Or is there now a backlash when Steve doesn’t introduce something akin to the iPhone at Macworld?
It seems to me to be another proof of one of the tenets of my eBook: “surprise and delight” your customers. The flip side to that seems to be that when Apple doesn’t surprise people at each years Macworld keynote the stock takes a hit and the naysayers come out in force.
I believe the leaks of information regarding the Macbook Air name, the iPhone 1.1.3 update, even the iTunes movie rentals pushed some stockholders to dump their shares because they were not surprised. Even more, and pretty rare for Apple these days, is that many people were clearly not delighted with missing features in the Macbook Air. It’s almost as if people are spending more time surprised by what’s missing than delighted they have another amazing notebook choice from Apple. No fundamentals have changed at Apple, there is now a sexy new computer on the shelves along with additional movie rental revenues coming in yet the stock has given up more than 10% its value.
One question on branding. Why didn’t they call it the Macbook Nano? Any ideas?
Nano would imply small or smaller in size, which is what Apple doesn’t want.
“We don’t compromise on sizes of display and keyboard, MB Air has full-sized …”
Air, on the other hand, implies light in weight and not necessarily reduction in size.
Yes, it’s sweet Apple – but 1 bad design flaw ( Or perhaps to insure future service required by design) like the iPhone – you seal the battery inside. An extreme FCP editor like me is going to want to have an extra battery or two – if I am editing on the fly in the field I don’t have time to recharge. But forget me… I am not buying it just for that reason.. FYI – but what of the regular user do they throw it away in two years when the battery is in need of replacement?
“An extreme FCP editor like me”
Kevin this MacBook isn’t meant for that kind of work, this one fits a different niche. If they made the battery user replaceable then the Air would almost certainly have to be thicker so that it could accommodate the connectors and stuff. It is not like they discontinued the other MacBook that has user replaceable batteries.
Andy Ihnatko interviewed someone at Apple who said that when it comes time to replace the Air’s battery, that the labor would be done for free at an Apple Store. See the interview here http://www.macobserver.com/columns/ihnatko/2008/01/16.1.shtml
The early PowerBooks had poor battery performance and some third parties came out with batteries that sat underneath the notebook and plugged into the power adapter port. I dare say a similar solution could be devised for the Air, but that would require Apple sharing the Magsafe adapter designs with 3rd parties – something to date they have not done.
[FWIW, I have a feeling that Air is a new branding subtext that will soon come to mean “wireless first” – that skipping Ethernet was intentional, much like dropping floppies in the original iMac. I expect we’ll soon see iPod Air in the near future…imagine the wireless media sharing and syncing possibilities…]
In the wake of last year’s iPhone announcement, I think what you are seeing is the “Thriller” effect. Michael Jackson released what was (and still is?) the top selling album of all time where virtually every single song on the album charted. How the heck do you follow that up? You don’t and you can’t. People’s expectations are unreasonably high, but that is just human nature. (Hey, wasn’t that one of the songs from “Thriller”?)
Imagine there was no iPhone and this year’s 4 announcements came free from that baggage. How would you judge them then?
The glow of the iPhone is going to last a long time, as well it should. Wall Street, fanboys and haters alike are just going to have to adjust their expectations. Ain’t gonna happen, obviously, but it should.
Maybe Apple didn’t want to double-dip with the “nano” monicker. I don’t think they have any other products that repeat names, or portions of names. Mac Mini, iMac, MacPro, Macbook, Macbook Pro, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, etc. They’re all different.
Short term stock price has very little (if anything to do) with whether or not Apple delighted and surprised its’ customers.
Steve Jobs said that he believes in delivering great products and keeping customers happy and that the stock price will take of its self (longer term). He is 100% correct.
Any company (selling to consumers) that creates products with stock analysts in mind is most likely doomed to failure.
They won’t call it MacBook Nano because the target group people are professionals. This is not a computer being marketed to teenagers.
Hey Steve. You are doing good work there. As a product brand, the Nano stands on its own. You don’t need “Apple” or “iPod” in front of it. My opinion. Be well.
Hey Steve. You are doing good work there. As a product brand, the Nano stands on its own. You don’t need “Apple” or “iPod” in front of it. My opinion. Be well.