[swang]

"The iPad/iPhone is soooo egalitarian!"

"Is Apple losing the egalitarianism it never had? No, it had Macs, it was never egalitarian!"

Why was this in the article at all then? Using an analogy that in the end the author itself destroys is bad writing, or at worst extra reading for the reader for no gain. In his own article he never considers Apple egalitarian, yet he is asking a hypothetical question as though Apple was considered egalitarian to begin with.

PS. I'd have to disagree with even the statement that iPhone is "egalitarian" I would argue, there are tons of people in the world that buy Android because it's good enough, and cannot afford the cachet of Apple.

[bane]

Gruber deserves a prize of some sort of most concentrated example of cognitive dissonance ever put into writing for this post. It's really one of the worst of the worst I've seen.

[jnevill]

I am no Gruber fan and I am no Apple fanboi, but I think his points are dead on in this post. He is hedging his bets, repeatedly, but given that we know so little about the Apple Watch, that seems reasonable. At any rate, the main point of the article being that the iWatch is not a play into the Wearables market, but rather a move into the much more lucrative luxury watch market. Given how bloated that market is and the value that the Apple name bestows on its products, I think that it's a reasonable assumption. That being said, his "Apple is not a technology company" line is weak. That's like trying to argue that WalMart isn't in the retail business, but rather distribution. You see... they do distribution better than any other company in their space (which is retail) therefore they are in distribution.

[bane]

I respectfully disagree with your generous assessment of this post.

I think if he had basically said something more like "IMHO, Apple Watch looks better to me than any of the Android devices out there" I'd be fine. But all this weird egalitarian bullshit, and backpedaling on his previous claims of disappointment was impossibly tiring.

But I do agree that If there's a real point to made in his conjecture of where Apple is going with their prices, it's not only pushing upscale, but in a more Apple-y way, pulling upscale down. Meaning, bringing luxury items and buying habits into the mass market.

Loads of people can afford a $500 watch, they just don't buy them because

a) They don't need watches anymore

b) If they do, there's a $20 watch at Ross/Marshalls that looks good enough and will get the job done.

I think Apple is going to build a market for smart watches in a way that Google and Android can't because of their superior marketing and built in buying market. In 5 years, the thought of not owning a smartwatch will seem odd, but now the entire market will be in the $500 on up space instead of fighting it out at the lower price points.

After all, Apple has built entire markets on things that we got along just fine without, mp3 players, smartphones, tablets, why not watches?

[blinkingled]

I have to agree with you that he really did outdo himself on this one. His posts generally have one of his many hallmarks but this one seems to have quite a tangle of all of those.

[LeoPanthera]

I'm not sure I understand your criticism. He seems quite clear to me. He thinks that iThings are egalitarian products, but demonstrates that Apple as a whole is not, given the existence of Macs, and now the watch.

This is a worthwhile point to make, since people will compare the watch to iThings, not Macs.

[swang]

How can an article question if Apple's abandoned it's "egalitarianism" if it never was egalitarian in the first place? This is not my opinion either as the author literally says they are not, while initially using the iPhone/iPad to portray that Apple had an "egalitarian", "for the masses" feel.

Ignoring the fallacy of comparing an iPhone that cost hundreds of dollars when alternatives cost <$100 "egalitarian" to a sugary water drink, he uses the iPhone/iPad to pitch Apple as an "egalitarian" company then in the next paragraph refutes himself.

At the very least it is just not a very good analogy where he props one part of the company as something, when the rest of the company is definitely not that something.