Comments on: I Wish Articles Would Make Sense http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/ I'm Arnold Kim, I run websites. Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:04:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Bill Plein http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1471 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:00:18 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1471 Pre-announce vs. not: this is nothing new.

It’s called “Sell what’s on the truck”. You have Widgets, sell Widgets. As soon as someone hears that Widgets are being replaced by shiny, bright Gizmos, Widget sales will drop in anticipation of the new Gizmos.

The time to pre-announce your Gizmos is when sales of Widgets have tailed off and your competitor is stealing your business with Watchamacallits. Then you pre-announce the Gizmos in order to preemptively head off the Watchamacallits.

It’s Sales 101. I bet you they called it “Sell what’s on the horse cart” before there were trucks.

]]> By: Charles Arthur http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1470 Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:40:24 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1470 Yes, I thought you could argue about pre-release vs availability – your criticisms are valid. (But hey, I was reporting the press release, which itself mentions Apple and the iPhone.)

What’s notable is that the Apple TV, which Jobs showed off as the iTV, really didn’t flourish. (Didn’t he show it off because he needed to have something else besides iPods at the Showtime event – http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/12/live-from-the-steve-jobs-keynote-its-showtime/ ?) And that was a real pre-announcement. People looked at it and went “uh?”

Yes, you could make the same point about the iPhone. Blame the research, I guess. But it also points towards something else: that vapourware works, if you want to do down rivals. After all, it worked for Microsoft for years.

]]> By: ex2bot http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1469 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:50:50 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1469 Yeah,

That’s why I never read MacRumors because all you find there are rumors. Some of them aren’t even about Macs. I’ll keep reading AppleInsideSecretsGuaranteedToBeTrueAndVerified.com.

Bot

]]> By: Arnold Kim http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1468 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:30:59 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1468 … and my personal blog as well, apparently. :)

]]> By: frijole http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1467 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:31:09 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1467 Too bad you don’t seem to put this much thought into reviewing articles and sources to post to MacRumors, instead you spend your energy debunking random news articles.

I’ll keep reading AppleInsider.

]]> By: Arnold Kim http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1466 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:31:14 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1466 I would think this research would primarily apply to “first generation products”.

]]> By: Henry http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1465 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:21:03 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1465 The Apple TV, iPhone and MacBook Air are all first generation products. Apple wouldn’t be hurting it’s sales for a product it doesn’t sell, yet. It probably hurts the competition, actually. The MacBook Air probable had some impact on MacBook Pro and MacBook sales but you could pre-order the Air as soon as it was announced.
The only other products Apple pre-announced, that I can think of, was Apple TV 2.0 and Mac OS X. Apple TV 2.0 was a free software update and everyone knows when the next version of Mac OS X is around the corner because Apple seeds beta builds to developers.
Apple is scary good at separating people from their cash.

]]> By: nak http://blog.normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1464 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:20:32 +0000 http://normalkid.com/2008/02/21/i-wish-articles-would-make-sense/#comment-1464 Most of Apple’s product refreshes are available immediately (as you point out, not the Apple TV).

But that’s not always the case. Like Apple’s aluminium keyboard had a several week lead time, and Time Capsule still isn’t out.

Although, I did get my MacBook the day it was announced at my local Apple store.

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