Wednesday, February 6, 2008

32 Gig iPhone

When one buys a computer, cell phone, car, etc. they do so with the knowledge that it will one day be outdated. If one buys an 800 processor one accepts the fact that eventually there will be a 900. This is simply how technological development functions and most people accept this.

Apple, it seems, has decided to utilize this mentality to fuck over its customers.

Apple recently announced that it is offering new versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch with double the memory of previous versions. This news pissed people off. And rightly so.

Remember three paragraphs ago when I said that technology is forever progressing and one buys a device with the knowledge that it will one day be outdated? One of the assumptions therein is that discovery is what brings forth new technological advances and developments; one buys the 800 because the 900 does not yet exist.

There was no discovery involved in the new iPhone or Ipod Touch; Apple simply added more memory. In all ways they could have initially released the Ipod Touch with 32 gigs of storage. They could have initially released the iPhone with 16 gigs of storage.

But they didn't.

And that's what makes Steve Jobs a douche. Apple is not progressing along a technological curve releasing the best products at any given time for their customers. Apple is trying to milk its customers.

Ask yourself this: Why didn't Apple release a 32 gig iPhone?

The answer is not that Apple is unable to do so, that it is technologically impossible at this point in time. Rather, they choose not to because if they release a 32 gig iPhone now they'll have nothing to release in 4 months after people buy the 16 gig iPhone.

Ask yourself this: Why didn't Apple release a 3G iPhone?

The answer is not that Apple is unable to do so, that is is technologically impossible at this point in time. Rather, they choose not to because if they release a 3G iPhone they'll miss out on all the profits they can make from people buying the current version of the iPhone. When people stop buying the current version after a few memory upgrades? They'll release a 3G version.

Apple is not concerned about its customers. Apple is concerned about its profits and market share. Apple is trying to milk you for all it possibly can. Apple is limiting your options and abilities from a desire for increased profits rather than any physical or technological limitation.

Which, just to remind you, is the sort of shit that Microsoft pulled which made you go to Apple/Linux in the first place.

26 comments:

Mike Lewis said...

there are three likely reasons they didnt release a 32gig iphone.

1) toshiba cant make enough flash memory to support the role out of two 32gig divises

2) this is a way to see where the "sweet spot" for the mem of this divice is. If people totally stop buying 8gig phones b/c they are buying 16 gig, than people want the biggiest drive they can get. If people buy the 8 and 16 gig in relive numbers, than they are getting closer to finding that sweet stop

3) we are going to see the 3G (4G) iphone launch this summer ONLY with 32 gigs of memory

_J_ said...

I don't think "limited supply" is adequate justification for not releasing a product. See: Wii.

The sweet spot is more about price than storage. If the 16 gig and 32 gig both cost $200 I don't think many people would go with the 16.

I think it would be keen if Apple offered a trade in program. I send them my 16 gig Touch and $100 and they send me a 32 gig Touch. I would pay $100 for 16 more gigs of storage.

But I'm still not paying $20 for notepad.

Caleb said...

this is a way to see where the "sweet spot" for the mem of this divice is.

Isn't that what the calculus is for? Don't they have test markets?

Didn't Nintendo do some shitty thing like this with the 64 needing a memory upgrade in order to play particular games? The console had a little memory upgrade door because they'd planned to force customers to buy it.

_J_ said...

There is no sweet spot for memory. A consumer won't say "Oh, a terabyte iPod is just too much."

The "sweet spot" is the cost to memory relation; the question of how much people are willing to pay for a device.

If people buy a $300 8 Gig rather than a $400 16 Gig that does not mean that they do not want 16 Gigs. It means that they do not want to pay $400 for 16 Gigs.

_J_ said...

And, yes, the N64 had a memory upgrade:

"Expansion Pak – a memory expansion that plugged into the console's memory expansion port. It contained 4 MB of RAM. Some of the games to support this accessory are Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage, Gauntlet Legends, Hybrid Heaven, Pokémon Stadium 2, Resident Evil 2, Road Rash 64, Shadow Man, Star Wars: Episode I Racer, and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, San Francisco Rush 2049, and South Park. Only a handful of games such as Rare's Donkey Kong 64, the single-player mode of Rare's Perfect Dark, the multi-player mode of Blizzard's Starcraft 64 and Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask actually required it for play. Supporting games usually offered higher video resolutions or higher textures and/or higher color depth. For example, the Nintendo 64 all-remade version of Quake 2 features higher color depth but not a higher resolution when using the Expansion Pak. The Expansion Pak was shipped with some games and also available separately."

