Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s lead designer Jonathan Ive recently taunted the other smartphone makers by saying that they are not fulfilling their responsibilities as designers, and accused them of “abdicating their responsibility as a designer”. The comment was not received well by the Motorola president Rick Osterloh, who along with defending his company accused Apple of charging high prices.
Was Ive talking of Motorola?
Osterloh charged Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) of charging outrageously high prices for its mobile phones and all other devices.
The comments from Motorola executive may appear out of context as the post in The New Yorker, covering a profile of Ive, does not have the name of the company specified by Ive. However, a report from the Telegraph noted that Apple designer was only talking about the device makers that allow the customers to choose the color of their handset.
Motorola allows its buyers to select device colors of their own choice with its Moto Maker tool. So, this way, the criticism by Ive has been taken personally by Osterloh.
Will it affect Apple?
To fire back at Ive, Osterloh took to BBC on Wednesday. Osterloh supported Motorola’s practice of allowing its customers customize their handset by choosing its color.
“We’re making the entire product line accessible. And frankly, we’re taking a directly opposite approach to them [Apple],” Osterloh said, adding that the company believes smartphones should be “affordable.”
Osterloh told the BBC, “We do see a real dichotomy in this marketplace, where you’ve got people like Apple making so much money and charging such outrageous prices. We think that’s not the future.”
The criticism has come at a time when Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is close to releasing Apple Watch, which is much hyped and is also rumored to be the most expensive product from the iPhone maker. Especially, the Apple Watch edition is being touted to be the highest revenue grosser for the company. This gold version alone will generate lots of money for the company. Of course this calculation has lots of caveats. No matter how much we criticize Apple, there are always people who are ready to pay any price for its products.
