As an all Mac/Newton person who does not use Mac.com or iTools, my only
comment is that while Apple are entirely at liberty to charge for their
services (and I believe in and do pay for subscriptions on the net) it ma=
y
not have been the best way to handle the Mac fraternity or the right
message to send to those thinking of moving to the Mac.
Apple occupies a continually diminishing sector of the market but behaves=
as if it owns it.
It has stopped making many of the peripherals that allowed you to buy a
complete Apple system such as printers and scanners. Now your attractive
CPU has to share your desk with an ugly wart from a third party for which=
good drivers will always be an issue. The imaging business was always
profitable.
It has bailed out of the PDA market having established a hard-won
technological lead. We can argue all day about profitability but Newton,
Inc. was not loss-making.
They have largely given up on business and engineering users but science =
is
still a good sector for them - for the time being. Education is
increasingly a struggle for them.
Usability engineering is not the priority it once was. Many people are
upset by Mac OS X and the costs of making the transition to what is, for
all intents and purposes a new platform, are a significant problem. OS X =
is
a conservative, rather conformist product that already looks a bit old.
Given the signs I see coming out of Cupertino, it seems that Apple no
longer wishes to be associated with geeks, tinkerers or anyone not
representative of the few 'high-value' markets they still persue. This is=
truly ironic considering the origins of the company.
They now charge for previously free services and charge handsomely for OS=
upgrades which should be cheap considering it's half-finished state to da=
te
and the need to get as many people on board as possible during a difficul=
t
transition.
Honestly, how any of these actions improve customer relations and help
build market share is beyond me.
There seems to be a general retreat by Apple from feeling it needs or wan=
ts
to be associated with often fantical goodwill they accumulated. For a
minority player, this is a bit crazy. The next revolution in computing
doesn't look as if it's going to come from Apple or Microsoft - they're t=
oo
entrenched and conservative but somewhere, someone is cooking up the next=
step - it would be nice if they were doing it on a Mac.
The pundit Bob Cringely (once an Apple employee) sees the current Apple a=
s
the personal playground of Steve Jobs. Unfortunately for us he had a good=
idea 20 years ago (or rather Jef Raskin did) and not another significant
one since. Maybe this is good enough for a while longer.
Things I would want to see from Apple are:
1/. Some real innovation that moves us on from the creaky systems we are
using today and makes the Mac a _significantly_ superior proposition. A
UNIX box with a glitzy front end by itself will not fit the bill. Panderi=
ng
to the big developers is just a recipe for stasis and conformity.
2/. A positive attitude to keeping users happy and increasing market shar=
e,
or at least halting the decline. This includes meaningful marketing - a
novelty for them probably. Relying on the digital hub idea is a short ter=
m
strategy that will be undermined by purpose-built home media systems that=
don't use their OS.
3/. A return to the PDA/tablet to expand the niches they can occupy and
regnerate some sense of independence from big developers.
I'm not terribly optimistic.
Joel.
(Sorry if it went on a bit)
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