What is apple's secret

[FatalDesain]

I for one am not a apple fanboy and until my ipad purchase I was anti apple never bought a product from them. But for the life of me I cannot understand why nobody makes better products than them.

I mean all these tablets coming out made out of plastic (yuck), crappy battery life, buggy software, and then they are still expensive. I will never buy a tablet that is not some kind of metal or aluminum it's kinda important for something over 400 dollars for me. If it was a nook or a kindle I can understand but in that price range it better be pretty nice to look at.

It's like peolpe just want to make a tablet and be like hey look it turns on we did it! Hurry up package it and ship. And the sad thing this has actually happened in many cheap tablets.

Hey I'm all for other people giving it a shot but at least make it so cheap that it's worth the risk. It makes it look like apple went above and beyond but they actully just delivered a product that works and does what they said it was going to do.

 

[writerranger]

Here's an article you should read:
I don't hate Macs, but they do give me a syncing feeling | Charlie Brooker | Comment is free | The Guardian

First of all, you would have to know that Charlie Brooker (Tech guy at Guardian) used to HATE (with a passion) Apple products. He still has problems with Apple, but found like you did that some of their stuff just works. Of course, it's a backhanded compliment as he finds stuff he still hates (syncing instead of just dragging media to the device, for example). But the transformation of this guy is amazing. He honestly says he "no longer hates Apple." One of the big haters has softened -- considerably.

 

[Demandarin]

Here's an article you should read:
I don't hate Macs, but they do give me a syncing feeling | Charlie Brooker | Comment is free | The Guardian

First of all, you would have to know that Charlie Brooker (Tech guy at Guardian) used to HATE (with a passion) Apple products. He still has problems with Apple, but found like you did that some of their stuff just works. Of course, it's a backhanded compliment as he finds stuff he still hates (syncing instead of just dragging media to the device, for example). But the transformation of this guy is amazing. He honestly says he "no longer hates Apple." One of the big haters has softened -- considerably.

Great link to article. I was the same way until i got the ipad. Its now my sole form of computing. I do "Everything" with it. It even landed me my last job ;-)

 

[Seadog]

Apple thinks ahead of the competition and controls the hardware, software, and periphials to a high degree. They try to be 2 years ahead of their competition, so they are often the first to introduce a product and it is a finished product with all things needed to make it work. What the competition fails to do is to control their product as a system. The Xoom may be a decent product, but all of their competition will have their own version of Honeycomb that is adapted to their desires. You then have a hodgepodge of systems that are sometimes not compatible with apps available on another Honeycomb device. And look at how they brought it out before Flash 10.2 was ready for it. They would be a lot better if Motorola and Google had worked together with a single product that was exclusive to the Xoom. Microsoft realized this reality, but waited too long to bring the Zune on the market and by the time it arrived, they were too little, too late. Right now RIM has the best shot at a competitive product. Their Playbook is doing all the right things, but if they wait too long, it will be that much harder to catch up. That is probably the big issue. Everyone is playing catchup to Apple, and you cannot do that.

 

[gatecitycanes]

Thanks for the article. I too really dislike how I have to go through iTunes to put anything on my iPod or iPad. I have music on my Droid and that's just drag-and-drop. It's annoying because Apple makes so many things easier and they take one of the easiest things in the world and make it unnecessarily difficult.

 

[Diane B]

Thanks for the article. I too really dislike how I have to go through iTunes to put anything on my iPod or iPad. I have music on my Droid and that's just drag-and-drop. It's annoying because Apple makes so many things easier and they take one of the easiest things in the world and make it unnecessarily difficult.

That's why I use Dropbox. Hate syncing with Itunes. Haven't tried it with music and suspect it wouldn't work for that though. I'm a long long time PC user and others before but love my Ipad and Touch. Don't think I will ever be all Apple but for portable devices I am a bit of a fangirl LOL.

 

[gatecitycanes]

Thanks for the article. I too really dislike how I have to go through iTunes to put anything on my iPod or iPad. I have music on my Droid and that's just drag-and-drop. It's annoying because Apple makes so many things easier and they take one of the easiest things in the world and make it unnecessarily difficult.

That's why I use Dropbox. Hate syncing with Itunes. Haven't tried it with music and suspect it wouldn't work for that though. I'm a long long time PC user and others before but love my Ipad and Touch. Don't think I will ever be all Apple but for portable devices I am a bit of a fangirl LOL.

Hey, I see you're from NC too. Which part? I'm from Greensboro (hence the Gate City in my name). I'm yet to see an iPad in the wild here.

 

[Diane B]

Hey, I see you're from NC too. Which part? I'm from Greensboro (hence the Gate City in my name). I'm yet to see an iPad in the wild here.

