Apple, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods and Roger Federer did dominate for years their sport in a way not often seen before. Of course they have been outstanding athletes but they had two other advantages. They performed their sport different than anybody before and had the mindset that they only can win. Tiger, as an example, was not only a very good player, but as well much more athletic than many players before him or during his strongest time. He could hit the ball further and faster. He could move his body more than anybody else. The other players, on the other hand, did almost fear to play against him, just because he was so strong, that he even dominated much more.




Woods held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record ten times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in nine different seasons.
With 2: Set Masters 72-hole record with a total of 270 (70-66-65-69) and set Masters record with 12-stroke victory margin.
Tiger went in the last few years to a lot of private problems and did not make it into the FedEx Cup in 2011. But the biggest difference to 1997 or 2002 is that there are now many players hitting as long as him or even longer. Tigers average distance is even not much shorter than 10 years ago, but now there are at 40 other top player hitting as good as him and are as fit like him.
These are the new young players who watched him and learned from him. His advantage is not existing anymore and therefore he is not winning and we don't have just one dominant player.



We can find a similar evolution in Tennis with Roger Federer. He did dominate over 5 years the tennis court. He won everything he wanted and other players could just not win against him, because they might have been almost frozen when they had to play against him. His style was outstanding as well his mental strength. Today we have DJOKOVIC, Nadal, Murray and a few others; all as good as Federer or even better. Same happens here, the young player watched Federer over years and learned from him.

We can compare Apple and their products with them. Apple reinvented the phone. The first time when i heart the definition of a smart phone was in combination of the iPhone. Apple did dominate the smart phone business over a year. Unique hardware design and new type of OS. Google did copy (yes I think it is a copy) the iOS and some hardware vendors did copy the iPhone design. Not that they really copied it 100%, but before Apple, most phones were cheap plastic and not pretty, similar like PCs. They saw the phone as a tool we use which does not need to be esthetic. Apple changed this, and today almost every smart phone looks like an iPhone or even better. And Android from Google is now the number one smartphone OS.
Last year Apple did release the iPad. Nobody believed we needed an iPad but over 100,000 iPad apps and over 30 million sold iPads tell us a different story. Apple has today a market share of 78% of touch pads with just one product. And there are over 40 other touch pads on the market which are sharing 22%.



If Apple does not come out with a totally new product which we never thought we needed, or with a redesign of existing product (maybe a new approach for toasters or microwaves), then Apple will not be as dominant in 24 months as they are today. The world got transparent. And everybody is catching up. We went last week to
BestBuy and I looked at the Galaxy, Playbook and a Asus pad. All of them look more or less like the iPad and even the OS works the same. Regardless if it is WebOs or Android. All have the same basics like the iPad. Proof: My 3 years old son could open apps and zoom images as they are iPads.

If we compare Apple with sports, then I would say there are many players who watched Apple and are trying to copy it. But there is one player who not only watched Apple and tries to copy but does something totally different. This player will eventually take in 24 months for a few years the dominance till somebody else comes. The player (I am talking about) is Microsoft.



Microsoft's Windows 8 could really kill Android and Apple again. Windows 8 is not only totally different than all other mobile OSs but is as well the step which Apple is trying to do. Windows 8 will be one OS for all devices regardless of smart phone, mobile device or PC.

Microsoft has a lot of advantages to Google. They have already established customer support and a better relationship to hardware companies. And they have a much better enterprise integration than Apple and Google combined.

Apple is eventual too much concentrating on young users in the hope these consumers will keep buying Apple products when they are older. This concept is good, when your product is so much different than anything else.

As an example if you produce a car which has the shifting as tiptronic on the steering wheel and you would market young drivers. The parents might eventual buy for them a tiptronic car and when the kids are older, they would buy one too, because they would not know how to drive a different shifting system. If you are the only company with tiptronic then you will be set.

