-
Apple has lost the functional high ground
-
[Walter Soyka] “Gruber seems to equate losing the “functional high ground” with losing market share”
Nowhere does he mention anything about marketshare, nor is it even vaguely about that. Complete misinterpretation imho. Nor do I know what design has to do with this or how it is relevant.
They’re talking about the, as the title itself says, the FUNCTIONAL advantages that they’ve been so well known for.
[John Gruber] “It’s not that Apple has lost the “it just works” crown to a competitor, but rather that they’ve seeded a perception that Apple’s stuff doesn’t work, either.”
– RK
____________________________________________________
Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
[Robin S. Kurz] “Nowhere does he mention anything about marketshare, nor is it even vaguely about that. Complete misinterpretation imho.”
The lack of a change in marketshare is explicity cited by Gruber as evidence that Apple has not “lost the functional high ground” as the headline says.
John Gruber says, “if they’ve ‘lost the functional high ground,’ who did they lose it to? I say no one. Marco’s cited example of Geoff Wozniak switching back to desktop Linux is an outlier, not part of any significant trend… Apple hasn’t (yet) lost any ground in the market, but they’ve created an opportunity for that to happen, because they’ve squandered a lot of trust with their users.”
But I suppose I could be completely misinterpreting the phrases “significant trend” (referring to users switching away) and “ground in the market.”
I read the phrase “functional high ground” as a play on on the phrase moral high ground [link], which Wikipedia defines as “the status of being respected for remaining moral, and adhering to and upholding a universally recognized standard of justice or goodness.”
That’s why I think the market share reference is orthogonal. It’s not a question about winning or losing in the marketplace, or delighting or disappointing your customers. It’s a question about this notion that you are universally regarded as doing functionality well.
I’d contend that any user of any major platform right now, desktop or mobile, who doesn’t acknowledge that there’s at least room for debate on the topic of who holds the “functional high ground” has a very myopic view and can’t see past the edge of their own device.
[Robin S. Kurz] “Nor do I know what design has to do with this or how it is relevant. They’re talking about the, as the title itself says, the FUNCTIONAL advantages that they’ve been so well known for.”
Design enables functionality. How can you meaningfully separate the two from the users’ perspective?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Jeremy Garchow] “So, is this why Apple is making reduced price software? They know that things aren’t quite good enough to charge the consumer more money?”
That doesn’t sound like Apple to me. I think they sell cheap software as an ecosystem play: the value comes in the system and you pay most of that upfront.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Is this rapid pace of development an effort to get to a more stable platform that includes and integrates every single Apple device a consumer owns? I don’t have these answers, but that’s what it feels like to me.”
I agree with this sentiment of ecosystem inclusion and integration, except that I don’t think there’s a “stable platform” endgame. Apple has made themselves synonymous with ground-breaking innovation, so if they want to keep making money, they can’t just release a string of awesome products that people love. They need to release a string of ground-breaking awesome products that people love.
Apple sells hardware, and ground-breaking new hardware needs ground-breaking new features to entice you to buy. If hardware is the dog, software is the tail. I think we’ll continue seeing this rapid software churn to support and move the new hardware.
Aindreas had this great line [link] (in a slightly different context) a while back: “Apple are like this amazing public swan – they peddle like maniacs underwater.”
I’m truly not trying to revive the “Apple doesn’t care about professionals” argument, but their current actions seem more highly focused on consumer sales for their ecosystem (and my IRA says, “Keep it up!”). That’s where you see the swan.
Third-party application developers and users occasionally see some webbed feet, kicking furiously.
(This post about dogs and swans is a gambit to bring Franz out of retirement.)
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Apple has made themselves synonymous with ground-breaking innovation, so if they want to keep making money, they can’t just release a string of awesome products that people love. They need to release a string of ground-breaking awesome products that people love.
I think what was groundbreaking about FCP Legend was just the price no? For a long time it “did the job ” just. DV quality to start with and then some people started making third party hardware and cards.
So Isn’t this the same story? Exactly?
-
[James Ewart] “I think what was groundbreaking about FCP Legend was just the price no? For a long time it “did the job ” just. DV quality to start with and then some people started making third party hardware and cards. So Isn’t this the same story? Exactly?”
I don’t think Apple was in the ground-breaking business in 1999.
I could be persuaded otherwise, but my first thought is that iTMS was the inflection point between where we were then and where we are now.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “my first thought is that iTMS was the inflection point between where we were then and where we are now.”
Functionally, perhaps, but in practice, it was the introduction of iTMS on Windows. You can see it in both the revenue charts and the stock price charts.
I think that’s one reason why the ecosystem play is way off the mark. People may tend to drift a little more toward Macs because of their iPhones, but you know what? They mostly don’t. The majority of iDevice users are on Windows, and Apple will live a long and happy corporate life just taking people’s money for devices and apps.
In fact, they’ll do ANYTHING to AVOID the implication that you have to use a Mac to use an iPhone. That’s too much friction.
Also in fact, the furthest I’ve seen an ecosystem play push is that Apple TV is better than Roku because it plays back stuff you bought in iTunes. THAT’S IT.
