Apple News

[LWJ]

Apple is a BRAND company. Just like Nike. I saw recently that in Portland (where I live) 25% of the population has an Apple product. Bay Area is highest, at 30+%. Agreed, it is a cult.

Apple executes so extremely well on their products that customers simply can't stay away. The fact that pricing is significantly higher than competing products is not a barrier to their growth. What is not to love about this? They have built the proverbial better mousetrap and have done so time and time again.

As such, this is a company that I am so VERY please to have in my portfolio. My only regret is that I initially sold the stock in the early 2000's around $22. Of course, I bought again when it was over $150! My error.

As to innovation, they just keep on moving forward. Case in point, my good friend is a PhD in a certain technical field and did some consulting for Apple recently. Obviously, he can't say anything about what he did. I did ask him when the Ipad came out if this was his product and he said that his product is still in the development cycle. New phone? Rev 2 Ipad? I don't know. I am happy to know that the funnel is filled and cool new stuff is coming our way.

Call me a cheerleader for Apple and I will agree. I think they are one of the best examples of American ingenuity that we have. If we had 100 more companies that were as exceptional as Apple I couldn't be happier.

Have a great day,
Larry

[enzo1]

[Is Android really open? Research Director Andreas Constantinou uncovers the many control points behind Android and explains why Android might be the most closed system in the history of open source]. http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2010/04/is-android-evil/

[island911]

Originally Posted by enzo1

were the HTC phones (UI) any good before Apple came out with the iphone..... no, because none of the touch screen phones operating systems were any good,(they sucked), then Eric schmidt ( womanizing adulterer with no scruples) ripped it off, instead of giving his own engineers the task of coming up with their own fricken system , just easier to steal it .

Are you under some notion that Apple invents everything in their product? ...that they pull the ideas out of some Apple-proprietary aether? Or are you saying that it's easier for Apple engineers to simply 'steal' ideas? --because that is exactly what they do.

Understand; Apple's strength is in the BALANCE of features that they package, and the marketing machine that popularizes it. IMO, Steve Jobs is central to Apple's product feature-set choices. (and he knows his marketing too.) --He seems to be the 'Martha Stewart' of that organization. (maybe techweenie can set me straight on that)

Anyway...Back to the "idea" thing... I design products for a living. -Lots of hand-held electronics. This is one reason why I follow so much of what the industry is doing. -Just as the designers and engineers at Apple do. So, from my perspective, Apple isn't pushing anything new, other than a new balance of features. ...features from a vast pallet of existing ideas.

Take the G-sensor; as that is the only feature that I can think of that is a technology push from Apple. Thing is that well over a year before Apple had that in their phone, we had a rep in the design studio demonstrating that tiny chip. We all shrugged, as it was cute, but our designs of hand-held display devices really wouldn't benefit enough from the novelty. OTOH, 'E-ink' had obvious benefit, and I design a nice product using that technology.

--btw (screen flipping) HTC touch phones of the day flipped the screen (portrait/landscape) with the slide(in/out) of the keyboard. --So did Apple also "steal" that portion of the idea?

[enzo1]

island.... I'm just a customer, i'm not in the business... I like the TOTAL EXPERIENCE that Apple gives me( yes, even the lowly ATV). I like the look, the customer service, the stores, itunes, mobile me, the stock...etc... I like it .... calling Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart shows me , you don't get it, nothing wrong with that. ... it takes a team with a good leader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive