The Big Switch to Mac part 3 – What the Mac does wrong

 

So part 3 of this ongoing discussion – I have to apologise that this has been quite a long drawn out process and by god it has been busy at work, but that is another post.

So where do Apple go wrong? Well mainly its in these areas:

1. Price
2. Focus on the consumer market.
3. Wanting to go its own way

Lets take them in that order shall we?   Without a doubt any Mac, or indeed Apple product in general, are monumentally expensive, to give you an idea of how expensive that Macbook I am typing this on including the software and Apple Care (Apple’s extended warranty) came to just shy of 1400 of my Great British Pounds.

I Just winced as I typed that, in most peoples books that is a stupid amount of money to spend on a laptop, and with the recent hardware refreshes announced last week the entry level iMac (the desktop that looks like its only a screen) is now close to 800 notes!  800 for something not as powerful as this Macbook but with a bigger screen.  So why do Apple do this to themselves, surely they would attract more customers with a lower price point so why do it?

The answer is actually found in the car market generally and with the Volkswagen group specifically.  Volkswagen own Skoda and indeed many of the parts from the Passat are found in the Octavia but the Passat costs nearly 10K more! In this case there is 70% – 80% of the parts are held in common, are the remaining parts the dogs dangly bits? maybe but I doubt it mostly it is to do with the name, the prestige of owning a premium product in Apples view they are the Rolls Royce of the consumer electronics market.  Partly they are correct (have a look at the previous entries for my view on this) however they are not that correct.

Simply but the kit is impressive but it simply can’t cost them that much to make so most of that high price is “Apple Tax” for owning their product.

 

Mistake 2: Apple is regarded as a consumer electronics company – would you regard HP in the same light?  No even though they compete in many of the same areas and are seen as a premium product.  HP’s main focus is the business market in all its guises from laptops and desktops up to their servers (I do like their servers) they do release consumer products but that is not where they concentrate.  I have been asked on many occasions about recommendations for home machines and time and time again I advise HP as they are reliable, well made, well supported products that I have had positive experiences with in a work environment.

Secondly to this point where do you think most computer spending is sourced from businesses or individuals?  Businesses clearly, you all use one at work, everyone does (and I thank you as it keeps me in a job) but Apple with its consumer focus and lack of serious provision for businesses keeps them out of the arena.  Now I know people do use them in work, especially in the coloured pencil department (read anything to do with graphics or design) but this is very much a niche market, and the really serious business kit of servers for instance there is almost no provision, in fact in my IT career I have seen only 1 business run on Apple servers and even they had their reservations about how developed as product it was.

Until Apple develop a better business strategy they will only ever slowly grow their consumer base.

 

Mistake 3: Apple make their own way. This is less of a mistake and more or a two edged sword as it is also one of Apples greatest positives as well but what it can mean is that Apple make a gamble and adopt a technology that makes it difficult to use their equipment with non Apple kit, or a technology of which they are the only major proponent.  As some examples I give you Firewire and the Display Port.  Firewire was Apples version of USB but has always been faster, the first version was about 40 times quicker then USB 1 (400 mb/s vs 10 mb/s) and the second version, called Firewire 800, is roughly twice as fast as USB 2 (800 mb/s vs 440 mb/s).  It also had all the benefits of USB, daisy chaining and being Hot Swappable, so where did it all go wrong.  Well it just never really “hit” it was being found on many high end consumer digital items like camcorders and some digital cameras but the cost of having these ports on computers was a lot higher then USB and as USB gained dominance so Firewire is slowly being doused even by Apple with USB ports now out numbering the Firewire ones for the first time when taken across the product range. 

Then there is the display port.  The Display port is a proprietary display adapter that Apple uses on its monitors and as the output from their laptops.  I really cannot make my mind up on this as it is either Apple being contrary or a good marketing idea as you cannot use your new laptop with any non Apple branded monitor unless you buy the Adaptor, and god help you if you want to attach to either a VGA or DVI monitors, its now two adaptors, Oh you want to connect to your HDTV well that’s another adaptor to turn your DVI output to a HDMI one.  See what I mean, these adaptors must cost Apple the square root of naff all to make and yet I have had to purchase 3 all three to achieve what I want to.

The last section of this mistake comes from its stubborn non adaption of Industry standard kit, as by now I think it is fairly safe to say that Bluray has won the Hi Def format war and yet Steve Jobs (The Apple CEO) has categorically started that your Mac will never have Bluray support as he views it as a dead format already in that he believes that digital distribution is the way forward.  That in and of itself is a valid belief but saying that Apple will not support one of the major video formats surely has to be short sighted, doesn’t it?

 

So there you go there are some of the mistakes that I think Apple make, and it is purely my layman’s perspective on the issues, but hey it’s my blog so I can get away with it.

Let me know if you think I have hit the nail on the  head with these of if you think I have missed the point by so much I nearly hit myself.