Apple's style of innovation
Since 2001, Apple's iPod designs has been closely copied, but no manufacturer has been able to slow the company's growth. The iPod originally emerged as Sony was selling its disc-based products and Microsoft was pushing its PlaysForSure reference designs for media players and digital download stores.
Apple surprised the market by maintaining a relentless pace of innovation that captured the initial market for hard-drive based MP3 players, then successfully began to take over flash RAM players with the 2005 iPod nano and low cost iPod shuffle. Former heavyweights from Sony and Microsoft to Creative, SanDisk, Toshiba, Samsung, Panasonic, iRiver and Archos were all left fighting over the remaining scraps.
Over the last five years however, Apple has executed an apparently flawless strategy for building its media player into a mobile computing empire. In 2007, the company released the iPhone, creating a hybrid of its desktop computing platform with the iPod's mobile portability and releasing it as a mobile phone in a very crowded and completive market.
That fall, Apple released the iPod touch as essentially the iPhone without a phone, but differentiated by an inability to use all of the same built in apps that the iPhone provided. Within months, the company release its first Software Development Kit for native iPhone apps, which also worked on the iPod touch. Apple also relaxed its product boundaries to allow the iPod touch to do nearly everything the iPhone could.
After the initial launch of the iPhone App Store in 2008, Apple singlehandedly created the first sustainable, popular market for mobile devices to be adopted by the mass market, leveraging the familiarity of iTunes.
Over the last two years, Apple has dramatically improved the iPod touch, applying both lessons learned from the iPhone as a software platform and manufacturing prowess resulting from the vast economies of scale provided by the iPod family. The company's mobile innovations have spilled over into Apple's notebook line of computers, while also benefitting from the mature development frameworks that originated on the Mac desktop.
Differentiating the iPad
The iPod touch is not just the company's flagship iPod, but is also a strong pillar supporting the iOS platform. Prior to having contracts in place with mobile providers in a variety of countries, Apple sold the iPod touch through carriers who bundled it with simpler phones. Apple continues to sell the iPod touch in large volumes, creating a volume of iOS devices that supports sales of iOS apps, in particular games.
The iPod touch also helped launch this year's iPad, enabling Apple to position the iPad as not merely a big iPhone, but as a different device category with its own apps optimized for a much larger display. While competing tablets are essentially a big iPod touch running Android (Samsung's Galaxy Tab, Dell's Streak), Apple's iPad offers a true tablet form factor, leaving the iPod touch to serve as the company's well differentiated mobile mini-tablet.
Other attempts to create an iPod touch competitor, ranging from Microsoft's Zune HD to Nokia's Nx00 Internet Tablet devices, haven't taken off in large part because they don't fit into an existing mobile strategy; the Zune was incompatible with both Windows Mobile 6 phones and the new crop of Windows Phone 7 models, while Nokia's mini-tablets run a desktop Linux rather than Symbian or anything recognizable to the company's huge audience of simple feature-phone users.
The only company with announced plans to copy the iPod touch is Samsung, which has announced plans to float a new Galaxy Player as the phone-free version of its popular Galaxy S smartphone running Android. However, Samsung's commitment to Android is being hedged by announcements of new devices running both Windows Phone 7 and Samsung's own Bada platform, which was launched this summer to sales numbers and an app library similar to Microsoft's WP7.
Since 2001, Apple's iPod designs has been closely copied, but no manufacturer has been able to slow the company's growth. The iPod originally emerged as Sony was selling its disc-based products and Microsoft was pushing its PlaysForSure reference designs for media players and digital download stores.
Apple surprised the market by maintaining a relentless pace of innovation that captured the initial market for hard-drive based MP3 players, then successfully began to take over flash RAM players with the 2005 iPod nano and low cost iPod shuffle. Former heavyweights from Sony and Microsoft to Creative, SanDisk, Toshiba, Samsung, Panasonic, iRiver and Archos were all left fighting over the remaining scraps.
Over the last five years however, Apple has executed an apparently flawless strategy for building its media player into a mobile computing empire. In 2007, the company released the iPhone, creating a hybrid of its desktop computing platform with the iPod's mobile portability and releasing it as a mobile phone in a very crowded and completive market.
That fall, Apple released the iPod touch as essentially the iPhone without a phone, but differentiated by an inability to use all of the same built in apps that the iPhone provided. Within months, the company release its first Software Development Kit for native iPhone apps, which also worked on the iPod touch. Apple also relaxed its product boundaries to allow the iPod touch to do nearly everything the iPhone could.
After the initial launch of the iPhone App Store in 2008, Apple singlehandedly created the first sustainable, popular market for mobile devices to be adopted by the mass market, leveraging the familiarity of iTunes.
Over the last two years, Apple has dramatically improved the iPod touch, applying both lessons learned from the iPhone as a software platform and manufacturing prowess resulting from the vast economies of scale provided by the iPod family. The company's mobile innovations have spilled over into Apple's notebook line of computers, while also benefitting from the mature development frameworks that originated on the Mac desktop.
Differentiating the iPad
The iPod touch is not just the company's flagship iPod, but is also a strong pillar supporting the iOS platform. Prior to having contracts in place with mobile providers in a variety of countries, Apple sold the iPod touch through carriers who bundled it with simpler phones. Apple continues to sell the iPod touch in large volumes, creating a volume of iOS devices that supports sales of iOS apps, in particular games.
The iPod touch also helped launch this year's iPad, enabling Apple to position the iPad as not merely a big iPhone, but as a different device category with its own apps optimized for a much larger display. While competing tablets are essentially a big iPod touch running Android (Samsung's Galaxy Tab, Dell's Streak), Apple's iPad offers a true tablet form factor, leaving the iPod touch to serve as the company's well differentiated mobile mini-tablet.
Other attempts to create an iPod touch competitor, ranging from Microsoft's Zune HD to Nokia's Nx00 Internet Tablet devices, haven't taken off in large part because they don't fit into an existing mobile strategy; the Zune was incompatible with both Windows Mobile 6 phones and the new crop of Windows Phone 7 models, while Nokia's mini-tablets run a desktop Linux rather than Symbian or anything recognizable to the company's huge audience of simple feature-phone users.
The only company with announced plans to copy the iPod touch is Samsung, which has announced plans to float a new Galaxy Player as the phone-free version of its popular Galaxy S smartphone running Android. However, Samsung's commitment to Android is being hedged by announcements of new devices running both Windows Phone 7 and Samsung's own Bada platform, which was launched this summer to sales numbers and an app library similar to Microsoft's WP7.
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق