. Clearly, the overall sense is that PlayBook is missing too many important features to be a serious choice — especially for business people, for whom it was supposedly designed.

The fact that Playbook is incapable of doing email without connecting to a BlackBerry is a shortcoming beyond imagination.

The inappropriateness of a half-finished tablet being released under the banner Amateur hour is over is obvious. What fascinates me is how things like this come to be.

Like the good ol’ U.S. Constitution, agencies are built on a system of checks and balances. While creative people are encouraged to go wild and break all the rules, they’re rarely trusted with the keys to the car. There is a system in place to ensure that an ad can’t run if it is (a) bad, (b) off-strategy or (c) legally risky.

The approvals process varies by agency, but a major ad campaign normally must navigate quite an obstacle course. It would have to get by at least one creative director, the account director, strategy people and probably a senior agency executive as well. That’s before it even gets to the client, who has their own winding road of approvals leading up to the VP of Marketing and CEO.

Given this, it’s nothing less than mind-boggling that a campaign can make it out into the world when it’s carrying a flashing neon sign that says “please kill me.”

Against a nearly perfect competitor — a slick, polished, 2.0 iPad — and lacking basic business functionality, RIM positions PlayBook as a business device under the theme Amateur hour is over.

Stunning.

It’s also damning. Because the entire conga line of approvers who had to sign off on this should have known better. It’s as much a lapse in common sense as it is a lapse of strategy.

So I leap to defend my fellow writer, the person who came up with these unfortunate words. Maybe it was just a bad hangover. A sprawling organization of marketing people, agency and client, can take credit for RIM’s latest black eye.

That having been said, the whole bunch of them should send a note down to RIM’s engineering department with the message: “please don’t do that again.”

advertising / apple / creative / iPad / observatory / steve jobs — 6 Comments
10
May 11

Apple ads vs. the fleeting state of cool

You are so damn fickle.

Sure, you love your Apple ads today. (Like this one for iPad 2.) But history shows you’ll not only lose interest in the near future — you’ll be embarrassed that you ever liked them in the first place.

That’s just the nature of the beast in the ad world. What rates so high on the Cool-o-Meter today looks dated within in a few years, and gets unwatchable a short time after.

And it’s not just you. The whole world grows weary of these things. It’s as if the taste and values of millions evolve in unison.

Great casting becomes miscasting. Great acting turns into amateur hour. Ads shot by acclaimed directors, adored by audiences the world over, become faint memories.

Sadly, there is no fountain of youth for advertising. Most ads wear out their welcome about as fast as you can say “Newton.”

The problem, of course, is that everything on this earth starts getting old the moment it’s born. (Except you, of course.) Every new thing — from music to movies, from books to neat little devices — gets more sophisticated. It helps raise the collective sophistication of all of us.

We gain a new appreciation for the new and a new disdain for the old.

What brought on this little outburst? To be honest, I was just looking through my “favorite ad” archives and being amazed that I ever thought some of them even remotely good. And it wasn’t just me, it was you too. Unbelievably, many of them have slipped from super-cool to outright embarrassing.

At least we don’t have to go on public record about what ads we think are cool. Steve Jobs does. Every time he approves an ad from Apple (and he does approve every single one), he’s saying “here’s one I really like.”

Here’s one he really liked some 30 years ago for the Apple II. I, for one, am very glad he grew up.

dell / iPad / observatory / tablets / technology — 7 Comments
26
Apr 11

Michael Dell’s judicious use of words

Hell, who saw that one coming?

From yesterday’s WSJ’s interview with Michael Dell.

WSJ: What has surprised you most about the evolution of the tech industry [since your return as CEO of Dell four years ago]:

Michael Dell: I’d say [the] rapid rise of the tablet. I didn’t completely see that coming.

I’d truly love to know exactly what parts he didn’t see coming. Maybe it was the hardware and software parts?

Then again, Michael doesn’t always express himself too well. He said “didn’t completely” when he really meant “completely didn’t.”

advertising / apple / apple news / creative / iPad / observatory / strategy — 10 Comments
4
Apr 11

Finally! A different kind of iPad ad

Houston, we have liftoff. After more than three years of generally sticking to a formula for iPhone, iPod and iPad ads, Apple has given us a little surprise.

This new iPad 2 ad, which debuted on Saturday, is from a different world. Gone is the series of apps displayed on a device held by an inhumanly perfect hand.

