Tag Archives: Apple

Mac Vs. PC Round 2016

At home, I use my Mac Desktop. On the road, I use my HP Laptop. That’s right, I am a supporter for both Apple and Windows.

Recently, I read Blaine Kyllo’s blog in The Georgia Straight where he wrote that in a span of two days in October, competitors Apple and Microsoft released two of their newest products, the new MacBook Pro by Apple, which has undergone its first major changes in four years, and the Surface Studio by Microsoft, which is the premium notebook in the extensive Microsoft Surface Series.

I found Blaine’s blog to be particularly insightful as it connected two separate major business news stories to showcase the differences in the notebooks and the competition between the customer base of Apple and Microsoft.

From Apple and Microsoft releasing new products at essentially the same time in a competition for sales, I personally drew connections that this timing has to do with giving customers more options of products to choose from, to hopefully break the “blind loyalty” as modeled in the consumer decision journey.

Since the inception of Apple, consumers have entered into this spiraling journey where their continual purchases for Apple products, whether they are newer iPhones or MacBooks, have been formed purely on blind loyalty, by being satisfied enough to not wanting to endure the research process again. In fact, a survey polled released on Forbes showed that 59% of 2,275 iPhone users “admitted to blind loyalty,” meaning that they continue to purchase lines of Apple products solely because they were previously satisfied with their older Apple product.

This may be interpreted as the reason that Apple for the past four years has ceased making notable changes to the MacBook Pro, knowing that their customers, being fully engaged in the repeating consumer decision journey, would buy the newer models regardless of any new changes.

On the flip side, Microsoft has been trailing Apple and the other competitors in the industry in terms of customer loyalty as shown in the following graph.

screen-shot-2016-10-30-at-12-49-32-am

With Microsoft lacking the customer loyalty enjoyed by Apple, the company is put into a position in which one of its only ways to appeal to customers is to implement new changes in each model of the Surface Series, as opposed to the MacBook Pro, which has not undergone a major change in four years until now.

By the companies timing their product releases so closely together, one can interpret this their as efforts to draw customers towards their own companies and preventing them from repurchasing products from the competition in the blind loyalty cycle.

Word Count: 434

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/03/21/the-majority-of-iphone-users-admit-to-blind-loyalty-why-this-a-problem-for-apple/#4376ec02df62

http://www.straight.com/blogra/817607/apple-unveils-new-macbook-pro-microsoft-shows-surface-studio

http://betanews.com/2015/04/07/microsoft-vs-apple-which-has-the-most-loyal-and-satisfied-customers/

http://mashable.com/2016/04/23/surface-pro-4-vs-macbook/#CIRzOUHK2sqK

Apple Used Their Heads in Their New Headphones

Being at a loss for ideas to blog about, I turned to my colleague Drew Evan’s blog for inspiration.  There, I read about the antagonizing of Apple in planning to release the AirPod and EarPod (with the lightning port plug) headphones for the iPhone 7 and consequently eliminating the use of the traditional 3.5 mm earphone jack.  Having recently learned about business ethics in class, I, too, initially agreed with Drew that Apple was unethical in putting the millions of owners of headphones with 3.5 mm jacks scrambling to purchase new products.

However, as an open-minded business student and audiophile myself, I decided to investigate further into the new Apple headphones.  To my surprise, I underwent a perspective change on this issue through reading Jennifer Allen’s article in Paste Magazine.  In addition to learning from other sources that Apple will be releasing adapters for the new iPhone so that 3.5 mm jacks will be compatible, Jennifer’s article lists some benefits of the new headphones, including better audio quality in the EarPods (from the built-in Digital to Analog Converters (DAC) and the extra power produced by plugging into the lightning port), and the wireless AirPods eliminating the problem of tangled wires.  With the improved audio quality, the market for audiophiles, including myself, will be more inclined to stay loyal to Apple and accompany our iPhones with these quality Apple products instead of investing our valuable time and money to research into the vast headphone market.  At the same time, for the customers where audio quality is not a deciding factor for their purchase, the convenience of simply having headphones without wires may just convince them enough to go with Apple instead investing time in other Bluetooth headphones.

For these reasons, I can now appreciate Apple’s decision to take the courage to be the first in its industry to integrate the concepts of built-in DACs and lightning port plugs to focus differentiate their headphones to target separate customer segments. It will take time to see if Apple’s new business strategy of differentiating their products from the industry standard will actually prove revolutionary in the audiophile and headphone market, but in the end, as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Word Count: 386

Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/airpods-apple-iphone-7-wireless-headphones-explained-faq-2016-9

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/03/pros-and-cons-of-the-iphone-7-not-having-a-headpho.html

http://cdn.mos.techradar.com/art/mobile_phones/iPhone/iPhone%207/Press/iPhone7-Press-07-970-80.jpg