As Mr Jobs statements filter out through the CE world, I find myself wanting to highlight two key factors that don’t fit into his tight strategy. Choice and Mobility.
Running a tight ship for the software layers is important and can result in a better user experience and cheaper route to market for developers but that shouldn’t prevent other products being built. Smaller companies don’t need to be number 1 to be their own winner and there are niches out there just waiting to be filled with a good product choice.
One example is the mobile computing space. Photography, navigation, modular computing, remote control, multi-way video calling, thumb typing (as im doing while standing in my kitchen right now) and even simple things like weight and the ability to slot a 7″ device in a back pocket while you walk around the house.
Jobs knows there are markets out there but they don’t fit with his integrated approach so he tries to keep the message simple and targeted. He chooses mass-markets where sales can be in the tens of millions. Great, but don’t dismiss the efforts of others, Steve. I know many companies out there that would call 1 million sales a huge success and thankfully there are some open systems out there that allow small companies achieve that.
The end result of fragmentation and open systems may not be the best for developers but it allows smaller and very important markets to be addressed.
Post written using normal size thumbs on the Galaxy Tab.
hear hear!!
Well said Steve (chippy, not jobs), completely agree that there are niches out there and just because Apple doesn’t want to go there doesn’t mean they should have a problem with those that do.
Duke
I don’t think people should take Jobs’ call so seriously. Let’s not forget that his Audience was his investors. His thoughts were prepared to make them believe that the company will continue to profit; not to give a balanced picture of the two platforms. His thoughts are what HE believes, not the truth behind what people want, or what the best approach is.
I agree in spirit. However, his audience wasn’t his investors. These public displays are staged PR events. Investors care about what goes on behind closed doors and in the boardroom. Events like this are for everybody else. Also, his comments are not what HE believes. His comments are what he wants EVERYBODY ELSE to believe. He’s a salesman. He’s selling Apple stock and Apple products. No salesman can afford to express their beliefs. Their job is to create your beliefs.
Aftermath you are so correct. This was a show and he was the star performer.
funny, but right now the only way i’ll buy an ipad is if it is a 7 inch form factor.
7″ is too small? I’ve been using my Nokia N800 since 2007 and have it with me almost all the time. I use only fingers at least half the time, and have fairly large hands. Jobs is just trying to put his blinders on everyone else.
Job is just running scared of those green androids which can only get faster badder, so he’s peeing in his cold pants
I myself am in a sort of niche situation. I really don’t use my cell phone at all for voice calls (maybe 6 minutes average a month), and so to save myself money I am on a prepaid plan (I pay between $25 to $10 a year for voice), and I really don’t want to pay $70 or $50 a month to have data also. I really *do* want to have a mobile data plan, just don’t want to also have to pay too much for the voice with that. I was actually planning on getting an iPad until I heard about the Galaxy Tab. But anyway, my situation doesn’t fit in with Steve Jobs world view where a 7 inch tablet would compete with smart phones and lose and so shouldn’t be pursued, but a 7 inch tablet would fit perfectly fine with me since I would use the tablet for mobile data and use an even smaller cell phone for voice. Having a bigger display than a smart phone is appealing but if the display is too big, I then have to think more about how I handle it.
I also like the idea of the Android OS being on lots of different devices, to me that makes sense. A Smart Phone isn’t a replacement for a real camera, while there are some really decent smart phone cameras out there, there are amazing cameras that just blow away anything a smart phone can do. It would be interesting if one of those cameras ever adopted Android as it’s environment, and be able to use and access all of it’s Apps and of course have pinch zoom. Same thing with a GPS, most smart phones don’t have the display size for a GPS, and while a 7″ tablet would make a good GPS, there might be those interested in just buying a GPS and not want to pay for a lot of things they don’t need or want (cameras, 3g, etc), but having an Android OS might save a lot on the software side of things, providing optional software features through separately paid for Apps. People are still buying cameras and still buying GPSs even though smart phones can do those things.
And the whole thing about whittling down your fingers is nonsense, as I am sure some people said the same thing about the iPhone. Plus most Apps will either be scaled up and everything becomes big anyway, or like the Samsung Apps, be custom made for the 7 inch display. The only time this will become an issue is once Android 3.0 comes out and real tablet Apps are developed, what sized display(s) will they be made for.
funny to see how old items are surfacing time and again …. and how terribly short minded humans are.
this reminds me a lot of the times of integrated office applications like framework …. one for everything but to short at every corner for the real thing. even then – a good 20 years now since, 20 ! – the rule of thumb said: one powerful application for the appropriate task (no humpdy dumpdy stuff). why should this have changed – because of i pad? and a bunch of fairy tales and their believers? certainly not.
if we are talking jobs, or apple, these days we are no longer talking pc’s but power over consumer markets and content possession. apple has become a content selling company producing devices to secure it’s market. that is how steve has to be understood nowadays. no tech talk anymore. problem for many of apple’s competitors is, that they did not get or have understood this message yet. the truth behind all this is not to have a kind of app store too, thruth is one has to have a system.
so far not even google is a real competitor for apple, nor microsoft anymore or intel and certainly not the china bunch of cheap imitators.
therefore if one looks closer at apple there it is; a competent device for every aspect of the system and a close system with a common languae.
not one for all but all for one – purpose: selling consumer content for simple minds, ’cause that’s where the money these days is spent. that’s also the reason why music industry, film, editors and publishers are willingly after steve (jobs), even paying horrendous licences and fees and accepting censorship they never would have done before.
Companies can go after niche markets, but Apple will still earn more profit from tablets than any other single company.