New iPad Predicts Apple's Innovation Depletion

In the face of an eye-catching opponent, Apple showed its own card.

At 2:00 am Beijing time on March 8th, at the Meadowlands Art Center in San Francisco, United States, Steve Jobs’s successor and Apple CEO Tim Cook put on the pullover and jeans that Jobs always liked to go on stage. , For the fruit powder brought third-generation iPad products - New iPad. This is Apple's first iPad new product in the post-Jobs era, heralding the direction of Apple's development. As a result, the fate of New iPad has attracted widespread attention.

In Apple's opinion, the iPad is the representative of the post-PC world.

“Innovation Visible” is Apple’s tailor-made buzzwords for this product. However, this new product is not like the name iPad3, the model and name of the New iPad has become the least recognizable part. Can the New iPad create more glories for Win8's "Ultrabook" and other tablet challenges?

Although tactics have not changed, Cook has changed Cook’s efforts to create his own style while avoiding “Jobs.” However, Cook’s style tends to be calm because new product launches have not had the desired effect compared to the past. Its style has not been recognized by the outside world.

The fruit powder was a bit disappointed: In addition to the name not called iPad3, the New iPad, from the appearance to the kernel, was all the same as the fruit powder's predictions. It was no accident.

In the era of Jobs, every time Apple launched a new product, it would release numerous news first, wait until the market's attention reached the peak, release the true news, evoke the user's desire to buy, and finally launch products to obtain people's expectations for Apple's next-generation products. . This is the so-called cyclical marketing under Jobs's control. Jobs's recurring use of this technique allows the market and consumers to follow this routine to predict Apple's new products.

The introduction of the New iPad clearly follows this set of rules.

As early as the summer of 2011, it was reported that Apple would release iPhone 5 and iPad 3 at the same time, and the public was full of expectation for these two products. However, in October 2011, Apple only released the iPhone 4S. Since then, rumors of the iPad3's listing have intensified, and new iPad accessories have been circulating from suppliers. The media speculated that the release date was postponed from March 24th to March in Steve Jobs's birthday, but Apple has been silent. Until February 29th, Apple issued an invitation letter to the media, claiming to launch new products on March 7th, concealing that the new product may be the iPad.

As for the sales date of the new iPad, retailers have already “implied” that, from Best Buy in the United States to authorized retailers in China’s shopping malls, the iPad 2 cut prices, indicating that new products are really coming.

Before the new generation of iPad was released, a survey conducted by InMobi, an independent mobile advertising network, revealed that almost one-third of mobile network users are interested in purchasing a new generation of iPad. In addition, 44% of users said that if they want to If you buy a tablet, you will only choose the iPad series.

Analysts generally expect that New iPad will help Apple maintain its dominance in the fast-growing tablet market.

Due to the success of the iPad, Apple became the undisputed leader in the tablet market. iSuppli's market share data shows that in 2011 Apple had a market share of 62% in the tablet PC market, followed closely by Samsung Electronics, with a market share of 9%.

Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group, an investment consultancy, said that Apple's overall gross profit is 85% from two products, the iPhone and the iPad; the iPad is a very important part of the Apple product ecosystem.

For the past success of Apple, Zhao Xiaodi, an advisor to the China Mobile (Weibo) Industry Alliance, believes that one depends on the product and the other depends on marketing.

Wang Ningyuan, an investment adviser in the IT industry, believes that for the current Apple, the hunger marketing tactics of the past have been successful, winning a lot of popularity and reputation and becoming the company with the highest market value in the world. Therefore, for its subsequent development, the use of such marketing tactics will show diminishing utility, which may cause Cook to change its marketing strategy.

When marketing the iPhone4S, the outside world did not give as high a rating as Apple and Cook. Wang Ningyuan thinks that from the conference of the iPhone4S, it can be seen that although Cook was trying to avoid creating “Jobs” and trying to create his own style, due to the fact that the new product release had no expected results compared to the past, Cook’s style More inclined to calm, so its style has not been recognized by the outside world.

This time, with the launch of the new generation of iPad, Cook mocked the competitor Samsung's tablet product at the conference's site - "It looks like a tragic smartphone App running on a tablet - and it is the truth!" And in the past, It is Jobs who is accustomed to satirizing opponents in public, and Cook is described as "low-key, not good at marketing," and "not very fond of talking."

This will inevitably make people feel that Cook is imitating Joe's style. Sun Peilin, Analyst International IT industry analyst, believes that Cook is still interested in creating his own style. This performance may be to maintain the consistency of the Apple conference.

