Posted on 08/27/2011 1:05:29 PM PDT by TomServo
Earlier this month I sold my 11.6-inch MacBook Air (using Samsung Series 5 Chromebook now) and iPhone 4 (switched back to Google Nexus S). I don't miss either Apple product. Not the least bit. In reflecting, I realize that the spell is broken. Without Apple Chairman Steve Jobs driving innovation or inspiring passion -- the oft-called "reality distortion field" -- my Apple enthusiasm is gone. Perhaps it's return to sanity.
I should have connected the dots sooner, but often people don't easily apply even basic math to emotional matters, because the nuances move swiftly on the surface with many slower currents and fast-churning eddies below. The ocean is an excellent analogy. Yesterday, in viewing Nate Mook's slideshow of 20 products introduced by Jobs, and resurfacing emotions about the different launches, I had an epiphany. I could see how much Jobs' passion infected mine -- his ability to inspire about what Apple products offered. I used to joke about the Steve Jobs spell: During one of the product launch speeches, if he was having an off day, people left feeling like: If I buy this thing my life will be better for it. If Jobs was in the zone giving the preso, people left feeling if they didn't buy the new thing their lives would be worse.
Jobs' cast a big spell, but it was more than the pitch -- there are aspirational qualities built into Apple products. Jobs is the rarest of business leaders: He has good taste and the ability to inspire people working with him to put it into high-tech stuff. Related: Design priorities put features that are most useful at the top, packaged such that there is balance among them -- none takes away from overall functionality. Additionally: Simplicity is a defining Apple design characteristic, or was.
As I explained here at BetaNews in February 2005 post "iPod Shuffle: Apple understated": "The company has turned a knack for the understated into a marketing machine that touches virtually every Mac product, including iPod Shuffle...Understated often means uncomplicated. And sometimes that means cutting back consumer choices, as Apple did with iPod Shuffle. Less really can be more...Competitors really need to study what Apple is doing right and how to incorporate a similar approach into their product designs and marketing".
Complication Creep
But on reflection, I now see how much simplicity, one of Apple products' best attributes, is giving way to complication creep. Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and iTunes 9 and 10 are glaring examples of increased complexity, as are iOS 4 (and soon v5), Safari 5.1, iLife `11 and most other Apple software.
Even Apple Store. I wrote in 2005: "Apple retail stores are remarkably understated. The only bright colors are found on marketing material placed throughout the store. Otherwise, the tasteful stores are quite stark, so that the shoppers' eyes are drawn either to the colorful marketing posters and signs or to the products on sale". The stores are no longer as tasteful, and the new iPad product information displays create clutter and complexity.
Still, where Steve Jobs' influence still touched so did simplicity remain, which iPad 2, MacBook Air and Mac App Store imbue. But other recent attempts at simplicity have failed, with Final Cut Pro X example of increased complexity coming from an attempt to make video production simpler. Many of Apple's elite customers complained about the product, and there was even a petition to bring back the old version! Could such a thing really have happened with Steve Jobs hands-on at Apple?
When Passion Fades
Steve Jobs unexpectedly resigned as Apple CEO two days ago, and the Board of Directors immediately chose Tim Cook, then chief operating officer, as replacement. Much of the punditry about the transition is similar: Apple will remain the same Apple under Cook. This is misguided, wishful thinking.
Apple will change under Cook's leadership. Actually Apple already has changed. For about three years now, Jobs' influence on product development and marketing is less than it once was. The Apple faithful will slam me in comments or elsewhere for speaking such blasphemy. But, c`mon. The man is terribly ill -- clearly fighting for his life throughout much of 2009 and 2011.
As I more seriously review the 2.8 years since Jobs' January 2009 medical leave started, it's clear the aforementioned qualities are missing and other less-desirable ones present in Apple products. This reflects the limits of Jobs' involvement in the process -- at least the way he was able to be when in more robust health. There is a vitality gone from Apple's cofounder that many recent Apple products reflect, even as the company reaches its highest pinnacle of success ever. It's a cruel circumstance that a man who has had so much positive influence should be ravaged from the effects of cancer while still in his prime.
