What Happens When Apple Dies?
September 25, 2006
I plugged up my iPod today and updated it with my latest Learn Japanese podcast and came to a sudden realization. Before happening upon the iPods, specifically the shuffle... I've never had a burning desire for an mp3 player. That is, everything else was just so big and ugly. I never wanted to pull something like the others out of my pocket and fiddle with it... but I'm happpy to be seen with my new iPod shuffle. Apple puts a lot of work into ensuring that their hardware is "prettily" designed. Most manufacturers use aesthetic design as a sort of afterthought. I wonder though... what will happen to the market when Apple exits?
Apple will exit. No corporation has an unlimited lifetime, especially technologically oriented corporations. They never last. Apple will die eventually...
I wonder though; what will happen when the high end designer leaves the market? Will the market be left to the cheapest && highest quality manufacturers... or will someone take their place? I have my doubts about someone taking their place because only software/hardware from Apple seems to take on these simple and lovely UI designs (both physically and in the computer world) that you see.
So... what do you guys think? Is there someone out there who will take their place that has been ignored thus far? Or will design die when Apple dies?
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8 Comments
| Tagged: Corporations, Obsolescence, Apple
david 2006/09/26
That's SOOOOOOOOO far down the road, it's not worth thinking about yet :P kthx.. back to my coffee now.
Jesse 2006/09/27
I am with David. That is like thinking about the end of Nuclear Energy. Too long away to think about.
Jordan T. Cox 2006/09/28
Haha, I don't know about that. The way their stuff is so vested in hardware and we're seeing a lot of manufacturing shifts... things might change against them. You never know though. They might just end up having staying power!
Especially since it looks like MS is faltering in their profitability and product release abilities.
James 2006/09/29
I'm going to have to agree with Jordan here in that it may be sooner than we'd like to think. I mean, really just look at the iPod line. It's essentially one design, relatively unchanged from the very first units produced. Same goes more or less for their computers. They have all followed the same general design paramenters. Sure, a few minor things have changed to accomodate differences in hardware and physical dimension, but there's been little difference, and I think that's intentional. It's an image thing. Apple may have done too good a job designing their products, and many a person out there may not trust a differently designed Apple product solely on the premise that it doesn't look like the Apple products people are now used to seeing. People generally dislike change, and Apple may have as a result painted themselves into the corner in the long run.
david 2006/09/29
Well, I'm sticking with what I said. Yes, they have standards in their product design that they adhere to. They do introduce changes, mostly minute but always (ssemingly) in the right direction.
But it's not all about the product design either. I think on the software level they have always been on the front of innovation with companies like MS stealing ideas from Apple for their future products. And there have been big changes on the software level for Apple, especially when thinking about transition from pre OSX to OSX.
I think unless Apple makes a major mistake that could hurt their long standing reputation (unlikely to happen), they will be around for a long time.
James 2006/09/29
True; I'm not denying any of the great leaps Apple has made in modern GUI and consumer electronics design, but I believe you're leaving out an integral facet in the real-world performance of the company: people. People are generally technologically incompetent. Make that just incompetent in general. The general populace rarely concerns themselves with what a product can do or its reuirements, but rather what the product is advertised to do.
Which reiterates my original point: Apple is not going to change their designs any time soon, because the public has now equated that design as an Apple design. Innovation doesn't matter here. It's all about making sales.
I've got more I'd like to add in, but I have to go to work now, so I'll save it for later...
Jordan T. Cox 2006/09/29
Damnit James, I want to hear the rest of it!
Apple's always been in a niche market. They've never been competitive in terms of price to performance, it's always been about their designs and usability. It's just that lately their market has opened up as a larger set of computer users now have "usable" computers, but want something better looking and easier to use; so it's perceived as a different market.
I think that Apple's in a position where it's had an opportunity to expand and change it's market but has bypassed it. When they ported OSX to run on the x86, I was enthralled at the sound - thinking to myself; "Finally, I can have OSX on a computer that doesn't cost a thousand dollars". Yet today, there is nothing.
What interests me is that they are confining themselves to a niche market, and not attempting to expand even a little bit. When they begin to lose reputation in their niche market, they've got nothing.
Take for instance the recent Macbook fiasco. Bad paint, bad batteries and odd mooing sounds... all bad when you've only got four products on the market and one of them is malfunctioning.
I also want to counter-point David's saying that it isn't all design. I think that even on the software level, their biggest draw is the design. It's SIMPLE. It WORKS. It looks GOOD. It behaves like you expect. Sure there are some niceties (tagged files, smart folders), but they're few and far between. For the most part, it's all about the design of their software and hardware that makes their computers so appealing.
James 2006/09/30
Actually Jordan, you've already got the gist of it.
Apple is now essentially stuck as a niche player. They've had their opportunities, and let them pass. Their top position is in the MP3 player market with the iPod, and they'll probably stick around there for a while thanks to its ubiquity, but even then it won't last. From my perspective it looks like these all-in-one devices are aiming to be the next big thing, and that will leave iPod in the dust.
On top of that, their whole current ad campaign goes to show how badly they want a niche market. Insult the potential customers and drive their business away for the sake of giving the fanboys a few chuckles out of strings of half-truths spouted on broadcast TV. Way to spend your advertising money there.
I might have a little more sometime later. For now, time for bed, since I'm getting called in to work tomorrow. (There goes my day off...)