johnny won

Apple’s Approach to Advertising

I thought it could best be summed up with these two articles. Read both full articles but for the lazy:  

Daring Fireball: The Just-Buy-Our-Devices Model

I see Apple “monetizing” Siri simply as a way to sell more devices — more iPhones now, more iPads (and who knows, maybe Macs?) in the future. Siri could be the interface to future products, like tiny little Nano-sized devices, or home entertainment systems. Google’s ad-driven model disrupted Microsoft’s pay-for-software-licenses model. Apple’s just-buy-our-devices-and-look-at-all-the-cool-shit-you-get-with-them model could disrupt Google’s ad-driven model.

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Siri doesn’t need to lead to advertising in order to add to Apple’s bottom line. Consider iCloud — Apple now offers free-of-charge online services ad-free. It’s a sunk cost in the name of the overall experience for Apple device buyers.

TidBITS Opinion: Will Siri Change the Rules of the Search Game?

Siri and search companies both compete to control your contact point with the Internet. Search does this through deep integration with Web browsers; even to the point (with Google) of producing entire operating systems whose primary goal is to serve as your conduit to the Internet and drive you towards Google services. The value to Google in producing Chrome OS and Android is in increasing usage of Google for the purpose of gaining access to your activities and delivering more targeted advertising.

Siri is a new user interface designed to increase the usefulness of the iPhone, and it’s hard to imagine it won’t eventually come to other products. The Internet is only one of its potential components, which also include on-device data and apps like calendars and reminders. Siri tracks your activity to improve its accuracy, not to deliver advertising. The value to Apple is in selling more devices.

These are completely different financial models, even though both systems track and analyze your activities. One is funded by advertising, the other with device sales. (And both, perhaps, with licensing to drive users to particular partners.)

Now argue that Apple cares about advertising at all. I wouldn’t say Apple is gunning for Google, Apple just doesn’t need Google in order to make Siri work. 

Obsession

I’ve obsessively followed Apple since I first got to play with the Macintosh LC II at Old Trail with Mac OS 7 in 1992. I was 9 years old. 

Since then, I’ve had 16 iPhones (some broke, not my fault), Dells, built my own PCs, bought the iBook, 12” Powerbook, the Mac G4 Cube and now I’m writing this on the MacBook 11” Air which I would argue to be the single greatest portable laptop ever. And throughout all this time, the single thing I’ve enjoyed most about obsessively following Apple is being at the forefront of the leap forward. 

I remember kicking around in terminal with OS X 10.0, remarking at the then beauty of Aqua & the UNIX kernel and 10 years later 10.0 has evolved into the rock that is now OS X Lion. This leap forward that is available by being the earliest of early adopters has given me an obsession for not just speculating on what’s next but be part of something to help move things forward. I don’t mean this by just throwing down an AMEX to own something but use OS X to code things, iPhones to develop mobile marketing programs and use an iPad to design new interfaces. 

It is unimaginable for me to think I could be the person I am today without my obsession with Apple and certainly my career would have gone nowhere. I think this is the impact Steve Jobs has had on my little world.