Posts tagged iPad
Demand for iPad higher than it was for the iPhone. Price or curiosity?
Feb 26th
There is more demand for Apple’s forthcoming iPad then there ever was the iPhone, according to new research.
Is this surprising? Yes. Why? Because all the reports that were flowing out of newsrooms immediately after Steve Jobs introduced the new product where negative.
“It doesn’t have this…it doesn’t have that…” Bla bla. The critics were wrong. People still want the iPad.
As I have said before, consumers are curious about Apple. It seems to be able to do no wrong and what the bloody hell would you want a camera on a tablet computer for anyway? Research has backed me up:
A new survey from RBC/ChangeWave reveals that 13% of consumers were either somewhat or very likely to purchase the iPad, compared with the 9% who gave the same reply for the original iPhone in a similar survey conducted prior to its launch.
Mike Abramsky, RBC analyst, said that while he does not expect feverish initial launch lines such as the iPhone attracted, “the data portends well for healthy initial iPad uptake.”
The reason?
The iPad’s unexpectedly low price point – starting at $US499.
Only 8% appear unwilling to pay Apple’s indicated iPad prices, according to the survey, that well below 28% who balked at initial iPhone pricing.
But perhaps the high demand is also due to people’s curiosity over what exactly the iPad will do and how it will enrich their lives. Tablets have been around for years, so why all the hype now?
Consumers have been told that not only will the iPad change the way we consumer media, it will revolutionise our use of the internet…of how we use technology! It will make our lives easier and I guess you’d be crazy not to buy into that when it’s for such a low price.
Top planned uses for the device among buyers includes surfing the internet (68%), checking e-mail (44%), and reading e-books (37%).
The iPad may have greater potential than first touted and gives further weight to Apple’s predictions that the iPad will be in the hands of more than 10 million consumers by the end of the year.
Better fix those censorship rules then guys.
How to target men using fashionable technology
Feb 23rd
What’s the best way to market the latest technology? Make it look fashionable of course.
The excitement of Apple’s new iPad set many hearts a-flutter. Financially, it is predicted to be another Apple money spinner.
Industry analysts Gartner Research expect the iPad to inject rocket fuel into the sleepy tablet PC market once it actually goes on sale at the end of March, boosting tablet sales from 1 to 9 million by the end of the year.
But how many so-called gadget fans are really in it for the technology? Are some more concerned with image over function, perhaps ageing Baby Boomers wanting trendy gadgets to stave off looking middle aged?
A survey of over 500 users by global news website OneNewsPage asked if some gadgets such as iPhones and Playstations look inappropriate in the hands of older consumers.
It’s worth noting that most who took part in OneNewsPage’s survey were strongly into their technology.
Forty four per cent of respondents claimed they ‘always’ buy the latest gadgets as soon as they go on sale.
But it was a close contest on the question of age. Fifty two per cent agreed that keeping up with latest gadgets is a sign of desperation, while 48% disagreed.
Over half (55%) felt gadgets were like clothes, and consumers needed to buy the right ones for their age.
Indeed, 63% felt that once a person turns 40, no gadget is ever going to make them look ‘cool’.
The survey found that 44% agreed with the statement that people over 40 on a Playstation was “plain wrong”. And 40% felt similarly about the over 40s using iPhones.
Meanwhile, research from Microsoft Advertising has laid bare the depth of British men’s love affair with technology.
The report, entitled ‘PFM Unplugged’, reveals that the UK’s Pre-Family Men (PFM) – young males who have completed their education but not yet started a family – are heavily engaged in technology and always online.
PFM are interacting with technology in some way during every waking hour (anyone who has a boyfriend knows that). They are the first generation to have grown up with the internet, and with the majority (99%) claiming to go online either every day or nearly every day and half using their mobile phones to do so.
The research shows that they are increasingly reliant on the Internet for entertainment, information and communication, with 80% going so far as to state that they would be lost without it.
In fact, the internet is the technology 57% of PFM are most attached to, closely followed by mobile phones (49%) and TV (46%).