As early as last year, when Cooke took office, Forbes China.com published an article titled "The Cook's Law of 10 Cases Defying Apple in 2012." One of them was "Employing the wrong person to run retail." However, there may not be any concern for Forbes China.com: On January 30th, Apple announced that John Browett, the former CEO of European technology retailer Dixons Retail, officially joined Apple as Senior Vice President of Retail. President, who will be responsible for Apple's retail strategy and Apple's worldwide expansion point business in April, will report directly to Cook. The emphasis on channels and markets is also considered by the outside world as a difference between Cook and Jobs.

When innovation has dried up?

Apple and Cook only named the new iPad an iPad, which made the product itself much less recognizable.

In the post-Jobs era, innovation dried up and was a widespread concern for Apple. As a result, the new iPad, which is being published by Cook, is also seen as an indication of Apple's future direction.

Before the release, foreign media reported on various rumours about the new iPad, such as the use of Retina display, the body will become slightly thicker, with home button and dock port, quad-core processor, 4G wireless card and Bluetooth 4.0, camera lens or 5 million pixels ...

Sure enough, at the conference site, 80% of the rumors were confirmed, and fruit powder was mixed. Some netizens said, “With Retina, let other flats feel at ease.” But more opinions are that “the appearance of the product has not changed, The product is slightly heavier. What makes China's fruit powder regret is that the new keyboard voice input, like the iPhone 4S Siri, does not support Chinese.

There are also users worried that the promotion of the iPad screen will repeat the same mistakes that Android 3.0 Tablets encountered in the past. The performance of the New iPad can only be expected after the release on March 16th.

Compared to the hardware upgrades, Apple and Cook only named the new iPad an iPad, which made the product itself a lot less recognizable. Some netizens joked that they wanted to buy the product. Give me a new iPad," the boss may say angrily: "We are all new here and we don't sell second-hand goods!"

An Apple chip engineer once said, “I don’t have any worries about the company within two years, but I cannot predict it afterwards.”

Analysts believe that Jobs has at least planned a two-year product development plan for Apple. Cartner analyst Michael King believes that by August 2013, Jobs's influence may weaken, and Cook will be responsible for product decisions.

Sun Peilin believes that this product can be said to be developed under the leadership of Steve Jobs. In the short term, it will not be clear whether Apple will be depleted in innovation.

The position of R&D personnel in Apple's management system has always been very important, but since the CEO was appointed as CEO in August 2011, it has carried out some “fine-tuning” and rectified the management structure of Apple’s corporate era, such as promotion of employees and adjustments. Business reporting framework and other aspects are more emphasis on administrative affairs. These changes are regarded by the outside world as signals of the overall backward movement of the Apple front.

It seems that concerns about the exhaustion of Apple's innovation will not stop in the short term.

Who is Apple's enemy?

Microsoft's new Win8 has added touch functionality and is seen as a killer product for the Microsoft camp to regain the dignity of the tablet market.

Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group, an investment consultancy, said that Apple's overall gross profit is 85% from two products, the iPhone and the iPad; the iPad is a very important part of the Apple product ecosystem.

But Apple's dominance in tablet computers is being challenged.

An Apple authorized retailer in Beijing stated that although the price difference is not too big, Samsung’s tablet PCs are a little more prosaic than the iPad 2, because “Samsung’s Android software is free and Apple charges. In addition, Samsung’s external Usb Flash Drive is the largest Supports 32G, while iPad2 only supports 2G."

The Wall Street Journal believes that from Apple's decision on how to deal with its latest competitors, it may show how much the company plans to closely follow the vision of the late CEO Steve Jobs, and whether Apple's current managers are willing to take the new path of.

Jobs had previously dismissed the 7-inch tablet, Cooke publicly mocked Samsung's tablet at the press conference, and the New iPad did not change in size - it seems that Apple is currently regarded Samsung as its biggest threat.

However, Apple is not only eyeing the Android camp and Amazon.

Microsoft’s new Win8 adds touch functionality, which directly breaks the line between laptops and tablets. It can be used across multiple devices in PCs, laptops, and tablets, and is considered a retake by the Microsoft camp. Tablet PC market dignity killer products.

Sun Peilin believes that the success of the iPad is because it captures the positioning of entertainment functions. "It can be said that the functional experience on the market is better than the iPad, and the price is more expensive than the iPad. The cheaper than the iPad can not provide the user experience that the iPad can provide.

As soon as the new iPad is on the market, the iPad2 is bound to cut prices, which will also drive down prices for other tablet computers. "If other tablets want to succeed, they must grasp the difference in positioning. This just confirms the aforementioned retailer's marketing traits: "Samsung's tablet computers have simple Office functions and can do simple work." ”

In the short term, Win8 Tablet PC is difficult to change the current monopoly situation, but if Microsoft can achieve seamless connection between Win8 system and PC, the user's PC habits will be transferred to the field of mobile terminals. In the long run, there will be Apple. , Android, Microsoft may be three points of the world.