Kirk and Spock
Jobs and Cook couldn't be more different leaders. They're complimentary: The inspired visionary looking to bring good taste and understated design to otherwise complex products and the man responsible for getting them to market. Like James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock from "Star Trek". Kirk is the leader, the charismatic one. Spock is the empowering sidekick but not as effective leader. That's how I see Jobs and Cook.
Cook will competently lead Apple, as he has done for the better part of two years. He's honed Apple's supply chain to a science. Apple is a self-propelling machine now. But like Spock, Cook won't have the passion of Kirk. This will affect his ability to hold onto the team core to Jobs, such as product design genius Jony Ive.
Apple won't find feature compromises -- the kind good for keeping them in balance -- as easy in the post-Jobs-CEO world, either. Response to Final Cut Pro X is one example of that. Jobs had a knack for making people believe in his company's products, for clearly calling on real-world passion while making anyone and everyone willing to listen to feel good about Apple stuff. Apple products evoke emotional response, like few others in techdom. They are imbued by Jobs' passion and his ability to inspire others to design greatness or to give someone like Jony Ive freedom to bring true design genius to market.
Apple feels quite different to me now in 2011 than it did in 2008. It's all corporate now. Just dollars and cents on a ledger. What Jobs imbued already is gone, at least for me. I predict it will fade for many technophiles. But not anytime soon for the mass market of buyers, who are more influenced by what their friends and family use than by the aura of Steve Jobs.
His legendary "one more thing" was one last thing long ago.
Apple must be given some credit for the ARM chips it has in its iPad and smartphones. It does spend time and money developing them. Does it have co-developers on ARM chips? I’m not sure at this point
Apple has zero participation in the Intel chips it uses except for its cute habit of ordering odd frequencies that you cannot get elsewhere. For example its iMac would have an Intel Core2 chip @2.13MHZ. Everyone else would have the same chip but at 2.00 or 2.25GHZ
If Apple bought a lot of desktop&laptop memory 3-6-12 months ago then it is out a bundle because memory prices have been sliding and are very cheap now. 8gb is very cheap and is the least I would build a desktop with and if I bought a laptop with 4gb pre-installed I would immediately buy 8gb for about $35 and upgrade it
Apple is obviously working with Imagination too. Other than that, I'd bet the expertise of the former PA Semi and Intrinsity can probably handle anything. It's going to suck for Samsung to lose that expertise for future generations, since I doubt Apple will be hiring out.
Apple has zero participation in the Intel chips it uses except for its cute habit of ordering odd frequencies that you cannot get elsewhere.
Actually, there is an internal group at Intel specifically for Apple, and it includes Apple engineers. Their level of participation is unknown, but it must be some or the group wouldn't exist. At a minimum they must be working on customizations, such as the exclusive low-profile chip in the first MacBook Air. They probably also did extensive work in integrating Thunderbolt, and the small-package Thunderbolt controller for the Air.
I'm talking about how, for example, Apple spent one and a quarter billion dollars in 2005 to secure NAND shipments through 2010 from several suppliers. Apple has made additional smaller deals, like giving Toshiba half a billion dollars up front in 2009 for NAND for the initial iPad run. Apple secures so much capacity that back in 2008 Samsung warned their other customers there would be a NAND shortage. No shortage for Apple, of course.
Apple also spent $3 billion this year to secure future long-term supplies of touch screens, both for inventory prepayment and ramp-up capital expenditures. This has been estimated to be half of global touch panel capacity. RIM had to delay the PlayBook because Apple had already booked all available touch screen capacity.
