In giving Bose’s new Wave radio an otherwise favorable review (July 10, 2005), I worried that the minimalist design – no control buttons on the unit, only a credit card sized remote control – would be a problem when groggy users were groping for the “snooze” button. Long-term experience proved just that: a tiny button on a miniature remote is not an ideal control when you are half asleep.
It seemed inevitable that some enterprising company would come along and solve the problem by making a remote control with nice big buttons, including a prominent one for snooze. A company did: Bose.
It now offers the $40 Wave Music System Premium Backlit Remote Control. It’s a nicely designed, silver toned unit that includes a handy cradle for placing it conveniently at hand on your nightstand. Perhaps I am being a little churlish, but I can’t help but note that Wave owners now pay extra for the same kind of buttons that used to be built into the chassis of the original incarnation of the clock radio.
Bose has some history on this score. The original version of the Wave did not have a headphone jack (the new ones do). When the first Wave was introduced, Bose had not yet begun to sell its upscale Quiet Comfort and Tri-Port headphones. Coincidence? I think not: when Bose headphone sales took off the company released an adaptor that let users hook headphones up to the old Wave.
Apple is another company prone to this kind of behavior. Several generations of iPods shipped with an a/c adapter (for charging), docking cradle, a wired remote control, and a moderately useful carrying holster. For the new “5th Generation” video models and the Nano, those now are extra cost options that add more than 100 bucks to the pricetag, and a chintzy plastic sleeve has replaced the holster. Nor is there any special “bundle” deal if you want to buy these accessories along with a new iPod. Mind you, you do get extra features for your money. The remote adds FM tuning capabilities while the new cradle is a “universal” design that can be used with all the various flavors of iPods. But there is no excuse for failing to include a charger.
Saying, as Apple does, that you get video with the 5G at no increase is flat-out deception.
In its computer lineup, Apple has pulled the built-in dial-up modem from its sleek iMac desktops and substituted a $50 USB modem. OK, you can make a case for that, everybody else makes modems extra cost. However, Apple is now doing the same thing on its flagship MacBook Pro notebooks, and you can’t make a case for that. Steve Jobs may think the dial-up era is over, but business travelers would beg to differ.
Where an accessory adds a feature to a product, then it truly is an extra. For example, cables to hook your iPod to a stereo or to play the video on an external TV legitimately fall into that category. Also, there are third-party products in most of these categories to give Apple and Bose a little price competition. However, when a standard feature ceases to be standard, what you have is a backdoor price increase.
Bose and Apple are two of the most innovative consumer electronics companies around in terms both of developing new product concepts and stylish design. Unfortunately, however, both companies also have a certain institutional arrogance. There is a fine line between legitimately improving corporate economics and ripping off your customers. Too often these companies are on the wrong side of that line.
Neither company is by any stretch of the imagination the worst offender in the marketplace. But both companies make their independent, creative identities a key part of their marketing. And both companies charge a price premium for their goods. Consumers legitimately can expect better from them than we get.
