You honestly don't believe that most Apple customers just buy Apple products because of the brand name on the box?
Go survey anyone buying the products in the store or online. See how long it takes you to get an answer along the lines of: "I researched all my options and this seemed like the best choice."
> You can't sell 15 million units of a brand new, $500 product in nine months on the strength of TV ads and magazine pieces. It has to actually work well.
The iPad by any other name and company would not have sold close to that amount.
>You honestly don't believe that most Apple customers just buy Apple products because of the brand name on the box?
This is a ridiculous stance. It is dismissive and doesn't explain how Apple turned around from being an almost bankrupt company to what it is today.
You ignore how that brand was built. Esp when Apple was on the verge of death in the late 90's. They couldn't rely on their brand at that point, could they? Apple as a powerhouse is a relatively recent phenomenon.
It's like saying Zappos customers are only loyal to Zappos because of their brand, and not their customer service. Their customer service is how they built their brand. Similarly, Apple built their brand on some really great products.
> The iPad by any other name and company would not have sold close to that amount.
That's definitely true. An iPad by another company would not sell anywhere close to 15 million units in nine months. Why?
* Low standards for overall product quality, along with short term gotta make Wall Street happy this quarter thinking, so products get rushed to market
* Sloppy software/hardware integration
* No access to 20 years of NeXTStep/OS X libraries and tools to build an awesome developer experience, so apps will suck
* No supply chain optimization to provide an outstanding form factor at a compelling price
* No consistent, worldwide retail presence to allow users to experiment with the new product and have questions answered
* No culture of absurd exhaustive prototyping to ensure that the user experience works well once the product is in the hands of customers
> You honestly don't believe that most Apple customers just buy Apple products because of the brand name on the box?
I honestly believe the Apple brand gets people into the store. Once they're in the store, the actual product sells itself. Any further influence of the brand in the purchasing decision comes down to the simple truth that Apple has been consistently making better shit than everyone else for years. But you can't pay a PR firm for that.
You haven't actually tried being an Apple user outside of the first world, have you?
Apple's consistent, worldwide retail presence in Poland consists of two "Apple shops" in Warsaw [1]. Apple's consistent, worldwide retail presence in Trinidad and Tobago consists of not-officially-authorized resellers [2]. These are not the exceptions.
I was in Hong Kong a few months ago. Apple doesn't have any of their own stores there but I was surprised how many third party retailers picked up on doing things their way.
In the IFC, an awesome knockoff of a real Apple store sells Macs and iPads in a bright, open space, letting users kick the tires.
A Fortress store in Macau wasn't nearly as Apple-like as all that, but you could still poke around at a real iPad.
They may not be, themselves, in every single country, but 300 stores on four continents and in eleven countries is a much bigger hands-on presence than other competing tablet manufacturers can claim, without even getting into the third party distributors that cover even more of the globe.
Go survey anyone buying the products in the store or online. See how long it takes you to get an answer along the lines of: "I researched all my options and this seemed like the best choice."
> You can't sell 15 million units of a brand new, $500 product in nine months on the strength of TV ads and magazine pieces. It has to actually work well.
The iPad by any other name and company would not have sold close to that amount.