Shot against black, this ad feels more elegant, more important. That’s because it’s not just a commercial for iPad 2 — it’s a brand ad wrapped in product ad.

Cleverly, it still manages to communicate a wide range of apps — but it does so only in service of the brand message. This ad is about how Apple’s unique philosophy leads to products that are “even more delightful” and yes, “magical.” (I’ll save the issue of Apple’s adjective addiction for another time.)

Personally, I’d been disappointed that Apple had allowed itself to wander into formula territory in the first place. I was genuinely surprised when the launch of iPad — a fresh, world-changing technology — was advertised in the style of ads that had been running for two years before.

To be fair, many marketing experts would totally support what Apple has done. If you’re revolutionizing the world, you’re the center of attention and you’re selling products faster than you can make them, why on earth would you ever change the formula?

My best answer: “Because it’s a formula.”

Apple doesn’t do formulas. It’s in Apple’s blood to relentlessly make things better, even when they’re pretty amazing already. This is what they do with their products (like killing iPod mini at the height of its popularity), and this is historically what they’ve done with their advertising.

So, in my opinion, this extended period of sameness on behalf of the world’s most revolutionary products was an aberration. Now, at long last, Apple is taking us someplace we haven’t been before.

The big question is: how do we like the new ad?

Judging by the comments I’ve seen on blogs so far, it’s safe to say this ad is going to be a big hit with the Apple crowd. That alone would make it a smart investment for Apple. It gives their customers a flag to rally behind, and a good argument to carry forth into the world.

I buy the message of this commercial 100%. Apple products are absolutely different from competitors’ products — and they are different precisely for the reasons described in the ad. That this can be conveyed in just 30 seconds is a good example of Apple’s ability to distill a message into its simplest, most understandable form.

Not to spoil the euphoria, but I feel duty-bound to point out that this ad is not without a downside. While the message may resonate with Apple customers, it is by no means a slam-dunk with the rest of the world.

This is the type of message that is ordinarily delivered by Steve Jobs personally, at such events as the iPad launch. It’s perfectly natural for Steve to get on stage and say things like, “We believe…”

It’s a very different thing when a TV commercial interrupts what we really want to be watching and starts telling us, “We believe…” Some will take that as pretentious and condescending.

While the believers cheer the message that ”magic” involves more than tech specs, those aware of competitors touting superior specs might roll their eyes and take it as Apple being defensive. “Oh, so that’s why you put crappy cameras in iPad 2. That’s part of the magic?”

But no commercial can please everyone, and Apple isn’t trying to convince the die-hard haters. They’re simply trying to get their message out to the vast number of potential iPad buyers, many of whom do not know Apple particularly well.

Personally, I love the fact that Apple is taking a risk by doing something unusual. By doing so, they reinforce the fact that they’re not like the other guys. They honestly believe this message, and they’re willing to spend major money to broadcast it. (And I can guarantee that they did not test this message with 20 focus groups first.)

Once the euphoria fades, though, it does make you wonder: what next?

If this is the “stake in the ground” commercial, where does the advertising go from here? Or is this just a breather, designed to take advantage of iPad’s “moment,” and then we go right back to what we had before?

Surely iPad deserves something better than a series of app shots on the screen. If iPod had the energetic silhouette campaign, and Macs had the endlessly entertaining Mac vs. PC campaign, what does iPad get? Or does Apple scrap tradition and create a “mobility” campaign that encompasses all of its i-products?

Apple and its agency TBWA\Chiat\Day have amazing creative resources, literally around the world. And most creative people would kill for the opportunity to work on such a project.

So I’m going to cross my fingers that the best is yet to come. I hope we can soon return to the days when morning conversations often started with, “Hey, did you see that Apple commercial last night?”

android / apple / dell / iPad / observatory / streak — 8 Comments
31
Mar 11

Dell: daydreaming of iPad’s failure

Never mind that Dell has been losing its luster for many consecutive years now. Its leadership retains the ability to see the world through Dell-colored glasses.

That is, they use the same reasoning that worked so well in the good old days — when Dell was leading the pack, instead of struggling not to fall farther behind.

Andy Lark, Dell’s global head of large enterprise marketing, recently made waves by predicting iPad will ultimately be overtaken by its competitors in big business.

To be fair, he is talking about the enterprise world, not the consumer marketplace, where the rules are different. Unfortunately, iPad is proving that the rules aren’t quite as different as he wishes.

