Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Hardware
Apple sets "gold standard for corporate America"
There's a glowing article about Apple at Fortune today. Here was the stand-out line for me:"Apple's philosophy goes like this: Too many companies spread themselves thin, making a profusion of products to defuse risk, so they get mired in the mediocre. Apple's approach is to put every resource it has behind just a few products and make them exceedingly well."
Consider Apple's product line. There are three laptops, the MacBook, the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. Even a potential customer who's never used a computer before can understand the distinctions just by hearing their names.
"MacBook" is obviously the basic laptop. The "MacBook Pro" is obviously a "better," or professional, model and the Air is somehow different than the two. Easy.
Not to pick on Sony, but look at their lineup of Vaio laptops:
- Vaio UX Series
- Vaio TZ Series
- Vaio SZ Series
- Vaio CR Series
- Vaio FZ Series
- Vaio NR Series
- Vaio AR Series
The same goes for desktops. Apple builds three; the iMac (a name nearly everybody knows), the Mac mini (obviously smaller and, one would assume, lower priced) and the Mac Pro, which follows the pro-level naming convention of the laptop line.
The iPod line is slightly more convoluted (if "convoluted" is even the right word) with four models
- iPod shuffle
- iPod nano
- iPod classic
- iPod touch
The Fortune article is full of good stuff, so go and read it.
[Via MacDailyNews]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ac130uspooky said 3:57PM on 3-03-2008
I thought the article overall was interesting, but your comment about the Touch replacing the Classic seems ridiculous to me. I have had a Touch for several months, and I think it is great for watching videos while I run on a machine or play video clips to my class (I'm a teacher). I love using for simple web browsing or checking emails as well. I hate listening to music or audio books on it. With the Classic (or Nano) I can skip songs, adjust the volume, even go back a few seconds in an audio book when I didn't catch something without taking it out of my pocket.
To do the same thing with the touch I have to take it out of my pocket, enter my passcode, then it is impossible to move back just a little bit as the touch screen just can't do small adjustments - at least not using fingers.
The point is that saying the Touch will replace the Classic is like saying Mangoes will replace Bananas once they get the production up.
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Christian A. Strømmen said 4:17PM on 3-03-2008
But the Nano will take over for the classic at that point. I wouldn't be too surprised seeing a 32GB Nano at the end of the year, and a 64GB at the end of next year, and then the point of the Classic would almost be gone. (assuming the Touch gets as much space as the Classic has now)
ac130uspooky said 6:19PM on 3-03-2008
Christian - I was getting to that point but somehow never made it (I was distracted by something shiny on my desk). I replaced my 'classic' (before it was called that) with a Nano starting with the 2nd generation Nano and haven't looked back since. I've never needed to actually carry all that much music with me so even an 8 Gig Nano more than meets my needs.
farfisa said 3:55PM on 3-03-2008
that must be why their stock is going through the roof!
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ceejayoz said 4:15PM on 3-03-2008
Apple must be making crappy decisions. It's not as if we're entering a recession or anything...
Whiplash said 3:59PM on 3-03-2008
I don't know why tech companies can't understand the importance of product naming. Try buying a Canon camera. The consumer Line has 24 models! All named with mysterious alpha-numeric combinations. Crazy.
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required said 4:44PM on 3-03-2008
Apple had really bad product names in the past, and they still have problems. iThis and iThat and Air here and Touch there.
Stephen Liu said 4:57PM on 3-03-2008
Canon may have alphanumeric combinations, but it still makes some logical sense.
- S series (and SX series) cameras are ultra-zooms
- SD series cameras are ultra-compacts
- A series cameras use AA batteries and are all-purpose
- G series cameras are the highest end models
Anything with the "IS" suffix has image stabilization. Higher numbers mean either better models or newer models (this would be the confusing part in the case of the SD series).
They may have too many models, but they have a relatively clean naming convention.
Stephen Liu said 4:57PM on 3-03-2008
Canon may have alphanumeric combinations, but it still makes some logical sense.