But Apple does not has this advantage anymore. Design is cool but for iPhone or iPad not much different than others and the OS is almost the same like Android. This helps the kids to switch much easier. Nothing new to learn. Apple does fear this, and this is one reason, why they try to fight against Samsung and other pad producers.

Apple has a lot of services like iTunes, but there is really no need to keep iPhone. Users can have iTunes and other devices or use Windows media center. Plus music future is in the cloud and Microsoft and even Google have much more cloud experience than Apple.

If we believe in 7 to 12 years cycles (which works in real estate, politics and everywhere we want) then Apples dominance will come to an end. And Microsoft can rise from ash like the Phoenix. MS lost so far the race in mobile but did build an even stronger enterprise empire with Sharepoint, Exchange, Lync and Dynamics products that they can close the gap between mobile and enterprise much easier than anybody else. And as soon the gap is closed, I foresee a lot of people buying for private use once again a Microsoft device.

Especially in a time where mobile, smart phone and PC is almost the same just different form factor. Whatever will come, the winner of the race will be the company which can provide for all devices same OS, a lot of software (not only apps) and can serve to end users and enterprises. For some reason I don't see Google to be in the mix neither.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Please follow me @schlotz69

Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

If I could build the iPad 3

One of Apple's best selling product is the iPad. And I see myself as a power user and at the same time as normal consumer (but of course early adapter). Many rumors are on the web that a new iPad is coming end of this year or beginning of next year. Almost certain before April which is not typical for an Apple hardware release which is normally every 12 months. An iPad release before April would be similar to the iPhone 3GS a in between iPhone better as 3G but just not a full new iPhone generation.

Bottom line the next iPad is already on the way and might have many new things or just a few.

But if Apple is not yet done with the iPad design and specs, then I want to tell Apple how the next iPad should be.

We know Apple is never conducting a consumer research, but if they would read The Spiegel (a German magazine) then the iPad should have at least:

- Retina Display (twice resolution in both direction)
- Monitor connector not only HDMI as well Thunderbolt and DVI
- multiple accessories connection at the same time like keyboard, mouse and trackpad over Bluetooth
- iPad display should be usable as keyboard or trackpad when connected to an external screen.
- And of course full integrated cloud computing over icloud.

These are the requests Spiegel readers have and which I hear from many people who have a touchpad from Samsung or HP.

I agree with higher resolution and multiple accessories connected at the same time. I agree as well the ability to use the iPad as a keyboard only.

But I don't agree with all the connectors. My dream iPad is a litter thinner, lighter and has no connectors or open parts at all. The universal apple connector and headset hole have to go. The + and - switches are not needed.

The iPad 4 will have iOS 5 and therefore no need to connect to a computer. The sync with iTunes and OS update will go over the air. We should be able to lay the iPad on a pad or put it on a stand for charging (induction charging like some others are offering). the sound switches shall be build in touch screen on top left. The iPad has enough space to get them as touch and invisible on the front. Similar like Samsung TVs have.
The headset connector will be replaced with the existing Bluetooth. Every iPad will come with a Bluetooth headset (which can be charged same as the iPad) and a stand which works as a charger. The price of the iPad might be $40 more but I would pay for.

With iOS 5 the iPad is able to mirror it's display to a TV over wifi, if the user has an Apple TV.

The same would work with a monitor. We just connect an Apple TV to the monitor and we could get the IPad display on the monitor. No cable needed. Belkin could offer for users who have no Apple TV a $30 wifi mini box which connects via HDMI, thunderbolt or SVGA to the monitor.

When the iPad is connected with an external display, the user should be able to decide to mirror the display or to use the iPad as a keyboard, mouse or trackpad.

Therefore my developed iPad would have two A6 processors.

This would be my next iPad. It might sound futuristic but something like this will come. The iPad is lobile device. A real lobile (mobile but local) device, something notebooks would like to be, but never really were, because they are too heavy and it takes too long to boot up. Then the net books came, which were much smaller and faster in booting, but just not fast enough to be more than a toy.

The iPad is different and will (maybe not the iPad but a pad) eventually replace the notebook.

Let us have a look to commercial use of computers. Most companies are offering for their office people a desktop computer and for their sales or management a laptop. The desktops are there either because they are cheaper and therefore a good mass computer or much faster which is needed for the power users like developers or designers.
The laptops are distributed either because a person travels and needs to have their office with them or are bought as an incentive, because it is much cooler to have a laptop than a boring PC.
When I look in our company, we could easily replace 50% of the computers with iPads. There is basically nothing a sales person can do with a notebook but not with an iPad. They are mostly using, outlook, word, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint and CRM. In the iPad world it would be numbers, pages, keynote, PDF and salesforce or any other webpage based CRM. Most of the big CRM vendors have even iPad versions of their CRM or at least a 3rd party which is offering a CRM version for their iPad.

I travel a lot and the most annoying part is the TSA control at the airport. It is always a big act to carry a ten pound laptop bag with all accessories and then to take the laptop out of the bag for the screening. We would only carry 3 pounds with an iPad and accessories and it is not needed to take the iPad out of the bag. How much time would this save us?

My notebook is on the half way empty when I fly from Tampa, FL to Bentonville, AR. The iPad battery, on the other hand, survives the flight easily which can take up to 10 hours with layovers.

I have in the office a laptop and I barely take it home, because it is too heavy. But I bring everyday my iPad and take it home. It is just like holding a small book in your hand. If the iPad would be my laptop replacement, I would eventually work more, because I would have my office computer with me, at home or on travel. How much more money could a company make if each person could work 1 hour more a day?

A lot of people are arguing that a notebook has more memory. This is true, but we should not need more. We have an intranet and most of the documents should anyway be saved there for others to access. We really only need memory for apps, mail and some PDF or powerpoints we need on the road. But even this it is not necessary if we have an iPad with 3G. We could always have access to the cloud.

Maybe Apple is reading my blog and will build the iPad 4 as I imagine. No connectors, two processors, retina display, multiple bluetooth input devices at the same time and the ability to stream to two external monitors. I guess I ave to wait and see.


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Location:N Westshore Blvd,Tampa,United States

No Samsung Galaxy 10 inch in Europe (only in Netherlads)

Apple did win for now against Samsung and therefore Samsung is not allowed to sell their Galaxy tablet in Europe Union besides Netherlands.

The main reason why Apple did not want to have the Galaxy sold, is the too similar design to the iPad.








I think there is more behind than cloning the iPad. The Galaxy does look little similar but is it not normal when creating a tablet? Should have Samsung put handles on the Galaxy or external antennas or maybe made it round that it does not look like the iPad?

There is not much vendors can do when the goal is to have a 10 inch tablet, very light and sophisticated looking. Look at desktop computers. They all look similar, even notebooks are now closer to Apple notebooks.

Honestly I don't like neither that many japanese cars look like Mercedes or BMW, but it is as it is. If the price is lower or quality better then we buy it.

I understand that Apple has patents (not that I agree on our patent system in the US) and did spend a lot of money and research to make the iPhone as a 9.7 inch device. But Steve, you honestly do not think we believe you that it is about the design.

Europeans have usually a less brand affiliation than Americans and sometimes they even tend not to buy a leading brand, because the brand has too much market share and control.

But more important is the picing strategy from Apple, that usually a device in Europe costs the same as in the US but in Euro which makes the poducts 30% more expensive. Apple is in the most part following this price philosophy and therefore the other vendors can score very easily by reduced prices.

And then, Apple does have in Europe much less stores than in the US.
The iPad maker has 52 stores in the region, compared to 238 in the United States.
Acerbic, Asus, HP, Motorola, Samsung and the other tablet companies have a much better and deeper experience dealing with local distributors. If Samsung would be able to sell the Galaxy they could have the device in thousands of stores over night.

Right now there is no competition on the horizon and Apple might be holding major of the tablet market till 2015. The biggest mistakes the other vendors did, was to build and sell 7 inch tablets. Surveys did show that the consumer does prefer 10 inch because 7 inch is too small as a tablet. As a result all other vendors starting to build 10 inch versions of their tablets.

There is a big chance that Apple will in 12 months not anymore dominate the European market like they do it in the US. Already now, Apple iPad has in Europe only 70% market share but in the US 80%.

I remember when I went in 2005 to Germany to visit my family, that only one of 4 mpg players were iPods. But in the US almost everybody had iPods. so I asked some people why they don't have iPods? Two standard answers. Either because iPods are just too expensive and don't do more than other mpg players, or because they did not want to support a big arrogant company.

Apple had with the iPhone in 2010 in Europe only 18% market share, but in the US 28%.








The same could happen with the iPad.

Now we know why Samsung is so eager to get into Europe market with their Galaxy and why Apple does not want this to happen.

I am disappointed that Apple is playing the patent card instead of doing what they are the best. Keep building new toys which have best usability, best battery live and do look just perfect. Even if the Galaxy looks not much different, the battery life is shorter, the usability is not as good as the iPad and it is still heavier. If Apple does fear this, then I don't know what will come next.

I am actually right now pretty annoyed about all these patents fights going on. Apple against Samsung, Google against Microsoft, Microsoft against Motorola and so on.

It is time that our patent rules a getting changed.

(info and statistics from Forrester, The firm surveyed nearly 14,000 online consumers throughout Europe to find that between 2 and 7 percent of consumers surveyed own a tablet and 10 to 14 percent are interested in buying one. Tablet ownership was highest in Spain and lowest in France. Interest in tablets was highest in Germany.).

Samsung is not allowed to sell the Galaxy in Europe, but i am wondering if I could sell them from the US through my online store to Europe? Could be the big deal. I should start to count my winnings.

Let me know what your thoughts are about the whole patents fights?

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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

Confirmed: iPad 3 comes with Retina Display

Samsung Reveals Prototype HD Display For Tablets and as we know Samsung biggest customer is Apple. Apple is buying all their iPad displays from Samsung.

Yes I know, it is not confirmed that the iPad will have a retina display, but the news below from information week does imply such.

The new display from Samsung is 10.1 inch, slightly bigger than the iPad Display, however the iPad case could easily host a 10.1 inch display without being bigger.

The 300-dpi, high-definition LCD panel uses red, green, blue, and white subpixels and requires 40% less power than traditional RGB displays.

We might get the iPad 3 for Christmas around November or beginning December time frame.



By Chandler Harris InformationWeek
May 17, 2011 12:09 PM

(click image for larger view)
Samsung High-Resolution Tablet Display
The next generation of tablets might have screens that look like high-definition TVs, if Samsung has its way.
Samsung will unveil a prototype 10.1-inch, high-resolution LCD designed for tablets at the SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Samsung claims the prototype is the first 300-dpi, high-resolution display in the 10.1-inch tablet format. While it is still a prototype, Samsung expects the screen to be commercially available for tablet applications later this year.

At Cloud Connect 2011 in Silicon Valley, TechWeb's David Berlind gets a demonstration of CA's recently acquired 3Tera AppLogic graphical private cloud deployment tool.
The screen is developed by Samsung subsidiary Nouvoyance and features its PenTile RGBW technology, which uses red, green, blue, and white subpixels to present high-resolution luminance information. The company claims the addition of the white subpixel, combined with increased subpixel width, makes PenTile RGBW panels about twice as "transmissive" as traditional red, green, and blue (RGB) color model LCDs found in most screens.
"When you go to high-definition, you usually pay the penalties of the aperture ratio getting worse and it being a bigger power consumer," said Joel Pollack, executive VP of Nouvoyance, in an interview. "Because we use one-third fewer pixels through increasing the pixel size, [and] achieve better light through our RGBW and our dynamic backlight control, we use less power than legacy RBG panels. That is critical for the tablet market."

Nouvoyance claims the new 10.1-inch tablet panel is capable of 300 cd/m2 of luminance and uses 40% less power than screens that use legacy RGB stripe LCDs in power-saving modes. This is notable since the biggest power drain in tablets comes from the screen. The power savings is helped by the use of the white subpixel, since it replaces the need for combining multiple pixels to produce white light and thus less energy is needed to create white or light colors. Also, Nouvoyance claims the PenTile technology achieves 300-dpi resolution with two-thirds the number of subpixels than other screens.
"Samsung's PenTile display technology is the only display technology that operates at 40% less power yet provides twice that of full HD-viewing performance for consumers compared to legacy RGB stripe LCDs," said Dr. Sungtae Shin, senior VP of Samsung Electronics, in a release. "There is no other commercial display technology on the market today that offers this high of a resolution and pixel density in a 10.1-inch size display."
High-resolution screens have been non-existent in tablet computers, primarily because of cost and power efficiency. The iPad 2 has a pixel count of 1024x768 running at 132 dpi, while the Samsung Galaxy has a resolution of 1280x800 at 160 dpi.

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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

An iPad nightmare

Apple introduced last week the iPad 2. A few weeks ago my friend sold his iPad over craigslist knowing he will buy the new iPad 2. He got 75% of original price.
I did not think i want to sell and did not want to be 3 weeks without my iPad, but changed my mind after the keynote. One hour before the keynote gazelle.com did buy the iPad 64GB 3G for $590 which would mean the owner will still get $650 (original $829) for their big iPad 3G selling it private or over eBay.

Only hours after the announcement of the new iPad, the price at gazelle.com went down to $550 and now the price is $530 if your iPad is brand new, but don't expect to get the full price, they almost never pay it. Gazelle.com will even only pay $387 if the iPad has a few scratches on the back. In this case it is better to sell at eBay, because you will still get in average $530.







However i decided that I want to save the high eBay costs and posted it on craigslist.
$650 64GB 3G with 60 original DVDs.
Within minutes a potential buyer emailed me. However the email was suspicious. The buyer said he wants to send with his courier a certified personal check but i have to give him my full address. I decided not to, it looked like scam.



Even craigslist is warning for frauds like this.

A few hours later somebody asked my through craigslist if I send to Rochester NY. I replied of course but the mailing would be high because of the heavy DVDs. I got an answer it is fine and I shall send my paypal address. I did and I looked every half hour in my paypal account. Did not see anything but was happy to get a descent price for my iPad. 3 hours later i get an email from paypal that I have $750 funds in my account. I almost clicked on the email link to go to my paypal account but i saw that the address (i should send my iPad to) is in Nigeria. The person did send at the same time an email saying her husband got already an iPad for her and she does not want to disappoint me and therefore I should send the iPad to her sister.
Looking longer on the paypal email i recognized that the sender email address is paypal@service.com and not service@paypal.com. My mail program just showed the alias "Paypal Service" but right clicking on the email address gave the real email address. On my iPad it is better, it does not resolve the alias. Outlook makes it really easy for scams.




Email was convincing and lucky wise I look always directly in my account and don't click on emails links. But i guess many people don't do and then suddenly their account is compromised because they gave this person their password.
Really clever.
I did send the emails to spoof@paypal.com and should get within 24 hours an answer of their investigating.
I bought a lot of things at craigslist but never sold anything. And i will never sell anymore electronics or high end stuff through craigslist the scam is too high.
At the end you don't save anything. eBay is still the best way to go, high costs but at least all secure.

The only option for me is now Germany. Thanks to Apple. They release of the iPad is in Germany two weeks later.




I get right now for my iPad 64GB 3G around $550 with cover at eBay Germany. And the $ is so bad that I actually make almost 80% from my original price.




The buyers are willing to pay the shipping which is only $10 without insurance. If you insure the iPad then the buyer has to pay import taxes which does make the deal not attractive. I am a lucky person and a friend of mine is traveling next week to Germany and can take my iPad with him.

If you think you want to sell your iPad than hurry. Don't use craigslist or gazelle.com but try to sell it over eBay in countries where the dollar is weak and the iPad 2 does not come out soon. Just go to apple.com and look which country would work for you.

It s unbelievable that the iPad is already, after just one week, the most used sold electronic good. Gazelle.com did buy in average 1500 iPads a week. Since the keynote it is 2000 a day. eBay is since then selling more mobile pads than ever. It seems every pad owner (iPad, Xoom, Galaxy) wants to sell their pad to get the new iPad 2.

And Apple is smart, because of new form factor all accessories like covers or stands etc will not work anymore with the new iPad and we have to buy all new. At least a few hundred bucks extra to the iPad price.

I once switched to Apple because their products kept long a high resale price, Apple did change the form factor only every 3 years. The only thing which changed was processor and memory. I could easily use an Apple device three years and sell it to a good price. Since iPhone and iPad the time is over.
Apple releases every 12 months a new device with so much new that nobody wants to pay a high price for used. However the iPhone is still easier to sell to higher price, but because the people can save a lot of money buying a used one without contract and jailbreak it.
I know many who buy the iPhone and not have an expensive data plan. There it makes sense to buy to a higher price an used iPhone. A data plan is at least $720 for two years, and who really needs a data plan. Wifi is now almost everywhere.
The iPad does come without data plan, therefore nobody wants really to pay more only to get one with 3G. If so then they buy it new.

If you consider to buy the iPad 2. Think twice about the 3G model, it will lose more if you want to resell it after twelve months, as long the providers are charging still way to much for data. I am going to get the wifi only model (if i can sell my iPad) by knowing I will never be able to use it as a GPS device.

I might end up not to sell my iPad if i don't find a buyer to my conditions. Unfortunately we have already 2 iPads and I might need to wait till September when iPad 2.5 is coming out.

Let me know if you want to buy mine with original Apple cover and 60 DVDs for $650.



- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69

So you think Apple computers are expensive?

I hear all the time how expensive Apple is and that there is no reason to switch just to pay a premium. And if we don't look deeper the price of Apple is in average 30% more.

IPhone:
The iPhone 4G 32GB is $299 which is around $100 more than other smart phones, however none of them in the lower price range have as much build in memory. Example: HTC EVO 4G, the price is $199 and same features like the iPhone (plus 4G), however the internal memory is only 1 GB, extra micro SD card with 32GB costs another $70. But the big difference is the quality of the camera, nobody yet could match the photo quality of the iPhone.

iPad:
The iPad costs between $499 and $829. All are 10 inch the only difference is to have it with 3G and the memory size between 16GB and 64GB. All other high quality tablets running on Android are not cheaper, they are even more expensive and have mostly only 7inch screen.
Example: Motorla - XOOM Tablet 3G with 10 inch screen. This tablet runs on Android and is available at Best Buy for $799,99 but has only 32GB memory. The iPad with 3G and 32GB is only $729.

Notebooks:
The cheapest notebook from Apple is the MacBook Air or just the MacBook starting at $999. Notebooks from other vendors are starting in average at $500. This is half of the price, but unfortunately as well half of the quality and speed.
Let us compare a notebook which is almost identical to the MacBook air in speed, size, design and quality. The Samsung 9 Series.
MacBook Air:

Samsung Series 9:

This notebook comes very close to Apple, but unfortunately the price is far from a competition. The notebook will be priced around $2200, twice than the MacBook Air.
The Specifications of Samsung 9 series laptop:



Samsung 9 Series Specs ($2230):


CPU: Second Generation Intel® CoreTM i5 Processor 2537M (1.40 GHz, 3MB; turbo up to 2.3 GHz)
Operating System: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 bit) / Windows® 7 Professional (64 bit)
Memory: 4GB DDR3 * Storage (max): 128GB Solid State Drive (SSD)
Screen: 13.3-inch HD LED-backlit SuperBright Plus display (400 nit)
Resolution: 1366×768
Graphics: Intel HD GT2 Integrated Graphics
Speakers: 3 watt (1.5W x 2) stereo speakers and 1.5 watt sub-woofer
Battery: Lithium Polymer; up to 6.5 hours
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n; WiMaxi
Weight: 2.89 lbs.

Apple MacBook Air Specs ($1299):

Product Height 0.7"

Product Width 12.8" Product Weight 2.9 lbs.

Product Depth 8.9"

Processor Brand Intel® Processor Intel® Core™2 Duo

Processor Speed 1.86GHz

Battery Type Lithium-polymer

Display Type Widescreen LED-backlit (1440 x 900)

Screen Size (Measured Diagonally) 13.3"

System Bus 1066MHz

Cache Memory 6MB shared on die Level 2

System Memory (RAM) 2GB

System Memory (RAM) Expandable To 4GB

Type of Memory (RAM) DDR3 SDRAM

Computer Hard Drive Size 128GB

Digital Media Reader or Slots Yes, select memory card slots

Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 320M

Video Memory 256MB (shared)

Built-in Webcam Yes

Wireless Networking Wireless-A+B+G+N

Bluetooth-Enabled Yes

Speakers Internal

USB 2.0 Ports 2

Laptop Weight Ultraportable (5.5 lbs. or less)

Operating System Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Included Software iLife '11 and more

ENERGY STAR Qualified Yes

Drive Capacity 128GB flash storage

Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce 320M

There must be a reason that Apple is now Number 1 mobile PC manufacture in the World.

Yes Apple seems to pricey, but when we compare competition with same features then Apple is not more expensive. But one thing almost none of the competition has is the the beauty and aesthetic and ease of use with almost no viruses. Only Apple can offer this at the moment.

Is Apple playing dirty games or is Apple just smart?

I did read today on yahoo.com that Apple bought almost all touch screens that it is impossible for competition to deliver enough tablets in the near future. Maybe Samsung could keep up, because they use their own AMPLED screens.






This seems to be a typical pattern of Apple. They bought almost all flash memory in 2004 which delayed the production for other companies of music players using solid state flash memory instead of hard drives which gave Apple a big advantage.
Another example was, when Apple bought almost all of Samsung NAND (Flash memory, faster than the NOR flash memory) in 2009 which gave Apple an advantage in their iPhone build in memory.

Apple isn't a new customer to Samsung's electronic components - but it could become its largest by spending $7.8 billion on Samsung parts.






(image and some text comes from digitaltrends.com)

According to the Korean Economic Daily, Apple will spend $7.8 billion in Samsung component parts this year – which makes one of the manufacturer’s largest competitors simultaneously its best customers.

Apple and Samsung have a variety of products directly pitted against each other. The iPad and Galaxy Tab go head to head, as do the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S series phones (and if you want to go international, you can throw in the iPad Touch versus Galaxy Player, as the latter is currently unavailable stateside). And it isn’t just that these products compete in the same market; they are largely standouts that are seen as the iOS or Android version of the other. So, how do these two relationships coexist – one based on demand and supply and another on rivaling products?
Buying almost of the supply does not only give the advantage to have technology which nobody might get, but as well reduces the costs for these components.

Of course other electronic companies can get somehow touch screens but to a much higher price and less units a month.

It could be seen as a way to give competition a disadvantage. We know that Apple has a lot of cash-flow and can buy more components than they really need to control the market, but on the other hand companies like Samsung are at fault as well.

They signed contracts with Apple to deliver x amount of units in a time when they (Samsung) believed that there will be not a big demand besides Apple.

A d now a big company like Samsung can't just give their own tablet department enough screens because the internal order would be much smaller than from Apple and therefore more expensive.

I remember (when i worked at NEC) it was cheaper for my department to buy CD ROM for our PCs from Sony than using NEC CD ROMs even if at this time (1990) NEC was market leader in CD ROMs. But my department only needed for an order 300 units and Sony made me a better price than our Accessories department.

On the other hand HP had at this time NEC drives because they could order millions units which made the price cheaper.

I am not sure, but I think to a certain part, the buy of components should be a little bit regulated by the international market control to ensure that one company can't just buy the whole market and therefore out price and outrun the competition.

Otherwise the consumer is the loser and not the manufactures. If Apple buys most of the supply, then they can control the price of the product to have a higher margin and the competition can't compete without selling their products under costs. This keeps the product price artificial high.

I hope the market will change and we see a lot of tablets priced lower with same quality like the iPad. I would not move to another manufacture but i would prefer to pay much less for my iPad. I have the 64GB 3G model and a price over $800 for this product is much too high. I can get for this price a great notebook, or spend just $150 more and get the cheapest macbook air which is much faster than the iPad with better full-size applications to buy.

If i had to pay the full price I would never buy it, or maybe i would because there is no competition and i always like to have the latest gadgets.


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The tablet market is heating up

In February 2010 Apple announced their iPad which a lot of critics called then just a bigger iPod touch which nobody needs. Apple did define a new type of computer, slimmer than netbooks and faster and more colorful than ebooks, but less speed, memory and size than notebooks.

Who in the world does need another device? Apple proofed we needed a new device between smart phone and notebook. In April the iPad got shipped and after only 2 months they sold over 3 Million.

Six months after the first iPad got shipped the market has changed. The iPad was just the beginning. Many manufactures did follow.
First the German company Neofonie announced their WePad with memo a Linux based tablet computer which just got released as WeTab starting at $499.



Then Samsung released their Galaxy Tab in the UK with a two years carrier contract which will translate into $1000 running android.



Shortly after Dell announced a 7inch slate as the big brother of the 5inch Dell streak phone. Both are running on android.


Today we did read about the Blackberry playbook a 7inch tablet with two cameras for business customers starting at $499.




HP announced at the CES their slate which is a 9.7inch touchscreen computer with either windows 7mobile, Palm Os or both, price around $500. But not released yet





And there might be many more coming as I posted a few weeks ago.

But really interesting is that none of them are cheaper than the iPad, but have two things the iPad does not.
Flash and cameras (at least one camera). They are all either more heavy or smaller than iPad but interesting not cheaper even if everybody said the iPad is too expensive.

Rumors are around that Apple is already producing the second iPad generation as a 7inch version and with camera. Which is not typical for Apple to come with a second version before a year ends.

Back to the start of this blog, do we really don't need a bigger iPod touch? Maybe not, but interesting that all big players are following Apple. Most of them had netbooks before, but now they are moving to slates and starting to discontinue the netbooks.

Steve Jobs might had his downtime when he was fired from Apple in 1985 (The Man Who Fired Steve Jobs From Apple, John Sculley, Is Now Getting Fired By His Wife). And struggled 10 years with Pixar and Next till he came back to Apple. But since his comeback it seems that he can create any products he wants and we buy them and the rest of the manufactures try to follow him.
Note:
Next was not a total failure, iOs is using objective C, which was the base for nextstep the Next OS. Pixar needed long till it made money with Toys story. But a lot of UI inventions of Mac OsX are products which were originated by Pixar developers in the early years. Steve was not a software guy, he loved hardware but Pixar helped him to get a feeling for Art in software (Source "the second coming of Steve Jobs").

2011 will be hot with slates, and as a friend of mine says: "if it is released, it is already old, go to the next thing". He is so right, all the companies who are right now copying Apple to bring faster and better products to compare with iPad, are so busy with this that they will be late with the next big thing because Apple will have it already.

It is time that somebody steps out and does their own thing, the only way to be ahead of Apple, at least right now.

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