Apple is pushing sales in Germany

My sister was last week visiting us from Germany and told me an interesting story. Her son's grammar school received last yer from Apple 30 iPads just 6 weeks before Christmas.
Each class was allowed to have them for a week for testing. During this time the kids were allowed to take them home. Of course, parents had to pay an insurance on the iPad in case they would break. Each iPad had some learning software on it, as well some software to about our nature. She told me, the nature app had all kind of flowers and trees and the kids could use the app to identify vegetation in their backyard or in the nearby forest. Teachers even gave the kids some homework which involved the iPad.

Almost all kids asked their parent to get an iPad for Christmas. Some parents even bought iPads as a Christmas present. This is of course a critical situation, because many parents could not afford to buy an iPad (some of my nephews schoolmates parents are unemployed) or did not want to buy one, because they needed the money for other things, like a trip to the US.

The idea might be great to bring kids really early to such devices, but the execution was bad. The school might have gotten the iPads free, but there was no concept to avoid jealousy or even fights. I did hear that two kids did fight over an iPad which broke during the fight.

I remember, when I was young, that my father bought me at Walmart a pair of cheap jeans, everybody else had Wrangler. I was so embarrassed and started a fight with my father. The next time he bought for me unknown sneakers instead of Adidas. And again we got into a fight. As a child I could not understand how he could do it to me. I did not understand that having 5 children is very expensive. But the fights were only for things round $50 more or less. Eventually he gave up and bought me the more expensive clothes because he loved me, he loved me so much, that he rather bought me what I want and probably did not get new shoes for him, which he needed as a sales man.

Today we are talking about $500 and more for one iPad which is in many household half of the monthly income.

What did the school think? If they offer iPads (which is cool an surely a good learning device) why did they not buy them for the kids or offered them extremely discounted?

When I went to school, we had to have schoolbooks. We could either lent them from the school (if we were low on money) or we could buy them. My parents preferred to buy them, that I could write notes in the books. Otherwise I would needed to use a pencil and erase all the notes out, at the end of the school year, before returning the books. My parents paid every year $300 on books for me.

Maybe the school should offer iPads to lent with all necessary schoolbooks on it, or parents could decide to buy the iPad, if they prefer, but with a discount.

I am really disappointed from Apple and the local school that they did not think this through. Should the school not be better in this? Don't teacher go to university to learn how to do the right things?

And Apple, don't they make already enough money? Should they not know better? Or do they don't care about social problems, only to sell a few more iPads?

But Apple is pushing much more. Usually private TV channels have in their shows a lot of product placements, and if there are computers or phones then these are mostly Apple products.

Bow it goes even further. The public broadcasters have Apple products everywhere, even in the news. And this is very critical. The news should be neutral as possible and ZDF and ARD (the two big non private channels) have been the last 20 years the place where you wanted to watch really good news. They are so well established that we trust them and their opinions. A lot of people would buy an iPad only because the news anchor has one.

I watched the last few days ZDF and could not believe what i saw. The anchor of a 9/11 special was standing close to ground zero with an iPad on his table. An iPad which was powered off and not in use at all. Especially ridiculous was, that he had his notes written down on paper which was under the iPad on the table. I don't think there can be more obvious product placement like this. It could have been any other touch pad (slate) but he had attached the patented threefold iPad 2 cover, which does not exists for any other pad on the market.





And then I watched the news (heute) and the anchor there had a MacBook Pro, but at least they retouched the backside of the cover and took the Apple logo out. However it is still clear to see that this is an Apple (all major connections at the side like power cable etc). The notebook had no cables attached, that I doubt that it was even on. If the notebook is in use then the risk would be too high of empty battery during live broadcasting. And if it has been in use, why did the woman still read from paper?




Below is an image from the apple store (it must have been an Apple in her news show). The right picture is almost identical to the one in the how above.


Apple frequently pays for product placement. This occurs because Apple "barters" the exchange for placement. Payment for placement is not in cash, but exchanged for product and services. (Notably, recognizable Apple products have appeared in newspaper comic strips, including Opus, Baby Blues, Non Sequitur, and FoxTrot, even though paid placement in comics is all but unknown.). I guess the whole ZDF studio is now under Apple branding.