Think what you will of his conclusion. I was more aghast at the reasoning he used to arrive there:

[Apple has] done a really nice job [with iPad], they’ve got a great product, but the challenge they’ve got is that already Android is outpacing them.
I must have woken up in the wrong dimension today. I could have sworn iPad had 80-90% of the market and Android tablets had barely begun to ship.

Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island…
As everyone knows, the “Apple is too expensive” argument went out the window with iPad. No competitor has figured out how to significantly undercut iPad’s price. Andy might want to look at the pricing of Dell’s own 7-inch Streak tablet. Significantly smaller than iPad, it sells for $449 without contract vs. iPad’s $499.

…It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.
It is also widely reported that iPad is finding lots of friends in the enterprise world. Three reasons: it simplifies things for a great many people, it is successfully being integrated into corporate networks, and while IT departments used to be free to maintain their decades-old allegiances, today they’re being pushed to give people what they want. What people want now are iPads — right up to the executive suite.

We’ve taken a very considered approach to tablets…
 Dell’s “considered” approach to tablets is frighteningly similar to their considered approach to PCs and laptops. They wait until someone else lights the way (normally Apple), then try to copy the other guy’s success at a lower price point — sacrificing quality along the way.

…given that the vast majority of our business isn’t in the consumer space.
Basically, Andy clings to the same hope that RIM does with BlackBerry: “We have a huge audience in business, therefore we will win by being business-oriented.” Good luck to both of them. The flaw in their theory is that most business users are consumers too, and all users are human beings. People want devices that give them the best experience, period — for business and personal use.

An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1500 or $1600; that’s double of what you’re paying. That’s not feasible.”
What’s not feasible is Andy’s math. 32GB 3G iPad: $729. Keyboard: $69. Mouse: $69. Fancy case: $100. Total: $967. And — only in Dell’s world would we be talking about tablets that require keyboards and mice. The whole point of iPad is that it lets people accomplish things without a keyboard and mouse. Those who find those things essential are better off with a laptop.

When Andy thinks about winning in the enterprise, I’m sure he means selling more devices. Which, again, is a very Dell-like argument. Dell already sells far more computers and laptops than Apple, yet they make only a fraction of Apple’s profit. This is why Apple’s market capitalization is now over ten times that of Dell.

You can be sure that everyone at Apple hopes Dell continues to “win” like this for years to come.

advertising / apple / apple news / iPad / iPhone / iPod / mac / observatory / steve jobs / strategy / tablets — 2 Comments
29
Mar 11

The mystery of iPhone 5

It’s a wacky world when CNN.com is compelled to run the front-page headline, “No iPhone 5 coming in June?”

Even wackier is that the reported delay of iPhone 5′s birthday is really only based on the opinions of two bloggers: John Paczkowski and Jim Dalrymple.

I have respect for both of them, and Dalrymple in particular is known for having reliable sources. However, parts of this story sound fishy to me.

Dalrymple starts his article with this sentence:

Apple closed the door this morning on any speculation that it would announce new hardware at its Worldwide Developers Conference saying it would focus on iOS and Mac OS.

The door-closing to which he refers is actually Apple’s press release describing WWDC 2011. The release contains this quote from Phil Schiller:

“At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS. If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”

Now, I’ve heard a few doors close in my day — and I’m sorry, but this doesn’t exactly sound like one. It sounds more like Apple inviting software developers to a software developers conference.

True, Apple has announced iPhones and Macs at certain past WWDCs. However, I’ll venture a guess that the official announcement for those events looked very much like the one Apple released yesterday. It’s a software event.

Though I wouldn’t waste too much effort reading between the lines of a press release three months prior to the event, Paczkowski does offer a “delayed iPhone 5″ theory that sounds pretty good.

He thinks iPhone 5 may be designed to run on 4G LTE networks, and AT&T’s next-generation network won’t be ready till mid-summer. (Verizon’s is already working.) If this is true, there would be good reason to delay iPhone 5 until July or August, when they can stage a dedicated event to unveil a redesigned iPhone running at top speed with both Verizon and AT&T.

What does not make sense to me is Apple delaying iPhone 5 till the fall. Creative and unpredictable as they may be, Apple is extremely logical about their product scheduling. What they have now works beautifully: iPad in March, iPhone in June, iPod in September, Macs whenever they damn well please.

