The myth of Apple’s impossibly difficult (yet super easy) hardware business

“Every time Apple has entered a new market segment, the wailing sirens of punditry have scrambled to scream out their logic of how impossible it will be for the company to ever get established, to meaningfully change the rules, and to succeed commercially,” Daniel Eran Dilger writes for Roughly Drafted. “And at the same time, those same critics frequently throw out the idea that Apple doesn’t even have to try to succeed in hardware, because its audience of raving fans will blindly buy any overpriced, underperforming thing the company releases. In both cases, they’re wrong.”

“We’ve seen two decades of this cognitive dissonance posing as analysis with iPod, iPhone, MacBook Air, iPad, Apple Watch and now HomePod,” Dilger writes. “At first, there was supposed to be no way Apple could be successful or even compete in any of these markets. Then, in hindsight, Apple’s performance is portrayed as a fait accompli, the result of the company’s effortless ability to shovel anything into the market, douse it with marketing, and ignite a bonfire of vanity that attracts simpleton fans who don’t know any better.”

Dilger asks, “If Apple’s marketing were the main thing driving its sales, why haven’t Google and Microsoft been able to sell their brands in commercially significant volumes, given Microsoft’s billions devoted to marketing and Google’s supposed genius in targeting and reaching buyers with effective advertising messages?”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: It’s always amazing to encounter pundits and so-called analysts who in 2018 still do not understand (or feign not to understand in service of hit-whoring) the basics of how Apple Inc. works.

Newsflash: Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers.

SEE ALSO:
Newsflash: Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers – October 23, 2012

Metro UK reviews Apple’s HomePod: Get the credit card out and buy two – August 6, 2018
How to group HomePod and Sonos speakers for multi-speaker surround sound – July 27, 2018
Yes, two Apple HomePods really are better than one – July 19, 2018
iMore reviews Apple’s HomePod: Retina for your ears – June 18, 2018
Can a pair of Apple’s HomePods take on a surround sound theater system? – June 18, 2018
David Pogue reviews Apple HomePod with stereo and multi-room capabilities: ‘Ooh, man’ – June 13, 2018
HomePod stereo pairing took a frustratingly long time to arrive, but it was worth the wait – May 30, 2018
Strategy Analytics: Apple shipped 600,000 HomePods in Q1 for 6% share of smart speaker market – May 17, 2018
The Inquirer reviews Apple’s HomePod: ‘Looks great, sounds fantastic; Siri needs work’ – April 6, 2018
I want another Apple HomePod for sure, maybe two more – March 20, 2018
Sound quality shootout: Apple HomePod vs. two Sonos Ones – March 16, 2018
Apple HomePod: The audiophile perspective plus 8 1/2 hours of measurements; HomePod is 100% an audiophile-grade speaker – February 12, 2018
Apple’s HomePod is actually a steal at $349 – January 26, 2018
Digital Trends previews Apple’s HomePod: Impressive sound coupled with strong privacy – January 26, 2018
Hands on with Apple’s HomePod: Attractive, ultra-high-quality speaker, an excellent Siri ambassador – January 26, 2018
Apple’s HomePod, the iPod for your home – January 25, 2018
One hour with Apple’s new HomePod smart speaker – January 25, 2018

12 Comments

      1. Racist?? what are you talking about. The entire Democrat Party (meaning 90% of the populations of LA an San Francisco and NYC) hate white males. And that includes the white males. Except the rare Republican here and there.

      2. I think that his adaptation of “the angry Black man” is simply funny and enjoyable. Racism is the invocation of race to damage a race which Kent is not doing. Therefore, Kent is not racist but your anti-racist detector is set too finely, finding racism where there is none.

        1. I was really just stating a fact. There is a very deep well of anger in Mr. Dilger. That said, I don’t want the main point to be lost. Over the past 20 years he has consistently been the best source of information for anyone who wanted to understand Apple’s competitive position and to profit from that understanding. Daniel is still, amazingly, the best source. It’s kind of unbelievable no large publication has hired him. It’s an indication of how pathetic the media is in its coverage of Apple.

  1. Off-topic but don’t know where else to say this: I see Windows-based laptops now ship with pre-installed bloatware, some know for malware/spyware/bots.

    I am a Linux guy but am thinking of migrating to Mac for the sake of Canon camera apps.

      1. My iPhone 5 was a disaster after Apple broke it irreparably with updates. Ditto the MBP that completed the set. So I found that Mac hardware ran much faster on Linux Mint Cinnamon and that the $40 Alcatel did a better job than the $1200 iPhone. I never had problems with stability, reliability after converting the MBP and the cheap Alcatel lasted well over four years. Until I just grew tired of it and sold it for $35 in perfect working condition. And it could do Bluetooth & USB like the iPhone never could.

        My daughter-in-law has a MBP that she just loves, same as her very sweet running iPhone SE. Maybe I bought at the wrong time.

  2. Apple certainly sells products to premium users at premium prices. Whether the products can now be said to be premium with throttling, bugs in OS X, dodgy keyboards, obsolete Mac Minis and Pros is, however, arguable.

    1. Well they sure aren’t selling premium Mac Pro’s to impatiently waiting premium pro users since they don’t really have one and won’t for another year at least.

      Cuz Tim Cook ignored the 6 P’s:

      Proper
      Planning
      Prevents
      Piss
      Poor
      Performance

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