Germany is more concerned than USA about their consumers that product placements was official not allowed till 2009.
Sine 2009, German commercial television broadcasters will be permitted to include paid product placements during TV films, series, sports programmes and light entertainment formats. With the move, the states are turning the EU audiovisual media services directive from 2007 into national law. For public broadcasters, however, product placement will remain prohibited.

This is the reason we don't see the Apple Logo on the notebook, or the iPad Apple logo. I believe ZDF is walking on a very thin line with their approach. Apple products are so distinctive that there is no logo required to recognize the products.

Apple product placements appeared 30 percent of the top films of 2010, more than any other brand, including Nike, Chevrolet and Ford, which all tied for second place with placement in 24 percent of the top movies.

Placement of Apple's Macs, iPhones and iPods and other products in films resulted in the company being cited for the "2010 Award for Overall Product Placement" by Brandcameo.

Arranging to put its products in conspicuous sight in films is nothing new for the company, which has maintained the top spot among brands over the past decade, with cameos in 112 of the top 334 most popular movies in America since 2001. (source: Appleinsider)

I don't mind product placements but I am not a fan if a company does everything possible to get new customers, regardless if it could hurt feelings or even could cause social problems.

And i don't like, if institutions do show an Apple product, even if they are not allowed. Just taking the logo of is not enough. It is like driving a Mercedes and taking the star from the car, we would still know it is a Mercedes.

We will see how it will work out for Apple. Germans are known to buy the underdog and to avoid the big monopolist. The iPad has a big market share.

Apple already fall from 88% to 73% and in China even to 68%. And such pushing might get a negative effect for Apple.

Microsoft Internet Explorer had more trouble in Germany than everywhere else. Germans don't like monopoly and will choose the smaller company just because.
Internet Explorer has therefore a much smaller share in Germany than in the USA.







Statistics from statcounter.com

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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

Thunderbolt and SSD or not?

An old friend on mine asked me, if he should buy the new cinema display from Apple with thunderbolt.
The answer is not easy, because he would need to have a computer with thunderbolt like the new MacBook Pro or the mini.

I asked him what he has and what he exactly wants. He has a 2009 MacBook Pro dual core and would like to connect the notebook to a 27 inch screen. He has multiple options, he could buy a 27 inch screen from any vendor, which are usually cheaper than Apple monitors but have less resolution. Apple cinema displays have 2560 by 1440 pixels and cost $999 either with or without thunderbolt.



You can get 27inch display for $400 even $300 like HP but they have only 1920 x 1080 resolution.



I tried one of the cheaper displays but the lower resolution is a big disadvantage. Especially if you have an iMac 27 inch and you want a second monitor.

His old MacBook Pro has no thunderbolt and, if he wants to have the new cinema display with thunderbolt, then he needs to get a new notebook. However he said his notebook is still in good shape.

I think he has other options. He could spend $1900 and buy a mac mini for $599 which has a $500GB hard drive and an i5 processor with 2GB RAM. Then he could spend another $200 for more memory and $999 for the cinema thunderbolt display and $100 for keyboard and touchpad. The mac mini does not take much room and if he has enough space for the display then he has enough for the mini.



Or he could buy an iMac with 27inch screen for $1999 which has 4GB of RAM, quad core i5 and a TB hard drive. The iMac does not need more space than a cinema screen and has as well only one cable for power.



Either way both options are cheaper than buying a thunderbolt 27 inch cinema display and a new MacBook Pro.

He would get for his notebook maybe $700. An new MacBook Pro 15 inch with 4GB of RAM and 500GB hard drive would $1.799 and then he would need the display for $999. This is a total of $2.000, If we count all together minus the money he would get for his old notebook.

Now there is not much difference in price but a big difference in usability.
Apple has the most beautiful computers but is lacking in docking stations. Having a notebook with external display is annoying. You need to plug the monitor cable in and eventual the power cable for the notebook. Therefore you have after time a lot of cables on your desk.

Now the really good part with Apple is, that having a second computer does not mean you need to have a second set of software. And the OS comes anyway with the computer. Most of the software bought from the app store can be installed on all af your Apple's without buying it again.

I would always recommend to have the notebook for travel or for outside. But when you are in your home office you should use the iMac.

Especially now with airdrop, it is very easy to move the data between two macs as long they are within a few feet.

