The leopard delay isn't such a bad move...

Industry analysts have cried wolf over Apple's recent announcement delaying the Leopard OS' release by a few months. Apple has explained that the iPhone requires more resources (engineering and QA) than previously expected and so they are shifting some manpower from the Leopard team to the iPhone team.

First of all, this is a 4 months delay - hardly anything compared to the years that Vista was delayed. This is not such a big deal. Not even to the hardcore mac guys. Why? Apple will only be delaying the Leopard so that they can thoroughly test it before releasing it. The actual OS will be complete by the WWDC in June as originally planned, but they will not have enough time to QA it before WWDC. And so, Apple is going to release a Beta version of the Leopard to the developers at WWDC for free. This will definitely keep them happy - for a while.

Many claim that this move signifies 'Apple abandoning the mac for some toys'. While this does initially look like the Mac were abandoning its staple Mac OS for the unpredictable and risky iPhone venture. But lets take a step back and look at the options that Apple had at this stage. Just a few months ago, the iPhone announcement received massive media coverage - almost every single publication (tech and non-tech) had something to say about the iPhone - and in most cases, the feedback was positive. The Leopard, which was announced a couple of Macworlds before the iPhone got almost no coverage when compared to the iPhone. While the Leopard 'represents' the Mac, its delay isn't such a big deal actually - especially when you compare it to what might have happened if Apple announced that they were delaying the iPhone.

Some argue that Apple has no right to give the excuse of insufficient manpower. They say that Apple should have no problem spending a little more money on hiring more engineers. Well, a look at the career section of the Apple website does show that they are hiring feverishly. However, hiring cannot help them solve a short-term problem like this. They had to shift resources.

It is also wrong to assume that the iPhone is completely independent of the 'Mac'. iPhone runs the Mac OS and its potential to turn PC users to the Mac is incredible. According to John Welch , the iLife, the iPhone and Final Cut Pro are all doing one thing - bringing back attention to the Mac. The iPhone is perhaps going to have a stronger influence on getting in new Mac users than the Leopard itself.

Therefore, concerns about Apple fumbling around are definitely misplaced. Steve and his guys know what they are doing and they seem to be on the right track. If all goes well, lots of people are going to be really happy when the iPhone comes out. And they will be pleasantly surprised to see Leopard when it does get released.

Prashant.

Check out my portfolio and analyses at Socialpicks.com

Apple at it again!

Haha! This is a good one I found on Digital Inspiration...

I guess you must be familiar with the M$ Vista 'Wow' campaign. At least M$ hopes you are coz they apparently spent over $500 million on it! (if you can't get the word around with that kind of money... you can't get the word around, period.)

Well, just as the Marketing dudes at M$ are getting prepared to explain where they threw all that money, the folks down at Infinite Loop (aka Apple) couldn't resist having some fun!

Check this out...

Prashant :)

Photo courtesy: Digital Inspiration

The Apple Visit - Unabridged

Hui Shan asked me to write about the Apple Visit for the next issue of RainMakers (the NUSEA publication). Since I had already written about it on my blog (refer below), I asked her to check it out. She said it was too informal and a bit too negative to be put on the magazine. So I wrote another similar but more serious version of it. Here it is:

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A byte of Apple!

On Jun 26^th, a group of young and obviously excited students crowded around a pair of couches at the lobby of Building 28 (?) at 1, Infinity Loop, better known as the Headquarters of Apple Computers, Inc. Home of the famous Apple Macintosh computer, Infinity Loop has been a bustling storehouse of creativity for over 20 years, spewing out the likes of the PowerMac, the iMac and of-course, the iPod!

And as I stood there amongst my friends, waiting for the much-anticipated Apple tour to start, my mind wandered away from the excitement and noise, to observe for a moment what Apple as a company meant to me…

I've always had great respect and admiration for Apple. I’ve loved the way they always added that special extra touch to their products - the breathtaking designs, the amazing user interface, the beautiful simplicity and the ease of use. All these were attributes common to everything that came out of Apple Computers. But most of all, I liked the fact that Apple was different… They were different from the mainstream and they intended to stay that way. In fact, they begged to differ. And to me, that's really cool. I've always loved people and things that do not follow the rest like a herd but prefer to stand out and do things differently. And Apple was a fantastic example of just that. To me, Apple was the perfect company.

And then, as I slowly settled back into reality, Scott came to the lobby, introduced himself and led us inside for the tour. Scott was a Recruitment Manager at Apple. We quickly followed him into a conference room, helped ourselves to some coffee and cookies and settled down.

Scott began what I might call a slightly lengthy presentation describing Apple Computers, its birth, its growth, current strengths and other vital stats. He made a few interesting points that caught my attention. He mentioned the strength of the Apple brand and how it had evolved and grown over the years. He noted that, even among people who did not buy Apple products, there was a strong affinity towards the brand. For example, you may hear someone say – “Apple’s a really cool company, but I’m perhaps not going to buy an Apple computer’. Another interesting point was about the difficulties that a company like Apple faces in the consumer or end-user market. He said that owing to the diversity of the mainstream consumer market, it often difficult to accurately gauge consumer needs and demands.

