Re: [NTLK] Interesting article about the Newton

From: Ian Johnson <itjohnson_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue Dec 12 2006 - 00:29:30 EST

On Dec 11, 2006, at 10:37 PM, Martin Joseph wrote:

>
> On Dec 11, 2006, at 4:17 PM, Roman Pixell [GMail] wrote:
>
>>
>> On 12 dec 2006, at 00.52, Joel M. Sciamma wrote:
>>
>>> We have to remember that the imaging division, which created some of
>>> the best peripherals of their time, also got the chop but that was
>>> probably just the numbers. It remains a shame that they stopped
>>> making those devices which had all the key Apple design virtues -
>>> I'm
>>> still using them.
>>
>> truly interesting point, which also deserves explanation. in
>> hindsight, it might have been jobs most stupid move, regarding that
>> it was so difficult to get imac peripherals the first year after imac
>> was introduced. low margins and relative revenue is not as
>> interesting for a particular printer line, when you regard the whole
>> picture.
>>
>> if there would have been more peripherals, i assume the imac would
>> have been an even larger success.
> I couldn't disagree more strongly with this statement. Part of the
> "new" Jobs era was the clear focus on the core products (ie the Mac)
> AND the letting go of products that Apple wasn't adding that much too
> (ie rebadged inkjets, etc.).

Apple was in serious financial trouble when Jobs took over, and he
had to cut an incredible amount of stuff just to get the company back
in the black and stop the ballooning number of projects and warring
factions within the company. Not only did he cut the non-computer
stuff, he did a major stripping-down of the Mac product line. For
example, look at how he reduced the choice of consumer Macs from
three different form factors (tower, pizza box, and all-in-one) to
just the iMac and the occasional discounted Power Mac. This obviously
left a lot of people behind, including me - I'm now in the position
of trying to figure out how to replace my Power Mac when it becomes
inevitable in a few years when the iMac doesn't cut it and I don't
need and can't afford a high-end workstation like the Mac Pro.
Although I've got some beef with Jobs for prioritizing things like
trendy case design over standard features like expansion slots and
room for internal drives, I can't really blame him for narrowing
Apple's focus to computers given the situation the company was in.

> One of Apple's biggest problems has been the perception that "Macs
> are different". People had that stuck in there minds, and adopting
> standards based peripherals was a compromise with regards to products
> (ie The stylewriter is better designed then the cannons it's based
> on), but proved Apple's readiness to live in the real world.
>
> The Intel switch is another such move. It doesn't add much for
> existing mac users, but it removes the perception that Apple's are
> incompatible and allows for Windows to run on mac hardware (like we
> care).

Interestingly, Apple computers are now much more similar to Windows
PCs on a technical level, but much more different in more obvious
ways like appearance and form factor. This change doesn't benefit me,
but it's apparently good for Apple's bottom line. I guess we can't
win them all.

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
Received on Tue Dec 12 00:29:34 2006

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Dec 12 2006 - 06:30:00 EST