Agreed. There is a pathology afoot in the land. Check out enature above. It's like he wants to be the Chicken Little so bad. Never mind all that lies ahead for Jony Ive et al. He wants Apple to be like Samsung.
Lol.. you guys are funny. But the fact is that my yesterday's post under "WSJ: Apple cuts iPhone 5 component orders in half due to weak" article has been hidden by some forum administrator (and is hidden as of this writing).
When in 2005, I foresaw the Apple-lead revolution in consumer electronics and AAPL hitting triple digits, many people thought the forecast was absolutely preposterous (AAPL was only $35 at the time). Well, it turned out to be true.
I have been on Apple Insider for over 7 years precisely because I have been such a big fan of Apple. But one should not be blinded by affection. When Apple devices are not the easiest to use, consumers sense it and abandon its products. Cheer all you want and disregard the drop in iPhone orders as noise but Apple makes one mistake after another, which point to $300 AAPL price. The board will oust Tim Cook from his CEO post within 2 years for multiple mistakes under his leadership.
Lol.. you guys are funny. But the fact is that my yesterday's post under "WSJ: Apple cuts iPhone 5 component orders in half due to weak" article has been hidden by some forum administrator (and is hidden as of this writing).
When in 2005, I foresaw the Apple-lead revolution in consumer electronics and AAPL hitting triple digits, many people thought the forecast was absolutely preposterous (AAPL was only $35 at the time). Well, it turned out to be true.
I have been on Apple Insider for over 7 years precisely because I have been such a big fan of Apple. But one should not be blinded by affection. When Apple devices are not the easiest to use, consumers sense it and abandon its products. Cheer all you want and disregard the drop in iPhone orders as noise but Apple makes one mistake after another, which point to $300 AAPL price. The board will oust Tim Cook from his CEO post within 2 years for multiple mistakes under his leadership.
Lol.. you guys are funny. But the fact is that my yesterday's post under "WSJ: Apple cuts iPhone 5 component orders in half due to weak" article has been hidden by some forum administrator (and is hidden as of this writing).
When in 2005, I foresaw the Apple-lead revolution in consumer electronics and AAPL hitting triple digits, many people thought the forecast was absolutely preposterous (AAPL was only $35 at the time). Well, it turned out to be true.
I have been on Apple Insider for over 7 years precisely because I have been such a big fan of Apple. But one should not be blinded by affection. When Apple devices are not the easiest to use, consumers sense it and abandon its products. Cheer all you want and disregard the drop in iPhone orders as noise but Apple makes one mistake after another, which point to $300 AAPL price. The board will oust Tim Cook from his CEO post within 2 years for multiple mistakes under his leadership.
Let's talk after the earnings report next week. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to go to an Apple store and 1, watch people, and 2, pick up an iPhone 5 and an iPad mini and look at them and especially feel them in your hand. Take off that white baseball cap for at least part of the exercise.
Let's talk after the earnings report next week. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to go to an Apple store and 1, watch people, and 2, pick up an iPhone 5 and an iPad mini and look at them and especially feel them in your hand. Take off that white baseball cap for at least part of the exercise.
What if he's right? What if the numbers are not the best? What then? Who's to blame then?
For many people iPhones are the best devices ever made. At least they are until a new iPhone is available, then, the previous one becomes obsolete.
But maybe this will change. Maybe people will start thinking about getting phones from other companies. And start to like them, for reasons you might not understand. It's not like Apple is going to be doomed, far from it, but they maybe they won't have this mass product anymore and become a niche player like they are in the computer market. But they will always be a company that is known for quality and design.
This seems to be a clear-cut attempt by Um and collaborators at the Wall Street Journal TO MANIPULATE APPLE STOCK. After Apple’s earnings have been announced, HOPEFULLY Apple will publicly ADMONISH AND EMBARRASS both UM from Wells, and the Murdoch Klowns at the WSJ, for their public and obvious follies. ANY ACCESS these fakes had to ANY Apple data in the past should END - IMMEDIATELY.
Let's talk after the earnings report next week. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to go to an Apple store and 1, watch people, and 2, pick up an iPhone 5 and an iPad mini and look at them and especially feel them in your hand. Take off that white baseball cap for at least part of the exercise.
