Come on, people, really? Really?!?! Apple has supported contextual menus/multi-button mice since OS 8.6 in 1999, when Steve Jobs was barely back for two years, and has shipped an actual multi-button mouse for over six years now. This is getting really old. Besides, even if you personally believe that a one-button mouse is bad (just as you might believe that no physical keyboard is bad), you better believe that Apple has its reasons - usability and fewer parts being the biggest ones.
As for the iPhone and keyboards, the Asian market is really important, you would have to redesign a new keyboard for every set of characters, now you can have 20 different keyboards on the same phone.
Also, as has been said, a slide-out keyboard is against everything the iPhone stands for. Such a heavily used joint will eventually break, it introduces more creases in the case where dust can enter, it looks ugly and it makes the device a hell of a lot thicker. So if you really have to write your novel on your phone, go ahead, buy one with a keyboard, but the rest of us would rather be able to put our phone in our pocket.
So do this imply that Windows is the best OS in the world? Because it has certainly enjoyed a lot more long-term success than Macs ever have and has made massive profits for two decades now. I would bet that even Windows Vista has made more profits than Macs in the last few years despite being widely panned by the tech media. Personally I think it's silly to judge products by their commercial success. It's like judging the quality of a movie on its box office success. Avatar isn't the greatest movie of all time.
And it’s not that marketing can make a crap product into a success. That is a straw man. However marketing can make a decent product into an extraordinary success. In the case of Apple it’s not so much advertising as the extraordinary wall-to-wall media coverage that their major releases like the iPhone and the iPad have received. I don’t think any other tech products have received anything close to that kind of media adulation. The iPad was hailed as a revolutionary device even before it was announced let alone released. So long as the product is half-decent, of course that will translate into massive sales and profits.
Yep, for what it is. UNIX-based operating systems are technically superior in many ways, and the way they’re set up is probably more secure by default, but for business and many private uses, Windows fits its niche well. Apple’s niche is biased toward the premium end of the market and portables. I personally think OS X is superior in many ways, but there are significant market advantages that Windows has been successful in controlling. For example, they had enterprise information exchange systems nailed years ago, which is why most businesses use them, and why Apple eventually supported tying into them for the iPhone.
It’s all about the tool for the job. In business there aren’t many alternatives to Windows. Open-source OSs don’t offer enough advantages to switch, and Apple’s strength isn’t in that area. In web development, design, and a huge amount of programming workplaces, however, Apple portables are ubiquitous and their desktop model often dominate in the office too. A lot of tech people like OS X, and with virtualization they can run just about any other environment they want to, or install Windows too.
What a lot of people forget is that Apple is primarily a HARDWARE manufacturer. That’s where they make their money. The software is made well so that people want to keep using their hardware and buy more of it in the future. They don’t care if you run other OSs on their hardware, as long as you keep buying the stuff that actually makes them money. iOS devices aren’t an exception here, by the way. Apple doesn’t actively try to stop iPhone jailbreaking. They aren’t going to try to give tech support on devices that have been jailbroken, and they aren’t going to test updates to see if they break the exploits. They just don’t really care as long as you’re not trying to do things that affect the iTunes store, like stealing software or creating malware.
I said before that Apple is very good about focusing their products. They never have tried to be everything to everyone. They pick their targets and they hit them more often than not. They don’t do “strategic” business moves like try for market share. Instead, what they do is try to make a product so good that everyone wants to use it. There’s a subtle difference in aim there.
And why do they get media coverage? Why don’t other tech firms get that kind of attention? Apple certainly doesn’t suck any dick for it. They only give out a handful of advance devices for review, they don’t pre-announce products, they don’t attend many tech shows, in short, they don’t do any of the things other companies do to garner attention. Why are they successful at getting attention? Because they do introduce game-changing products.
The recent Apple lawsuit against Samsung is a good illustration. This is what Samsung’s phones looked like in 2006. That’s what most manufacturer’s phones looked like in 2006. A year later, everyone was scrambling to make something that kind of looked like an iPhone, but it took a few years to get something that worked about as well. The newer versions of Android are pretty polished and I’d say roughly equal to iOS in quality. But it took until pretty recently to get there. Were there touchscreen phones before? Yep. Were there phones with more capabilities on paper? Yep. Were those phones fun to use? Nope. Would normal (i.e. non-techies) buy them? Nope. That’s game-changing.
Same story with the iPad. About two years later there’s still nothing that can touch it. The latest attempt still sucks. They weren’t even close to being the first in the market, but they were the first ones to make a tablet computer that didn’t suck. Hell, my 60-something year old dad was exposed to very little of the hype around it (he was vaguely aware of the name iPad) but played with my wife’s iPad for about 5 minutes and started asking how much it was. He got distracted reading something on it and 20 minutes later reluctantly handed it back. Would he have been as immersed with another tablet computer? Maybe. But the best alternative to the iPad so far is probably the Xoom, and it wasn’t released until this month. I showed him the iPad in December, after having had it since July.
Maybe, just maybe, Apple deserves the media attention. You ever think of that?
People continue to bring it up because it’s emblematic of Apple’s tendency to insist that it knows better than its users, and to continue to insist long past the point of reason. Apple hasn’t stopped doing this, but the current examples aren’t quite as egregious as the one-button mouse, hence it still gets dredged up.
Roman character markets are small potatoes? Apple would make no money giving people an item they request? If it’s such a huge hassle how does HTC manage it? Samsung? Etc.
Have you ever fucking actually used a phone with a real keyboard? You’re pretty fucking ignorant if you think they won’t fit in your pocket. I’m sorry if this post is harsh but your writing pretty much parodies it’s self. It’s typical of the masturbatory sneering and self congratulating Apple fanatics are known for.
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Get the fuck over yourself. You have a phone preference, not a religion.
Quick, fan-boy, without having to suck Steve Job’s cock or root the phone, how do you install an app Apple doesn’t like because it conflicts with one of their products, or let’s people see the Karma Sutra (but only if they search for it) or something?
On most platforms it’s trivial. Not on Iphone though.
Of course, one thing that happens with computer platforms is that there’s a natural tendency towards monopoly: If one platform is in the lead at any given moment, then more developers will write software for it, and the greater software catalog will in turn cause even more people to choose that platform. Obviously Microsoft did something right in the first place to start this off, but most of their success over time has been due to this positive feedback effect.
To be fair, of course, the same can be said for the iPhone: When it came out, there wasn’t any real competition for it, so it got a head start that was very difficult for other manufacturers to make headway against, and they’re still benefiting from that effect. It’s really pretty remarkable that Droid is managing to catch up, against that disadvantage.
It's not as if Windows dominates only in the corporate market though. It still dominates the consumer market and it's only in the last few years that Apple has been become really competitive (at least since the 80's). Personally I prefer Windows but I think that for at least 25% of the consumer market Macs are the better option and have been for many years. Basically if you make an above average income, don't know much about computers and aren't much interested in gaming I would say Macs are better and this was as true ten years ago as it is now. However ten years ago only a small portion of that segment would have purchased Macs. This was because of limited brand awareness and the limited retail presence of Macs not the quality of the product. It's taken ten years of the halo effect of the iPod and iPhone and a massive expansion of Apple stores for Macs to become competitive in a segment where they have always had a good product.
This is an interesting question. Part of it that there is a feedback effect in branding and media attention similar to the one that Chronos described for software platforms. Possibly this has become stronger in the Internet age. Apple releases a product which gains a lot of media attention, like the iPod. As a result consumers become a lot more aware of the brand and are more likely to click on stories about Apple which makes the media more likely to write about Apple which creates still more consumer interest. Of course if Apple releases some really crap products this feedback effect will break down but so long as their products are at least decent it will continue. And it becomes really difficult for a company like HTC which makes great phones to break into that virtuous cycle.
But that is only part of the story. A lot of it has to do with the history of Apple and the personality of Steve Jobs. Apple has been an iconic technology company for more than 25 years. It’s located in the heart of the technology industry in Silicon Valley. It has an iconic CEO who was already famous in the early 80’s. It has built a mythology around itself as being “different” . The bottom line is that Apple has created an emotional resonance with tech journalists unlike any other company. IMO this is what lies at the heart of their business model.
How about this by HTC which was released around the same time as the first iPhone. Anyway you are wrong about phones that non-techies would buy. For example the Nokia N95 was released a few months before the iPhone and was a massive hit which sold millions around the world particularly in Europe and Asia. I am sure they weren’t all or even mostly “techies”. In many ways it was a lot more capable phone than the iPhone but most US tech journalists didn’t seem to know much about it and didn’t really realize how far behind the curve the iPhone was compared to the best phones out there. Apple did a good job of catching up in the next couple of years but but much of the early hype around the first iPhone was really based on ignorance.
Man, I don’t know why I even bothered. It’s like talking to a telemarketer. Do you guys get checklists and scripts handed out to you? Seems like every Apple detractor talks about the same tired points (virtually all of them inaccurate) and uses the same phrasing. No point in continuing to beat my head against a brick wall.
Funny, I’m not the one who seems to get upset about someone else’s phone preference…
If you prefer a slide-out keyboard, by all means, use an Android. I was merely stating how, to me, the iPhone is superior. Nowhere did I say that Roman character markets are unimportant, but you can’t deny the advantage of being able to ship the exact same device to every country. And maybe you want to switch between languages or use special diacritics frequently - not possible/hard to do with a physical keyboard. Obviously another phone will fit in your pocket, but with a sliding keyboard, it’s not going to be 8mm thick.
Also, the issue of apps was not even under discussion here, but if you compare the number of official apps on iOS to Android (and mind you, this is an Android fan site) the iPhone doesn’t look so bad. There are also reasons for closing the system as much as Apple does, even if you disagree with their squeaky-clean, family-friendly policy (which you would have very good reason to do).
Again, chill out - as you said: it’s a phone preference.
Hysterical , much? I am not an Apple “detractor”. I like most of their products. It’s just that I think they have been overhyped by the media in the last few years.
My Nexus One and 3GS are the same thickness, they fit the same holsters and sleeves (although cases are form fitted).
Both the 3GS and Nexus One are much thicker than the 4. I suspect form factor, and economy had a lot to do with it. Not just economy of the dollar, but economy of efficiency. How much benefit does the average user get from it. I know that I wouldn’t get any – I chose the Nexus One because it didn’t have a keyboard. I hate my girlfriends droid, the keyboard and thickness are awful.
Nah, I don’t bother being emotional about anything on a message board. I just realized it was a complete waste of time to bring my A game to someone whose level of discourse is, “Like, whatever, dude. I don’t care what you think. I’m still right.” You are functioning exactly like every other person I’ve seen who mindlessly bashes Apple when you bring out the same tired arguments about one-button mice and say that their success boils down to marketing.
I follow a handful of tech companies, Apple among them, and one thing that I’m pretty sure of is that “marketing” is 90% product. Only about 10% is advertising, glossing over your weak points, and selling the strong ones. Every single over-hyped product I’ve seen has fallen apart under its own weight in very short order after release. If there’s no substance, if something isn’t good enough to warrant attention, it quickly becomes obvious.
Your insisting that Apple’s success is due to “marketing” is like the non-argument of an otherwise intelligent friend of mine with an anti-Nintendo bias who steadfastly insists that the success of the Wii is a “fad.” So I guess it’s my turn to say, “Like, whatever, dude.”