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THINK BIG
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Apple has always been about making an awesome product that people want. They may not know that they want it until they see it, touch it and feel it. Product first, money follows. This is thinking big.
On Apple?s approach:
“It will go down in history as a turning point for the music industry. This is landmark stuff. I can’t overestimate it!”?—On the iTunes Music Store (iTMS), Fortune, May 12, 2003There is nothing awesome about being a bank. Use an iPhone as a credit card to access Visa and MasterCard? Yes. Nice feature. Use it to bankroll and set up a credit card business? Not a chance.
“I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.”?—BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004
Much of what you said is absolutely correct. To a point.
You can’t something better than someone else, if everybody uses the same technology. Apple’s response to NFC will absolutely be their vision of how NFC will work (iTunes, App Store, etc).
Apple is more liquid than any Bank I know of, but that doesn’t mean using all of that cash to provide credit card services. Less than $2 Billion cash would make Apple Credit Card services bigger than Visa and MasterCard combined (without the nearly $1 Billion in debt they carry).
Merchants must buy their credit card readers, then pay high fees so that their customers can use credit cards to buy their product.
Just like music and application distribution, Apple can change the way the credit card industry operates, to the benefit of merchants and customers alike. That would be a huge impetus to expand sales of Apple branded products.
I think the items above that I highlighted from your post illustrate that becoming a credit card service is well within Apple’s DNA. It is an industry just like music, music players, cell phones and tablets ripe for exploitation from someone that can do it better.
Providing services that cause the sale of hardware.
“You can’t (do) something better than someone else, if everybody uses the same technology. Apple’s response to NFC will absolutely be their vision of how NFC will work (iTunes, App Store, etc).”
Correct. So Apple should develop a better way, and control it. Maybe launch their own satellite.
“Apple is more liquid than any Bank I know of, but that doesn’t mean using all of that cash to provide credit card services. Less than $2 Billion cash would make Apple Credit Card services bigger than Visa and MasterCard combined (without the nearly $1 Billion in debt they carry).”
This is not a reason. Just because they could do it doesn’t mean they should do it. “It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.”
—BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004You are focused too much on making money, not enough on having fun with new products. This is Apple’s DNA.
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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At some point Apple will have to move away from CE products in order to continue to grow so I wouldn’t rule out non-traditional products and services. Apple is about making our lives easier/better/more productive. We might be surprised at the form that takes in coming years.
We hated our cell phones, we hated our MP3 players, we hated our netbooks, etc. There’s a lot more on that list IMO.
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At some point Apple will have to move away from CE products in order to continue to grow so I wouldn’t rule out non-traditional products and services. Apple is about making our lives easier/better/more productive. We might be surprised at the form that takes in coming years.
We hated our cell phones, we hated our MP3 players, we hated our netbooks, etc. There’s a lot more on that list IMO.
I totally agree. So far Apple has been able to avoid the boom and bust that new products engender by technical creativity, market smarts and genius. I don’t know how long they will be able to do that. My gut says that they are good for at least two years. I believe that whatever they do it will be largely based on technology, not money manipulation.
I strongly believe that we are building a stock market bubble (not an Apple bubble) and do not have a feel for when that will hit; maybe this summer. By that time Apple stock should be quite a bit higher than it is now. Knowing when to sell is very difficult, but I would rather leave money on the table than follow the stock down.
BTW I hate ISP’s, and I suspect that I am not alone.
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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And cable companies and Banks….
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and drug companies, lawyers and politicians.
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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and drug companies, lawyers and politicians.
Let’s focus on things that we have a smidgen of hope of fixing
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My point exactly
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The measure of the worth of a product is how much people are willing to pay for it, not how many people will buy it if the price is low enough.
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My point exactly
And at the same time I can see Apple making both cable companies and banks obsolete. Lawyers etc - not so much.
With cell phones, Apple tried to obsolete as much about them as they could - voicemail systems, metered data, subsidized pricing, crapware. They’ve slipped back in a few areas but had the clout to finally move the metrics.Signature
Use your powers for good.
