Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
Unfortunately, that's not how markets work.
Yes, sometimes markets work in sucky ways (not something I was commenting about anyway). But that's not the same thing as claiming "little functional difference" (which
is one thing commenting about).
Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
It's by going upscale and trying to stay ahead of it is the strategy that the PND mfgs are using now. Whether that is sustainable is what you and I are arguing about.
The alternative, racing to the bottom, isn't going to work.
I've actually made no comment about sustainability.
Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
Disagree. Abvio (Cyclemeter) - for example - is not a company big enough to go head to head with Garmin. So they address it by nibbling away at the market. Multiply Abvio by ten. Go read Reis and Trout, "Marketing Warfare." Shortest and most succinct discussion of this that I know. It's an easy read and it's been true for decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_marketing
"Guerilla marketing" isn't just "being tied down by the Lilliputians". (If everything is "a disruption" or "guerilla marketing", then nothing is.)
Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
One way out of it is for Garmin and the PND suppliers to buy the little guys up. Apple has done this successfully before. Leaving them to be and to grow is probably not the path to sustainability for the PND suppliers.
Apple is quite a different company than Garmin. The "little guys" might not make any or very much money (and there are a lot of them!). And they are competing against open source alternatives.
Originally Posted by
JohnJ80
Find my Friends app does that without a bike computer. And it doesn't cause a drain on the phone's battery because it doesn't look for the position until it's queried by, for example, by your girlfriend.
With what is being discussed in
this thread, you are running the GPS continuously on one or another device. So, for this discussion,
this feature is moot.