CNET Accuses Apple of Over-Hyping Launch 382
An anonymous reader writes "A columnist at CNET is questioning whether Apple over-hyped last week's launch. From the article: 'Jobs' announcement of a new leather case for the iPod was especially ridiculous. Like the queen announcing a new toaster in Buckingham Palace. It seemed odd that Jobs was troubling himself to introduce fashion accessories to Apple's products.' Is Apple a victim of its own success? Can it hold a low-profile product launch anymore -- or do we inevitably expect too much?"
The leather sleeve is a precursor/clue (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I didn't see much Apple hype... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's ridiculous to think Apple using that auditorium should automatically mean "earth-shattering announcement."
Re:I didn't see much Apple hype... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, they did nothing like that.
Yet, Microsoft did with Origami [origamiproject.com] and no one paid any attention at all. That is sad.
Ghetto-Blaster? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm assuming that most of these bloggers and columnists lived through the 80's and should know WTF a Ghetto-Blaster looks like
For those of you who lived sheltered lives during the 80's and early 90's, a Google Image Search for Ghetto Blaster [google.com] is highly informative.
Oddly enough, the GIS turned up no pictures of automatic weapons in the first few pages. Cause that's the other thing that comes to mind when I think about ghetto-blasters.
Re:I didn't see much Apple hype... (Score:5, Interesting)
However the Apple sites, along with other sites (I bet CNET is guilty of this too) instantly took this as "They are announcing the tablet Mac!", or "They are announcing the video iPod", or "The new Newton is coming!".
They were responsible for all the hype.
And the announcement of the Mini wasn't anything to sneeze at either. It means that now all consumer Apple computers (except the Laptops) are on Intel processors.
On a side note, I wish they would make a new Newton. I would love one. Apple is so good at interfaces.
PS: Also, the guys over a Penny-Arcade [penny-arcade.com] have gone Mac and they really like it so far. Check out their post about it (and the comic). They said they'd provide more details tomorrow (Monday).
It was good while it lasted (Score:3, Interesting)
During 2006, it's quite likely we'll see an increasing number of articles saying the iPod thing is over. When every kid on the block is toting one, it's time to get rid of it and buy something reassuringly "exclusive" instead. Never underestimate snob appeal.
Apple stock only rises before the announcement... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mac mini not a PVR (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How can you overhype a fashion product? (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple is about style, design, and being cool. Get it right. (n.b. that's also the difference with Microsoft.)
investors not happy (Score:3, Interesting)
Even more basic than that (Score:5, Interesting)
'Jobs' announcement of a new leather case for the iPod was especially ridiculous. Like the queen announcing a new toaster in Buckingham Palace. It seemed odd that Jobs was troubling himself to introduce fashion accessories to Apple's products.
Think about it.
A marketer tried to get the best currently-new offering from a company to sell better.
It's the exact same thing that any marketer, anywhere around the world would do.
If you watch QVC, you can see salesmen doing the same deal for thing after thing, time after time. ("This ball of twine is the most amazing, lifechanging thing ever!")
It's just good business. Apple isn't going to churn out something like the introduction of the Apple, the Macintosh, or the iPod every year. Matter of fact, if you count those lines, they've been managing better than one lucrative industry-changing product line a decade, which is pretty damn good.
The only unusual thing is that some Mac users seem to take a polling approach instead of a event-triggered approach to being notified about new Apple products (which means that sometimes, there isn't much there).
Herding consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple may be pretty good at herding consumers, but they're absolutely nothing [theatlantic.com] compared to, say, De Beers. De Beers created the diamond ring as a cultural item less than a hundred years ago. Now, you have to give your lady love a diamond ring -- no alternatives.
The story I linked to is pretty interesting -- if you have a couple minutes, it's a worthwhile read.
Obligatory reminder: (Score:5, Interesting)
from the well-thats-not-very-exciting dept.
Re:Downward spiral. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Toast (Score:3, Interesting)
Steve's sneaky (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Amazing features - Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually run PowerCinema. It does more than Front Row in much the same way.