Excellent point about feeling the product in once's hand. Think outside of spreadsheets. Feel the product. Needless to say that I played with all Apple products prior to make any prognostics. Among them all, Macbook Air and iPad Mini are the best and easiest to use when price and competition are taken into account. Btw, I just gave iPad Mini for this reason as a gift. But iPad Mini and Macbook Air are NOT Apple cash cows - iPhone is!
And iPhone manifests the biggest mistakes Tim Cook has made: a small and narrow screen, marginally improved iOS, unreliable iCloud/Siri/Maps.
With each passing day the screen size of iPhone becomes more ridiculously small. It was clear in 2011 that consumers will gradually move bigger screens. And Tim Cook failed to deliver it so far.
You need not only to hold the product in your hand but travel around the world and see what people use and how they relate to the product – increasingly they move away from iPhone. It is loosing its cool factor rapidly in many markets for a simple reason – it is not the easiest to use smartphone anymore. Consumer Reports just confirmed the obvious.
And without its morbidly fat cash cow – iPhone, AAPL cannot fly sky-high. It was just recently $700 and people thought it is impossible to fall to $300. Just four months passed and we are already half-way there at $500…
Excellent point about feeling the product in once's hand. Think outside of spreadsheets. Feel the product. Needless to say that I played with all Apple products prior to make any prognostics. Among them all, Macbook Air and iPad Mini are the best and easiest to use when price and competition are taken into account. Btw, I just gave iPad Mini for this reason as a gift. But iPad Mini and Macbook Air are NOT Apple cash cows - iPhone is!
And iPhone manifests the biggest mistakes Tim Cook has made: a small and narrow screen, marginally improved iOS, unreliable iCloud/Siri/Maps.
With each passing day the screen size of iPhone becomes more ridiculously small. It was clear in 2011 that consumers will gradually move bigger screens. And Tim Cook failed to deliver it so far.
You need not only to hold the product in your hand but travel around the world and see what people use and how they relate to the product – increasingly they move away from iPhone. It is loosing its cool factor rapidly in many markets for a simple reason – it is not the easiest to use smartphone anymore. Consumer Reports just confirmed the obvious.
And without its morbidly fat cash cow – iPhone, AAPL cannot fly sky-high. It was just recently $700 and people thought it is impossible to fall to $300. Just four months passed and we are already half-way there at $500…
Most smart phones are still only around 4 inches. The trend to 5 is very recent. Only a handful of phones have them.
It took Apple a year to match the competition's larger screens and it will probably be another year before we see a 5 inch iPhone.
As far as ease of use I'm hoping for some big upgrades now that Ive has a greater hand on the software side. iOS 7 should be groundbreaking
This is pathetic. Some forum administrators on Apple Insider appear to hide posts if they run contrary to their views. Clearly, some Apple die-hard fans do not like to see the truth but hiding posts is the failure of integrity.
Come off it. It was two in the morning, I was asleep, and the forum's automatic spam catcher flagged it as spam.
Probably because it's total freaking crap.
Originally Posted by blackbook
It took Apple a year to match the competition's larger screens…
I have been on Apple Insider for over 7 years precisely because I have been such a big fan of Apple. But one should not be blinded by affection. When Apple devices are not the easiest to use, consumers sense it and abandon its products. Cheer all you want and disregard the drop in iPhone orders as noise but Apple makes one mistake after another, which point to $300 AAPL price. The board will oust Tim Cook from his CEO post within 2 years for multiple mistakes under his leadership.
So allegedly Apple ordered 65 mm for a non holiday qtr and then cut the order to half that. Why on earth would they order that much when the never sold more than 50mm in a holiday qtr?! So that is the first flag. What probably happened is the source said 65 mm but then was mistaken and corrected it to 35 mm. Common sense, people. The iPhone is still the easiest to use. My anti-apple friend is so frustrated with his android, he's actually thinking about the iPhone. He's also a programmer.
Excellent point about feeling the product in once's hand. Think outside of spreadsheets. Feel the product. Needless to say that I played with all Apple products prior to make any prognostics. Among them all, Macbook Air and iPad Mini are the best and easiest to use when price and competition are taken into account. Btw, I just gave iPad Mini for this reason as a gift. But iPad Mini and Macbook Air are NOT Apple cash cows - iPhone is!
And iPhone manifests the biggest mistakes Tim Cook has made: a small and narrow screen, marginally improved iOS, unreliable iCloud/Siri/Maps.
