Apple's January 27th Event

We will see. If the business model is published content delivery (i.e. books, magazines, papers) then it needs to be a volume product in order to be viable. They need to sell it in closer to ipod quantities (v.high) than macbook (relatively low).

So as a check the "large ipod" option has...
1. £500 - affordable (x)
2. Does not cannibalise macbook (x)
3. Does not require 2nd 3G contract (x)
4. Existing app base (x)
5. High battery life (x)
6. Does not have the comedy value of making you to put a large tablet close to your ear to make a call (it can't do calls) (x)
7. Application and content delivery by Itunes (x)
 
A 32GB iPhone 3GS is £549 PAYG. A MacBook is £816.

I'm struggling to see where a tablet would fit into that gap. To me it seems even weirder what with most people getting their iPhones on contract.

This tablet is going to have to be some crazy combination of awesomeness & price for people to want it over a MacBook or pocketable iPhone/iPod Touch.

deaglecat said:
We will see. If the business model is published content delivery (i.e. books, magazines, papers) then it needs to be a volume product in order to be viable. They need to sell it in closer to ipod quantities (v.high) than macbook (relatively low).
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The problem is Apple aren't a high volume company. They are a high profit company. To give you an idea Apple makes THREE TIMES the profit on an iPhone than Nokia does on average with its smartphones.

Apple, if they wanted to, could literally destroy the phone market overnight: iPhone mini. For an idea of size make it 3 apps across, 4 apps down on the screen. Sell it with 2/4/8GB internal storage. £120-£150 SIM Free.
 
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Fillado said:
The problem is Apple aren't a high volume company. They are a high profit company. To give you an idea Apple makes THREE TIMES the profit on an iPhone than Nokia does on average with its smartphones.
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Is that just based on margin of a sale or including R&D repayment? I get the feeling that Apple probably put more into R&D than Nokia..
 
Apple = Godmode, have been for a long time in term of finances. Their R&D must be immense.
 
Kainz said:
Apple = Godmode, have been for a long time in term of finances. Their R&D must be immense.
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Not really - I think their R&D is extremely focused on their vision for their product portfolio (they're given a good bounding box to deliver within). The majority of companies engineering are dragged kicking and screaming with the result that you get a half-arsed effort to solve the problem. Apple is ruled by the commercial product management so engineering has two options: comply or the door.

Apple work to minimise effort and waste. Focus on the money but don't get too caught up by attempting to capture the entire market with 99 variants when 4 devices will capture 90% of the market with lower costs. They're also very astute with money - not wasting it but also not holding back when they can see a goal.
 
NickK said:
Is that just based on margin of a sale or including R&D repayment? I get the feeling that Apple probably put more into R&D than Nokia..
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Well it was total figures for profit so i'm guessing it must cover R&D...

You're kidding right? :p The most recent figure I could find was for 2006 which was (by today's conversion rates) about $5.5 billion.

You know the iPhone? Guess who helped invent the technology that makes it a phone (GSM)? Guess who made the first GSM phone?

;)
 
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I'm so tired after first gym sesh at 6 this morn before work I can just about organise my thoughts..

I was thinking that profit figure was on a per-handset sale. So in theory you can measure it during your R&D repayment and also after you've re-payed it.. next time I'll read what is going before my eyes..
 
Although I have no evidence etc to back this, I would guess that all of the Tablet talk is more likely to big a heavy iPhone / iPod touch update. Either that or a touchscreen iMac?

Personally I would like to see large iTunes improvements to allow proper sharing of media in a home environment and perhaps allowing the ATV to read an iTunes file from NAS so that iTunes does not need to be running on a separate system to stream.
 
Touch screen iMac would be nice but they have just been updated (i think) so not sure if this is a viable option. As for the "iSlate", i dont think it will be as cheap as people think, however this will all depend on its style (Touch on steroids vs touchscreen MBP).


Fillado said:
You know the iPhone? Guess who helped invent the technology that makes it a phone (GSM)? Guess who made the first GSM phone?

;)
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This argument is invalid..... other companies will always make predecessors.... i.e. who made the circuit board that went on to help the GSM phone etc... The iPhone is what it is because of Apple RnD :)
 
Am I the only one excited about a MBP refresh - couldnt give a hoot regards the tablet in all honesty. Hopefully Im around tomorrow to see what happens...

P.S. How long til we can buy them after an announcement?

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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ps3ud0 said:
Am I the only one excited about a MBP refresh - couldnt give a hoot regards the tablet in all honesty. Hopefully Im around tomorrow to see what happens...

P.S. How long til we can buy them after an announcement?

ps3ud0 :cool:
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Personally, I'm not convinced the macbook pro refresh will happen tomorrow. There's no lack of stock reported and no new SKUs gone out to retailers being reported. I'm really not convinced it's tomorrow.

All the talk (even from apple) is of a new product and given how new and different it looks like being that's enough for one day without hardware updates.

It's entirely possible the hardware will just get bumped without an event, it's just a new processor after all, not a design refresh that's expected.

Not best pleased as I could really use a new Macbook pro now and a quad core processor would be very handy in what is my main machine but I just don't think it's happening tomorrow.
 
Fillado said:
A 32GB iPhone 3GS is £549 PAYG. A MacBook is £816.

I'm struggling to see where a tablet would fit into that gap. To me it seems even weirder what with most people getting their iPhones on contract.

This tablet is going to have to be some crazy combination of awesomeness & price for people to want it over a MacBook or pocketable iPhone/iPod Touch.
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You're assuming it's a gap filler (in general, the fan boys will buy one of everything but the general public won't). Personally if apple produce a 10" 3G connected tablet then I'll likely buy it and possibly ditch my iphone (which is a great media/internet device but a fairly terrible phone).

I love stuff like the guardian app for reading the news in the morning but the iphone screen is really too small for it, plenty of affluent commuters would snap up a 10" tablet for that alone (plenty already have the sony ebook readers and they're expensive single function devices).
 
If the tablet is available on contract (recent rumours seem to suggest this), then I wonder how much they'll charge just for 3G data access. Unlimited data for £10/month? I don't think i'd pay more than that just for data, especially if I have to have a separate voice/data contract as well for my other phone.
 
Raider said:
If the tablet is available on contract (recent rumours seem to suggest this), then I wonder how much they'll charge just for 3G data access. Unlimited data for £10/month? I don't think i'd pay more than that just for data, especially if I have to have a separate voice/data contract as well for my other phone.
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I'd bet on having video conferencing as well, I expect at least £15/20 myself as it'll need to subsidize the device...
 
Whatever happens, there will always be disappointment.

I can't see it having a contract. If it does, I predict $499 with LCD & $699 option with OLED screen and a $899 "top of the line" model that's unsubsidised
 
EVH said:
Whatever happens, there will always be disappointment.

I can't see it having a contract. If it does, I predict $499 with LCD & $699 option with OLED screen and a $899 "top of the line" model that's unsubsidised
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Oh of course, get ready for the 10 page thread of people moaning that it's not a mac pro with a touch screen that weighs 100g and costs £100.

I think it will have to be available on contract myself, it needs 3G to be truly useful and that demands 'unlimited' data as otherwise people worry about usage and end up not using it.

That and the fact it'll be too expensive without contract, people like using phone contracts to spread the cost whether it's sensible or not.
 
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