- S series (and SX series) cameras are ultra-zooms
- SD series cameras are ultra-compacts
- A series cameras use AA batteries and are all-purpose
- G series cameras are the highest end models
Anything with the "IS" suffix has image stabilization. Higher numbers mean either better models or newer models (this would be the confusing part in the case of the SD series).
They may have too many models, but they have a relatively clean naming convention.
Whiplash said 5:14PM on 3-03-2008
Yeah it's logical .... once it's fully explained! But it's still not consumer friendly.
potato said 5:15PM on 3-03-2008
There's a reason why. Sometime, long ago in forgotten lore, somebody came up with the notion:
"Hey, instead of marketing our brand, our awesome product names market themselves!"
which was deemed a Bad Thing(tm). Hence, consequently all products were named with confusing alphanumeric sequences, so that consumers will remember products by their BRAND names instead of their PRODUCT names (see: why GM has fewer and fewer "name" cars).
I hate this trend. Seriously, driving an "Impala" sounds infinitely cooler than a "350ZXI" or whatever.
Paul D said 3:13AM on 3-04-2008
There's some anglo-centricity to the complaint that foreign electronics giants don't pick product names Americans think are cool. There's also a cultural difference, wherein American companies think emphasizing the model as a special product will help it sell, and the Japanese (for example) think emphasizing the manufacturer rather than the model is important.
The model designations chosen by Sony, Canon, and other Japanese companies are pretty dull, more like an inventory code than a name. However, if every Sony laptop had a different cool English name, Japanese would get confused, and if they had cool Japanese names, Americans would get confused. The way it is now, a customer (Japanese or otherwise) goes to the store to buy a new Sony laptop or a Nikon camera, and then the store employee (ideally) assists him in choosing the best model for his needs.
Automobiles often deviate from this practice, but the names that Japanese pick for their cars usually end up being pretty lame, unfortunately.
Ben said 4:02PM on 3-03-2008
I agree with your post, but I think Apple takes it too far.
There are so many why Apple, whys, but there are a few.
Why no Mac? Like everyone is either all-in-one, or a Pro.
Why no 13-inch MBP? Maybe there wouldn't be so much MBA hate.
Why no 15-inch MB? Normal users don't want bigger screens?
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jus10 said 4:20PM on 3-03-2008
And the answers are.
1) To get people to buy a Mac Pro.
2) To get people to buy a MB Air
3) To get people to buy a MB Pro.
Its all about the upsell.
darren said 5:21PM on 3-03-2008
with regard to the analysis of the naming idea behind the macbook / macbook pro / macbook air - there was an almost identical analysis in episode 16 of "the talk show" from a few days back:
http://www.thetalkshow.net/
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ac said 5:21PM on 3-03-2008
"FZ Series," no question, pretty useless if you're not a computer yourself or it's meant to imply some sort of FuZz.
But Apple has a category of confusing product names.
I mean, is it just me or are others confused by the jungle cats of the OS?
Who's in charge of marketing these babies? Marlon Perkins?
What's next Lynx? Ocelot? Jaguarundi?
My money's on a Serval upgrade.
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Mark Horowitz said 3:55AM on 3-04-2008
The next version of the mac OS will be called.........Saber!
Justin said 5:29PM on 3-03-2008
I actually think Macbook Air is a terrible name for it. Macbook - it's a mac notebook. Macbook Pro - it's a professional mac notebook. Macbook Air - wtf is that? What does air have to do with it? It still needs a power cord. You can use someone else's CD-drive through the air, but that is just one feature. What is "air" about it?
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brian said 9:28PM on 3-03-2008
Apple should NEVER stop making the Classic. At least not any time soon. Spinning drives cost MAGNITUDES less than Flash and it'll take several years for that to change. (Look at how long it took LCDs to displace CRTs.) Today, the biggest Classic (160 GB, $349) costs 30% less than the biggest Touch (32 GB, $499) and has FIVE TIMES the capacity. That's more than SEVEN TIMES the cost per gigabyte. ($15.60 vs. $2.20) For those who want high capacity and low cost, it will be unbeatable for quite a while. (No sense mentioning that if you want more than 32 GB, it's the ONLY option.) Plus, the Classic's interface, with physical buttons, is MUCH easier to use in a car than the Touch's.
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