PFM are apparently never ‘doing nothing’, and even downtime is filled by some activity, more often than not facilitated by technology. It’s also often also the first thing they think about when they wake up with a quarter of PFM admitting to checking their email and 18% looking at social networking sites on their mobile phone before they get out of bed in the morning.
Despite the popularity of social networks and the perception that traditional social email is dying, email remains the most valued online tool amongst PFM, with 52% of respondents rating it above all others (compared with 25% for search and 12% for social networking sites) and 87% stating their use of email had stayed the same or increased over the last year. 94% use email at least once per day, compared with 60% that go on to a social network.
Technology is fuelling the blurring of work and play as modes of behaviour overlap. While 43% of the men surveyed admitted occasionally browsing the internet during afternoons at work, PFM is also checking his work email in the evenings, on his way to and from work and before he gets out of bed in the morning.
Online video content is an important source of entertainment for PFM and it’s no longer just limited to short clips- 73% of PFMs will watch video-on-demand (VOD) at least once a week with nearly half watching full length TV programs. Catching up on TV shows they’ve missed and watching archive shows were the main drivers to viewing online and the majority (59%) viewed on a laptop.
The ‘PFM Unplugged’ report from Microsoft Advertising also provides advertisers with a series of recommendations on how they may reach and engage with PFM based on the insights uncovered in the research. You can download it here.
Too sexy for Apple?
Feb 22nd
Believe it or not but Apple has finally got something wrong, upsetting customers - and no, I’m not talking about the iPad.
Apple has begun enforcing stricter policies around apps available from its app store in a move that could see some apps removed entirely.
While the tech giant has so far only removed adult-themed apps, some games have also been removed.
Techcrunch reports that no more applications with “overtly sexual content” will be allowed, however, the criteria in which apps on the Apple store will be measured remain unclear.
The policy is expected to alarm some developers, and like other attempts to censor internet content, could see some apps banned for no reason at all - or at least in a case of misunderstanding (think of how in India you can’t look up ‘sex discrimination laws’ because the search term ‘sex’ is banned.
The news has already prompted many scathing opinions and blog posts on Mac enthusiasts sites such as cultofmac.com and 9to5mac.com. Blog posts on the sites are warning developers to make sure they don’t feature any “sexy women in apps” deeming the bans “ridiculous”.
The pulling of apps is in response to what is being dubbed as “sexy apps”, which also includes porn.
The move comes at a rather convenient time, with many touting that the clean-up attempt is to ready the market for its iPad, which is due to hit stores next month.
The iPad is expected to be popular with schools - carrying textbooks.
It seems that no medium is safe from censorship these days. And it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For years, the internet has known no or little inhibitions - there were no clear boundaries and anything and everything was available for download. We called it freedom. And until the internet giants got on board with censoring content available through their sites, there was no way to apply any laws on the world wide web as it isn’t confined to any one jurisdiction.
But the question is now, how much power should these ‘internet giants’ have over what content can and can’t be seen - and furthermore, what is too “sexy”?
Will a lack of understanding deter marketers from taking advantage of Apple’s iPad?
Feb 8th
An online survey conducted by YouGov in the days following the launch of Apple’s iPad shows that awareness of the product is high but that there remains some confusion about its features and capabilities. Will this stop marketers from getting on board?
While 70% that were shown an image and provided with a brief description of the Apple iPad claimed to have heard about it, which is good news. But many were unsure of how to approach the new product and what they would use it for.
A large majority of respondents recognized that the iPad can send and receive emails (68%) and that it can connect to the internet via wifi (65%).
The e-reader capabilities of the product are also well recognized with almost two thirds (64%) of respondents expecting to be able to read electronics books and magazines on it.
Apple is famous for its lack of advertising and marketing activities in the lead up to the launch of its new products. It creates hype and buzz without ever confirming what it is doing, which in the past has been hailed by marketers. But this time, it could actually hurt Apple.
Marek Vaygelt, Head of Technology and Telecoms Consulting at YouGov points out that misunderstanding of the iPad’s operating system capabilities is greater among existing Apple customers.
He said that “Apple customers who own three or more Apple products have a very high awareness of the iPad but are way more likely than the population as a whole to believe it has a multi-tasking operating system. While this is a software rather than a hardware feature it suggests Apple’s core market might want to wait for an upgraded version.”