With each passing day the screen size of iPhone becomes more ridiculously small. It was clear in 2011 that consumers will gradually move bigger screens. And Tim Cook failed to deliver it so far.
You need not only to hold the product in your hand but travel around the world and see what people use and how they relate to the product – increasingly they move away from iPhone. It is loosing its cool factor rapidly in many markets for a simple reason – it is not the easiest to use smartphone anymore. Consumer Reports just confirmed the obvious.
And without its morbidly fat cash cow – iPhone, AAPL cannot fly sky-high. It was just recently $700 and people thought it is impossible to fall to $300. Just four months passed and we are already half-way there at $500…
So your two points: usability is function of size, and Apple's cash cow is morbidly fat.
Size: The iPhone 5 was a size decision based on pocketability and one-handedness, adding the maximum length (or height) that the width, determined by pocket and hand, can reasonably accommodate. The big Android phones ignore these considerations and go for maximum visibility regardless of the other factors—pocket and hand—that Ive and company have focused on. Apple's concern for user experience is intact. The phablet makers don't care: just give 'em a bigger screen, they'll lap it up, they think with their eyes, not their brains. See the difference? One approach is focused on physical usability, the other on visibility alone. I'm not the only one who has compared the big phones to big SUVs. There's a sucker for bigness born every minute.
"Morbidly fat" profit margins: The reason Apple needs their margins is that they are starting to make tectonic moves in several areas, like data centers, doing their own chip designs and soon bankrolling fabs, backing their own display sources, and developing their own manufacturing of chassis and cases with new designs based on new processes (for computer making anyway). The next revolution they are getting ready to create is moving portability into wearability, and they are possibly contemplating some sort of expensive network building, given that their data for Siri is often overloaded. They're building a design center for the next phase of their business, actually the third incarnation of Apple itself, which will be a new kind of technology entity based on nothing else than user satisfaction.
None of this is to say that they won't make a 5-inch pad with phone capability, like the Germans finally had to make some kind of SUV. But it's not because big is cool, it's because the market expectations have changed. You call it the new cool, I would call it normal opportunistic evolution. Samsung has prepared the ground for a new species by making freakish progeny with AMOLED screens, creepy polymers and an ugly operating system. Apple will again show the way it is to be properly done, something which none of the other companies have the design chops to do.
What if he's right? What if the numbers are not the best? What then? Who's to blame then?
For many people iPhones are the best devices ever made. At least they are until a new iPhone is available, then, the previous one becomes obsolete.
But maybe this will change. Maybe people will start thinking about getting phones from other companies. And start to like them, for reasons you might not understand. It's not like Apple is going to be doomed, far from it, but they maybe they won't have this mass product anymore and become a niche player like they are in the computer market. But they will always be a company that is known for quality and design.
I do understand why people are buying larger phones. All my life I've been watching bad taste overcome the rarer phenomenon of good taste. But this time, the first time I've seen in a long lifetime, good taste is winning.
Anyone else enjoying the irony of AppleInsider reporting that AppleInsider's reporting is just "noise"?
Maybe it's time for some human intervention with the copybot to raise the signal/noise ratio.
There's certainly a bad signal/noise ratio, but the number of rumors is so huge that even with a low signal/noise, it's enough for having ruined the latest Apple announcements events. The iPhone 5 event was dull, dull, dull, and not because the iPhone 5, but because we knew every little detail in advance.
That, right there, exposes the fact that you really haven't thought this through.
Right, and he's not alone. There were financial and tech reporters doing that yesterday too. It's like they're thinking themselves to a wished-for conclusion, that Apple will fail.
Maybe we think ourselves equally toward a wished-for conclusion, that Apple will succeed, but I think that is to be on the right side of evolution and history, not to aggrandize it too much : )
Right, and he's not alone. There were financial and tech reporters doing that yesterday too. It's like they're thinking themselves to a wished-for conclusion, that Apple will fail.
I had been bullish on AAPL for 7 years - from 2005 till 2012. Friends were calling me an Apple fanatic and thought I was crazy telling them that AAPL will increase 10-fold. When iPhone 5 came, it confirmed my worst fears - a small-screen elongated easily-scratched phone with marginally improved OS and subpar internet services. For the first time in 7 years, I advised to SELL APPL, and the very same friends who did not believe me 7 years ago that AAPL will go sky high, were telling me that AAPL is going to $1000, and how great its products are and how assured its domination is. Such linear thinking is a part of human nature and I cannot blame recent Apple fans to think in the same. But try to think non-linear. Note that Apple growth turned from accelerating to decelerating. It is still growing but its concave DOWN growth. When this happens you know the stock is deep trouble.
But curves by themselves mean nothing. One needs to understand WHY the growth became concave down. And the reason is that under Tim Cook leadership iPhone continues to carry very fat margins but is harder and harder to use relative to its competitors. Tim Cook is a chain-supply genius who is utterly clueless about products. I see board ousting him from his CEO post before 2014 is over, may be sooner.
I had been bullish on AAPL for 7 years - from 2005 till 2012. Friends were calling me an Apple fanatic and thought I was crazy telling them that AAPL will increase 10-fold. When iPhone 5 came, it confirmed my worst fears - a small-screen elongated easily-scratched phone with marginally improved OS and subpar internet services. For the first time in 7 years, I advised to SELL APPL, and the very same friends who did not believe me 7 years ago that AAPL will go sky high, were telling me that AAPL is going to $1000, and how great its products are and how assured its domination is. Such linear thinking is a part of human nature and I cannot blame recent Apple fans to think in the same. But try to think non-linear. Note that Apple growth turned from accelerating to decelerating. It is still growing but its concave DOWN growth. When this happens you know the stock is deep trouble.
But curves by themselves mean nothing. One needs to understand WHY the growth became concave down. And the reason is that under Tim Cook leadership iPhone continues to carry very fat margins but is harder and harder to use relative to its competitors. <span style="line-height:1.231;">Tim Cook is a chain-supply genius who is utterly clueless about products. </span>
<span style="line-height:1.231;">I see board ousting him from his CEO post before 2014 is over, may be sooner.</span>
You may, if you like, focus on the fact that Apple's growth is slowing (temporarily), and the fact that Tim is no Steve, and the fact that the anodzing scratches, and the fact that the screen is smaller than the Galactic phones, and conclude that your friends are going to be right and Apple is going to make you look bad. I think you are thinking visually, about appearances, and not deeply or widely enough.
This is a struggle for the soul of a technology, and I think you have a duty to stop shrieking about Apple's decline and fall until you can think more holistically than just visually. Unless you want the likes of Samsung and Google to win, then you just go ahead and keep thinking narrowly and shrieking about how things look bad, really bad, and try to spread your hysteria.
Hysteria which is based on thinking visually. A moment's holistic thinking will tell you that Ive and a team of the world's best designers, not Cook, are in charge of product concepts. Cook is the guy to lead Apple now, not in 1997, because Apple has become a diverse and far-flung enterprise that only a logistcs and strategics genius like him can run. They are going to be growing in spurts, sometimes evolving out a new platform or world information service, sometimes shoring up manufacturers and supplies for maintaining a more mature platform. But always growing, preparing for the next new platform and therefore new growth spurt.
You are shrieking during a period of platform maintenance, when they are growing at 25% rather than 100%. Meanwhile , they are planning things that will make you look good to your friends again, if you keep quiet and just be patient.
By the way, there are little tiny scratches on everything I use, including the toughest mass-product glass known to man, that only Apple had the courage to put on the BACK of a phone, that Apple caused to be developed, just like Apple is causing aluminum to be developed as an art-and-architectural feature for their current portable devices. Yes they scratch, but your white shoes and your white tennis shorts get dirty, don't they?
Visually is no way to think about technological ecosystems. Think tactile-ly, like Ive does, like Marshall McLuhan did. It's the most integrative of the senses. And calming.
I think you have a duty to stop shrieking about Apple's decline and fall until you can think more holistically than just visually. Unless you want the likes of Samsung and Google to win.... A moment's holistic thinking will tell you that Ive and a team of the world's best designers... Visually is no way to think about technological ecosystems. Think tactile-ly, like Ive does, like Marshall McLuhan did. It's the most integrative of the senses. And calming.
Will you get off this New Age high horse, please… Stop romanticizing Sir Ive and take a hard look at the reality.
