MEDIA and TECHNOLOGY

The Apple has fallen

I have never been a fan of Apple/McIntosh but encouraged my daughter to learn to use both PCs and Steve Job’s products  -- as they both exist in the real world.

So, why am I not an Apple fan after all these decades?

1.     Apple is a very greedy and controlling firm – reflective of Steve Jobs’ personality rather than its original computer whiz, Steve Wozniak.

Unlike the PC world were competition drives down consumer prices, Apple maintains a standalone approach with the principal that every product must return a 50% profit or it won’t be made. Maximum profit in the PC world is 33% and often closer to 10%.

 

2.     Over Wozniak’s objections, Apple computers from the start have controlled and limited consumer options by restricting or refusing to allow non-Apple devices or companies to ‘dock’ with their units.  CD and DVD drives are no longer built into units and industry leading Adobe Flash has been blocked from installation on Apple device. Sending a PC document or graphic to an Apple computer – and vice versa – is often a nightmare – unless you have an Apple which has Microsoft pre-installed on it (a concession the company made when near bankruptcy and was bailed out by Bill Gates. Microsoft owns some 5% of Apple still.) or Open Office on your PC -- a Linux style ‘international language’.

 

3.     Steve Jobs was a master of cool and minimalism in design, but almost never had an original idea (except for his introduction of diverse fonts into the DOS world and colour screens.)  He created nifty icons and desktops, loved white bodies and ethereally thin casings with rounded shapes.  He created with an artist’s spirit and eye, but copied others ideas too often, claiming the innovations as his own.

 

Contrary to U.S. media hype and legend, Steve Job’s company:

 

·        Did NOT create the first home computer.  The Apple 1 (1976) was based on existing home computer kits such as the seminal and inexpensive Altair 8800 and the very pricey IBM 1500. When the Apple 2 came out in 1977 with a keyboard and monitor, it had two rivals: Commodore PET and Radio Shack’s TRS-80. (Apple’s only iunique aspect was a colour monitor.)  [See about.com “Inventors of Modern Computers.”]

 

·        Apple did NOT invent selling internet-streamed music. The concept  first appeared in 1998   from Miami entrepreneur Ivan J. Parron’s Ritmoteca.com -- which sold songs for 99 cents. Major labels such as Sony also created their own stores, but Napster and the illegal, free market gained the upper hand before iTunes’s arrival in 2001.

 

·        Apple’s iPhone line is NOT the original smart phone with an interactive touch screen.  It followed in the footsteps of Nokia and others who created phones with internet connectivity and (small) screens,  and especially Palm’s PDA keyboard-less large screen hand held devices.

 

     The finger Touch Screen was also NOT an original Apple invention as

      bank machines and even restaurant cash registered were using the

      technology long before.

 

·        The iPod, again, was NOT the first mobile music storage device using electronic memory and compact design.  MP3 players were already in the market from various manufacturers before the original iPod came along.

 

British scientist Kane Kramer is recognized as its inventor in 1979. In 1998 a South Korean company manufactured and released the first electronic music player and four other manufacturers were well into this field before Apple’s iPod arrived in October 2001. [See Wikipedia “Portable media player”]

 

 

·        The iPad (2010) is NOT the first tablet on the market.  Microsoft in fact created the category and name in 2001. The Microsoft device used a pen to touch the screen and allowed for handwriting as well. Others got into the field, including HP.

 

The e-reading feature so popular on tablets is also NOT an Apple creation. Sony already had an internet downloading e-reader tablet in the market by 2006, the popular Amazon Kindle began in 2007 and Barnes and Noble’s Nook arrived in 2009.

 

As well, the world wide set of lawsuits between Apple and Samsung includes Samsung’s claim that the Apple iPad infringes on its own tablet’s patents. (As Samsung is one of Apple’s major suppliers and ‘partners’, idea and design cross-contamination is very possible – both ways.)

 

 

4.     FINALLY, the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and new iPhone 5 have been released with major flaws.  Things Steve Jobs when healthy, would never have tolerated, but such is the frantic world of electronics competition that Apple is often RUSHING TO MARKET before the ‘bugs’ are resolved:

iPhone 4 – antenna redesign needed as original units would often loose   signal or not get reception.

iPhone 4S – new Siri voice system was draining battery life as it was ‘on’ in the background all the time.  You had to go to the company’s store or website to be shown how to disable the feature and keep your phone running.

The Siri ‘link’ was also a costly surprise as the phone generated internet data minutes all the time.

 

iPhone 5 – Bigger screen than before and slimmer.  Sounds good but:

a.     The larger screen - at 4 inches -  is not a first but a ‘catch up’ to Samsung and others who already had larger screens designed to handle movie size 9 x 16 dimension images.

 

b.     The larger and more powerful  battery is so thinly encased that testers at the Globe and Mail found the unit ‘hot’ to hold when doing heavy power applications and imaging – think movies and games.

A recall should be done but this is Apple, so the problem will probably be covered up – both literally and figuratively.

 

c.      Jettisoning Google maps – now a ‘competitor’ – was not well thought out or well executed as the new Apple map applications have become the butt of jokes – requiring an admission and apology this week from the new CEO, Tim Cook.  Newspapers from Toronto’s Globe and Mail and elsewhere mocked the distorted images of world renowned sites such as the Eiffel Tower (squished pancake) and Boston had a field day criticizing local major bridges and tourist sites that were ‘melting’ or bizarre looking.

 

 Some famous landmarks also went ‘missing’ such as the Statue of Liberty!.  [G&M Sept. 21, 2012, B1 and B3]

 

d.     As the Globe and Mail has also noted in two recent articles, the voice activated map directions - turn by turn software -- is handy but not when it misplaces the object of your trip. Erroneously putting your destination 2 blocks away from its true location, or on the wrong side of the street is a common problem that the G&M reviewers felt was unacceptable, as better products – unrelated to Google – already exist.[G&M Sept. 27, 2012, B14 “Apple’s map app misses the mark” and Oct 1, 2012, B8 “Apple’s Map app error is a path to lost customers”]

 

So:

What does this all mean, especially after 3 years of rushed, inferior iPhone releases?

What does it mean for a company who realizes the iPad’s current size is often too unwieldy and is rumoured to be working on a ‘reduced size’ model -- copying the Blackberry Playbook and similar, smaller Samsung or Sony products?

What does it mean when the Samsung Galaxy Note (released last year) is considered a breakthrough, the almost perfect size phone, internet vehicle and tablet all rolled in one?  Its oversized movie screen – at 5.3 inches   outshines the newly released iPhone 5.  And the new Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is even better -- starting with its 5.5 inch screen and quad-core processor.

 

* * * * * * *

It means:  if you own Apple stock, rethink your investment and take the money   and RUN!!!

 

Steve Jobs is gone, and the Apple is falling.