Despite this misunderstanding, while 7% of the survey’s respondents believe they will probably or definitely buy an Apple iPad, 23% of owners of three or more Apple products believe that they will definitely do so.
With 40% of British adults owning at least one Apple product, YouGov estimates that the vast majority of Apple iPad sales will come from existing Apple customers with iPhone and Apple iMac customers the most likely purchasers.
The company has done well to ensure it has a following of loyal brand advocates but will it be enough to guarantee the success of the iPad?
Perhaps what will really sell the iPad to new consumers is the apps that will be available. The only problem now however, is that no one has come up with anything compelling enough to capture the imagination of potential users.
It’s an open platform for marketers though, and we’re eagerly awaiting to see what they can come up with.
72m read their news online. Will advertisers stick around after pay walls though?
Feb 4th
Guess what? Newspapers and online media sites aren’t dead. And what does that mean, marketers will be coming back to them in droves over the next few month, but will pay walls see a decline in the numbers?
Newspaper websites in the US have attracted an average monthly unique audience of 72 million visitors in the fourth quarter of 2009, representing 37% of internet users, according to new figures from Nielsen Online.
Newspaper websites users generated more than 3.2 billion page views during the quarter, spending more than 2.4 billion minutes sites.
The results come as News Corp reports a net profit of $254m for 2009. It’s CEO – Rupert Murdoch, who is the main voice behind the push for pay walls by the year 2011 on major newspaper websites – said that “content is not just king but the emperor of all things electronic,” reassuring advertisers that consumers “will pay for content”.
So the world is going digital, this is not news. What is interesting to note though is how multiplatform the media industry has become and the variety that advertisers are now presented with.
Furthermore, with online newspaper figures so positive, it brings further confidence to the market that devices such as the Amazon Kindle and Apple’s iPad will be able to succeed.
As the economy begins to stabilize, newspaper companies are in position to leverage their trusted brands to reach a highly engaged audience and deliver maximum value to advertisers, according to Newspaper Association of America.
News Corp will be announcing within two months its model for charging for the online content of the New York Post, Times of London and all its other newspapers.
While today’s Nielsen figures sound impressively up 5.5%, it is still not known if advertisers will be willing to pay to have their ads behind paid-for content given the negative reactions from readers.
Asked what they would do if their favorite news site suddenly began charging, 74% of online news readers said they would “find another free site,” according to a Harris Interactive study commissioned by PaidContent UK. Only 5% said they’d pay to continue reading for fee.
The debate continues…
Augmented Reality is no longer science fiction, it’s your new digital strategy
Feb 2nd
Augmented Reality holds potential for a wide range of industrial and consumer uses, but marketing projects are one of the few areas where augmented reality tech companies are doing steady business today.
The market for Augmented Reality (AR) services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014, with revenues derived from a combination of paid-for app downloads, subscription based services and advertising, according to research from Juniper.
Marketers are increasingly trying out the new technology in an effort to make deeper connections with consumers, but is augmented reality really the next big thing?
AR may still not be at the forefront of the digital strategy, however, with the upcoming launch of the iPad this new medium could become more commonplace sooner rather than later.
Although initial service adoption will be driven by AR location-based search, Juniper Research expects the first substantial revenues to be derived from AR-enabled games, bolstered by revenues from mobile solutions from 2012-3 onwards.
AR is expected to be increasingly attractive to advertisers and brands as AR ad networks will be able to charge higher CPC and CPM rates because of location relevance.
But what will make AR so attractive to consumers?
According to Niall Cook of Hill and Knowlton getting people to think about a physical object (reality) and data about it (or data about that data) that could exist online are the two core components of AR.
He says that the technology will do a number of things:
– Provide the user with a way of capturing the object
– Recognise the object
– Search for the relevant data about the object
– Display the data in a way that augments the physical representation
Visuals are an important part of advertising, so it’s not surprising that so many companies have jumped on the AR bandwagon, offering tools that visualise their products in a magical and memorable way.