Irrespective of all his awards, Sir Ive dropped the ball with iPhone 5 – his manic insistence on hard-to-manufacture-but-easy-scratch “edge”, his refusal to widen the ridiculously narrow screen cost AAPL investors dearly… - from $700 to $500. The only one who was able to overrule Sir Ive was Steve Jobs. Now with Forstall out and Cook having neither the vision nor guts to restrain the unbounded artistic urges of Ive, the dude is bound to make more damage. What’s even more dangerous to Apple is that Ive – with no software development experience whatsoever - is in charge of iOS.
All this talk about Apple investing into data centers hides the ugly truth – for years Apple has been underinvesting in pure research. It spends on it less relative to its profits than ANY of its major competitors. Well, such “savings” inevitably came back and bite your ass. Cook’s leadership only exacerbates the problem - Apple became greedy, conservative and slow moving.
No, I do not root neither for Samsung nor Google. My wallet, as wallets of millions of other consumers, will vote for the one who delivers the easiest to use and the most affordable device, be it Apple or not… though the latest development tell me it won’t be Apple. Instead, I see Cook ousted from his CEO post and AAPL dropping another $200 within 2 years, may be sooner.
[SIZE=14px]Will you get off this New Age high horse, please… Stop romanticizing Sir Ive and take a hard look at the reality. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]Irrespective of all his awards, Sir Ive dropped the ball with iPhone 5 – his manic insistence on hard-to-manufacture-but-easy-scratch “edge”, his refusal to widen the ridiculously narrow screen cost AAPL investors dearly… - from $700 to $500. The only one who was able to overrule Sir Ive was Steve Jobs. Now with Forstall out and Cook having neither the vision nor guts to restrain the unbounded artistic urges of Ive, the dude is bound to make more damage. What’s even more dangerous to Apple is that Ive – with no software development experience whatsoever - is in charge of iOS.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]All this talk about Apple investing into data centers hides the ugly truth – for years Apple has been underinvesting in pure research. It spends on it less relative to its profits than ANY of its major competitors. Well, such “savings” inevitably came back and bite your ass. Cook’s leadership only exacerbates the problem - Apple became greedy, conservative and slow moving.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]No, I do not root neither for Samsung nor Google. My wallet, as wallets of millions of other consumers, will vote for the one who delivers t[/SIZE]<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:14px;line-height:17px;">he easiest to use and the most affordable device, b</span>
<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:14px;line-height:1.231;">e it Apple or not… though the latest development tell me it won’t be Apple. Instead, I see Cook ousted from his CEO post and AAPL dropping another $200 within 2 years, may be sooner.</span>
Apple fails to research yet they release the iPhone, iPad, MBA, etc while the other "innovators" release copies of said products. You are so full of --it. Note they still have the vast majority of profits for mobile, tablets, "ultra books".
Apple fails to research yet they release the iPhone, iPad, MBA, etc while the other "innovators" release copies of said products. You are so full of --it. Note they still have the vast majority of profits for mobile, tablets, "ultra books".
They also charge the highest price in said segments. I hope they make the most profits... Otherwise something would be really wrong.
It has been two years now since Apple really release something innovative. And that's the first iPad.
Since then, they just refurbished, renewed these devices. The biggest changes in the last couple of years were the iPad mini and the slightly bigger screen on the iPhone 5. But these two changes clearly were "defensive" change because Apple realized that the consumers want bigger screens on smartphones and smaller and more portable tablets.
Because of that, saying that the competition is copying Apple is in my opinion wrong.
---
Why are the discussion about all these things so 'emotional'? It's a technical device, nothing more.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaneur
Agreed. There is a pathology afoot in the land. Check out enature above. It's like he wants to be the Chicken Little so bad. Never mind all that lies ahead for Jony Ive et al. He wants Apple to be like Samsung.
Lol.. you guys are funny. But the fact is that my yesterday's post under "WSJ: Apple cuts iPhone 5 component orders in half due to weak" article has been hidden by some forum administrator (and is hidden as of this writing).
When in 2005, I foresaw the Apple-lead revolution in consumer electronics and AAPL hitting triple digits, many people thought the forecast was absolutely preposterous (AAPL was only $35 at the time). Well, it turned out to be true.
I have been on Apple Insider for over 7 years precisely because I have been such a big fan of Apple. But one should not be blinded by affection. When Apple devices are not the easiest to use, consumers sense it and abandon its products. Cheer all you want and disregard the drop in iPhone orders as noise but Apple makes one mistake after another, which point to $300 AAPL price. The board will oust Tim Cook from his CEO post within 2 years for multiple mistakes under his leadership.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
"Wall Street Journal to continue being a trusted news source, despite lying through their teeth."
"The worldwide manhunt for common sense continues; three dollar reward not seen as very enticing."
Yeah, there sure aren't any people who short Apple stock; it's all legitimate trades, representing the real value of the company at any one time¡
Common sense actually makes you rich, if I read Warren Buffett right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by enature
Lol.. you guys are funny. But the fact is that my yesterday's post under "WSJ: Apple cuts iPhone 5 component orders in half due to weak" article has been hidden by some forum administrator (and is hidden as of this writing).
When in 2005, I foresaw the Apple-lead revolution in consumer electronics and AAPL hitting triple digits, many people thought the forecast was absolutely preposterous (AAPL was only $35 at the time). Well, it turned out to be true.
I have been on Apple Insider for over 7 years precisely because I have been such a big fan of Apple. But one should not be blinded by affection. When Apple devices are not the easiest to use, consumers sense it and abandon its products. Cheer all you want and disregard the drop in iPhone orders as noise but Apple makes one mistake after another, which point to $300 AAPL price. The board will oust Tim Cook from his CEO post within 2 years for multiple mistakes under his leadership.
Yeah ...
Cheers
Let's talk after the earnings report next week. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to go to an Apple store and 1, watch people, and 2, pick up an iPhone 5 and an iPad mini and look at them and especially feel them in your hand. Take off that white baseball cap for at least part of the exercise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaneur
Let's talk after the earnings report next week. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to go to an Apple store and 1, watch people, and 2, pick up an iPhone 5 and an iPad mini and look at them and especially feel them in your hand. Take off that white baseball cap for at least part of the exercise.
What if he's right? What if the numbers are not the best? What then? Who's to blame then?
For many people iPhones are the best devices ever made. At least they are until a new iPhone is available, then, the previous one becomes obsolete.
But maybe this will change. Maybe people will start thinking about getting phones from other companies. And start to like them, for reasons you might not understand. It's not like Apple is going to be doomed, far from it, but they maybe they won't have this mass product anymore and become a niche player like they are in the computer market. But they will always be a company that is known for quality and design.
This seems to be a clear-cut attempt by Um and collaborators at the Wall Street Journal TO MANIPULATE APPLE STOCK. After Apple’s earnings have been announced, HOPEFULLY Apple will publicly ADMONISH AND EMBARRASS both UM from Wells, and the Murdoch Klowns at the WSJ, for their public and obvious follies. ANY ACCESS these fakes had to ANY Apple data in the past should END - IMMEDIATELY.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaneur
Let's talk after the earnings report next week. Meanwhile, your homework assignment is to go to an Apple store and 1, watch people, and 2, pick up an iPhone 5 and an iPad mini and look at them and especially feel them in your hand. Take off that white baseball cap for at least part of the exercise.
Excellent point about feeling the product in once's hand. Think outside of spreadsheets. Feel the product. Needless to say that I played with all Apple products prior to make any prognostics. Among them all, Macbook Air and iPad Mini are the best and easiest to use when price and competition are taken into account. Btw, I just gave iPad Mini for this reason as a gift. But iPad Mini and Macbook Air are NOT Apple cash cows - iPhone is!
And iPhone manifests the biggest mistakes Tim Cook has made: a small and narrow screen, marginally improved iOS, unreliable iCloud/Siri/Maps.
With each passing day the screen size of iPhone becomes more ridiculously small. It was clear in 2011 that consumers will gradually move bigger screens. And Tim Cook failed to deliver it so far.
You need not only to hold the product in your hand but travel around the world and see what people use and how they relate to the product – increasingly they move away from iPhone. It is loosing its cool factor rapidly in many markets for a simple reason – it is not the easiest to use smartphone anymore. Consumer Reports just confirmed the obvious.
And without its morbidly fat cash cow – iPhone, AAPL cannot fly sky-high. It was just recently $700 and people thought it is impossible to fall to $300. Just four months passed and we are already half-way there at $500…
Most smart phones are still only around 4 inches. The trend to 5 is very recent. Only a handful of phones have them.
It took Apple a year to match the competition's larger screens and it will probably be another year before we see a 5 inch iPhone.
