blogging by james wilding and sevenoak design
This year, [Princeton] University’s Student Computer Initiative has sold more Macs than PCs. Students were offered a selection of Dell, IBM and Apple computers, and 60 percent chose Macs, up from 45 percent last year.
The iPod has doubtless been a huge factor in Apple’s continuing growth, but I think a fast rise like this shows the Mac to be a genuinely attractive proposition to a sizable proportion of average computer users. The iPod has just given the Mac the exposure it needed.
The story behind this one is best understood from reading the original blog post, but I think the following sums it up — New York male to New York female (female looking for love):
…in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset.
Nice.
There’s a controversial title to start off with! I got thinking about this after a conversation with a friend of mine recently, and the gist of my thoughts wasn’t so much, ‘which is better?’, but more, why do I prefer Rails?
My friend is a big fan of PHP. I started off using PHP when I first began programming web apps, but had my eye on Rails from the beginning and switched to it pretty quickly. I think the thing that really attracted me to Rails was speed. I know it’s a cliche, but I’ve found it possible to develop at a speed in Rails that I’d never be able to achieve using PHP. Whether that’s because of my lack of skills with PHP, or because of something unique to Rails, I’m not sure. I really do suspect it’s mainly the later though. So much of the work of a web application is taken care of in Rails; database connections, modeling of attributes from database tables to Ruby code, default layouts, table columns, timestamps: the list really does seem to go on. I can understand why someone might not want this — to get down and dirty with some custom database interfaces, for example — but for me, Rails is the place to be at the moment. It does so much to make development easier, it’s unreal.
Ads for Ketel vodka:
That’s it: no website address, no image, no logo. Just a name – and how are you going to forget a name? It does pretty much everything an ad needs to do; engages, conveys the essential information, tells a story, evokes an atmosphere. Simple, clean, slightly alternative, definitely cool.
I’d buy it, and I don’t drink.
On their website, Radiohead explain the pricing strategy for their new album ‘In Rainbows’:
A lot of people have been complaining that the iPod touch is missing some of the features of the iPhone. It’s true; whilst similar in some details – touch screen, music player, web browser – the touch is also missing several features present on its more expensive cousin. Email client; editable calendar; etc.
But perhaps lacking is the wrong word. No doubt part of this is to do with keeping cost and size down, but I think it’s also intentional on Apple’s part, regardless of the price of components: the iPhone is a productivity device; the touch is an entertainment device. The features absent from the touch are exactly those features that make the iPhone a productivity device: phone, email, full calendar functionality. By creating a clear destinction between the two devices, Apple can avoid undercutting the more expensive iPhone by presenting customers with a choice between two different kinds of device, rather than two devices of the same kind that differ only in that one can make phone calls.
Apple wants to give customers compelling reasons to buy an iPhone. Having only one mobile productivity device on sale, rather than two, is certainly compelling. If you want to send emails, make appointments, and yes, make phone calls, buy an iPhone. You’ll be able to listen to music, too. If you just want to listen to music, watch YouTube, maybe visit your favourite websites, but don’t care about sending emails on the go or editing your calendar, buy a touch.
Of course, this isn’t to say that the touch is purely for entertainment, or that the iPhone is purely for productivity. You can check your business webmail on the touch, or watch YouTube on your iPhone. But the primary focus of each device is different, and by creating this distinction Apple have done a lot to protect their iPhone sales. The touch could have been an ‘iPhone without the phone’: same feature set, only phone functionality missing. But this would have been a far more compelling alternative to the iPhone, and an alternative to the iPhone is exactly what Apple do not want – not even from their own product line.
From Signal vs. Noise (click the image for a larger version):
A really interesting set of photos from inside Chinese toy factories (via DF). When I saw these, I thought of my MacBook, which was made in China; a little twinge of something like guilt went down my spine.
Note also the first comment. Do comments get any less sensitive than this?
Interesting perspective on iPhone sales from Richard Sprague over at MSN blogs:
I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008. Okay, it’s possible there are enough Apple religious people to buy a lot of them at first, but even the most diehard Mac fans who buy one of these will secretly carry two phones. One to prove how loyal and “cool” they are, and the other to actually make and receive calls.
This has to be the craziest thing I’ve read about the iPhone or consumer sales in general, for ages. Firstly, the idea that Apple would put the product to market hoping to rely on diehard fans to keep sales up. Secondly, that anyone would do this: “secretly carry two phones”. Surely Sprague is joking here. I hope he is.
