Full disclosure, we are an OS agnostic house - meaning we have all flavours. Everyone has their own iPad, the kids also have iPods. For phones the kids have ex office Nokias and Blackberrys, my wife has a Samsung Android, I have an iPhone. Also have a Kindle. We have an AppleTV box, two windows PCs and my daughter has a Macbook Air.

I like Apple gear, but I also like Samsung, Asus, Sony etc

Thus I simply don't get it when Apple puts out what seems to me to be a very ho-hum announcement - two new versions of their existing phone and becomes the latest in a long line of tech companies to release its own pretty useless watch.

And some in the media trumpet "Cook steps out of the shadow of Jobs" and "Apple's Tim Cook Makes Boldest Bets Yet With New iPhone, Apple Watch." Are these journos simply blinded by the 5 star hotel and free buffet? Unless I am wrong, and this is not just two upgrades to an existing phone, and a me-too 'smart' watch?

The iPad is a nice bit of kit. My company was using HP Tablet PCs at trade exhibits back in about 2003, a full half decade before the iPad hit. It was heavy, but a real eye catcher and I ended up buying one to use as a multi media content server for my first attempt at streaming music around the house. Worked nicely. When it finally came, the iPad was a nice leap forward in portability and performance and I retired my faithful HP tablet.



I have only just moved to an iPhone from the Blackberry, before that, like the kids, I used an iPod for games and music. Now that was/is a nice bit of kit too. My first MP3 player was a 1lb brick from Archos with a 'huge' 10GB storage that ... played music and had a small clunky LED screen interface. Again, the iPod was a nice leap forward by Apple, integrating a phone into it was also a neat move.



My daughter's Macbook Air is about the nicest little laptop I've seen. I wouldn't trade it for my ASUS gaming rig of course (!) but for a high school student it is just about perfect. Full kudos to Apple for that.

All that happened under Jobs, who let us not forget, reinvented the Mac with iMacs.



You want to see what breakthrough news looks like, his announcement of the iMac was it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHPtoTctDY

So I am totally underwhelmed by the big news from Tim Cook that the iPhone 6 has ... a larger screen.

And that Apple has released a me-too smart watch that as far as I can see, is no different to the other smart watches out there (including needing a recharge every day) and looks like a Casio from the 70s.

1970s Casio


2014 Apple


Or more accurately, like someone stuck a wrist band and some heart rate sensors on an iPod Nano.


I realise there is something cult about Apple that defies reason. I've been in the Apple 5th Ave store and seen the dilated pupils of people walking down the stairs into that shrine of all things Apple. I get that successful brands generate emotional loyalty as well as rational loyalty, and Apple does that really well.

But seriously...it's a slightly bigger screen for an existing phone line, and a smart watch like all the others struggling to find a place.

At least the stock market seems rational.

Apple, Sept 9 2014

yea i dont get it either, they DO have some nice stuff, and some of it was ground breaking when it came out, but now the rest of the market has caught up, and in most case, overtaken apple, especially when it comes to price. Its just a brand name now, like Nike or Adidas trainers .. they do all the same things all the others do .. they just have a different sticker and a couple more 0s on the price tag!

The watch does something that might catch on: It combines fitness monitoring with other functions in what looks to be an appealing way. I wear a Tutima on one wrist and a Fitbit on the other. Fitness monitoring works so well at keeping me exercising daily that the resulting dorkiness is an easy price to pay. I won't be an AW buyer but I see the appeal of replacing the really ugly fitness offerings from the likes of Garmin, Nike and Fitbit with something that people actually want to wear. When these things come out even the Apple haters will keep sneaking peeks.

HeinKill, nice post by the way. Apple is now in its second generation of taking current innovative ideas and repackaging them in ways that just frankly look better. It's really that simple. Mary Anne looks OK and seems smart and dependable. But Ginger is expensive and hot and gets you noticed at parties.

Well, someone wrote an article in a Austrian paper yesterday...

Basically what Apple is trying to get into now is Automated Homes, Pay Services, Car Services. It sounds all very clever when it all connects.

For example your phone going to handsfree as you enter your car, your music following you around the house, phone calls hands-free on the same speakers interupt the music, as you go to the store you pay by holding the watch somewhere. I suppose you'll also be able to use the watch as some kind of anti theft device for the phone (lock it as soon as it goes out of reach).

The problem I have with this every increased daily technology is that people get so damn easy to monitor with that. If the government was collecting the same data that Apple and Google get voluntarily offered, we'd have a large public outcry.

*shiver*



Uhm, nope. Because they already do but (most) people simply don't care.


But back to the subject, I'm not affected by the hype around Apple and couldn't care less, really. I have no use for their products.

I'm kind of excited by IKEA's latest power bookbook� though:

Consumer behavior is often irrational. How else can you explain why certain marketing techniques work when every bit of logical reasoning suggests that it shouldn't? Why do people spend ridiculous amounts of money on "designer" clothes simply because of the label? Why do people buy products that are endorsed by celebrities? I think all of this explains why Apple has the success it does. The brand and public image has superseded the actual products.