As far as ease of use I'm hoping for some big upgrades now that Ive has a greater hand on the software side. iOS 7 should be groundbreaking
Originally Posted by enature
This is pathetic. Some forum administrators on Apple Insider appear to hide posts if they run contrary to their views. Clearly, some Apple die-hard fans do not like to see the truth but hiding posts is the failure of integrity.
Come off it. It was two in the morning, I was asleep, and the forum's automatic spam catcher flagged it as spam.
Probably because it's total freaking crap.
Originally Posted by blackbook
It took Apple a year to match the competition's larger screens…
Three.
…a 5 inch iPhone.
That's not happening.
So allegedly Apple ordered 65 mm for a non holiday qtr and then cut the order to half that. Why on earth would they order that much when the never sold more than 50mm in a holiday qtr?! So that is the first flag. What probably happened is the source said 65 mm but then was mistaken and corrected it to 35 mm. Common sense, people. The iPhone is still the easiest to use. My anti-apple friend is so frustrated with his android, he's actually thinking about the iPhone. He's also a programmer.
So your two points: usability is function of size, and Apple's cash cow is morbidly fat.
Size: The iPhone 5 was a size decision based on pocketability and one-handedness, adding the maximum length (or height) that the width, determined by pocket and hand, can reasonably accommodate. The big Android phones ignore these considerations and go for maximum visibility regardless of the other factors—pocket and hand—that Ive and company have focused on. Apple's concern for user experience is intact. The phablet makers don't care: just give 'em a bigger screen, they'll lap it up, they think with their eyes, not their brains. See the difference? One approach is focused on physical usability, the other on visibility alone. I'm not the only one who has compared the big phones to big SUVs. There's a sucker for bigness born every minute.
"Morbidly fat" profit margins: The reason Apple needs their margins is that they are starting to make tectonic moves in several areas, like data centers, doing their own chip designs and soon bankrolling fabs, backing their own display sources, and developing their own manufacturing of chassis and cases with new designs based on new processes (for computer making anyway). The next revolution they are getting ready to create is moving portability into wearability, and they are possibly contemplating some sort of expensive network building, given that their data for Siri is often overloaded. They're building a design center for the next phase of their business, actually the third incarnation of Apple itself, which will be a new kind of technology entity based on nothing else than user satisfaction.
None of this is to say that they won't make a 5-inch pad with phone capability, like the Germans finally had to make some kind of SUV. But it's not because big is cool, it's because the market expectations have changed. You call it the new cool, I would call it normal opportunistic evolution. Samsung has prepared the ground for a new species by making freakish progeny with AMOLED screens, creepy polymers and an ugly operating system. Apple will again show the way it is to be properly done, something which none of the other companies have the design chops to do.
I do understand why people are buying larger phones. All my life I've been watching bad taste overcome the rarer phenomenon of good taste. But this time, the first time I've seen in a long lifetime, good taste is winning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacRulez
Anyone else enjoying the irony of AppleInsider reporting that AppleInsider's reporting is just "noise"?
Maybe it's time for some human intervention with the copybot to raise the signal/noise ratio.
There's certainly a bad signal/noise ratio, but the number of rumors is so huge that even with a low signal/noise, it's enough for having ruined the latest Apple announcements events. The iPhone 5 event was dull, dull, dull, and not because the iPhone 5, but because we knew every little detail in advance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by enature
When Apple devices are not the easiest to use, consumers sense it and abandon its products.
That, right there, exposes the fact that you really haven't thought this through.
Right, and he's not alone. There were financial and tech reporters doing that yesterday too. It's like they're thinking themselves to a wished-for conclusion, that Apple will fail.
Maybe we think ourselves equally toward a wished-for conclusion, that Apple will succeed, but I think that is to be on the right side of evolution and history, not to aggrandize it too much : )
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Originally Posted by Flaneur
Right, and he's not alone. There were financial and tech reporters doing that yesterday too. It's like they're thinking themselves to a wished-for conclusion, that Apple will fail.
