re: Apple's product strategy in a nutshell

Chickens message to fanboys went right over your head

I don't disagree with the OP altogether, and I"m hardly an early adopter or techie but... Hasn't some of Apple's reputation been around higher quality, too? Seems like their stuff has always been built better.

I have seen (older generation) iPhones dropped in water, run over, etc. and they keep ticking. The software rarely crashes.

Maybe that's starting to wane a bit with Jobs gone... as is the innovation side.

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Apple also had some problems in the late 90's with bad OS's and some absolute spaghetti code until they got back on track.

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tell me what was happening at apple back then that is similar to now?

ah jobs was out, sculley was in and tried to improve apple's market share by licensing the OS to powercomputing which failed miserably.

hand it to jobs, he came back in to what was a fricking disaster of a company and turned it around in very short order.

however..who's the visionary this time around?

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The innovation Apple brought to this market was getting a deal from the music industry

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yep, you have to give apple credit because until the debut of '99 cent mp3s' the RIAA was just about out of their mind trying to destroy anyone with a digital copy of a song including going after the mp3 makers at that time.

prior to that, 'mp3' was a dirty word and people who had such things were looked down on like cop-dog-shooters on the OT

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however..who's the visionary this time around?

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Why do they need to be a visionary, their formula for success is pretty simple. Look for opportunities in markets where others have tried and failed.

Just look at this Beats acquisition. Apple is very late to this market, but if I had to bet money on who's still around in 5 years, I think the odds would have to lie with Google Play, Amazon Prime and Apple Beats rather than any of the currently established players like Spotify and Pandora.

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Spotify

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The Spotify app was released Nov. 30, 2011. I started using it that day.

I have not purchased a single song from iTunes since that day 2 1/2 years ago.

Not one.

Spotify isn't going anywhere.

I am exclusively an Apple guy, but they have not done anything at all to compete with Spotify. If they do, I'll have a look.

The beats app is pretty buggy and clunky now, that really should be addressed for it to be successful.

I really don't see how someone over the age of 15 can ever take such an adversarial stance towards a brand based on preference.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. Where does the chest bumping and trash talking come into it?

You're just feeding the pretentious cult by taking a position against them. Just treat it like any other product you decide against and forget it once you've made your choice.

OP positioning himself to be first poster banned for Tech Board posting.

Chicken SPECIFICALLY warned against this BS and you are posting and replying in a thread specifically for this very purpose.

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1. Wait for other companies to release products and see what sells and what fails. (and wait...and wait...for years if necessary)

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What does time have to do with anything? Did other companies create a mind-blowingly popular product which redefined the market sooner than Apple did in these cases? No. They didn't.

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2. Take the best ideas and create something brand new using your brand as muscle since it is synomyous with ease-of-use.

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Do you think that's easy? Do you think that all companies can do that? Because most of them don't. Apple is famous for doing this and they've done it several times. For that, they have been greatly rewarded.

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3. Dumb down for masses, trickle out features to extend lifecycle, put exorbitant price tag on it.

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It's not dumbing things down to make things easier to use - I mean why wouldn't you do that? Otherwise we'd still be starting cars with hand-cranks.

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4. PROFIT

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Yes! That's the goal! It's called capitalism.

It's not that your OP was factually wrong. It's that you completely miss the point of what set those specific products apart.

The iPod had the best interface in the market (by far), more storage space (by far), and the easiest way to purchase and manage music (by far). That's why the people who wanted to listen to ALL of their music on a portable device voted with their wallets.

Same for the iPhone. Do you think that using multi-touch screen technology and creating an entirely new operating system and interface to manage the most feature-rich (music, video, phone, messaging, calendar, GPS/mapping, camera, apps, etc) mobile device ever created (at that time) was an obvious thing to do? It was also the first phone to have a "real" web browser in it, which is what really put the web in our pockets.

Anyone who was old enough to use a cell phone when the iPhone was released, should be able to recognize that it was a truly revolutionary product.

With the release of the Android OS, there's obviously much greater parity in the market. And that's a great thing - right? If you love your Android, then you have Apple to thank for that.

I'd say it's been a pretty good ride for everyone.