And then there is another not unimportant factor. I usually have my iTunes computer running 24/7 that all my Apple TVs and other Apple devices can play my music and movies anytime. But I seldom have my McBook Pro running to avoid over heating.

Thunderbolt is the new technology and if we buy a new Apple product we should get it with thunderbolt especially because Apple is retiring firewire and other connections to promote thunderbolt. But we should ask us what we need and why before we buy two new devices like notebook and monitor. Many times an iMac will be just fine. And heck it is always cool to have more than one Apple computer.

We see more and more Apple computers with SSD (Solid state drive) which is the perfect hard drive for the new Lion functions. SSD is fast and therefore perfect for opening an app which will then open latest document we worked on.

However the SSD drives offered with the Macs are still smaller than normal hard drives and having an Apple with less than 256 GB is not desirable.
I had SSD with my Dell notebook and had to replace the SSD within 18 months twice. And then there is the rumor that SSD can not be used more than 100.000 times. This gives SSD a shorter live than an optical drive.

A SSD drive with 256 GB is expensive. 256 GB are $600 more and a 512 GB $1.200. I would rather use the money to buy a 3 TB time capsule for backup which is only $499 or the 2 TB for $299.
The time capsule is a perfect wireless router plus hard drive.

I tried many other external hard drives. I burnt through many. It seems that non of them can survive longer than 8 months with my iMac. The only external hard drive which never dies is the time capsule. I have two of them. One as backup for time machine and one as a data storage for my wife's notebook.

Dear friend, go and buy an iMac 27 inch and keep you MacBook Pro. Next year, when your notebook is not good enough anymore then buy a new one. And if you then still want to connect the MacBook pro to a 27 inch screen via thunderbolt then you can do this. The iMac has thunderbolt, you might then use the iMac screen (if it is possible). But i can ensure you, you will instead buy a 27 in cinema screen to connect to you iMac. Because two 27 inch screens on one computer is just too cool.



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Location:Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA

I love my iPad

I am an iPad user since April last year. I use it everyday, but mostly to read magazines and newspapers or to write my blog. I tried to replace my dell notebook
with my iPad but had no success.

On Wednesday I found another way to use the iPad, and it was great.

We had an important software upgrade going on. We are usually doing this at night to avoid interruption during business time. My developers will open a webex conference and share the screens that we can see what is going on. We leave the audio all the time on, if there are needed discussion. Back in time I went to my iMac or took my heavy MacBook Pro to do webex. This time my wife had the notebook and I could not use my iMac, because my son was sleeping in the next room to my office.
I decided to install webex on my iPad (free download). And it was great. I just needed to click on the link in the webex mail and the iPad opened the application. After I logged in, I could decide to use my iPad for voice or to call in. I decided to use my iPad. I plugged my headphones in and was ready.




The speed was great and quality perfect. At a certain point we were looking through error messages, but my iPad screen is too small to read the messages. I just took my two fingers and zoomed into the screen. This was awesome.





After a while a developer gave me control that I could put a password into one of our servers. It worked very well however it takes times to get used to the delay and small mouse pointer.

The only part which was missing, was the camera. It seems webex has already camera function available, but I was not able to activate it. On my mac it works just fine.
Webex on iPad is simple but effective. I learned that I will do webex in the future only with my iPad, especially if I don't need to be in control or don't need to share my screen.

Great would be if could use LogMeIn, to log in my notebook to show others my notebook screen, but then run webex from iPad to share the screen. Right now I would need to use LogMeIn on my iPad and then share webex from my remote computer.

If you need to walk sometimes around or don't want to carry a heavy notebook for webex, then the iPad it is. Our install took 4 hours and I did not need to charge my iPad, I still had 50% power left. This is something i would not have been able with the notebook.
Btw webex works equally good on the iPhone, but I think the screen is too small.

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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

Apple store - they are really different

Sometimes I am extremely frustrated with Apple and want to move to an Android device or to buy a Windows computer. But then comes the time where I know why I am preferring Apple over all others.

I wrote in the past that the beauty is that all devices just work perfect with each other, but this is not the only thing.

My wife and I went on Saturday to an Apple Store after setting up an appointment over the Internet. We arrived and Were greeted friendly in a very full Apple store. A,amazing how full the store is but no noise at all, almost like in a museum people looking at paintings.

