Steve Jobs passed away!

[Iggy]

The Ipad is a laptop killer?
Maybe for you.
I still want a keyboard (and I want one larger then a Cell phone has).
So far, nothing has replaced my computers.

[commodorejohn]

The Ipad is a laptop killer?
Maybe for you.
I still want a keyboard (and I want one larger then a Cell phone has).
So far, nothing has replaced my computers.

That's just the talking point of tablet junkies, they're totally going to kill laptops and desktops dead, any day now even. Just you wait and see!

[Iggy]

That's just the talking point of tablet junkies, they're totally going to kill laptops and desktops dead, any day now even. Just you wait and see!

Yeah, I know. Anybody remember the Newton?

[persia]

Can you imagine a EMachine or Packard Bell Mac?  Controlling the hardware makes theOS the most stable on the market.  

Could be seen either way, really.  Had they not, the market would have been flooded with half assed Mac clones, tarnishing the whole name. Ever buy a POS PC with Windows on it, and curse Windows daily? - then build your own system and find out it's not half bad?  I have.  Apple having the HW on lockdown with the OS seems to have served them quite well, so who knows how it would have gone if Jobs didn't can the program in the late 1990's.  It's given them a pretty much universal user experience offering, anyways.

Apple is a HW company, and I think we can all agree the prices for their systems/devices are very high.  Apple has a high artsy fartsy fanboy appeal that I think may have been diminished by a clone market.

[persia]

Desktops are dying on their own, they'll survive in offices and as cheap alternatives to laptops.  Microsoft introduced the tablet as the replacement for the laptop, Steve saw it as a product BETWEEN a mobile phone and a laptop.  The days of one computer per household or person ended back around turn of the century.  Virtually all tech people have a smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop.  Each has it's strengths and drawbacks.

I have a standard Mac keyboard I use with my iPad.  Bluetooth pretty much just works.  I can do work on the tablet when I need to.  But it's not a replacement for any of my other gadgets.  It's brilliant when you want to explain something to someone on the fly, check your stocks or play angry birds.

That's just the talking point of tablet junkies, they're totally going to kill laptops and desktops dead, any day now even. Just you wait and see!

[Tension]

If Mehdi Ali ran Apple he would've cancelled the iMac and the iPod (after they have been developed and are ready to ship, mind) and continued selling the Performa range well into teh 2000's. Then he would've paid himself a massive bonus and watched as the company collapsed. Job done.

[commodorejohn]

The days of one computer per household or person ended back around turn of the century.

Who said anything about one computer per household? Lots of people have laptops as well as desktops, yes - because laptops provide all of the functionality of a lower-spec desktop system in a portable form factor. Tablets provide a subset of the functionality of a smartphone - in a form factor only somewhat smaller than a laptop.

Virtually all tech people have a smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop.  Each has it's strengths and drawbacks.

This is true. For instance, tablet strengths: it is smaller than a laptop, and generally has better battery life than larger laptops. Tablet drawbacks: much less storage space, no more RAM, no more horsepower, and higher price-for-performance than a laptop, controlled software market, and no keyboard.

But it's not a replacement for any of my other gadgets.  It's brilliant when you want to explain something to someone on the fly, check your stocks or play angry birds.

So, uh, which of those things can you not already do with a smartphone?

[persia]

@commodorejohn

Get a tablet (iPad or good quality capacitive Honeycomb Android).  Try it for a few weeks and you'll understand.

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, I'm totally going to drop $500 on a thing I can't figure out a single reason to own on the theory that it has mystic qualities that cannot be put into words and must be felt.

[EDanaII]

The problem for me with those arguing that Jobs was smart to not allow the clone market is this: opening the clone market WOULD NOT be competing with the PC market. This is fallacious. The fact is, opening the clone market would have been competing for the _Apple Market_ and that's the main reason why Job's didn't enter it; I believe he feared Apple couldn't compete. Smart? Depends on whether he was right or not.

IMHO, if he'd followed a very simple business model, he could have increased Apple's marketshare considerably: open the market, but maintain the "gold standard" for what Apple hardware should be. Then, let anyone who wanted to create clones be responsible for their own hardware and wash Apple's hands of their competitor's hardware. In other words, clone competitors can copy Mac hardware but if they introduce anything not "blessed" by Apple, they are responsible for it. Customers should go to them, not Apple.

This model would have opened competition, but kept Apple in the leadership position by allowing them to define what Apple hardware ought to be. Anyone that wanted "True Mac Hardware" could have it by going to Apple while those of us who prefer affordable/reasonably priced hardware could go elsewhere to get it. Nobody, but those who provided that hardware and software to support the non-blessed parts, would "tarnish" the holy Apple name.

Yea, this probably would have cost Apple _some_ sales, but I expect they'd make it up in royalties and licensing.

Instead of surfing the entire desktop market, Jobs chose to be king in only a very small part of it. I'm not so sure that's all that smart. Not sure it's stupid, either, but I personally think Apple would have been better off fully appreciating the nature of the market rather than cornering one tiny part of it.