The reason they do this is that Steve Jobs believes in having one big message at a time. When a product is launched, it becomes the focus of all Apple communications: home page, TV, print, outdoor, Apple Stores. If iPhone 5 is delayed till October, there would be two launches to support at once — iPod and iPhone. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but it’s something I’ve never seen Apple do.

On a side note, this is also why I’m doubtful about the recent rumor of an all-new iPad 3 coming for the holiday season. (A) I don’t think Apple wants or needs to update iPad more than once per year, and (B) a new iPad for the holiday would siphon off attention from the new iPods.

Of course, if Apple were dabbling with that seven-inch iPad they claim to have no interest in, it might be a different story. That wouldn’t be an iPad 3, it would simply be a new model of iPad 2 — and it would be one irresistible holiday toy. (Now you know what to get me.)

But back to iPhone 5. I’m not sure when it’s coming, but I’m already concerned that I’ll have to pay a penalty to upgrade. I don’t see any mention of that in Apple’s WWDC press release.

advertising / android / iPad / observatory / strategy — 2 Comments
28
Mar 11

Samsung tries a Reality Distortion Field

Steve Jobs should have patented his Reality Distortion Field while he had the chance.

Now it seems like any company — Samsung, for instance — has no qualms about getting up on stage and creating a fantastic world of make-believe. Only problem is, their distortion ends up feeling like distortion.

Brimming with confidence, Samsung puts a series of obvious actors on the screen and passes them off as “true-life stories of Galaxy Tab users.”

Steve Jobs’ version is called the Reality Distortion Field because he’s so damn good at it. He has a genuine passion for marketing. He truly believes what he says. He’s incapable of any deliberate action that would cheapen the Apple brand.

Samsung, like many other companies, merely sees marketing as a necessary process. It’s less a labor of love, and more a checklist of things to do. And being authentic isn’t exactly their number one priority.

You can see that vividly in the above video, which shows Samsung unveiling their new family of Galaxy Tabs at an industry conference last week. They’ve got the demos and specs, but they can’t resist the temptation to present imaginary customers as real ones.

These testimonials are not only fabricated, they’re ineptly fabricated. They radiate fakery, sounding more like the brainchild of a marketing hack than a real writer. If you ignore the wrongheadedness of them, they can actually be entertaining — in much the same way it can be fun to watch a bad band perform.

We get Joan Hess, playing the role of freelance travel writer, forced to utter the words “mobility and connectivity are just perfect for my life.” She observes that the Galaxy Tab is “portable, connected, it’s sleek, it’s practical, it’s sexy — like me.” She delivers her lines with the smile of a toothpaste model.

Karl Shefelman is the independent film director, age 42. He’s the marketing guy’s image of cool, so he comes off as completely uncool. For him, the Galaxy Tab is “fast — like my life.”

This is where Samsung’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, Omar Kahn, chimes in: “It’s always interesting to see true-life stories of Galaxy Tab users.” Watch this scene a few times and you’ll actually see his nose grow longer.

Omar then cues up Joseph Kolinski, real estate executive. He’s not only a wretched actor, he’s one of the few people on earth who speaks entirely in marketing lingo: “I’m on the go 24/7 … I move fast, I take charge, I get things done … once I picked up the Galaxy Tab 8.9, I just couldn’t put it down.” (Never mind that he’s using the 8.9-inch model that isn’t even shipping yet.)

To be fair, it’s not like Apple doesn’t dabble in the imaginary. Look at their tear-jerker iPad and FaceTime commercials. Those aren’t real people. They’re actors pretending to have emotional family moments, set to moody music.

The difference is, Apple isn’t telling us these are real people. They’re simply commercials. And the people in the commercials aren’t babbling marketing-speak.

The Samsungs of the world really need to be careful. If you’re not certified to create a Reality Distortion Field, you can easily get sucked into it yourself.

apple / iPad / iPhone / iPod / itunes / observatory — 9 Comments
24
Mar 11

iPod: Apple’s quiet monopoly

Remember the good old days when iPod was Apple’s most thrilling product?

Damn those iPhones and iPads, stealing iPod’s thunder like that.

Sure, iPods still get their buzz every September with the new holiday line. The crowds still show up. But clearly today’s iPod lives in the shadow of its more glamorous siblings.

Relatively speaking, iPod goes about its business quietly — if it’s possible to be quiet when your business is maintaining a massive, competition-crushing stranglehold on your category.