People wonder where Apple spends their cash horde, since they don't buy big, high-profile companies as often as Google, HP and Microsoft do. This is where it's spent -- to secure low-cost, long-term, stable, and sometimes exclusive inventory. Apple spent more on one single NAND preorder than they did on their largest acquisition ever, which was NeXT for $400 million.
I'm sure some bits are contracted. No one company is capable of everything these days. In addition, any company will be using the designs of others in components. Nobody makes their own WiFi or Bluetooth chips, Broadcomm makes the ones for Macs. Apple designs how they all go together. Although I did hear they got a lot of Intel help for the first Mac Pro. Apple had been designing their PPC motherboards until then, so it makes sense.
How many chips in a Macbook Air were designed by Apple?
I was talking about the SoC in the mobiles. People forget Apple started with with designing their own motherboards called works of art by many. Wozniak even had a history of condensing the functionality of many chips into one.
Sure, and Samsung decided to do a machined case as well, and had no problem
Relatively small run.
Trying to insist that more capacity can't be added is, I think we'll agree, insane.
Nobody said that. They rightly said that it takes quite a bit of time to add it. At first most were saying the CNC cases couldn't be made in cost-efficient in production. I doubted it too. By the time everybody realized it worked profitably, Apple had the capacity locked. That put the competition behind. It was a full year before anything started to trickle out in small quantities. Nobody else has yet managed large quantities as Apple has.
Precisely my point. They do outsource some of their design; I don't think I've ever claimed they outsourced all of it, but I know I was quite explicitly attacked for claiming they outsource ANY of it. But I do agree - they do some in-house and they do some out-house. It's the way of the world.
I was talking about the SoC in the mobiles.
Ahhh, got it... They did buy a chip design company and thus integrated what used to be outsourced work. But they still use a lot of outsourced work as well - displays, even the ARM core (the core itself is from ARM - the SoC uses that block), memory chips, RF chips, etc.
Nobody said that.
Swordmaker has been quite insistent that there is zero capacity that no one else can make machined aluminum enclosures. I'm glad you agree that such a position is wrong.
They rightly said that it takes quite a bit of time to add it.
Which was my contention - it can be done, just takes some time and money. But it's not like you start a 12-18 month laptop development cycle and decide in the last 3 months that you want a machined enclosure! Those kinds of major features are decided up-front, and the time to build/add the capacity is there from the beginning - Samsung's new line is a perfect example.
As far as Samsung's new line, will it be a small run? Maybe for Samsung - but that would be a few million units a year, which isn't too far behind Apple's laptop sales (about 7-8 million a year). People forget just how big Samsung really is - for example, 1 out of every 4 phones sold in the US is a Samsung phone. They're HUGE.
At first most were saying the CNC cases couldn't be made in cost-efficient in production. I doubted it too.
And that's still the case (pun intended - I think...:). It's reserved for high-end $800+ laptops only, because it's an expensive operation for cosmetic reasons. You won't find it at the meat of the market where most units are sold - under $600. And in the cost-conscious business segment dominated by Lenovo, you'll find cast aluminum/magnesium cases because it's as heat-conductive as the machined aluminum, stronger (magnesium adds a good amount of rigidity), and since its lower cost you can get more features/bigger capacity components for the same final price.
CNC machining enclosures is really only viable on high-priced laptops; you don't find it on $500 units not because of capacity restraints, but because of economic restraints - it just does not make sense to spend 15% of your budget on a case.
It was a full year before anything started to trickle out in small quantities. Nobody else has yet managed large quantities as Apple has.
Because no one else is targeting a small niche of the market. Consider that Apple sells around 8 million laptops a year - a good amount. Netbooks - sub $400, tiny units - sell about 30 million a year.
Apple's market niche really is small - and it's high priced as well. That's not good or bad, but it speaks to the reality of what they do - they can do and offer all machined cases because their clients will pay for it, and in reality their client base is a very small segment of the market overall.
