iPhone 4S: Meinungen, Schlussfolgerungen und Ausblicke – via macnews.de

Hat Apple einen schweren Fehler begangen, als das Unternehmen auf seinem gestrigen Presse-Event entgegen der Erwartungen und Hoffnungen Vieler kein iPhone 5, sondern “nur” ein iPhone 4S präsentierte? Eine berechtigte Frage, die viele enttäuschte Fans mit “Ja” beantworten. Tritt Apple auf der Stelle? Ist der Innovationsdruck zu gering oder gehen Apple ohne Steve Jobs die Ideen aus?
 

iPhone 4 zu iPhone 4S: Ein kleiner Schritt

“Soll ich mir das neue iPhone 4S kaufen?” – Diese Frage stellen sich derzeit Viele. Meine Antwort lautet: Nein. Doch hat das nichts mit der Enttäuschung zu tun, wie sie in vielen Kommentaren unserer Leser teils recht unmissverständlich zum Ausdruck gebracht wird. Vielmehr ist es ein ähnliches “Nein”, wie das vieler Besitzer des iPhone 3G nach der Vorstellung des iPhone 3GS im Juni 2009.

Das “alte” ist schlichtweg noch ausreichend und wer nicht verstärkten Wert auf die Sprachsteuerung mit dem neuen Assistenten “Siri” oder eine 8-Megapixel-Kamera mit 1080p-Videoaufnahme legt, kommt wohl auch noch eine Weile mit dem iPhone 4 zurecht. Sicher ist der neue Apple-A5-Prozessor im iPhone 4S deutlich schneller als sein Single-Core-Verwandter, der A4, und auch die Grafik hat einen nicht ganz unerheblichen Leistungsschub erfahren.

Durchschnittsanwender orientieren sich jedoch an Merkmalen wie Displaygröße, Design und möglicherweise Funktionen wie Nahfeldkommunikation (NFC) für mobilen Zahlungsverkehr. Für die allermeisten Konsumenten stellt das iPhone 4S kein Upgrade-Muss dar, wenn sie bereits das iPhone 4 besitzen. Aber ist das etwas schlechtes?

macnews.de-Leser urteilen: “Herbe Enttäuschung”

Manche unserer Leser sind unzufrieden, auch wenn sie das neue Modell mit einem iPhone 3GS vergleichen. “Sehr schwach”, urteilt Kommentator “Dwdw“, “[da] bleib ich wohl doch bei meinem iPhone 3GS”. “Horsti150” hält das iPhone 4S für eine “herbe Enttäuschung”. Nach eineinhalb Jahren habe er sich mehr versprochen und macht die Abwesenheit Steve Jobs’ für die Misere verantwortlich.

Allerdings darf man davon ausgehen, dass Tim Cook das iPhone 4S nicht allein zu verantworten hat. Etwa drei bis fünf Jahre werden bei Apple in die Entwicklung eines neuen iPhone gesteckt, so dass wir noch einige Zeit von dem Wirken des großen Visionärs Steve Jobs zehren dürfen, bis Cooks alleinige Eigenkreationen das Licht der Öffentlichkeit erblicken. Und das auch nur dann, wenn Steve Jobs nicht zurückkehrt (was wir ihm natürlich herzlich wünschen), oder aus dem Hintergrund weiter an den Innovationen des Herstellers mitwirkt.

Aber einige Leser freuen sich auch über die Neuerungen. “GeForce260” merkt an, dass auch ein iPhone 5 nur äußerliche Änderungen mit sich brächte, im Inneren aber über die gleiche Hardware wie das iPhone 4S verfügte. Andere halten iOS 5 für die wichtigere Innovation, so etwa “Falk Berger“, der 3GS-Nutzern jetzt auf jeden Fall das neue Gerät empfiehlt. “Mit dem iPhone 4 kommt man aber locker noch bis nächstes Jahr über die Runden [...]“.

 

  1. Seite 1: iPhone 4S: Meinungen, Schlussfolgerungen und Ausblicke

  2. Seite 2: Die Presse urteilt: Apple wird zum "Getriebenen"

 

via macnews.de

…eine sehr gute Zusammenfassung.

