“When the iPhone first hit store shelves, Apple was on top of the world. Not only did the company enjoy the biggest product release of the year, its stock price was on the rise, Mac sales were soaring and, for the first time, it looked like Apple might be able to supplant Dell and HP as the proven leader in the hardware business,” Don Reisinger blogs for CNET.
“But just a few months later, it’s amazing how quickly things have changed. Mac sales are still strong, but the iPhone has become the topic of heated debate, Apple has come under fire for dropping the iPhone price too early and too substantially, and its iTunes Store is under attack from content producers and new, formidable competitors,” Reisinger blogs.
Complete inanity here.
Total absurdity from beginning to end from a hack with a childlike understanding of what’s actually happening. iPhone’s price drop “affected” some portion of 0.33% of the U.S. population. The other 99.67% of the U.S. and the entire rest of the world sees only that they can now get an iPhone for $200 than they thought. This is “bad” somehow? We’re tired of this “iPhone price cut bad” stupidity.
Also, Apple must protect their relationship with AT&T regarding unlocking, otherwise companies will not want to work with Apple in the future. There are contracts with carriers (AT&T in the U.S.) for iPhone exclusivity. Because the iPhone is a unique product that has no equal, it can therefore demand unique terms. If you don’t like it, don’t get an iPhone or learn how to unlock it and deal with the problems that voiding your warranty may cause (figure out how to relock it before updating or leave it unlocked and forgo new features) or wait out the exclusivity contract (see you in 3-5 years, depending on where you live).
As for the iTunes Store, which according to Reisinger is supposedly now under some massive threat from Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 store:
• Amazon does not offer Wi-Fi download direct to iPod touch and iPhone (and future iPods which will undoubtably gain Wi-Fi downloading capabilities)
• Amazon does not offer the convenience of iTunes Store’s integration into the iTunes application or it’s user interface and features
• Amazon currently offers less than 1/3rd the library of iTunes Store
• Amazon’s store was created by Steve Jobs. Because he wants more stores to sell iPod-compatible content (as long as Microsoft and their DRM is not involved), so he can sell more iPods. He did not want the responsibility of licensing FairPlay to a broad range of licensees, and upholding the integrity of the DRM as called for in contracts with the music cartles, so he did even better by calling for and precipitating the end of DRM itself.
• One more time, dumbed down for Reisinger-level IQs: Steve Jobs doesn’t much care if you buy tunes at Amazon or iTunes, as long as you don’t buy something encoded with Microsoft DRM and as long as you play it on Apple hardware. It’d be nice if you used iTunes Store, but it’s not essential to Apple’s success.
We welcome Amazon (and we bet Apple does, too). Non-exclusionary competition that serves all users only helps consumers and grows the market. There are millions upon millions of people who do not yet have digital media players. Apple’s iPods can stand and sell very well on their own (as they did before the iTunes Store even existed). Surely, Steve Jobs is so confident of iPods’ lead that he can “afford” to spread the non-wealth that iTunes Store sales generate for Apple, especially since doing so will sell more hardware that actually does generate profits for Apple.
Okay, that’s enough. We’ve wasted enough time on a guy who’s probably not even qualified to clean out the shake machine at Mickey D’s, much less criticize the business strategies of a major technology company.
Is Reisinger’s insipid 2nd-grade level of economics understanding and business analysis really the best CNET can muster nowadays?