Mike Lewis said...

i am right there with you guys on this one....

if they would of released a 32 gig iphone yesterday, i would get one.

8 gigs is WAY to small, 16 is closer to being good.


it seems like 24 or 32 tonight best about right.

with these sizes, it will be intresting to see if the SDK will be open enough for RSS readers will pull down content and store it localaly for offline uss or an
"office" doc/spreadsheat/presidenation sort of program.

_J_ said...

I'd like to know how robust the applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch can be. If they could have an Office Suite on there it would be nice to have the additional storage.

The difficulty would be that all of the content has to be managed through iTunes because some fuckwit has a gigantic hardon for iTunes.

I can fit all of Death Note onto my Touch and that takes up less than half of the space. So it is not as if 16 gigs is a terrible amount of storage space. It would just be nice to have more.

Andrew said...

bah.

i hate everything.

_J_ said...

I hate many things as well.

Mike Lewis said...

how much music audio do you have on your touch?

_J_ said...

4.6 gigs video
2.05 gigs audio
29 MB other
8.17 gigs free

Anonymous said...

im awaiting the 32gig iphone as well... as soon as it came out i knew theyd release it larger... and ive waited. i have 24.16 gigs of music alone... so no current iphone could hold all this. ive contemplated getting an ipod + the iphone.. but the idea is to consolidate electronic devices. they should have made the iphone with at least 20gigs to begin with, that way it really is a fully capable ipod (i.e. ipod classic) combined with the cell phone. also, dont forget that apple further fucked iphone customers by reducing the price shortly after the initial release... and i say all this while owning 2 macbook pros and a new imac.. so i am an apple supporter.

Anonymous said...

and now that the 3G phone is out, isnt it cute there is no 32gig model?

Im guessing its because they want to role one out later this year around the holiday session, but wait nah they would never do that to people...

Unknown said...

I don't see why anyone is surprised with the way Apple is doing business; they have been doing this with computers since the beginning. It is the main reason I haven't used a Mac in 15 years.

Anonymous said...

Listen, this is the way the market works for all consumer products. It's not greed or intent on screwing over customers, it's how you build an innovation and product platform.

I work for the largest consumer products company in the world and this is how EVERYTHING is done for every brand. It's called saw-toothing. You bring out a product with something new, get high sales and as the product sales start dropping, you bring out another improvement that delights the consumer. It's an innovation model that has been in place for years, more so in electronics than anywhere else.

If you are upset at this method of marketing and innovation for a brand such as Apple, then you should be just as upset at pretty much every other consumer product on the market, because that's how it is done across the industry.

Anonymous said...

I posted above.

I would also add that, yes, it does generate more consistent profits across a fiscal year, but that is also whats feeds the innovation pipeline that continues to bring the consumer new ideas, features and products.

You take away the consistent, high profits, you start to take away the innovation pipeline and you end up with a stale brand with a short life-cycle and no new products for the consumer.

Unknown said...

Yes this is the way allot of companies do business but not in such a short time line and for such an expensive product. Consider when Steve Jobs Came back to apple. It was a company in turmoil. Yes some of it brought on by the media hype but allot to do with product innovation. SJ short term plan was to make cheap flashy colorful mac and use the proceeds to really innovate. Back then one did not see major upgrades every 3 to 6 month. Now that he has some foot hold he is starting to run his business like most other non inovating company. Bleed the market with minor tweaks to maximize his bank account. If he really cares about the environment he would only release true upgrades instead of bragging about the recyclable material he uses. But then again as long as there are fools who will buy every stupid little tweak he and all like him will supply. It is this attitude humanity has always had and always will and will lead to our demise.

Unknown said...

You're right, Robert, but please also keep in mind that we have a much shorter attention span now. Could you imagine if Apple waited 1-2 years to put out a 32 gig iPhone? I, for one, would go nuts.
But besides this, there actually was quite a bit of time between the release of the iPod touch in 8 and 16 gigs and the release of the 32 gig version. And I would imagine that the delay in releasing a 32 gig iPhone was because they wanted to see how well 32 gig would do with the iPod touch first.
Not an expert, of course... just a thought.

Anonymous said...

It's March 2009. When's it gonna be out!

Mike Lewis said...

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