Where Apple Fails
This post was published 3 years 7 months 23 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.News.com is running quite an interesting writeup about Apple’s failures rather then successes. Nothing like a party pooper!
With all the hoopla surrounding the company–and you’ll hear a lot this week as Apple turns 30–you’d think it pulled off the first manned spaceflight to Neptune or invented long division. Instead, the company’s recent accomplishments include making it possible to buy Foghat singles on the Web and selling a leather pouch for music players for $99. [...]
In relative terms, Apple continues shrinking. Back in 1990, Apple was the largest PC maker in the world, with 10 percent of the market. In the third quarter of 1997, the company had 7 percent. During one of its most rocky periods–when it fired CEO Gil Amelio–market share had only dipped to 2.8 percent. Put another way, the company’s PC group is about a third the size it was when CEO Steve Jobs returned.[...]
In the consumer world, of course, there’s that $300 price delta on the company’s computers. According to the Apple view of the world, consumers should pay for advanced technology. If your LCD screen has a viewing angle of 170 degrees and more nits of brightness, you should pay for it. Most other companies take a different tack: This is America. People are cheap. Give them a free printer.
There’s also another problem with ideas: No matter how brilliant you are, not all of your ideas will be good. Apple has popped a few doozies in its day. The inventors of lithium-ion batteries once gave Apple the opportunity to buy the technology, according to VLSI CEO Dan Hutcheson.
“(Then-CEO John) Sculley’s office passed it down to the Chief Technical Officer, who brushed it aside, saying battery technology was not important in electronics. Apple could have owned the portable electronics market,” Hutcheson wrote in a recent newsletter.
Apple also passed on America Online to create the now defunct e-World. Newton and Pippin (a fumbled entertainment console for TVs) were ahead of their times–and not very good technologically.
The cube PC, the iBook with a handle, the flower power iMac, the Shuffle cut down in the prime of its life. Not everything that comes out of Cupertino results in a hit.
The Newton wasn’t good technologically? I want whatever the author was smoking
what apple does well, imo, is make you feel like you get your monies worth. style performance and usability.
what about other company’s failures. dell is a failure even with the market share that they have. my friend just bought his first computer. a dell e310. the specs aren’t bad and it came with a 17″ lcd for $500.
the thing is, it’s so loaded with bullshit that i have to babysit him now. dell’s user experience is shit. all they want to do is sell cheap computers. they don’t care what happens to the thing once it leaves the shipping facility.
i could have purchased a pc notebook weeks ago, but i am holding out for the new macbooks. if a customer is willing to pay a little more for your product rather than buy something else, how is that considered a failure?