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Post by Forum Cat on Oct 20, 2012 21:40:44 GMT
eddy said
"Sadly, I have to agree about the inevitable (?) decline of Apple. I have recently been researching the new iPad alternatives such as the Amazon Fire, and recently had a look at the new Kobo offerings in WH Smith - not bad at all, and look at the price.
How about the new Google Chromebook laptop for £229? SSD hard drive, but who needs a huge memory in these days of a spreading cloud? The screen is only 11", but this is the same as my MacBook Air and perfectly adequate for most purposes.
I wonder what others think?
Hopefully this will start a good debate. I would like to see this forum coming back to life, together with the podcast too of course!"
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Post by Dr Miles on Oct 21, 2012 6:09:05 GMT
Been using a 7" Android tablet for a few months now bought as video player for when i'm sat in the car waiting for jobs (iPhone video causes squinting after a few hours). Thrown a few games on the thing which runs most surprisingly well for a £55 Amazon cheapie seriously lacking in the 3D game end of it (Won't run Shadowgun or any Epic/Unreal engine games). But very happy with it for what i use it for. As nice as an iPad is I still can't bring myself to spend that amount (I'm poor & 9.7" is too big to easily hide in the car). The nicest part was upgrading the storage from 8GB to 40GB by spending £15 on a MicroSD card rather than £80-£100 for an apple storage bump
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Post by Forum Cat on Oct 21, 2012 19:13:05 GMT
eddy said "Sadly, I have to agree about the inevitable (?) decline of Apple. eddy you have said that decline is inevitable and of course it is. All civilisations have ebbed and flowed. The only question is how fast they ebb and flow. I see no decline of Apple in the next year or two. The company seems to be continuing to innovate and is continuing to bring new products to market. The iPod declined, the iPhone ascended. Overall Apple grew. I am interested as to why you think Apple is set to decline and in what time frame?
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Post by Will Green on Oct 22, 2012 7:22:47 GMT
I don't half miss the Steve Jobs as I'm sure we all do, he sprinkled the magic that made Apple Apple. The worse fate that could be bestowed on Apple is mediocrity, such as Samsung.
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eddy
Senior Member
Posts: 201
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Post by eddy on Oct 22, 2012 7:48:10 GMT
I think Will put his finger on it. Since the demise of Steve Jobs the excitement seems to have gone - will keynote addresses ever be the same again? Meanwhile the competition seems to be very active, I have already mentioned Amazon's Fire HD, Kobo readers and now we have the very interesting (in my humble opinion) new offering in the Google Chromebook made by Samsung. There has been talk of a TV receiver by Apple but meanwhile there are some excellent smart TV's already available and becoming established in the market. Apple prices have always been high but there are so many good alternatives that I think an alignment is overdue. To answer Mr Cat's question, I think in 5 years time the position of Apple will be very different. These things go in cycles and Apple has been at a very high point for quite a while. Meanwhile, I hope there will soon be a dramatic announcement of a really innovative product from Apple that will change the whole situation.
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Post by Forum Cat on Oct 22, 2012 15:47:41 GMT
I think Will put his finger on it. Since the demise of Steve Jobs the excitement seems to have gone - will keynote addresses ever be the same again? The excitement has not really gone. People still get very excited about upcoming keynote events. What has changed is that due to the absolute scale of industrial production secrecy is no longer effective. Thus we often know ahead of time what is coming. Only for completely new devices can Apple hope to have any level of secrecy prior to an Apple event, and often not even then. Meanwhile the competition seems to be very active, I have already mentioned Amazon's Fire HD, Kobo readers and now we have the very interesting (in my humble opinion) new offering in the Google Chromebook made by Samsung. Interesting products to be sure, but are they selling? If so how will the introduction of a smaller cheaper iPad affect their sales There has been talk of a TV receiver by Apple but meanwhile there are some excellent smart TV's already available and becoming established in the market. Established? What proportion of the population has these devices? Apple prices have always been high but there are so many good alternatives that I think an alignment is overdue. High prices from Apple? Not sure I agree. Matching the iPads low price has been a major challenge for competitors. Likewise the ultrabooks really struggle to match the MacBook Air prices. You do well to beat Apple on price for most of their devices. To answer Mr Cat's question, I think in 5 years time the position of Apple will be very different. These things go in cycles and Apple has been at a very high point for quite a while. Meanwhile, I hope there will soon be a dramatic announcement of a really innovative product from Apple that will change the whole situation. Apple have not peaked yet. They only have about 10% of the computer market in the west and far less than that in the east. iPhones/iPads are selling more each year with no sign of levelling off. I think (depending on what Apple has up it's sleeve) we can expect a good 5 years of growth before the plateau. It would not surprise me if that figure is closer to 10 years.
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