It’s a starter Mac.
I’ve had an iPod touch for about a month and a half now and I’m about to buy a Mac. Having had a Blackberry for over a year and a Windows mobile before that, and a Nokia for most of my adult mobile using life, I’ve tried all the different major handsets and I have to say the iPod is a killer computer. I use it to surf the web, tweet on twitter, play games, and write the occasional email – don’t get me wrong the bb wins hands down when you’re writing loads – and man do I enjoy using the Apple product.
Now I want a mac, especially since the WWDC and saw the new Macbook pros. I’ve never been a mac fan boy. But using the iPod really does open your eyes to how good Apple’s products are.
At first I wasn’t sure about Macs, they’re pretty expensive compared to entry level PCs, but there are a couple of things that really got me. The speed, iPods start up and launch apps like a bullet, and from what I hear the Macs work in the same fashion. I started a three year old PC this weekend that acts as our music centre in the house and it took me nearly an hour to play a tune from Spotify. Whereas everyone I know with a mac swears it takes minutes to get started with applications, even years after purchase.
The other is usability, no one should ever have to know anything about logs and other madness that comes with knowing how to trouble shoot a PC. But at the same time finding Mac support can be difficult, but talking to my IT guy at work he’s much happier trouble shooting Macs then PCs, as he put it “The troubleshooting is less often and easier to fix”.
So while Apple’s continuing to make in roads using it’s iPod and iPhone mobile handsets, I think they’re really converting a lot of people to becoming Mac users. So they can afford to launch lower price point models and iterate on the handset development while moving people from the PC to the Mac.
The key learning point here is entry into lower margin and other products should be done in a way where you can migrate and convert users to using more of your products at higher price points.