AR is already a reality in the US with consumer brands such as Kia Motors, Nestlé, and Frito-Lay all experimenting with campaigns.
The hope for marketers now is that it will engage an audience more deeply than other forms of social media, such as viral videos, fan pages on Facebook, or Twitter followings.
Is AR part of your digital strategy? We can’t wait to see what brands come up with.
The iPad hype isn’t over yet, just wait until version 2
Jan 29th
Many reports are being very negative about the iPad, they say Apple has got it wrong. But this is all part of a greater marketing plan – the iPad revolution ain’t over yet, the best is yet to come and we’ll be just as sucked into that as we were this one.
I know that by now most will be feeling a little inundated with iPad information and are probably growing a little tired of hearing about Apple’s latest and greatest invention. However, I am surprised by the number of negative reports about yesterday’s launch (a great moment in history people!)
I don’t want to come across as too much of an Apple advocate, most will know I was happy with Dell for years before crossing over to the greener side of the Apple last year. But the iPad, without any doubt at all, is revolutionary.
Some reports say that the iPad is a “disappointment” and that it didn’t live up to the hype. Many reports have also gone and listed everything that the iPad doesn’t do – including such things as include a camera and Flash for example.
But to them I say this, you have missed the point of the iPad and completely forgotten Apple’s tremendous history of success.
The iPad isn’t meant to be a smartphone or a laptop. There are smartphones and laptops that do those jobs incredibly well and doh, the last thing that Apple would want to do is to make two of their best selling products redundant by cheaper alternatives.
The iPad is meant to act as a replacement, or an easier alternative to reading a book, a newspaper, or watching TV on the run.
While the iPad may not be perfect right now, I bet the next version will be pretty close. Remember the first iPhone wasn’t perfect…then came the 3G version one year later. The first iPod’s weren’t great either, they were big and bulky and didn’t have much memory. Now the likes of the Nano have an inbuilt video camera and the iPod Touch supports web browsing.
Give the iPad time people and don’t under estimate the magnificence of Steve Jobs and the incredible marketing genius that is Apple.
Why we loved Apple’s iPad before we even knew it existed
Jan 28th
Following the launch of the iPad, Apple is being hailed as a marketing genius. But what has ensured this company’s phenomenal success and consumer love?
The internet has been buzzing today following the launch of Apple’s new “magical” product, the iPad.
Rumoured for the past couple of months, news sources across the globe raced to put the official word online and the rest of the world watched.
I am still amazed, hours later, by the amount of hype one company with one new product launch could generate.
Today’s big reveal didn’t actually give watchful Apple enthusiasts anything that wasn’t already rumoured. We’d heard about the partnership deals with publishers, we’d heard about the size, we’d seen mock-ups and we were sure about what applications would be included. So why was this still the event of the year in tech land?
Even as the media and technology worlds have anticipated this announcement for months, Apple has said not word one about the iPad prior to its unveiling, apart from Steve Jobs earlier this week confirming that a revolutionary product would indeed be launched. Furthermore, instead of prototypes, Apple makes patents – and that’s what really kicked this whole thing off.
Apple is just one of those company’s where everything it does is hailed as ‘revolutionary’ and its ads and promo videos certainly do well to tell consumers the company is about to change communication and technology as we know it forever. It uses such phrases in its launches as “this is what the future looks like” and makes its viewers feel like they are part of history. One day soon we’ll be saying, “do you remember where you were when the iPad was launched?”
Apple is also the coolest brand in the world, according to last year’s CoolBrands list, from the SuperBrands survey. Furthermore, visitors to Brandchannel.com claim Apple is the brand they cannot live without. It is the marque they most want to sit next to at a dinner party and with which they most identify.
In tech land, Jobs is “the ultimate showman who keeps the audience excited the whole way leading up to the reveal,” said the New York Times last week.
And more often than not, Apple has delivered on Jobs’s showmanship. People remember the debut of the iPhone three years ago, and Apple’s promise that it would change everything. It promptly did and even before we knew Apple was launching a new product, we pondered about what the company would do next. It’s one of the few companies that keeps us guessing and where the rumour mill is aptly fed. Check out such sites as Apple Insider and 9 to 5 Mac – not a day goes by without something new to say about Apple.
