Interesting read on Apple's product refresh

After reading several articles elsewhere, I found this one the most interesting. Took me reading three times to understand it though. Coffee needs to kick in already.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=348&tag=nl.e539

He is a very good author and I highly suggest people put his blog on their feeders.

 

why should i believe this?

 

¿should u believe anything coming from a human?

 

Something I hadn't thought about was that the "product refresh" or "product transition" will have nothing to do with a new notebook line. That was my first thought. Nor will it be a new desktop model or whatever.

It just wasn't the common "product refresh" that I was use to. I had to dig back there to remember back to accounting 101 to realize this and this article brought back a different definition to the refresh than what I have been reading else where.

 

Apple has a hold on the high end computer market and rapidly expanding market share growing at twice the rate of their closest (albeit larger) competitor.

While I would like to see them offer a lower entry price point, I must reluctantly agree that this is unlikely. It is far more likely Apple will work to improve the value proposition of their already expensive hardware but the relative price points won't move much. They will probably offer more expensive components and features but hold pricing close to today's levels.

As an end user, for Apple to hold the like on its pricing can still feel like an increase when entry level Windows laptops and desktops can be had for under $500 and Asus, Dell and HP seem to be offering more machine for less money every day.

If Apple brings its hardware content up, it will be competing against the higher end models of its competitors but perhaps it will no longer be in the position of having to rely solely on OS X as the distinguishing difference in value. This would indeed be a breakthrough for Apple as their focus has always been hardware. Their success has traditionally been due to the desirability of MacOS. Perhaps Apple will soon be able to stand on equal or perhaps better footing based solely on the value of the hardware. In this new hardware game, rather than the incentive to swallow a bitter pill, OS X would become the killer app that draws people to the Apple hardware platform over its rivals with no real or perceived penalty in price.

 

thanks for the link surfasb

it was a good read.

 

all i want i a macbook pro with an 8800m gts, avalible in racing blue or black. 4 800 mhz ram and a 2.8ghz core 2 cpu. and blue ray burner.

 

While I respect this author's opinion, I don't really agree with his analysis. Considering Apple has had all this time to approach Blu Ray if they wanted to, and don't really mind being "ahead of the curve" in adopting new technologies as long as they believe it will succeed (such as dropping floppy disk drive in original iMac, pushing USB), I think Apple joined Blu Ray as a Director "just in case". But since they still haven't put it in, I don't think they will at all. It seems they're banking on online HD, as they have done with iTunes Movies, to be the bigger market over plastic media. Maybe they'll add a Blu Ray burner option for the Mac Pro for those in production, but I think if they were considering Blu Ray they already would have had it in.

And at the same time, while it is true that the Mac notebook lineup, Apple's most profitable Macs, are still using the same design and stuff, they are still selling like crazy. Apple will probably redesign, but at the same time, I don't believe its as urgent to Apple as the author wrote it as.

I do also want to note that the iPhone was originally Steve Jobs' "research project" into why Redmond was so crazy over tablets. But after seeing Apple's version of the "tablet", the executives decided to turn it into a phone rather than a tablet. So Apple has some experience in that regard, as well as all the patents they already hold in the multitouch arena, so I don't see a tablet being as far out reach as the author writes.

Just my take on the matter, based on what I read and hear . Good read and discussion though, surfasb!

 

They exist. They are called Alienware m17x.

 

That is an interesting view point.

I myself do see the Blu Ray option showing up though. I'm curious how many people have already bought movies on Blu Ray. *raises hand*

 

Nice find!

 

When I first read the financial report and saw the bit about a shift in the gross margins the first thing that I thought of was a product transition. Everyone knows FOR A FACT that Apple is transitioning to LED displays across all portables. Steve has already made that decision known. That right there adds several dollars in cost to the build of the MB.

First, you have the added cost of the display. This will at the least require a retooling of the display mounting and display lid. Next, the display is LED backlit so the machine no longer has an inverter board. This requires a redesign of the motherboard for the new LED interface. Everyone is aware that all of the OEMs are transitioning to the new CPU/chipset. The memory for said chipset is at the minimum DDR2 800 MHz all the way to DDR3 1066 MHz. That is going to require Apple to move from DDR2 667 MHz to the faster RAM. The last time I tried to put two DDR2 800 DIMMS in a MB/MBP it would not boot so there is definitely some work to be done on Apple's end to accommodate the newer RAM.

So even if Apple doesn't make a major change or product introduction their gross margin is going to dip. So at the minimum expect LED displays in the MB. I think that Apple is going to release a new design in the MB and hopefully MBP. Both of which will have a lot of what we want, but not quite everything.

 

I am just hoping we will see it at some point....