The Tale of Apple's Next iPhone

via gizmodo.com

What a story… - this will write PR history, thanks GIZMODO !

Steve Jobs’ 6 Sneakiest Statements

Steve Jobs was reportedly wearing a top hat when he visited New York publishers last week. It’s a fitting lid for the Apple CEO, who can be as tricky as a magician.

Jobs has a knack for throwing off Apple watchers with his masterful misdirections. Ever wonder why analysts and journalists grossly overestimated the price of the Apple tablet prior to its official announcement? Part of the reason is that Jobs had said during a 2008 earnings call that Apple could not make a $500 computer that was not a “piece of junk.” That assertion lent credence to rumors that the tablet would cost $1,000.

Oops. The entry-level iPad announced in January will cost: $500, at least at the low end of scale. Presumably Jobs doesn’t consider it a piece of junk.

Nice one, Steve. You got us there. Actually, you’ve fooled us not once or twice, but at least six times, by our count. What follows is a list of five more famously misleading quotes that Jobs pulled from his bag of tricks.

 

No Plans to Make a Tablet

There were plenty of naysayers who, for the longest time, thought the Apple tablet was a pure myth. Jobs did, after all, tell Walt Mossberg during a 2003 All Things Digital conference that Apple was not working on a tablet — because the keyboardless form factor was a recipe for failure, according to a second-hand account.

“There are no plans to make a tablet,” Jobs was quoted saying to Mossberg. “It turns out people want keyboards…. We look at the tablet, and we think it is going to fail.”

That was seven years ago. And a lot can change in seven years. But there’s plenty of evidence Apple has been mulling over tablets for a while. The New York Times’ Nick Bilton reported the Apple tablet was in development for at least five years, and that it was actually a precursor to the keyboardless iPhone. And Apple filed a patent for a touch tablet device in 2004. To rewind even further, Apple was working with Frog Design on tablet prototypes as early as 1983. Those ancient tablets included keyboards, but Jobs has clearly had tablets on his mind for a very long time.

 

Not Interested in the Cellphone Business

In that same interview with Mossberg, Jobs said he didn’t feel Apple would fare well in the cellphone business.

“I get a lot of pressure to do a PDA. What people really seem to want to do with these is get the data out. We believe cellphones are going to carry this information. We didn’t think we’d do well in the cellphone business. What we’ve done instead is we’ve written what we think is some of the best software in the world to start syncing information between devices. We believe that mode is what cellphones need to get to. We chose to do the iPod instead of a PDA.”

Of course, in hindsight that quote served as a clue that Apple wasn’t making a traditional cellphone, but rather a brand new device that fused the characteristics of an iPod, a PDA and a cellphone into one. The result was the iPhone. Still, a tricky statement nonetheless.

 

People Don’t Read Any More

Jobs made a rather provocative statement in 2008 when he told The New York Times that the Kindle would go nowhere:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read any more.”

Of course, the CEO backpedaled on his Kindle-dissing during his iPad keynote when he was introducing the iPad’s very own e-book reader and store, iBooks.

“Amazon’s done a great job at pioneering this functionality with their Kindle, and we’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a bit further,” he said during his Jan. 27 keynote this year.

 

No Movies on a Tiny Little Screen

When Mossberg in 2003 asked Jobs whether he planned to put video in an iPod, the CEO said he was turned off by the idea.

“I’m not convinced people want to watch movies on a tiny little screen,” Jobs said. “To paraphrase Bill Clinton, ‘It’s the music, stupid, it’s the music!’ Music’s been around for a long time, will continue to be, it’s huge.”

Then two years later, in 2005, Apple released the fifth-generation iPod whose tiny, 2.7-inch screen played video. And then in 2007 Apple released the third-generation iPod Nano with video — with an even littler 2-inch screen. But hey, people’s minds change, and clearly so does Jobs’.

 

We Don’t Need to Add New Stuff

In a September 2009 interview with Jobs, New York Times columnist David Pogue asked the CEO why Apple crammed a camera into the puny iPod Nano and not the new iPod Touch. Jobs explained the lack of a camera was to keep the price down, so Apple could market the Touch as an inexpensive gaming device.

“So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199,” Jobs said. “We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it.”

