Blog, Marketing, Product Reviews
Yes it’s here – the apple of everyone’s eye yesterday and today, is Apple’s new iPhone 5S and 5c. And once again, Apple gets an gold star for creating strong marketing buzz and panting anticipation in the mobile device marketplace. Radio, TV, or Internet – news media outlets across the globe are all busy buzzing around Apples latest technological appendage and its new iOS7. Just when you think they’ve outdone themselves with the iPhone 4S operating system and the introduction of Siri, they one up (if not ten) themselves. So let’s look at the multifaceted dimensions of the Apple’s winning marketing strategies.
Marketing the Technology and Software: Apple refuses to be put in a pile of seconds (fruit picking term), knowing their consumer base well and leading this campaign with the technological improvements. Offering a synchronized and integrated user experience across all features, the new iOS7 takes multitasking to a whole new level! Techies and mobile junkies are going to love the new A7 64-bit chip, making the device’s CPU and graphics 2x faster than the iPhone 5. For the snappy Instagram’er, the iOS 7 is designed with multiple enhancements to take advantage of the best photo ops. They even upgraded Siri – I wonder if she sounds like Beyonce?
Marketing the Esthetics – Apple has gone above and beyond in marketing the beautiful color options, as well as, the structural elements. Almost all media outlets have spoken about the product and technology, and as well, the beautiful color options and sleek design. As soon as you log into Apple’s site, you are hit with this on-screen color explosion that causes one to pause. I did – it was just that engaging! What you also see is a link to the key-note speaker which after just a few seconds – you can tell that the company is hearing its consumer groups. Much fun also, is this video, where you get the whole life cycle of the product in a comprehensible, down-to-earth manner.
Marketing the Security: Although the Fall may be Macintosh picking season, Apple has seemingly found a solution to its own Apple picking problem and it’s WOW’ing the digital marketplace. Thievery of its iPhones, commonly referred to as “Apple Picking,” has been a big problem over the years for this mobile technology powerhouse. So Apple has implemented Touch ID, a new fingerprint authentication feature (also known as biometric coding) into the iPhone 5S, making it less appealing and almost worthless to those with sticky fingers. They get my thumbs up, knowing that a fingerprint can also approve purchases from iTunes or the App Store.
Marketing the Price Points: The bean counters have taken notice and Apple is now marketing to everyone – siding with consumers who want the product but are limited economically. Who can beat the 4-inch Retina display, 8-megapixel rear camera (front facing too) and A6 processor with 16GB for only $99? This is smart marketing for all those on limited budgets and feeling the economic pinch. As for those who want Gold Member status, you’ll love the sleek gold tone version that’s just a month’s worth of Starbucks runs. Apple has done a great job marketing both mobile phone options simultaneously, to widen the net for capturing potential and faithful consumers with a strong economical hook. Thanks Apple for advancing mobile technology once gain and giving us better technology for less.
Marketing to the Following: By offering 2 options, Apple captures not only its faithful following who could care less about the price, but also those who haven’t bitten the iPhone apple just yet. Despite the global recession, historically Apple has made no apologies for their high-end products. However, offering a cheaper alternative, one could surmise that the time and sales reports may be reflecting an undeniable truth. Build it better, offer it cheaper and more will come. Kudos to them for acknowledging this and casting a wider net beyond just their faithful following to the soon-to-be’s.
So, as you can see, Apple is strongly considering its consumer’s input and is addressing those needs esthetically and technologically. It’s obvious that they have the fingers on the pulse of their marketplace and following. They continue to be pioneers and leaders, again setting a gold standard in strong, strategic planning and successful implementation.
Product Reviews
For the past several years I’m been a fanboy for Apple products. It all started with my iPhone 3G a few years ago, then to an iPod Touch, then a white MacBook, then an iPad, to a MacBook Pro, and iPhone 4. Whew, when I actually list all of that out it seems like a lot huh? Well I recently made the switch to an Android as my mobile device. Switching from my easy to use and fully functioning iPhone 4. For me, learning how to use all of these devices was pretty simple. I’ve been a “techie” just about all of my life.
But why did I make the switch? Well, for a lot of reasons but some that are biggest to mention is that Apple has been slacking in their handheld department. My wife has been on Team Android for years, and of lately I’ve just been really frustrated with the lack of user options that iOS is still lacking yet Android users have had for years. She had been taunting me with these air gestures for scrolling through pictures, automatic pause when looking away from watching a video, scheduling text messages, and more. Aside from these I just mentioned let me talk about a few things I now enjoy that I was denied from Team Apple.
Swype
The ability to compose text and email messages by sliding your fingers across the keyboard. I was quite skeptical about this from the outside looking in, but once I started to really use it myself I finally understood what all the hype was about. Its amazing how accurate the engine is as well as the built in predictive text. There were plenty of times when I started spelling a word the wrong way and when I was done with the word expecting to delete it, the corrective type already knew what word I really wanted to use. Eerie but cool at the same time.