But doesn't insulting Apple consumers become a bit of fashion in and of itself? Anything that can be said about Apple fans, i.e. slaves to a brand, overpaying for lesser technology, crowding together into a silly tribe, etc, can also be said about Harley Davidson owners. Ford/Chevy, Airbus/Boeing, Levis/Wrangler (dating myself), Beatles/Stones, NYC/LA--all of it is silly. But any of us who have ever pulled out a credit card has at some point been at least a tiny bit guilty of the same consumer tribalism.

It's all about the little apple symbol on the back. That's all it is. As you said other companies do it better.

This. And other companies also did it years ago:
https://mobile.twitter.com/RonAmadeo/status/509424207474999297

It's called convergent evolution. Aside from occasional breakouts, like the original iPhone which convinced people that they wanted a smartphone instead of just a flip one, or the iPad, which made tablets popular instead of a tiny niche, existing products will be refined and tweaked until no one has any distinguishing features.

Take a mature market--cars. Almost every car in a given price range, from any manufacturer in any country, has the same features. You have to get into the luxury market to see differentiation, and then none of them are really needed. As time goes by and some of those features get cheaper to make, like backup cameras, you see them migrate down into the less costly models...ALL of them.

If in 5 years Android, iOS, and Windows don't all look almost exactly the same I'd be surprised.



The Jedi Master

To be fair, Apple does often make legitimate waves when it reinvents a technology that, while technically functional (eg. pre iPhone smart phones), they make it more user friendly and steamlined. They are excellent reinventors, and I don't mean that as a knock. Just because someone is the first to do something (eg. Windows tablets) doesn't mean they're doing it well.

That said, the only viable tech Apple has available to "feed" off of and reinvent are Phablets and Smart watches. I think their phablet is a "me too" product, but the smart watch seems well differentiated here. I think if anyone can make the smart watch a thing, it's apple, but I still don't have high hopes.

I was not an Apple fan until I got an iPhone and iPad. The iPad blew me away. It was a game changer for me.

I'm not an Apple user but what they did with the iPhone and iPad, and in the same way with the iPod, is that they created a whole ecosystem.

That is really what they are good at - building and selling not just hardware and OS, but the whole environment around it, in such an integrated way that the standard dumb customer can do "everything" they want to do.

Because yes, I had Touchscreen Phones years before the iPhone came out, but it really only starts to make sense when you can easily get the software to run on it.

This Unified approach on the other hand is what gives them too much control and makes the stuff uninteresting to people who like to tinker outside the box.

It is really amazing how many Apple Nazi`s are out there. They live and breath everything Apple
and would not use any other type of tech gear. I know a few. They are those who will stand in
line and wait for the new releases every year they put out an upgrade, And they trade in their
older gear. Then they tell all about the new features in their new gear. Like, WOW, haven`t I
heard this before.

I will never be a product dedicated consumer. I like diversity and product manufacturer is not
a factor.

The funny thing. Since the first rumors a few years ago about Apple working on a iwatch many chinese and corean companys worked and released smartwatches too. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have done that without the rumors.
Guess what will happen if someone is calling that Aplle is working on a S.hit collector ;-)

The thing is that Apple makes it right most times if they release new stuff. Many smartphones today comes with a yet useless NEarfield connection.
Now Apple comes with ApplePay and 250 banks/companies will support it. I'm pretty sure it will be a breakthrough in a cardless and save payments.

Many other companies has hardware that does look as good as Apple products or better on paper. But it's always the combination of hard and software that makes Apple stuff better.
If someone asks me why i buy (overprised) Apple stuff my answer is because it works.and most times it works great.
If someone asks me if he should buy Apple stuff my answer is it depends on you. If you are a tech or control guy about your hard and software than no. If you simple wants to get the stuff working for you than yes.

Btw: i'm not a Apple freak. We have also A Sony Vaio notebook, Google Nexus 10 tablet, Acer Notebook and a selfmade PC running in our house.

The Tinker argument is only partially true. Before Android there was the App Store. Around the time of iOS2 Apple released the dev kit for free (initially) and greatly expanded app development and damn near created a whole new economy. These were Apple fans with talent, not just logo-worshiping drones. OSX let's you plumb around much of the underlying Unix and X11 system if you so desire (I don't). Otherwise, yes, it is easier for people like me who just want a tool, not a hobby. For years, I have been able to make and share movies in minutes; print to PDF in a single click and organize all my files into logical groups based on different aspects of my life; have multiple desktops that instantly switch with Control + <,> and where I can separate tasks or keep a full screen manual on one "desk" and the full screen app on the other; and roll back to previous "histories" should I do anything stupid that I later regret. Can Windows and Linux do these things? I'm sure they can. But it often takes a little more than just pure OS intuition to figure out how.

We us the wife's iPad 4 on a daily basis - watching stuff on it before sleepy time, and I carry it with me to work to do some light web surfing.

But I have a galaxy device as a poor man's aviation GPS for the airplane.

Apple carefully cultivated it's "cool" image after finding the "elitist snob" gambit didn't work out so great to admirable effect.

And you can have my simple flip phone when it's decided I shouldn't make or receive calls away from a hard line. Hell, I can't figure out how to do anything on my wife's "smart" phone.

I think the big question is what kind of jeans should I buy to fit that iphone 6+ hulk? We have been looking at the pocket size of a few different brands but it's a real mine field. I'd rather not get a utility vest although if it was socially acceptable I would own four of them.

-C-

Break it in half, easier to carry that way.