I think Apple's problem is that they don't try many new things. All they do is try to improve the old stuff. You can only go so far with that attitude. I think Apple will be around in 5 years as long as they start branching out and trying new things.

Thats my point. Apple doesn invent products it takes what HTC, MS, and others have done and remakes them with an apple logo. Thats what your paying for not the phone. My point is Cell phones move so fast I just don't see a company rated the richest tech company in the world. Yet they produce 2 products both very flash in the pan, and trendy. All it takes is some bad publicity and Apples over. Thats the problem when the brand is worth more then the product. I think as other tech companies excel and apples waits to see whats gonne be successful they just won't be able to keep up. Think about it they were almost 3 years behind the ball getting 3g service. Boost Moble and Even Metro PCS are selling 4G. Yet still no 4G iphone and not expected till after October. They are just so so so so slow and every competitor is years ahead of them in development and everythign else. Now lets account for our economy and Apples customer base buying new phones for every version. So you say they have sold 100 million iphones. In reality they sold 25 million. and the other 75 million were the used phones the fanboys dumped to buy the newest one. Thats only gonna work so many times before people wake up and say why am I paying $500 for a 2 year old phone?

 

Just keeps getting worse for FB
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/dail...ebook-revenue-estimates-middle-133648905.html
In this article is says that FB's underwriters cut FB's earnings estimate over the weekend and only told the high profile banks and traders, but didn't tell the public. Which is illegal.


Remember on opening day FB shares would have crashed nearly 50% but the bankers bought back all the stock that people dumped keeping the price at the opening price. So when it went to $42 down to $37 it really should have dropped to $27 but the bankers bought the shares stopping the fall of price.

 

Apple has waaay to much support. And not support which is liable to change.

I'm sure my tenner will be safe.

 

A mobile phone suits me down to the ground, it's all I need. I never quite understood the purpose to a FB friend capacity >1000.

It's a marketing thing. Some companies have plenty of facebook friends to announce new products or services. Some ebook authors use facebook to announce their next book.

For the record, I just opened a facebook account just to access the local APA League's FB account.

I also joined linkedin because a friend of mine had sent an invitation.

There was a saying the the U.S. Coast Guard that you were only one or two shipmates from knowing everyone in the service ... and these social networks show how big a sphere of influence could be. That is the reason the politicians are on facebook, twitter, and all the other social networks.

 

Apple has waaay to much support. And not support which is liable to change.

I'm sure my tenner will be safe.

In the biz world I don't see it, I've never seen a Tech with an iphone. In the High Schools yes they dominate and everyone has one.

 

So then Apple will still be around in 5 years.

 

So then Apple will still be around in 5 years.

Sure it will but I think it will be where RIM is now. Or where APPL was when SJ left in the 90's. People fail to realize in early 80's APPL was the best computer system you could buy. By the late 80's they were about to file bankrupsy and fired Steve Jobs. He then left and bought pixar for 10m cash. Then that turned out to be worth more then APPL. So they rehired him in the late 90's to create the ipod which kept them from going under. Then slowley built their brand name up. But once the iphone/ipad/APPL product becomes the main stay its trendyness will fall out of favor for a newer company. I have no problems with APPL except their value is a sticker and not a product. If they were making ipods, phones and pads for numerous mnf's and concentrating on the actual device instead of the image I would love them. After all an Apple2c was my first real computer after the TRS-80(I think that was it, I skipped the commadore cause nextdoor neighbor and best friend had one) after that it was a 386sx20mhz

 

I agree with you max, but you have to realize that you are a minority. The overwhelming majority of people have no problem paying for a label over a product. In fact, they crave the label. That's why people pay 80$ for shirts that are of poorer quality than the 10$ shirts at walmart. Plenty of clothing lines have remained at the top of pile for years, without being replaced by "the next big thing".