But later, teardown company iFixit ripped apart the iPod Touch and found a gap that would fit a camera. And on top of that, AppleInsider received a tip that cameras were planned for the iPod Touch, but ultimately delayed due to technical problems. We’ve yet to see if Apple does indeed add a camera to the iPod Touch, but we suspect that’s likely to happen eventually.

 

Via Gadget Lab - Wired.com

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/steve-jobs/#

The Secrets Of Steve Jobs’ iPad Presentation

6:00 am, February 3rd, 2010, Carmine Gallo

Photos courtesy of Gizmodo.

Steve Jobs doesn’t follow a presentation template but as outlined in my new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, he does consistently follow the same principles that have turned Apple product launches into an art form. The iPad announcement on Wednesday, January 27th was no exception: classic Steve Jobs.


Twitter Friendly Headlines.

Jobs always frames a new product for the benefit of the press and his customers. These headlines are descriptive, tangible and short, fitting well within a 140-character Twitter post. What’s an iPod? “1,000 songs in your pocket.” On January 27, Jobs created a 92-character Twitter friendly headline for iPad: Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price. On cue, the Apple web site posted images of the iPad on the home page alongside the same headline that Jobs had revealed minutes earlier. The headline is consistent across all marketing channels including the presentation, press releases, Web site and advertisements.


Introduce the Antagonist.

Every Steve Jobs presentation has a hero and a villain. In the iPad presentation, Netbooks played the role of the villain—a problem in need of a solution. Jobs showed a slide with an iPhone on one side and a MacBook on the other. A question mark appeared in the middle. He asked rhetorically whether there was room for a third category of device. “These devices would have to be far better at doing some key tasks,” he said. “Some people think it’s a Netbook. The problem is Netbooks aren’t better at anything. They have slow, low quality displays and clunky old PC software,” he said. Only after he had set up the problem did Jobs introduce the hero: “We have something better. We call it iPad.”


Rule of Three.

Neuroscientists have found that humans can only consume three or four chunks of information in short term memory. It’s uncanny but Jobs divides products, ideas and messages into three parts and he does so in every presentation. Here are some examples from the iPad presentation:
Apple gets its revenue from three product lines; iPhones, iPods and Macs.
Apple has three competitors in the mobile devices category: Nokia, Samsung and Sony.
Netbooks have three problems: Slow, low-quality displays, and run clunky PC software.


Visual Simplicity.

There are no bullet points in a Steve Jobs presentation. Most of his slides are highly visual— photographs and images. This is called picture superiority; we retain information better when it is presented as text and pictures instead of text alone. Look at some of the slides from the iPad announcement. Each feature is represented visually—one feature, one idea per slide.


Amazingly Zippy Words.

Steve Jobs uses descriptive, emotive language that appeals to your right brain. Some critics say it borders on hyperbole, but better to use emotion to convey excitement than stale, jargon-laden buzzwords that rarely, if ever, creep into a Jobs presentation. Here are some examples from the iPad launch:
“It’s so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a SmartPhone.”
“It’s the best browsing experience you’ve ever had.”
“It’s a dream to type on.”
“It’s that simple.”
“It’s a screamer” (describing the A4, Apple designed chip)


Refine and Rehearse.

Steve Jobs rehearses his presentations for many hours over many weeks to get everything just right. He carefully reviews every slide and knows exactly what he’s going to say and how he’s going to say it. The result is a presentation like the iPad which looks effortless. It looks easy but the polish only comes after weeks of grueling practice. Even the set for the iPad launch was simply created to reinforce the message. A leather chair and a small circular table were the only props, reflecting the “intimacy” of the product.

For more than twenty-five years since the 1984 Macintosh launch, Steve Jobs has proven himself to be one of the greatest corporate storytellers on the world stage. It’s good to see that even after a serious illness in 2008, he hasn’t lost a step, continuing to raise the bar for communicators in every industry.

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach and author, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs; How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. Visit him online at CarmineGallo.com.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carmine Gallo is the author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. He is the communication skills coach for the world’s most admired brands, including IBM, Nokia and Chase. He writes a weekly leadership and communications column for BusinessWeek.com. More about Carmine Gallo at his Gallo Communications website.