Scott also showed us these two I-pod commercials which were pretty interesting. One was the first I-pod commercial and the other was a more recent version of the advertisement. And we could see a marked difference in the image that Apple has tried to portray for the I-pod. While the first ad was aimed at a slightly older demographic, the newer one was aimed at the younger, ‘hip’ teenage crowd.

When he finally wrapped up the presentation, most of us were eagerly waiting for the actual ‘tour’ to start. We were hoping to be shown around the Apple headquarters. Unfortunately, Scott announced that this was the end of the tour! Apparently, Apple has some strict rules governing visitors. They are very secretive about upcoming products and other stuff that goes on inside their offices and therefore, do not allow visitors or even business partners into the heart of their operations. This made me recall a recent article about how Apple sought to sue a blog-writer for revealing some inside information about upcoming Apple products. Scott mentioned that Steve Jobs loves to reveal these secrets only at those MacWorld presentations that he makes every once in a while.

And as we stood up to leave, a number of thoughts waded through my head. Firstly, I was a bit disappointed about the fact that we weren’t shown around the place. The Google tour we had a couple of months back, was in contrast, a bit more interesting, as we all got to see the actual offices and workspaces of Google employees. In fact Google actually flaunted all their pro-employee practices and their amazing work culture. Apple on the other hand, didn’t seem to take much pride in the same. I guess even Apple, with all its cool designer products and amazing innovation, did not match up to Google as far as working environment is concerned. But then again, considering the fact that Apple is actually over 20 years old, what more can you expect.

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psycho.

Tags: apple, google

Apple visit

Some of us went for a tour of Apple on Monday.. Thanks to Vin for arranging for it.. Before I go on to tell u about the tour, let me tell you what Apple as a company means to me..

I've always had great respect and admiration for apple.. I loved the way they always added that special extra touch to their products.. the breathtaking designs, the amazing user interface and the beautiful simplicity - these were attributes common to everything that came out of 1, infinity loop. But most of all, I liked the fact that they were different. They were different from the mainstream and they intended to stay that way. In fact they begged to differ. And to me, that's really cool. I've always loved people and things that don't follow the rest like a herd but prefer to stand out and do things differently. And Apple was a fantastic example of just that. To me, Apple was the perfect company.

And then I visited Apple.

Just before actually starting the tour, I managed to get a quick peak at the stuff in the Apple store at the headquarters.. and what I saw of course reinforced my beliefs about apple... and then our tour guide for the day, Scott came, introduced himself and led us all to a conference room.. the presentation began after we all helped ourselves to some coffee and cookies..

the presentation was quite what you might expect at a tour like this.. a lot of 'we're apple, we're awesome, our sales are great, bla bla bla' stuff.. Scott complained a few times about how he hadn't slept at all the previous night (coz he jus flew back from a vacation).. and that he was really sleepy and tired.. you could make that out from his tone itself.. and then i guess he took out some of his frustration on fang and gwen.. haha yea that was funny! fang mentioned that he read something in the wall street journal about the apple and creative lawsuit.. and scott goes 'you read the wall st journal?!!'.. haha.. and from then on he kept calling fang 'mr. wall st journal'! and gwen mentioned something about her major (in european studies).. and he made fun of that too..

scott did make a few interesting points about apple's brand equity and stuff.. and he also mentioned the fact that the largest number of apple hires are from stanford.. but that's not what i came here for.. i wanted to see apple from the inside! how they design/make those ipods and imacs.. as i was busy dreaming about all that, scott coolly announces that the tour's over! i'm like wh-aa-at?!

apparently, he can't take us inside the main building and show us around coz its apple policy.. no1 is allowed to go inside.. not even business partners.. i guess this has something to do with the fact that apple tries to keep all its products a big secret until the day they are actually released.. so that they have a bigger impact upon their release.. and i think it works too..

but then i was too disappointed at that moment to understand the reasoning n all.. and then i remembered suddenly the fact that scott was here at 7am this morning even though he hadn't slept the previous night.. and the fact that steve enforces these really weird rules not allowing anyone to go inside the buildings.. i compared this to the google tour where they took pride in showing us the working environment and all the fun that the employees there get to have.. I put 2 and 2 together and somehow, all of a sudden, apple didn't seem to be such a cool company after all.. it quickly transformed from an uber cool fast company to an old, slow, crawling giant (which is pretty much what it is).. come to think of it.. apple's one of the oldest companies in the valley.. it had thousands of employees.. obviously, the work culture at apple is nowhere near as cool as google's!

yet, somehow, i had assumed otherwise, without even coming down to the apple headquarters.. perhaps, i had looked at all the cool products and assumed that everything else at apple would be cool too - including the work culture, the work hours, and steve jobs. Sadly, i guess that wasn't the case.

psycho.

(i know this one's not well written... sorry, i am really sleepy right now.. will come back and edit it later :P)