Otherwise, there’s the actual ecosystem inside the physical Apple store, but only 20% of iPhones are sold in brick and mortar Apple stores. Best Buy and Walmart are both in that vicinity, and phone stores aren’t that far behind.
Nobody NEEDS an ecosystem play, and again, the more you pitch an ecosystem, the less success you’ll see. I don’t want to buy a Mac to use a phone, and I don’t want a second-class experience on Windows. Right now, neither is the case at all. That’s how it should be.
TIME FOR A CAR METAPHOR.
The existence of Prius has no impact on anyone buying or not buying a Corolla or a Lexus. Toyota actually goes out of its way to make sure NOBODY thinks about one brand when they’re looking at another. Ecosystem plays are bad ideas….
…unless you’re selling ecosystems. Avid, yes. Apple, absolutely not. There’s simply no FUNCTIONAL advantage to owning a Mac for an iTMS customer. Anything that y’all Mac addicts point to from your EXPERIENCE will look like noise to a Windows user, whose experience as an iUser on Windows is just fine thanks.
Which is exactly how Apple wants it. They’ll sell everything they possibly can, to everyone they possibly can. Yes, they’ll be delighted to sell you a computer, but nothing in their business model, their development model, or their actual products says that it’s all that high a priority for Apple relative to you buying a device, an assload of apps, and maybe some headphones.
Which, by the way, work just great when plugged into Windows computers and Android phones.
This is also why I think it’s NONSENSE to pick an either/or when talking about Apple’s primary business of selling consumer devices has any meaningful impact on professional software development, or for that matter, corporate ethics. Good companies do more than one thing, each with the appropriate level of focus. They do it every day. It’s not that hard. Apple is a little better than a “good” company.
[Walter Soyka] “I don’t think Apple was in the ground-breaking business in 1999.”
Interesting to me is that the one thing that Apple has only marginal success at is selling Macs.
Mac wasn’t the best-selling product line in the company, or the one with the biggest marketshare, when it was axed. It simply represented the direction that Apple wanted to pursue for its own vision of its future. (Sound familiar?)
Steve was long gone by then of course, but the company spent most of the 90s circling the drain as they simply didn’t do very well as a computer company. In 2003, Apple’s stock barely crept out of single digits. Even with relative successes like iMac, investors weren’t convinced that Apple was going to return enough on their investment to make it worth their while.
Until iTMS showed up on Windows, and now Apple could sell iPods to virtually everyone with a computer.
Another reason the ecosystem argument falls apart? Nobody who’s playing to win is playing solely on Mac. Sure, a niche company can make a very nice living servicing that niche, but not even Apple will pin its future to a customer base that’s solely Mac. It’s critical to their success as a company that most of their customers NOT be on Mac.
Not that they’re not playing to win in computers. I think they are, and I think it’s a little ironic in context that they’re doing it better now than ever. I think that having Jobs out of the way will make it better still. (You know that the previous record quarters for Mac sales were when Cook was acting CEO for 24 months, right?)
But Apple is not selling computers based on how easy it is to use an iPhone. Because nobody playing to win in the mobile space is focusing only on iPhone either. Apple will take your computer money without forcing you to buy a new phone, too.
No kidding. If you’re not using a Mac, your view of the ecosystem is your phone and iTunes, and it’s no more or less stupendous or exasperating with Windows than it is with Mac.
-
Tim, I think you disagreed with me, but I think I mostly agree with you.
For me, the 2015 “ecosystem” idea isn’t about selling someone every piece of kit you make. It’s about hooking them on some critical aspect of your platform. To paraphrase Mr. McGuire, “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Services.”
This isn’t just Apple’s play. Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all want to do the same thing.
But here we do disagree:
[Tim Wilson] “This is also why I think it’s NONSENSE to pick an either/or when talking about Apple’s primary business of selling consumer devices has any meaningful impact on professional software development, or for that matter, corporate ethics. Good companies do more than one thing, each with the appropriate level of focus. They do it every day. It’s not that hard. Apple is a little better than a “good” company.”
My argument is that the OS you want for tying your ever-evolving, ground-breaking mobile devices and cloud services into your desktop experience is going to be at least somewhat fluid. The OS you want as a development platform for a complex, demanding niche application needs to be stable.
Given the added constraint of a preference for avoiding system bloat from legacy support, these are opposing design goals. The fact that they’ve been managed as well as they have shows that Apple is in fact a little better than a “good” company.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Tim Wilson] “In fact, they’ll do ANYTHING to AVOID the implication that you have to use a Mac to use an iPhone. That’s too much friction.
Also in fact, the furthest I’ve seen an ecosystem play push is that Apple TV is better than Roku because it plays back stuff you bought in iTunes. THAT’S IT. “
But that’s a pretty big incentive to buy an AppleTV is it not? If someone had a decent library of media from the iTMS that they wanted to stream to their TV why wouldn’t they buy an AppleTV when shopping for a set top box? And while you can have a perfectly fine experience not having Apple hardware end-to-end you don’t get all the bells and whistles that way. For example, AirPlay, Continuity and FaceTime are all Apple only.