Sherrif Bart's Gucci saddle bags, circa 1974 (Blazing Saddles)

 

Some companies have plenty of facebook friends to announce new products or services. Some ebook authors use facebook to announce their next book.

The lengths companies span to advertise a product is most intriguing, it smells like spam. I buy a book from Amazon, then my emails will have me in a corner, indefinitely.

These social networks show how big a sphere of influence could be. That is the reason the politicians are on facebook, twitter, and all the other social networks.

You might be able to vote on FB at this rate, you never know.

 

@Strantor I agree but when people's paychecks start dropping and you have to start making cuts. That label is one of the first to go. Parents will laugh when their kids ask for the new $1000 iphone7.

 

@Strantor I agree but when people's paychecks start dropping and you have to start making cuts. That label is one of the first to go. Parents will laugh when their kids ask for the new $1000 iphone7.

I laugh when my wife wants a 250$ used iphone 4 (but then I ended up buying it anyway). Labels mean almost nothing to me. They mean a lot to my wife and that's probably the #1 thing we ever fight about. For example, the last thing was she wanted to spend some retarded amount of money for a longchamp purse; she talked about it for weeks, then we finally go to the mall and I look at the purse and it seems of low quality. It's just 2 pieces of polyester canvas sewn together with some pleather, a button, and a zipper. Probably cost 2$ or 3$ to make it. I brought up all these valid points as I stood there holding the damn thing and none of it sank in. We left without the purse and I got the silent treatment, followed by a guilt trip, followed by an argument. This lust for brandnames sickens me and I try to not see it in my wife, but it is definately there. I hope she gets a job soon so she can buy this crap and I don't have to know about it. It's not so much that I can't afford it (I can't) but that I can't rationalize paying for a name. Even if I could afford it, I would still have a problem with it. I can't wrap my head around how other people do not think the same as me.
I guess my point is, that people who think this way (like my wife) are not deterred in the least by not being able to afford a label, they still lust for it. But I guess most people fall somewhere in the middle and are rational.

 

Both of us bring up good points. The main to demographics that use APPL/Branded products don't pay for them. Kids and women. Maybe when they start paying for them it will stop, or when the economy gets so bad guys like us will have to put our foot down and say no. I'm not buying that trash for you.

 

Personally, I think Apple is much more than a label, and their products are certainly not trash. There is a lot of integrated design and testing that goes into their products. They are functional, beautiful, highly tested and reliable products.

Yes, they cost a little more up front, but they have value that justifies the cost. I switched to Apple products about 7 years ago and have never regretted it. I no longer waste time setting up computers and printers and software and networks. I dont' need antivirus software and never suffer consequences of that.

If a laptop computer costs me $600 rather than $1000, it is no bargain if I have to waste time. How much is our time worth? If a piece of hardware and the necessary software wastes even 1 hour more per week, that's 150 hours over the 3 years I typically keep it for. Trust me, my time is worth more than $3 dollars per hour and other products waste a whole lot more than 1 hour per week, on average. It's a no brainer for me. Give me something that works well.

Everyone in my family has an Apple laptop and iPod, and we have a couple of desktop computers and wireless network system. There is no software crashing, no hardware failures, no problematic setup issues, no incompatibility issues, no virus infections, nor any of the other problems I had with IBM compatible systems. I also like that the Apple OS is unix based, as I can pull up a unix terminal and do all the command line stuff from the old days.

Before switching from IBM compatibles to Apple, I tried Sun workstations. These worked well for me, but there is no way the rest of the family could use these and get all the mainstream stuff working.

Bottom line, I've use IBM approach, Apple, and Sun and Apple wins hands down in my book. The success they've had is not an accident. What they do going forward without Steve Jobs remains to be seen. If they fail, it will be because they stopped delivering value, functionality and style.