I know Greensboro well. Lived there a long time ago and have friends there, a couple of whom have Ipads LOL. I'm in Hickory.

 

[Hasty]

Thanks for that link Writerranger, I like Charlie Brooker and he's got a point
He always has a nice line in invective.

 

[tzimisce]

I for one am not a apple fanboy and until my ipad purchase I was anti apple never bought a product from them. But for the life of me I cannot understand why nobody makes better products than them.

It's actually not difficult to see why at all. They were the first (and to some extent, only) company whose products are, first and foremost, design driven. Their products and stores look cool, are instantly recognizable even to non-users, and they are very good at both anticipating market need and creating market want.

It's no coincidence at all, for instance, that the iPad has become the one of the most commonly offered (and highly desired) lucky-draw prize for all manner of contests, sign-ups and raffles.

 

[newfmp3]

Apples knows how to market things and make them look hip. I never considered the iPod groundbreaking and there were countless other mp3 players many times better. The notebooks have been ok, but I don't see anything groundbreaking about them either. Touchscreen phones were out long before the iPhone. Pretty much same thing for their desktops, although they are well built to a degree ( they have their own issues) still not groundbreaking.

The iPad may have not been the very first tablet, but according to Apple and the marketing they've done, everyone seems to think it was/is. Totally agree that every other company seems to be releasing half baked attempts at a tablet. Apple caught them with their pants down and now they are playing catchup and are in a panic, and it shows. Apple already had a small tablet made years back. It was the iTouch, but it was too small to make it a proper tablet. It was a no brainer that they needed a larger one. What is the iPad if not just a big itouch. They didn't even bother to alter the OS for it. The only challenge was a bigger screen and battery life -and convincing the world that this big iTouch was a tablet - hence marketing.

I think if you look at any industry now compared to years back, it has become more about how cheap you can make a product for max profit, and simply make it last the length of the warranty - nothing else matters to them like customer loyalty/pride in product. I'll give Apple credit in that it tries to make a decent piece of hardware by adding little touches here and there like quality of materials they use, but it's nothing that any other company couldn't do...they just choose not to because it doesn't fit their make it cheap/max profit way of doing business. There was a time when more companies had pride in their products, but that day is long gone. Everything I own these days has it's issues it seems, even my first iPad died, and I see issues with macbooks at work quite a bit as well- so no, Apple isn't perfect either, just better then some.

Apple is also very good at taking ideas from others and putting their name on it, marketing it again, and all of a sudden the Zombies think Apple invented it. Airplay anyone? mp3 players anyone?

I still hate their software,OS and IOS and their closed system for everything. iTunes is miserable, and having to pay for things like pdf readers, and remote desktop utils and so on is pathetic. When it comes to software, they are far far behind others.

 

[SweetPoison]

It's no coincidence at all, for instance, that the iPad has become the one of the most commonly offered (and highly desired) lucky-draw prize for all manner of contests, sign-ups and raffles.

This is true. AND ~ they are on so many TV shows! I love it. But one of my shows didn't use the iPad, but it looked like the Samsung one, I think.

 

[tzimisce]

Apples knows how to market things and make them look hip. I never considered the iPod groundbreaking and there were countless other mp3 players many times better.

In a modern society where so many things (and people) are judged on looks and first-impressions, of course creating a product that has a great up-front impact counts for a great deal, regardless of its quality, durability or substance. (DodoCase comes to mind, actually.)

However, in the case of both iPod and iPad, although Apple didn't "invent" either device, they were in their respective markets the first major product that people associated the most strongly with - precisely because of its groundbreaking design and interface - and that's what counts. Before I got my first iPod, I had an MP3 player and it was an absolute POS to use and look at.

And any commercial industry is always about generating maximum profit with minimum cost. You'd be running a very poor business otherwise. A financially healthy company means less risk to consumers that their products (and support/warranty) will be discontinued. Good customer service naturally feeds into this: make your customers happy, they will tell their friends and come back to spend more money. Word-of-mouth is the best kind of advertising because it's free and honest.

In fact, Apple is very good at this "halo effect": people who own one Apple product are much more likely to consider and acquire other Apple products, and show off products to their friends. Isn't that the best kind of customer loyalty? Most customers, I think, aren't as vapid as you're making them out to be.

 

[nasomi]

I hate apple products, because the only things I generally want to do involve things they don't want me to do. Like watch an .mkv encoded movie. Or connect to a media device on a pc.

However the ipad is unique. I can do simple stuff much more quickly and easily on the ipad. I don't use it for music, but i have music on there. I just use it for a quick web browser, email checker, and a couple games, but it's really good for that.

 

[ipadgamer]

I did th exact same thing. Hated everything Apple until I bought the iPad. Its all changed now