My Xbox is the hub of my media center which means I don’t get movies/TV shows from iTMS because there’s no way to get them out of Apple’s ecosystem. For music streaming to the home stereo I had to break down and buy an Apple AirPort because I’m already heavily invested in iTunes for music and there’s no way to get my iDevices to talk to my Xbox.
Apple certainly knew that tethering the iPod and iTMS to Macs was restricting it’s growth potential but Apple still is in the hardware business which means you need to buy Apple hardware to get the most out of Apple’s offerings.
-
[Walter Soyka] “That’s why I think the market share reference is orthogonal.”
Had to look that up. Nice usage, thanks for that one.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Andrew Kimery] “But that’s a pretty big incentive to buy an AppleTV is it not?”
Not if you don’t buy TV from iTunes. Do you? I don’t buy TV at all. I get it from some combination of Netflix and Amazon.
I do in fact have Apple TV — it came with the house, because the previous owners didn’t use it. I set it up (a PITA, btw), and have used it once or twice to stream music from my iPad, but still not as efficient as the combination of Spotify and Amazon. The more closely tied to the iTunes ecosystem it is, the LESS useful it is.
Indeed, it simply reinforces my desire to not use iTunes for getting my TV content, or using Apple TV for either video or music distribution through the house. Every single device I have works better.
Don’t be acting like I’m alone in that. LOL
And hey, let’s say I ONLY get my media through iTunes. Fine. This raises the value of Apple TV, but does NOTHING to raise the value of Mac as a computing platform. Nothing.
Pushing me to buy a Mac to enjoy Apple TV and iTunes helps ensure that I WON’T buy ANY of them. Buying a Mac doesn’t relieve my pain, or answer a single need for distributed media via Apple TV. None.
I think you guys are conflating device OS — yes, I want a good experience across my devices — and computer OS. I want to spend as little time thinking about that as possible, and Mac or Windows are value-neutral for that.
And unified device OS is independent of iTMS. I want my use of NETFLIX to be unified, which it most certainly is not, but it’s certainly not a dealbreaker for accessing it through any device I have access to. Ecosystem, schmecosystem.
Maybe you need to be a hardcore Windows iOS user, of which there are multitudes. I’m married to one. I can’t tell you the last year she went to iTunes except the app store on her phone, and the sun will go nova before she touches a Mac. And she’s doing something or other on her iPhone like 15 hours a day. LOL This is commmmmmmmmon outside the COW, I assure you.
Don’t be acting like I’m alone in that perspective either. LOL Apple feels the same way, or they’d be acting differently….and they’d be losing marketshare if they did. “Ecosystem” ends at the app store, and on your phone, it doesn’t even requires iTunes.
iTunes is an obstacle. The desktop is an obstacle.
No ecosystem. None. Just a cool device with cool apps.
[Walter Soyka] “To paraphrase Mr. McGuire, “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Services.”
This isn’t just Apple’s play. Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all want to do the same thing.”
Except Apple is the company for whom that’s the LEAST true. Who’s going to buy an Amazon phone to work their store? Nobody. That product is walking dead. The Play store IS useless apart from Google services, which is why it’s a non-player.
Microsoft has a pretty cool set of phones (have you seen the HTC M8? Gorgeous), and a nice tablet but again, their message is far more “real Photoshop and real Office” than anything else. Their commercials are all about the software, the pen, the touchscreen, and usability. NOT the ability to tie it to the desktop. Why they do THAT? Yeah, there’s a lot more Windows desktop users than Mac users, but I don’t get the hurry that any of them are in a hurry to extend that experience to the devices. They want devices that do cool stuff. The end.
(BTW, I do think they’re pretty well locked in to Windows users. Mac people dislike MSFT a LOT. I would imagine that the percentage of Mac users using Playstation is far less than the proportional mix of computers to game consoles would lead some people to guess.)
So yeah, Apple is selling the same thing as the other guys to the extent that there’s iOS syncing with contacts, cloud storage, etc. But NONE of those requires a computer. You can live a long, happy, productive, adamantly ardent iLife without ever touching a Mac.
I’d argue that the less you touch a Mac, the better it will be. Which is also why Apple has been adamant that Apple will never merge the OS and iOS. There’s just no point. It’s not going to win them a single customer, and it’s not going to keep one.
NO ECOSYSTEM, apart from the phone and the apps. None.
Look, I swear you guys are overthinking this because you ARE all-Apple. It’s not necessary, it’s not important, and taking people OFF the device, and putting them ON a computer is BAD.
This market, of course not. People need computers. Which is why I have no worries about Apple’s ability to make and sell computers. They’re doing it well. Better than ever.
And their success with devices depends on keeping computers out of the message. Apple computer people don’t need the message anyway, so I’ll bet you a real pony that you’ll never hear Apple even HINT at this.
Until they’re streaming Beats music over Bluetooth, which is far more a killer app than Apple TV, because Apple wants to provide the best possible experience no matter how few devices they use. They’re not going to pitch you Apple TV or Macs when all they really NEED from you is to help them monetize Beats….which I think will be a slam dunk, but that’s another story….
No ecosystem. More ecoystem beyond the device itself becomes an obstacle to the majority of Apple’s customers.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up