No one else is seriously using machined cases because the big part of the market is too price-sensitive to consider it. When you have netbooks alone outselling Apple laptops 4:1, consider what that means for most of the market. The sub-$600 laptop market is about 15 TIMES the size of Apple's laptop market. There are about 180 million laptops sold a year - Apple's 8 million really is a small segment of that.
And at the lower price where most companies make billions of dollars selling tens of millions of units, that premium for a machined aluminum case is just too much to bear. Most consumers will opt for a larger screen, or bigger hard drive, or more RAM or just a lower cost than to pay an extra $50-$75 for a machined aluminum case.
Apple has the capacity because they bought the capacity - and because no one else is using it. When Samsung wanted to do a similar thing, there was no problem bringing on the capacity needed/desired. There can be as much capacity as needed (contrary to what Swordmaker keeps insisting); it's a matter of whether other players see the need for their markets. And so far, for most - they don't see it, because their markets don't support the premium it demands.
It's really like a Rolls Royce owner sneering at everyone else without hand-rubbed burl walnut trim inside their car, and claiming it's because Rolls has a lock on the production capacity for hand-rubbed burl walnut trim. Rolls has the lock on capacity because 96% of the car market is below the price where that is even a viable option - not because Rolls has the capacity but because the capacity isn't needed by anyone else.
You are probably being mixed in with dennisw, who continually claims Apple engages in the common industry practice of simply choosing designs made by the Chinese, or at most specifying what you want and letting the Chinese design it. He fails to realize that Apple controls everything, and designs most of it.
They did buy a chip design company and thus integrated what used to be outsourced work.
Actually, they bought three -- two high-perf/low-power firms and a graphics firm. But the point here is that Apple designs how it all goes together. They do have the strangest looking arrangements for motherboards, but they're specifically designed for that one enclosure, often skirting around the battery, using all available space.
And in the cost-conscious business segment dominated by Lenovo, you'll find cast aluminum/magnesium cases because it's as heat-conductive as the machined aluminum, stronger
I still haven't seen another laptop that's as light, thin and strong as an Apple. Under 1" thick and I can't flex a 17" MacBook Pro, but all the competition creaks under the strain. Other notebooks the size of the Air feel like flimsy toys. The unibody aluminum does give unique structural qualities.
Netbooks - sub $400, tiny units - sell about 30 million a year.
If you are going to include netbooks, you should also include iPads. And iPads are cannibalizing laptop sales (Acer especially suffered upon its release).
Apple's market niche really is small
Premium isn't what you'd describe as a small niche. It's a market segment, the other end from cheap, and it's ruled by Apple.
When Samsung wanted to do a similar thing, there was no problem bringing on the capacity needed/desired.
The point is that they would have had a problem had they tried to immediately copy Apple, because Apple had all of the capacity locked up. Notice this comes out long after Apple did that, likely when spare capacity, or the ability to create more capacity, finally became available.
The overall point is that this is the way Apple does business. The computer industry is full of copycats, especially of Apple. Apple has tried the courts to stop copycats, but that takes a while and some governments don't care. It's easier to simply buy up all of the capacity, or fund the building of massive capacity and contract exclusive supplies. This leaves the rest of the industry fighting for scraps for years, fully vulnerable to price and availability fluctuations.
And the guy who invented this system is now CEO of Apple.
And that is different from Dell, HP, Samsung and others - how? The staff of engineers those teams have just sit around and do nothing?
Did you ever stop and think that HP, Dell, Toshiba and the others have different sets of priorities than Apple? That perhaps they need more flexibility in their platforms and offerings - and that's why they don't seem so exotic?
Guess why Ford has so many similar parts on their trucks - they reuse across many models and 97 trim levels and customer options. Now guess why Bentley doesn't reuse anything - because they have a few models.
Different design criteria means different design goals. But at least we all agree that they all use the Chinese CMs for at least part of their designs.
They do have the strangest looking arrangements for motherboards, but they're specifically designed for that one enclosure, often skirting around the battery, using all available space.