A recent report in The Mac Observer, also says that Jobs is quite the marketer – everything he does is with a higher purpose. There was a suggestion at the beginning of the month that Apple actually quietly engages with the media in a way that does not leave fingerprints. The way Jobs pulls this off is to release only pieces of specific information to journalists that are friends with Apple employees. The information is handed over in what would seem like a normal conversation and banking on the nature of journalists and their need to be first with the news, that information is usually ‘leaked’ out in news reports or at least does the rounds in the blogs. This is all controlled that way and the journalist walks away thinking they have something, they just have no idea how big or small that information is in the bigger picture.
But why is Apple one of the only companies that can create such buzz around a product that starts off as a rumour? The answer is innovation and the company’s promise that it’s about to change everything. In the case of the iPad, not only is it saying it will save the publishing industry from near extinction, but will also be a catalyst for new marketing channels and in turn more revenue in the suffering advertising industry.
But Apple products are pretty expensive, so how does the company convince consumers to pay a premium for a product that isn’t an absolutely necessity?
Apple products look cool, feel cool and, most of all, everyone wants one.
Apple isn’t just a brand, it’s an experience. Something proved by its some 170-odd worldwide Mac stores. A young, hip, and technically knowledgeable staff is friendly without being hard-sell. They won’t boot you out for using the Macs and free Wi-Fi. Apple has managed to turn a computer into a day at a digital park – and it’s all free. Its image is undeniably cool and in a stroke of genius they’ve made technology available to even the most hopeless technophobes out there by launching products that are so effortlessly easy to use. The iPad is no different.
The reason for all the hype around the iPad? Simple, brand loyalty. Apple products rarely let people down, but they do leave them wanting more. Apple is one of the most talked about and buzzed brands on the internet, why? People are constantly surprised and impressed a company that never seems to rest on its laurels but instead seeks to continuously innovate and shake up the market. Apple is out to change the world by changing the way we do the things that we do everyday.
It’s marketing is always focused on the product, what it does, what it looks like and what it can bring to a users life. You’ll never see an Apple ad and wonder what the hell the campaign is taking about. It keeps it simple and as demonstrated by Apple’s record results this week, shows us that Apple truly is a brand we can’t and shouldn’t live without.
The Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – the tablet I mean
Jan 27th
While everyone eagerly awaits Apple’s new product launch tonight, we cast your mind back to the very first tablet device – the Newton
In my excitement in waiting for Apple’s announcement of its new “exciting product” tonight (27/01), I was doing some digging on the internet trying to learn all I could about this proposed tablet (by the way, I prefer the name iPad, it goes well with iPod, iPhone – see, all P’s). But one thing that I had forgotten about was Apple’s Newton – a tablet like device the tech giant produced in 1989.
I barely remember 1989, and I certainly wasn’t tech savvy back then. If I really think about it, I didn’t have a phone, an MP3 (or a walkman I suppose), a personal computer or even a Gameboy. I don’t actually remember anyone back then needing as much technology as we carry around with us today.
So, this is precisely why the Newton failed. There was no need for it.
For those of you who don’t remember or were perhaps too young (yes, I fall into the latter category) I’ll give you a quick rundown of the Newton.
The Newton platform was an early personal digital assistant hardware/software platform developed by Apple that included that fun colourful Apple logo.
Most Newton devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting recognition software – back then, this was cool. The Newton project was a PDA platform. Newton was intended to be a complete reinvention of personal computing. For most of its design lifecycle Newton had a large-format screen, more internal memory, and an object-oriented graphics kernel.
The project, however, missed its original goals to reinvent personal computing and then to rewrite contemporary application programming. Apple was also scared that the device would interfere with Macintosh sales and the Newton was scrapped.
It has now been hailed as the “grandfather” of the iPhone – a device that was clearly before its time.
Fast forward 20 years and we are eagerly awaiting a bigger and better Newton. Steve Jobs himself did say that the company had been working on this new product for the past 10 years, but that he had always had it in his mind.
So what will make a tablet like device a success today?
1. Our incessant need for technology
2. Advertisers
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