Shortly after its birth, iPod grabbed over 80% of the music player market. It was simple, elegant, and the combination of iPod/iTunes just couldn’t be matched.

But nothing’s forever, right? Every intelligent observer assumed that at some point, competitors would appear to bring iPod’s market share back down to earth.

That never happened. Later this year, iPod will celebrate its tenth anniversary — and its tenth year of dominance.

In technology terms, that makes iPod a senior citizen. Yet it still performs like a newborn.

I honestly can’t remember any one product line that’s held such a lopsided advantage for so long. The most recent numbers I can find (July 2010) show iPod owning 76% of the category. Holy hell.

Not that others haven’t tried. Zune was probably the most credible challenger, but could only sputter.

I once had an inside look at the iPod-killing business. I was invited to work with an agency making a pitch for a new Sony music player. Some assignments seem silly only in retrospect, but this one seemed silly even at the time. Our mission: “Bring down the iPod.”

It was an incredible delusion on Sony’s part. Not only was this particular music player a faint echo of an iPod, Sony was willing to invest only $15 million in the marketing effort — while Apple was pouring over $100 million into iPod. To light the fire under the agency, Sony also demanded to see “demonstrable results” in three months.

As long as companies are driven more by delusion and hope, iPod’s 75%+ market share is probably safe.

In fact, at this point one could reasonably argue that iPod will spend its entire life unthreatened by real competition. If anything, the category will simply fade as smartphones make standalone devices less necessary.

I suspect it will be a long, long time before another product dominates like iPod has.

(Yeah, I know. iPad now has 90% market share. But let’s meet back in a year on that one.)

apple / apple news / iPad / iPhone / iPod / observatory / strategy — 10 Comments
21
Mar 11

Why MobileMe will be free

MobileMe has always been the bad boy of the Apple product portfolio. It’s not like Apple doesn’t give it frequent makeovers. It just never seems to attract a crowd.

So it’s not surprising there is speculation out there about the future of MobileMe.

Who knows what Apple will do in the end, but there are some compelling reasons to believe it will become a free service.

MobileMe is a tough sell. It’s always been a tough sell. And Apple is really good at turning a problem into an advantage.

When I say it’s a tough sell, I’m talking specifically about what goes on in the Apple Stores. When a customer buys any Mac or i-device, the sales person is trained to sell them on two additional purchases: AppleCare and MobileMe.

AppleCare is a no-brainer. That’s because it’s easy to understand and worth the price. Pay a modest fee and get two additional years on your warranty.

MobileMe is another story. It’s got lots of parts, so it’s hard to explain. And the fact is, most people just don’t need all the parts. So they decline the opportunity to plunk down 99 bucks.

Every so often, some anonymous Apple employee dares to go public, as this one did recently. He confirms how difficult it is to sell MobileMe. I usually take these things with a grain of salt, but this is consistent with what I’ve read elsewhere and what I’ve heard from my own sources.

Apple has made some gallant efforts to spice up MobileMe, but the result has always been the same. People are lukewarm on it at best.

But now that so many years have passed, the current version of MobileMe faces more vexing problems than its previous iterations ever did. It has competitors who offer pretty good products — most of which are free.

If you’ve had an email address for years, chances are you won’t get too excited about having a me.com address.

If you use Dropbox to sync files amongst multiple computers, you probably won’t get too excited about iDisk.

If you sync calendars and contacts with Google, you probably won’t care much about iCal and Address Book syncing.

If you want to share your photos online, you can easily do that any number of ways.

So what’s the big advantage of MobileMe these days? Like most Apple solutions, its advantage is simplicity. Even if you only have a Mac and an iPhone, the convenience of MobileMe is hard to beat. Just turn it on and your stuff is automatically synced. Don’t underestimate the power of that.

Though MobileMe is a good thing, it’s not a $99 thing. It’s the kind of advantage you expect from Apple, but don’t expect to pay for.

Unless Apple has a secret plan to turn MobileMe into MagicMe, it’s time to officially make the service what it should be — a basic part of the Apple experience.

This way, MobileMe would simply be one more reason to choose the Apple way. It would stop being a “one more thing” message from the sales person, and become part of the main sell. It would delight new customers and strengthen the loyalty of current ones.

Millions would happily buy into the idea of MobileMe — as long as they’re not asked to buy it.

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