Posts Tagged "marketing"
Hidden iPad features?
There’s a lot of speculation at the moment regarding some unanswered iPad questions:
- Why doesn’t it seem to have the Weather, Stocks, Clock or Voice Memo apps?
- Why is there space for a camera?
- -insert latest techcrunch rumour here-
For what it’s worth, I believe it’s entirely possible Apple might be holding back certain features so there’s something new to announce around the time it’s actually due to ship. In fact, there’s a precedent for this.
Shortly before the original iPhone was scheduled to launch in 2007, Apple announced two major (supposedly last-minute) improvements.
The first was a battery life upgrade (which was probably achieved by software improvements), the second was that they were “upgrading” the display to a glass screen – which seems like such an integral part of the overall device that it would have to have been planned all along.
My guess is that we’ll see one or two minor iPad announcements in March, but it probably won’t include a camera.
Thoughts on Snow Leopard marketing
As predicted, 10.6 will be released August 28th, slightly earlier than promised. It certainly makes sense for Apple to release 10.6 before Microsoft Windows 7 marketing can hit: Rather than trying to compete with Microsoft for reviews and media attention, release early and hog all the attention for yourself.
However, the extremely short lead-up between announcement and release is a bit surprising: both the 10.4 and 10.5 releases had longer marketing build-ups, with big release countdown clocks dominating the Apple homepage.
But the slightly more subdued marketing plays into the way Apple has positioned 10.6 as an incremental release: If you stick a big countdown clock on your website, people are going to expect huge fantastic changes. But with so few visible changes to Snow Leopard, that’s clearly not the kind of message Apple is trying to send. At the same time, early reviews have been very favorable and at the unbeatable price of $29, it’s hard not to be far more impressed by the new “fine-tuned” version of OS X, than the marketing would lead you to believe.
I guess that the goal of this positioning and marketing strategy is mainly to allow Apple to under-promise and over-deliver – a great way to prepare for Windows 7 this fall.
At any rate, existing Mac owners have some great improvements to look forward to, potential first-time customers will be reminded which OS is the pundits’ favorite and developers get some under-the-hood improvements to play with. All-in-all it should be a very solid release for Apple.
If you enjoyed this article, support the site: Purchase your copy of Snow Leopard at Amazon with free shipping via one of the links below:
Snow Leopard (requires 10.5 to be installed on your Mac)
Snow Leopard Family Edition (requires 10.5. to be installed on your Mac)
Mac Box Set (Full version of Snow Leopard, iLife ’09 and iWork ’09)
4 things Amazon’s Kindle 2 has learnt from the iPod
When Amazon first introduced the Kindle, many pundits were already comparing it to Apple’s introduction of the original iPod – predicting it would be a similar game changer for the book industry as Apple’s device was for the music industry. But the device’s design and marketing seemed slightly out of date for such a cutting edge device. Whilst very distinctive, it was hardly the kind of gorgeous design that gets heads turning.
Amazon’s marketing and redesign efforts for the introduction of the Kindle 2 have shown that Amazon has taken the criticism seriously and has made mimicking Apple’s success their new strategy:
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