Yep - and I would suggest that's because the flexibility/options available on a typical Apple laptop are much smaller than a laptop from Dell, HP, or others. You don't get to choose which WIFI chipset you want. You don't have a choice of a couple of video subsystems. You don't get an optional Bluetooth or other subsystem or type of optical drive.
It's the difference between building a purpose-built product and one with more flexibility and expandability. Even down to supporting the customer replacing HDDs and the like. So the motherboard layouts are spec'd differently because their goals are different.
I can replace the HDD in my HP laptop in about 1 minute, with just a Leatherman (need a small Philips or flat blade screwdriver). Two screws, a cover pops off, 2 more screws, HDD is out. Pops out of a slide-in full connector.
How about a Macbook Pro (current generation)? It's a few dozen screws, nearly complete disassembly of the underside of the latop, removal of a flexprint from the trackpad to the motherboard, removal of the Bluetooth module - and you need two different screwdrivers to do it as well.
Designing something for user servicing makes it necessarily larger and "less complex" because you won't have trained folks doing it.
The unibody aluminum does give unique structural qualities.
And the cast aluminum/magnesium of the Lenovo (ne IBM) units have great structural qualities as well. And plastics do as well. They're chosen for a purpose, and that includes hitting a given price-point. You think Apple would try to attempt a $500 laptop with a machined aluminum body because it gives unique structural qualities? No - because you cannot make a laptop at that price point with machined aluminum.
If you are going to include netbooks, you should also include iPads. And iPads are cannibalizing laptop sales (Acer especially suffered upon its release).
Apple doesn't consider an iPad a laptop/computer, so why are your trying to jam it into the same market?
The point is that they would have had a problem had they tried to immediately copy Apple, because Apple had all of the capacity locked up. Notice this comes out long after Apple did that, likely when spare capacity, or the ability to create more capacity, finally became available.
Sorry, I don't buy it - you think Samsung or ANYONE could roll out a laptop as a "copy" from scratch in 1-3 months? No. It takes a year or more to get it all done - and capacity can be added as needed. There is NO capacity restriction as Swordmaker was trying to push - Samsung's new laptops came out without a hitch.
Capacity is at what the market needs - it'll expand OR contract based upon what the market needs. To insist that capacity is simply unable to expand is plainly idiotic. To believe that means the person espousing that position has lost all connection to reality and just is foaming at the mouth crazy... Business 101 - you don't add excess capacity, you don't keep excess capacity around.
Like I said earlier - give me the money, I'll go buy you a few hundred CNC mills and the factory space to run it AND hire the CNC operators, and I'll do it in 90 days. It won't be cheap, but it can be added as needed. The reality is - most of the market doesn't see the need, so it's not been added.
Foxconn doesn't make billions of dollars by having a bunch of unused capacity sitting around; they run their factory tight to maximize return - like all manufacturing concerns world-wide. If you need more capacity of capital equipment, you buy just enough to cover your needs - because more can be added in the future (CNC mills are not a dying industry). And if you have a lot of unused capital equipment lying around without demand, you sell it off to others.
Capacity will expand and contract to fit demand - always does. The lag time for something like CNC mills is probably on the order of 1-2 months, and for a full factory of a few thousand CNC mills is probably on the order of 9-12 months - well within the design cycle of a laptop, if the money is available.
Claiming that capacity is full and no one else can do it because of full capacity and that capacity cannot be added is simply insane and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of business.
My little aside is -—
I fail to see what the the big deal is with aluminum body laptops. I prefer plastic. If you are a geologist out in the field you should want a rough tough aluminum body laptop. But for most users I just don’t get it. Like these New Yorkers and other urbanites don’t need aluminum body laptop. It’s like all these people with 4 wheel drive vehicles who have real need for the 4WD once every two years
So Apple is making sure it has use of hundreds of CNC machines to hone these aluminum bodies? You would think it was the Holy Grail or the Second Coming of Christ. More Apple anal obsessiveness in the great tradition of Steve Jobs.
