Apple’s launches will keep share, nothing more.
- Apple stayed within the boundaries of the rumour machine yesterday in refreshing its line-up but not venturing anywhere off the beaten track.
- Top of the bill were the two new iPads.
- The iPad Air which is much lighter than its predecessor at 450g and takes the device realistically into the one-hand category.
- This really improves its appeal for reading, watching or any activity where you would hold the device in one hand for an extended period.
- The iPad Mini received the upgrade that has been long needed and added the retina screen.
- Both devices carry the new A7 64 bit chip which will help with both raw power and also with battery life.
- Apple is using these upgrades to keep its pricing high which the market appears willing to bear given the improvements that have been made.
- This is a good sign for gross margins in an increasingly competitive market.
- MacBook Pro 13 and 15 inch versions were also upgraded with Haswell processors which should have a profound effect on battery life.
- The biggest surprise was the new version of OS X, Mavericks, which is being made available as a free upgrade.
- The Microsoft bears will see this as a move to collapse the value being attributed to the OS in the computing world but I suspect the real answer is much simpler.
- Making people pay even a small amount, for an upgrade slows the adoption of a new OS.
- This means that one has a larger number of devices hanging around running old software which needs to be supported by Apple and by developers.
- Making the software free will mean that users update much more quickly and that older versions of the OS disappear.
- This will make life for developers easier and cheaper and Apple can remove support for older versions more quickly.
- This is what I suspect lies behind this move rather than any Machiavellian plot to put Microsoft out of business.
- Apple’s market share in computers (iPads are NOT computers) has been flat for some time giving it no real ability to have a real impact here.
- The end result was a product update that should help keep market share and gross margins steady.
- This will provide some support to the share price but is not what is needed to spur a real recovery in the shares.
Blog Comments
tatilsever
October 23, 2013 at 6:17 pm
>”(iPads are NOT computers)”
I presume this means Surface RT & Pro are not computers as well. You just disagreed with two of the largest corporations in this business, if not three.
Apple just brought feature parity of its Office apps between iPad and Mac versions and 64 bit CPUs to all new iPads. The difference is quickly boiling down to whether your keyboard is permanently attached to your device. Not sure why you make the argument that tablets are not computers when motherboard raw power is about as powerful as leading Intel based laptops of only 5 years ago, while the gap is narrowing, not widening.
DK
October 23, 2013 at 9:12 pm
^ What he said.
That statement seems rather arbitrary.
Take my personal experience as an example. I’m 26, a software engineer, and a student working on a post bacc. I’m chained to my PC at work because of legacy products. My iMac at home has become a very heavy paperweight, and my MacBook Air is increasingly becoming a very light paperweight. For most general computing purposes I eagerly reach for my iPhone over the MacBook, which is why I know the larger screen on the iPad will dominate my usage when I eventually get one.
The longer you cling to that view, the more detached you will become from reality.
windsorr
October 24, 2013 at 11:02 am
The key here is in what you said….”general computing purposes”….. this means to me content consumption….you are a software engineer..I don’t see you writing code on an iPhone or an iPad!…that’s content creation. That’s why you are chained to your PC your need to create content.
David
October 25, 2013 at 5:45 am
Only because of legacy products. Tradition invested in existing infrastructure is the only thing keeping creation tied to PC or Mac. If I could start with a clean slate today there are workflows that would use iOS for larger parts of content creation. This tells me it is only a matter of time before traditions crumble and better workflows that take advantage of mobile and touch computing take hold.
windsorr
October 28, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Possibly but if we always started with a clean slate everyone would have 100MB internet for $20 a month. The legacy is always a major major factor. I am not saying it wont happen it will just take a VERY long time if it does. By then one would hope MSFT has pulled its finger out.!..
windsorr
October 24, 2013 at 11:00 am
OK. Anything that runs iOS or Android is not a computer by my count. They are GREAT devices for content consumption but not so good for content creation.
Hence the Surface RT is NOT a computer. The Surface Pro is because it can function exactly like a laptop.
NO definition is perfect but this is the one that makes the most sense tome.
tatilsever
October 24, 2013 at 5:27 pm
You can take a look at Surface ads more closely. There is Word on its screen, without a second window open. Even then, half the screen is taken out by menus and buttons, thanks to its wide rather than squarish screen. There are fewer than 10 lines of text visible. If that is feasible for content creation, any non-Windows tablets can get you there, too. (As Windows is not very good at scaling objects based on screen size or resolution, this is not a new problem. Hardly anybody used netbooks or any other 10” small laptops with for document editing back then.)
windsorr
October 28, 2013 at 12:24 pm
I didnt say it was great…but it is feasible. furthermore with full windows 8 one can install all the legacy applications that one wants. This can be used as a laptop. Windows RT cant really as its all locked down with very limited functionality and poor performance albeit good battery life.