We had to go to a concierge (which is new) and he looked our appointment up. He asked us to look a while around or to take a seat till an technician will come. After 10 minutes the concierge came to us and walked us to the desk. We have a 4 years old MacBook Pro and no warranty. My son did break 2 keys out of the keyboard and the notebook does run slow. The Apple employee did tell is that my wife was missing 4 bigger MacOS updates, he asked us if he can install them for us. We said of course. He told us it will take 20 minutes and if we want we can leave and come back. We stayed. Then he replaced the keys, he knew exactly what to do and still it took him 20 minutes. After less of an hour we had our latest updates and a full functional keyboard. My son throw once the notebook down and it has a dent where the express port is, my wife asked how much it would cost to repair this. The guy said it would be $400 but he would not recommend it, because the notebook is full functional and it would be a waste of money.

What is so interesting on this? Apple did not charge us anything for their help.
The people were very knowledgeable about their products and always friendly even with the big crowd in the store.

So far we did not find any electronic store chain which is like the Apple store. It is almost like a mam and pop store in the 90es where every employee knows everything and they never charged for their help.

Last month, general merchant J. C. Penney announced its succession plan: Apple senior vice president-retail Ron Johnson has come on board, and will replace Myron "Mike" Ullman as CEO on Nov. 1.

Johnson was the brain behind the Apple Retail Stores and I am sure Apple will miss him, but J.C. penny will love him.

Under Johnson's direction, Apple's retail stores achieved a record level of growth, exceeding a billion dollars in annual sales within two years of their debut, besting the previous record set by The Gap. Apple today operates over 300 stores, including outlets in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, The United States, and Japan.[1] Apple is expanding their retail presence aggressively, and is expected to open a store in Berlin and Barcelona in the near future.
Johnson received his M.B.A. from Harvard and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University.
On October 31, 2007 Johnson exercised 700,000 stock options in Apple stock with a strike price of $23.72, and then sold the stock later that day for $185 to $185.21 apiece netting him a USD $112m profit.

Johnson worked before Apple at Target as VP of merchandising.



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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

New MacBook Pro and Lion OS Preview

Apple released today Lion for developers. The OS will be available mid 2011 for the consumer.


Most interesting part is the touch gesture functions. Which is not far away anymore of gestures captured through build in camera, which might come faster than we think (sure a developer will write a plug in for this)

.

Apple introduced today as well the new MacBook Pro. I have been a little disappointed. IT still has no SSD (you can upgrade to SSD for $1,100 a 500GB hard drive) just normal hard drive and still has built in CD Drive. Most of the software is now available in the app store, so why the need of a CD / DVD drive built in.

I would like to have seen the MacBook Pro in similar design like the MacBook Air.

Otherwise the new MacBook Pro is fast, very fast with i7 quadcore processors and a new I/O technology called Thunderbold developed from Intel.

The 17inch (2.2GHz quad-core, Intel Core i7 , 8GB 1333MHz, 750GB 5400-rpm1, Intel HD Graphics 3000, AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5) does not come cheap. It costs you around $2,699 and with SSD 500GB even $3,799, but it is a high tech professional Notebook which is more than just a desktop replacement.

Read more what is new in the MacBook Pro at the WSJ.

Google instant preview available

Google had a few days instant preview on their google experimental website. Google showed this feature even directly on their homepage.



The idea is that user can click on a magnifier in the search results to see a preview of the page. A function ask.com had a log time, but never took off because the images were cashed and too old. Google is promising more recent screenshots.
This function was first seen in the UK a few months ago and now here in the US.





Unfortunately when i started with the blog to make some screenshots the function was not working on the iPad besides displaying the option to test.




I instantly opened Safari on my MacBook Pro and it worked fine. Some search results have a magnifier which indicates there is an instant preview and the images are pretty recent. I used the windows example because I know Microsoft is changing this page all the time. I tested the search term windows365. The images are very low res and hard to see details.
Google gets more and more complex and I feel that the speed is going down and speed is something which feels important.
Google has now so much going on that it is hard to find what we are looking for. The intend is to make it easier but instant search, instant preview and the left hand navigation is for my taste too much.






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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Spring Hill,United States