Automatic App Updates
I’ve never really understood why Apple hasn’t implemented automatic updates. Most PC software and a lot of OSX software have their own measures for automatic updated, yet on iOS whether you have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad you still need to manually update your apps and each time you do you need to enter your credentials. In most cases there really isn’t a reason you’re NOT going to update your apps. Updates are usually a benefit, be it for bug fixes, new features, and other advancements. Android apps can be updated automatically and you get a short note in your notification window that the app(s) have been updated.
External Storage
This has been a longstanding issue. Now that I can add my content from my devices straight to my mobile device is great. And not having to worry about filling up my internal and doing a data balancing act with my content is quite relaxing. On my Samsung Galaxy S4 I can add up to 64g of external storage. And that’s on top of the already allotted 16g of internal storage.
Removable Battery
Most Android phones will allow you to remove the back plate and have access to your battery and that may also be where your SD card slot is too. It’s pretty convenient to have a spare when you know you’ll be at an all day conference that may be limited on outlets to recharge. So when your device does go to that 10% status, you can just swap out your battery and you’re back to 100% and that should last till the end of your day. That was never an option on my iPhone 3G or 4. I kind of doubt that will be an option on the upcoming 5s too.
NFC
Near Field Communication is being able to send or receive data just by placing your device near another device. They don’t need to be the same device, they just need to have the NFC function. So you may have a debit or credit card with NFC where you can pay just by waving your card on a small box. Well with mobile phones you can send pictures, music, and more this way.
Widgets
Now this was a totally new concept to me. Having jailbroken my 3G and my 4, I had a few things that I added like SB Settings and Lock Info which were great for getting to commonly used options like brightness, airplane mode, weather and more. On my Android device there are many apps that have their own widgets that can be placed on any page you create from your phone. So for example you can have a row if icons for your favorite apps like Messaging, Gallery, Email, and Contacts, then have a full horizontal bar that is your music player, then a few boxes that are your weather app, calendar, tasks, etc. The combinations are vast especially from the native apps. 
Overall this new OS (to me) offers a lot more in user functions that I was not even aware was possible when I was on iOS. Though one major shortcoming is that unless you have one of the major manufactured devices like HTC or Samsung, you may not get the same version(s) of Android. The one attack I’d usually is how segmented the OS was across so many different devices, and how unified iOS was. The phone I’m currently using is the Samsung Galaxy S4 and it has many more options baked in that aren’t yet available on other manufacturers so my views are from this device solely.
Now if you are deciding to make the switch, I found some apps to make your converting process a bit less painless.
Samsung Smart Switch
This free piece of software from Samsung called Smart Switch will actually find and transfer your text messages, memos (notes), music, calendar items, contacts and more. What you’ll want to do is be sure to do a sync and a backup of your iPhone prior to using this application because it pulls from that stored data from your computer. This is something available for Samsung Devices though, so I can’t say if it will work with an HTC device or others. They have it for Windows and Mac too. This process took a while because I had a lot of data on my iPhone but it was so nice not to lose any text messages or photos and such.
While you’re at it pick up Kies and configure your device to sync to your computer or laptop. It’s fairly easy to setup and configure. What I liked best was the ability for it to scan my hard drive or specific folders for media to then choose what I want added or sync’d to my phone. 
So if you’re planning to do a switch I hope that this article helps to shed some light on what to expect and maybe more reasons why you’d want to go all the way. Of course I have a bunch more comments and such to add, but I’ll save that for replying to your comments below.
All Posts, Photography, Product Reviews
We received an email from our friends at Wallpaper Wizard for a special deal on a new Mac OSX app called Photo+ from ArcSoft. If you do photography like we do, chances are you have quite a few applications that all do certain things very well. If on a Mac, you’re probably used to using the default Preview app. While great for single images, viewing multiple images in full, zooming, cropping, and such are a bit cumbersome and limited. With Photo+ however there are a host of great features to make showcasing a whole folder of images really easy and fast to display.
Using your track pad or Magic Mouse you can easily slide left and right or hover over images to view them. Full images within large folders open quickly. As you can see you have plenty of controls to use to:
- Easily start a slideshow
- Navigate images
- Delete images
- Share to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr
- Make photos favorites
- Zoom
- And my favorite is entering full screen while still being able to scroll and navigate images
As you can see from this screenshot, you can easily crop out and copy to your clipboard, or save the image quickly.
Well take advantage of their Mac App Store introductory sale from $9.99 to .99Cents. Within a few seconds of purchasing it was downloaded and I was up and running with no fuss. Arcsoft does have some well documented tutorials should you need them, but looking at the icons they’re all pretty familiar if you already use most other photo editing programs.