My two cents, anyway...

[bloodline]

@EDanaII

I know what you are saying here, but you need to think back to 1997. The desktop market was dead, MicroSoft had the desktop. Apple had a mass of undifferentiated desktop product lines and was losing money fast (I believe the quote was "Apple had 90 days before bankruptcy").

Steve Jobs had to figure out some way to get money into Apple, and fast. The Apple clones were cheaper and "better" than anything apple could build, as they were built using standard PC parts/cases/keyboard/etc... Getting a $10 royalty per machine sold, when those machines only occupied 3% market share was not going keep apple afloat. Steve did kill the clone market but he did it by increasing the licence cost.

The next thing he did was to turn the Mac into a consumer device... The iMac... This was vital to differentiate the Mac in the MicroSoft owned market, and the only way to do that was to have total control over the whole concept of the Mac experience.

When you think about the clone market you are thinking as someone who loves technology, but that wasn't going to help Apple. For apple to survive, it needed to appeal to the man and woman in the street, people who didn't know they wanted a computer

[dammy]

@EDanaII

I know what you are saying here, but you need to think back to 1997. The desktop market was dead, MicroSoft had the desktop. Apple had a mass of undifferentiated desktop product lines and was losing money fast (I believe the quote was "Apple had 90 days before bankruptcy").

Steve Jobs had to figure out some way to get money into Apple, and fast. The Apple clones were cheaper and "better" than anything apple could build, as they were built using standard PC parts/cases/keyboard/etc... Getting a $10 royalty per machine sold, when those machines only occupied 3% market share was not going keep apple afloat. Steve did kill the clone market but he did it by increasing the licence cost.

IIRC, Apple was getting $75 royalty for OS8 and $75 royalty for the hardware clone. $150 @ machine would easily have kept Apple a float even with their inferior hardware not to mention new hardware (PIOS 1 which had room for 4 PPC CPUs) that was in the pipeline.  Problem is Jobs was a complete control freak, that is bottom line why he killed AIM, he couldn't conceive of giving up control of Apple, even if it was going to a future winner.  I will point out that at the time Jobs killed off the AIM (renamed OS8 to OS9 which wasn't covered under the existing agreements with IBM/Motorola), Motorola's StarMax line was ready to be open for business.

[Kronos]

@Dammy

Thats exactly the problem, Apple would not have been the No1 vendor of MacOS-HW by the end of the century and it's very questionable wether the transition to NextStep (aka OSX) would have worked out.

What if those clone-makers (representing 70% or more of the market) had put their weight behind something like BeOS or a revamped WindowsNT-PPC ?

OSX allmost killed Apple as it were, but under such circumstances....

And OSX is the only thing that made the Mac "sensible" after 2003 or so.

[bloodline]

IIRC, Apple was getting $75 royalty for OS8 and $75 royalty for the hardware clone. $150 @ machine would easily have kept Apple a float even with their inferior hardware not to mention new hardware (PIOS 1 which had room for 4 PPC CPUs) that was in the pipeline.  Problem is Jobs was a complete control freak, that is bottom line why he killed AIM, he couldn't conceive of giving up control of Apple, even if it was going to a future winner.  I will point out that at the time Jobs killed off the AIM (renamed OS8 to OS9 which wasn't covered under the existing agreements with IBM/Motorola), Motorola's StarMax line was ready to be open for business.

My point still stands, apple make something like 30% on high price hardware... That's what they need/needed to bring the money it.

And as Kronos has pointed out, classic macos was junk... Once the clone makers had established themselves a market there would have been nothing stopping them clubbing together and working out an OS8 upgrade plan that totally excluded Apple and its licence fees... Regardless of how good or bad it was for the consumer, for Apple to survive it needed to take control and get the Mac product line out of the "Classic" era...

[bloodline]

@dammy and EDanaII

I am speaking with 20/20 hindsight here, at the time I was very much thinking as you were that Apple needed to clone and expand the Mac platform independant of Apple... Problem is, I couldn't see the future as well as Jobs... And let's be fair he got it right, for Apple at any rate.

-edit- I forgot to add that every Apple product line is now built on the NeXTStep platform (if we exclude the legacy iPods)... iPod touch, Mac, iPad and iPhone all built on NeXTStep, amazing when you think about it!

[dammy]

@Dammy

Thats exactly the problem, Apple would not have been the No1 vendor of MacOS-HW by the end of the century and it's very questionable wether the transition to NextStep (aka OSX) would have worked out.

What if those clone-makers (representing 70% or more of the market) had put their weight behind something like BeOS or a revamped WindowsNT-PPC ?

Vs going X86 and ARM?

OSX allmost killed Apple as it were, but under such circumstances....

And OSX is the only thing that made the Mac "sensible" after 2003 or so.

Well that and make the Mac "sensible" was dumping PPC entirely and going with x86 and ARM.  Jobs' pull out of AIM killed any hope PPC had of being continually developed as a desktop CPU.  It was just a question of how far could Jobs BS people on how great PPC was before every knew he was lying through his teeth.