I gave an example earlier, of how a premium Dell laptop was basically a rebadged Samsung. Alienware (Dell) and Sager are generally the same thing from the same source. They pick and choose from the actual manufacturer/designer, dictate stats, dictate some cosmetics, and that's your laptop, but almost completely designed by the Chinese. The point is that Apple does not do this.
Different design criteria means different design goals.
Yes, Apple cares about making something original that consumers will love. The others care more about the next quarterly earnings statement.
Guess why Ford has so many similar parts on their trucks - they reuse across many models and 97 trim levels and customer options.
Note across models. Still designed and made by Ford. Apple reuses components between their lines too. Like with computers, all car manufacturers source bits from everywhere, even from each other.
Now guess why Bentley doesn't reuse anything - because they have a few models.
A Bentley is basically a high-end VW/Audi these days. As far back as the 90s, Rolls Royce was a lot of BMW underneath.
Apple doesn't consider an iPad a laptop/computer, so why are your trying to jam it into the same market?
I'm not the one who did it. But it is logical. If people are buying them instead of netbooks and lower-end notebooks for the purpose of computing, then they are pretty much by definition in the same market.
There is NO capacity restriction as Swordmaker was trying to push - Samsung's new laptops came out without a hitch.
After capacity had rebounded from Apple monopolizing it.
To insist that capacity is simply unable to expand is plainly idiotic.
You don't seem to realize how Apple is using the purchasing power. Capacity can always expand, but if one company buys the entire capability of the market to expand for a whole year, then nobody else can get more. As you note, it can take at least a year to ramp up for such an expansion. And that doesn't consider the special case of the CNC, which you need to create that expansion, and of which Apple had bought the entire production for a while in advance.
Claiming that capacity is full and no one else can do it because of full capacity and that capacity cannot be added is simply insane and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of business.
Remember the NAND and touch screen shortages I earlier referenced? Apple didn't have shortages because Apple contracted a huge chunk of the world's manufacturing capability in advance. Increasing demand created shortages for everyone else, to the extent of delaying their products. New fabs take a while to build, and cost billions.
Apple gets to do things nobody else gets to do, simply by virtue of locking in long-term supplies. Eventually somebody else will learn how to do it too, but for now Apple's got this system locked. The others just don't seem to have the foresight. I could see Dell's board in 2005 freaking at the idea of fronting $1.25 billion just to secure NAND memory supplies. They'd scream about the risk if Dell didn't actually sell that much, and how the $1.25 billion would hit this quarter's earnings. Apple just paid, and then did it again, and again.
Thin, light, strong, solid (quality) feel. Much better than Apple's previous laptops, including the titanium ones, and anyone else's. It also simplifies construction and design, as there is no longer frame + contents + body, just contents and body.
There are plenty of light laptops that are plastic, not aluminum. As light as Apple laptops. Though lighter is more expensive whether you buy Apple or Dell or Toshiba
And they have nowhere near the feel of quality and rigidity. The first time I saw an Air I felt like I would break it if I picked it up. That was based on my experience with laptops going back to the 80s, and the relative size difference. I was quite surprised that it was more solid than a normal large laptop.
No, Sidelines, Apple BOUGHT the capacity and INSTALLED it for the CMs... before that no one other than Apple was MAKING mono bloc Aluminum cases other than Apple in such quantities. Apple designed, engineered, and pioneered the technique and SHOWED FoxConn and the other makers how to do it. Get your facts straight. When Samsung, HP, Lenovo and the other makers saw the public WANTED them, they wanted to make them too... but the capacity simply was not there, other than on the Apple lines. You can try to revise history and the facts as much as you want... and also try to put words in my posts that aren't there... but it doesn't help you.
Fine... you just go do that. It just happens to run COUNTER to all of the news reports of the last six months. You were oblivious to them.
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