Since the recent announcements regarding the new I-pod touch and reduced I-phone cost I've been thinking a lot about APPLE, as a company. Few people realize how much of an impact APPLE has had on their life. It's really my generation that was first introduced to the I-pod. I can't exactly remember when it was introduced, but all I know is at this point, every one of my friends has owned one, or more than one. My family(a family of six) have purchased over 10 I-pods over a few years, 11 to be exact(i think). I've read several other articles regarding this topic and have come to the conclusion that this is right around the median for a middle class family of 4+!!! To me this is absolutely outrageous and the reason why we've bought so many is because APPLE made us buy so many!
Take a minute to think about how much control APPLE has over their consumers. Take the I-phone for example, they introduced the phone sometime last year and released it in late June. Apple essentially MADE you get AT&T service, PAY 400-600 dollars for the phone(NO discounts what so ever), they also made you download I-tunes(you have to get itunes to use the iphone?). Don't forget you need an APPLE charger, APPLE case, APPLE headset(?). Consumers don't have the liberty to use the phone on a different service, they don't have the liberty to purchase songs from a third party source. After all that money you spend with APPLE, they drop the price of their I-phone, 200 dollars cheaper if we're counting. They say it costs about 250 to make an I-Phone so that means when they initially put the product on the market they were making twice as much profit(/at&t, etc, etc). Even with the 100 dollar rebate apple will only be 60 million or so, that's 60 million from their billions of profit(million iphones sold, do the math).
Yesterday they announced that I-phone users can now get RINGTONES(YAAA), only downside is you have to buy them from I-tunes-you pay 99 cents to download a song, and then you can pay an additional 99 cents to make 30 seconds of that song, that you already purchased, a ringtone. In my humble opinion, if you bought the song you should be free to listen to that song how ever you want, I-Tunes doesn't allow that though.
My point is, APPLE has a monopoly over the technology industry. Just as Microsoft did in the 90's, apple has pushed away, killed or eliminated all competition. MUSIC+PLAYER=I-POD; it's the generic name at this point, even if it's not an I-Pod. If APPLE is the monster, I-tunes is it's right arm. Every network, artist, podcaster and local talent must go through them in order to make money off their content. Apple as a brand has become so powerful it's brainwashed a generation of people; just think 10 years ago they were making computers? When the Iphone comes out, it's the hottest product around even though phones that are more than comparable have been on the market for years. Look at the I-pod touch, WIFI connectivity to purchase songs came out a year ago (remember the ZUNE?). To sum this all up, it seems to me that APPLE is spoon feeding it's consumers little by little-every bite we get, we're just waiting for another.
...Despite my harsh remarks towards Apple, i've owned two ipods and am currently saving up for an I-PHONE.
Can't fight the power,
iHUSTLE aka popGURU
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