Re:Downward spiral. (Score:5, Interesting)
Everybody expected them to be releasing an Intel iBook. They did not expect a Mac Mini, and then a contingent of people are fervently bitching that it doesn't have a Radeon X1600 on top of that.
The iBook sells a lot of units to college students. Inbound freshmen get the acceptence letters in like April-May for public universities. We'll see the launch of the MacBook Regular at a time that capitalizes on that. Just like we'll see a MacBook Pro that allows the video professionals to do editing while sipping a latte at Starbucks when the software to do this is actually available: the end of the year.
See, this is the problem: people are thinking, "Wow, this is what I've got a big boner for," and thinking that's what Apple's going to do, rather than Apple doing what will maximize Apple's profits and hit the target the best. "The new MBP doesn't have a firewire 800 or a super-fast smartcard interface!" they say. Yeah, of course. Because it's a programmer's notebook. Programmers have no use for firewire 800, and it would only drive up costs and cause delays.
Re:Ghetto-Blaster? (Score:3, Interesting)
iPod Hifi: Basically a box with speakers, can be powered by batteries, and is meant to be portable. Percieved as cool by a certain segment of the population.
Gee, I wonder why people are making the comparison? True, it's not exactly the same, one works with tapes, and the other works with iPods. And one sure costs a lot more. But the simularities are there.
This prediction is sweet, too (Score:4, Interesting)
Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port
Raise your hand if you have both
Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device
There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod.
Another
Re:Downward spiral. (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Even if some people were dissappointed after all the hype, Apple got a lot of publicity out of this. Given the announcement invitations, it was pretty predictable that the tech media, and the Apple faithful would hype this. I think Apple knowly took advantage of that to get a lot of publicity milage out of some minor product announcements.
To talk about something really important... (Score:2, Interesting)
Marketing Can Be Another Name For Over-Hype (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a lot of expectation and focus on Apple now since people are waiting for the Intel iBooks and such. So Jobs and Apple ran with that. I can't blame Apple. Look at all the exposure they got when the Nanos scratched easy. Media loves to follow Jobs and Apple. I can't ever find a compelling reason to buy any of their products (they make great stuff but always come with a kick in the shins since th9ings are either too expensive or missing features) but I like their attempts at innovation.
Now CNET is a place that REALLY generates more heat than light!
Re:Downward spiral. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not including an x1600 in the Mini was a very good idea, imo. Why? Well, the remote and S/PDIF optical ports would indicate that it's very much intended for use as a media center type machine (though needing to buy an adaptor for composite/S-video/component is a bit disturbing), whether as a more-or-less thin client (ie, snagging the media off a fileserver located elsewhere) or a more typical machine. While you want a high quality video output, 3D acceleraton is really pointless until the high-def content is out, and by that point the'll have updated it with a BD/HDDVD drive and some sort of h.264 hardware acceleration chip (dedicated card or not, I'd imagine not as a dedicated chip would almost certainly be both cheaper and cooler).
While having your devices ready for content is good, the fact is that only the deep-pocketed are going to be buying them until content is readily available. iPod? Not too successful until iTMS became available (not to mention the Windows version, but that was inevitable once it had some decent Mac success). Why did iTMSv6 launch at the same time as the G5 iPod? Who needs a video player if there's no videos to play? Who's going to buy portable-quality videos if you're tethered to the computer to watch them?
The living room computers are fast becoming the next big thing, and Apple wanted in. The form factor is nothing short of perfect and it was given the features it would need to succeed? How often do you use the fifty buttons on your DVD player? I use play/pause and, on occasion, eject. Menu if it isn't one of my reauthored backups. It has DVI out and digital audio output support, while it easily doubles as a media library and good front-end for showing all of your content. While it doesn't have a tuner, I think that's due to the fact that we're at a very awkward point regarding PVRs, IP and the broadcast flag (etc). I have enough trouble sitting through the crap that's on the first time as it is, recording it is well beyond my scope of understanding.