[phreanix]

I wish I had saved the article but I remember reading somewhere (and just paraphrasing here) that the team that works on the iPhone make it good enough so you'll use your iPad (tablet) less, then the iPad team makes it so good you'll use your MacBook less, and so on. I think it's great forward thinking to be always trying to put one of your largest product lines out of business as a way to constantly innovate. In so doing, you hopefully have less chances of having to lay off tens of thousands of people because you tried hard to stay ahead of the curve.

[mark-r]

Unlike Apple, Kodak was caught in a very hard place. With film they would collect revenue for every picture taken, through the film itself, developing, and printing. With digital you could make money on the cameras themselves, but your per-picture revenue opportunities were limited - this was the great attraction of digital. It's not the same as Apple replacing devices one-for-one.

[mavhc]

Apple seems to have copied that model somewhat, make 30% on everything that's sold for iOS.

I guess they knew that eventually everyone would have a good enough iOS device and they'd have to reduce the cost of the device to compete.

[kqr]

> With digital you could make money on the cameras themselves

You could, but you rarely do. The profit margin on the consumer-level DSLRs is really low. They make money from the stuff around it.

[ecpottinger]

Tell that to the people who make the inks for my Epson inkjet printer.

Inkjets can do great prints of photos, but only if you pay for the paper and ink.

[mark-r]

Remember, Kodak was collecting for every picture. So few pictures get printed today, the cost of ink is literally a drop in the bucket.