“It was a no-brainer for Apple to port it’s iPod application over to Mac operating system and hook it up to a remote control. The interface has been tried and tested on millions of iPods. It’s low hanging fruit — they probably didn’t have to invest a ton of money to get the feature in their OS. Microsoft kinda / sorta did the same thing, only in reverse order with the Media Center first, Portable Media Center second,” Charlie Owen, Program Manager with the Microsoft Windows eHome Team (producers of Windows XP Media Center Edition), writes on his RetroSight blog.
Owen, “Porting the iPod application over to the OS is further evidence of the iPod halo effect Apple has been hoping for whereby strong sales of iPods translate into equally strong sales of Macs. It remains to be seen if there is actually a halo effect. I don’t think so. The price inequities between a Windows PC and Mac are far greater than iPod vs. any other portable player, and I’m willing to bet there are more iPods connected to Windows PCs than iPods connected to Macs.”
“Steve Jobs comparing the Apple remote control with the Media Center remote control was nothing but sheer marketing brilliance. It’s totally not about which remote control is better. Not at all. By making this comparison, Steve Jobs gave the illusion the two products were on equal footing EXCEPT for the remote. All things being equal, Joe Consumer will choose the remote with 6 buttons instead of 40,” Owen writes.
Full article here.
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MacDailyNews Take: Now, Owen’s a good guy – read his full article. He likes Macs and gives Apple credit for making good products. We have sympathy for Owen. Trying to make something like a Media Center within the confines of a bloated, malaise-ridden, creatively-challenged company, without the benefit of a single-minded, relentlessly-driven visionary like Steve Jobs, is obviously impossible.
Owen has a chart which is the basis for his opinion that there is no halo effect: http://www.retrosight.com/mediacenter/Apple_iPod_and_Mac_Sales.png The chart shows iPod sales dramatically increasing and Mac sales increasing right along with them. Owen seems to think that because Mac unit sales didn’t go from 800,000 to 6 million along with the iPod sales, that the iPod Halo Effect doesn’t exist. This is the “Program Manager of the Windows XP Media Center Edition,” folks. Is it any wonder why Microsoft’s effort is illogical?
Of course, Mac unit sales last quarter were up 48% year-over-year, besting the PC industry’s growth by a large margin. Apple is growing Mac market share. The iPod Halo Effect is undeniably real. Showing a chart that proves it’s real as evidence that it doesn’t exist is something only a Microsoft employee could understand. By the way, we know several people who used to own Windows boxes, who’ve recently purchased a Mac because they owned iPods first and decided that if Apple cared so much about the details of an MP3 player, then Apple’s Mac must really be something. And that, dear friends, even if we only knew one single person who did this, is actual, iron-clad proof that the iPod Halo Effect is real. Owen must have missed some meetings lately as Microsoft executives have already admitted that Apple’s ‘iPod Halo Effect’ exists since at least as far back as July. If you need more proof, there’s plenty in the related articles below.
Anyway, as to the rest of Owen’s piece: Microsoft is looking in the wrong places with their Media Center and, no, we’re not going to spell it all out here. We will say that Microsoft’s idea of taking the old TV+VHS VCR paradigm and trying to make it digital is hardly revolutionary. Apple is taking a different path, as usual. And, we haven’t seen all of Apple’s pieces, yet. Microsoft’s Media Center, we’ve seen, and nobody’s buying.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Thurrott: Apple Front Row software copies Microsoft Media Center – October 14, 2005
Analyst: ‘media companies will call Apple to strike deals, Front Row is Media Center done right’ – October 12, 2005
Apple’s Front Row with Apple Remote and iMac G5: media center done right – October 12, 2005
Apple introduces new thinner iMac G5 with built-in iSight video camera, ‘Front Row’ media experience – October 12, 2005
iPod Halo Effect strikes tech columnist, gets new Apple iBook after fifteen years of Windows – August 23, 2005
Microsoft executives acknowledge Apple’s ‘iPod Halo Effect’ – July 29, 2005
Needham & Co: Apple ‘iPod Halo Effect’ fueling Mac purchases; predict 43 million iPod sales in 2006 – July 18, 2005
Comprehensive survey shows ‘iPod Halo Effect’ is increasing Apple Mac sales, market share – July 12, 2005
SG Cowen survey shows evidence of a significant iPod halo effect boosting Apple Mac sales – July 12, 2005
Merrill Lynch: Mac sales ‘appear robust,’ expects futher evidence of ‘iPod Halo Effect’ – July 07, 2005
RealMoney: Apple’s iPod Halo Effect ‘quite profound,’ Macs taking good market share from Wintel – June 27, 2005
‘iPod Halo Effect’ on Mac sales seen in Apple’s soaring second-quarter results – April 13, 2005
Morgan Stanley: Apple’s ‘iPod Halo Effect’ is ‘roughly double what the market expects’ – March 18, 2005
Apple’s ‘iPod Halo Effect’ begins to shine – August 03, 2004
Apple’s ‘iPod Halo Effect’ materializes, restarting growth in core Mac units – July 15, 2004
Hey Reality Check, does the Media Center remote have Ctrl-Alt-Delete functionality, because without it the whole remote would be useless! :-0
That made my day! Thanks!
MW=finally
For a start, you couldn’t have had a halo effect before Q1/2004.
Why?
Because everything before then was Mac only!
—-
Now for some more reasonable facts…
If Apple ships around 1.325 million CPUs for the current quarter, Apple will have grown CPU shipments at a compound growth rate of 33.0% per year since the launch of iPod/iTunes/iTMS for Windows. In fact, even if Apple only ships the same number of CPUs for the current quarter as it did last quarter (1.236 million), Apple will still be growing at 28.5% per annum in terms of CPU units shipped.
If you go back to the previous two-year period (from Q2/02 to Q1/04), this compares to 659,000 CPUs being sold in Q2/02, growing to 829,000 CPUs, or a compound growth of 7.95%.
In other words, Apple’s Macintosh unit sales are accelerating nearly [B]FOUR[/B] times as fast since the introduction of iPod/iTunes/iTMS for Windows than it achieved beforehand.
Maybe two years is too short a period, so let’s extend the period from Q2/2000 to Q1/2004, when sales actually declined from over 1 million CPUs to 829,000 CPUs – a compound reduction of -5.58%/annum.
Now, it needs to be admitted that Apple’s revenue per CPU has declined during that period, from an average of $1843/unit during Q1/02 to $1303/unit for the quarter just ended, but that deflation has been a factor throughout the industry, and Apple’s CPUs are still – at a superficial level – more expensive at the entry-level than Windows/Intel/AMD base systems.
in short, to deny the existence of the “halo effect” is – to be honest – whistling in the wind.
Props to Charlie Owen for reading all the comments and responding to them like a reasonable person.
That being said, M$ sucks.
macdude sez:
“I went to two major mac stores in so. california and was going to purchase the new 20″ iMac. To my suprise THEY WERE SOLD OUT! They didn’t even have a floor model! They told me I should come back in about 2 weeks.”
This is why they’re not advertising…if you’re already selling something faster than you can make it, advertising it heavily actually creates consumer ill-will. I mean, YOU were disappointed you couldn’t get one, right?
I think there is some halo effect, but you have to jump through some hoops to figure out how meaningful it is, and since Apple doesn’t supply us with all of the segment breakdown anymore, its nigh impossible. For example, how much were sales helped by the introduction this year of the affordable mac Mini? Or an increasingly popular G5? Every article I’ve read says apple’s sales to school districts and universities has rebounded nicely this year. How did the halo effect influence the surge in school purchasing decisions? Did the introductions of Panther and Tiger have an impact? What about the security concerns scaring PC users – viruses, shareware, etc.? How about iLife? Of the 6 mac switches I’ve advised over the past year were to people who were either sick of their PCs being compromised or worried about it, or to people who recently got a digital camera and saw me demo iLife with their pictures. Honestly, I have met no one that said “hey, this ipod is cool. I’m getting a mac.” I’m sure it happens, but not enough to close the sale, and we are talking about sales here. I think the so-called halo effect may have helped, but maybe not as much as people hope. Maybe Apple has some really good products and strategies on the computer hardware and software side too that stand on their own merit.
When I said G5, I meant the iMac G5.
“Here is a chart which shows pretty clearly there isn’t a correlation (and thus no halo effect) between iPod and Mac sales: “
And here is a chart that shows that there IS A DIRECT correlation between the two sets of figures:
This chart uses the same sales figures. It shows the last three FULL years since the iPod was released for windows.
I agree with SH, there are lots of variables whose values are unknown & therefore impossible to factor. To attribute it all to the iPod is simplistic. I’ve seen a lot of iMac G5s in the homes of people who like the elegant simplicity of how their camera, internet, printer, etc. just work.
I see a lot of “halo effect” emanating from the general name recognition of Mac/Apple as a premium, quality brand.
The build your-own box “fundimentalist” types think that everything revolves around price (& the availability of free software.)
But as has been said, it is preferable to qualify your clients & differentiate yourself in the market. One way, that Jobs has touched on often is to create a premium brand. He’s mentioned Sony as an example several times.
I think that beyond the iPod, the Apple product line has developed a depth of quality & refinement that is pretty attractive. Its like cars or many other commodity products, you gotcher Hyndai & your Saab, your Scion and your Mercedes.
With the Chinese buying major brand names, I would not want to own an American company that differentiated themselves *cough-Dell* by a race to the bottom.
The Macs, from the screen, to the mouse, the OS, & the daily applications, just feels special & polished.
And yeah, my majik word is “students” as in we can all be students of amiable engagement courtesy of Charlie Owen. Props to you Charlie.
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