 

FWIW, I don't mind setting up networks, software, anti-virus, firewalls, plug-in cards, etc. I rather enjoy fooling around. I like trying out free and 'teaser' software and other products, and changing my system as my desire to experiment dictates. Not as much time for that these days as in days past though. I feel like I waste a couple hours a year setting up anti-virus and such. I actually spend more time with my internet provider trouble shooting internet issues. Cable has not been very relaible for me, but that's just probably because of where I live.

 

Now you get me going.

The IBM/Microsoft/Intel PC was a piece of crap that set the computer revolution back 25 years. The design was clobbered together by a bunch of idiots who knew nothing about good design.

Thank goodness Xerox and the folks at PARC came along and did things right (from which Apple benefited.) There is no question that Steve Jobs was an extraordinary visionary who got Apple to where it is today. The iPad alone is a revolutionary device that every company is now trying to imitate.

 

Now you get me going.

The IBM/Microsoft/Intel PC was a piece of crap that set the computer revolution back 25 years. The design was clobbered together by a bunch of idiots who knew nothing about good design.

Thank goodness Xerox and the folks at PARC came along and did things right (from which Apple benefited.) There is no question that Steve Jobs was an extraordinary visionary who got Apple to where it is today. The iPad alone is a revolutionary device that every company is now trying to imitate.

Say huh? They were one of the last tablets on the market? Thats like saying they invented the smartphone. Unless your referring to the Newton which you would be correct.

Also PC/IBM's rocked but were more buggy because they wrote software to support 1000's of pieces of equipment and run on all of them. APPLEs approach was to use all the same equpment and write its code to just run on one or two motherboards. Thats why Apples got the rep of being easy to use and non buggy, but the trade off was you couldn't buy parts anywhere without shipping it out, almost no software was being made for it, and everything cost 5 times as much.

 

Personally, I think Apple is much more than a label, and their products are certainly not trash. There is a lot of integrated design and testing that goes into their products. They are functional, beautiful, highly tested and reliable products..

Like rolling out a phone that drops calls when you accidentally touch the side of it?

But I concur Apple stealing the mouse from XEROX and Windows from MS was a slick move. Like MS buying dos for $1000 then reselling it to IBM for millions the next day. Or scamming Steve J into giving MS a early copy of the prototype Lisa before it folded. For those who don't know the LISA was a computer that was supposed to come after the b/w macs. He named it after his daughter he refused to accept or help with child support.!?!?!? Pretty strange. And I'll admit some apple products are high end, but not that high end. My problem with them is the features always come after someone else has done it and made it successful. So this gives apples a 2 year delay to all the other phone companies. And having grown up doing tech stuff and a lil hacking every now and again any useful new tool software made always is made for windows then says Mac ETA 6 months. Drivers too, but this has gotten much better when they went to intel and could start using PC stuff.

 

Like rolling out a phone that drops calls when you accidentally touch the side of it?

Hey, no company is perfect. My wife's Droid does that too. And, she has had a multitude of other problems with the Droid that other people I know with iPhones' don't complain about. My wife regrets not getting the iPhone. Personally, I can't comment any more about any of the modern phones. My cell phone is so old that people think it's new.

I love my iPod touch however. I love it so much that I don't want to have a cell phone added to it. That's why I use a simple old cell phone, and have no interest in an iPhone or any other advanced phone.

 

... Apple stealing ... Windows from MS was a slick move.

My recollection is that Apple was the first to introduce the windows based operating system, and then MS copied them. But maybe it was just that Apple made the first good version. Can't be sure now, it was so long ago.

 

Xerox did it first on the Star system. I attended one seminar presented by Adele Goldberg and rushed back to my lab to implement a similar system. I copied those ideas and had it running on a DG Nova before the Apple Lisa came out. (We were doing CAD and PCB layouts with a mouse, menus and icons before the IBM PC was born.) Meanwhile MS was still plodding along with the old Windows OS. It was not until MS Windows 95 came out that there was any resemblance to the Apple Mac. Remember the Mac was introduced in 1984, 11 years before Win 95.