I had been bullish on AAPL for 7 years - from 2005 till 2012. Friends were calling me an Apple fanatic and thought I was crazy telling them that AAPL will increase 10-fold. When iPhone 5 came, it confirmed my worst fears - a small-screen elongated easily-scratched phone with marginally improved OS and subpar internet services. For the first time in 7 years, I advised to SELL APPL, and the very same friends who did not believe me 7 years ago that AAPL will go sky high, were telling me that AAPL is going to $1000, and how great its products are and how assured its domination is. Such linear thinking is a part of human nature and I cannot blame recent Apple fans to think in the same. But try to think non-linear. Note that Apple growth turned from accelerating to decelerating. It is still growing but its concave DOWN growth. When this happens you know the stock is deep trouble.
But curves by themselves mean nothing. One needs to understand WHY the growth became concave down. And the reason is that under Tim Cook leadership iPhone continues to carry very fat margins but is harder and harder to use relative to its competitors. Tim Cook is a chain-supply genius who is utterly clueless about products. I see board ousting him from his CEO post before 2014 is over, may be sooner.
You may, if you like, focus on the fact that Apple's growth is slowing (temporarily), and the fact that Tim is no Steve, and the fact that the anodzing scratches, and the fact that the screen is smaller than the Galactic phones, and conclude that your friends are going to be right and Apple is going to make you look bad. I think you are thinking visually, about appearances, and not deeply or widely enough.
This is a struggle for the soul of a technology, and I think you have a duty to stop shrieking about Apple's decline and fall until you can think more holistically than just visually. Unless you want the likes of Samsung and Google to win, then you just go ahead and keep thinking narrowly and shrieking about how things look bad, really bad, and try to spread your hysteria.
Hysteria which is based on thinking visually. A moment's holistic thinking will tell you that Ive and a team of the world's best designers, not Cook, are in charge of product concepts. Cook is the guy to lead Apple now, not in 1997, because Apple has become a diverse and far-flung enterprise that only a logistcs and strategics genius like him can run. They are going to be growing in spurts, sometimes evolving out a new platform or world information service, sometimes shoring up manufacturers and supplies for maintaining a more mature platform. But always growing, preparing for the next new platform and therefore new growth spurt.
You are shrieking during a period of platform maintenance, when they are growing at 25% rather than 100%. Meanwhile , they are planning things that will make you look good to your friends again, if you keep quiet and just be patient.
By the way, there are little tiny scratches on everything I use, including the toughest mass-product glass known to man, that only Apple had the courage to put on the BACK of a phone, that Apple caused to be developed, just like Apple is causing aluminum to be developed as an art-and-architectural feature for their current portable devices. Yes they scratch, but your white shoes and your white tennis shorts get dirty, don't they?
Visually is no way to think about technological ecosystems. Think tactile-ly, like Ive does, like Marshall McLuhan did. It's the most integrative of the senses. And calming.
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Originally Posted by Flaneur
I think you have a duty to stop shrieking about Apple's decline and fall until you can think more holistically than just visually. Unless you want the likes of Samsung and Google to win.... A moment's holistic thinking will tell you that Ive and a team of the world's best designers... Visually is no way to think about technological ecosystems. Think tactile-ly, like Ive does, like Marshall McLuhan did. It's the most integrative of the senses. And calming.
Will you get off this New Age high horse, please… Stop romanticizing Sir Ive and take a hard look at the reality.
Irrespective of all his awards, Sir Ive dropped the ball with iPhone 5 – his manic insistence on hard-to-manufacture-but-easy-scratch “edge”, his refusal to widen the ridiculously narrow screen cost AAPL investors dearly… - from $700 to $500. The only one who was able to overrule Sir Ive was Steve Jobs. Now with Forstall out and Cook having neither the vision nor guts to restrain the unbounded artistic urges of Ive, the dude is bound to make more damage. What’s even more dangerous to Apple is that Ive – with no software development experience whatsoever - is in charge of iOS.
All this talk about Apple investing into data centers hides the ugly truth – for years Apple has been underinvesting in pure research. It spends on it less relative to its profits than ANY of its major competitors. Well, such “savings” inevitably came back and bite your ass. Cook’s leadership only exacerbates the problem - Apple became greedy, conservative and slow moving.
No, I do not root neither for Samsung nor Google. My wallet, as wallets of millions of other consumers, will vote for the one who delivers the easiest to use and the most affordable device, be it Apple or not… though the latest development tell me it won’t be Apple. Instead, I see Cook ousted from his CEO post and AAPL dropping another $200 within 2 years, may be sooner.
Apple fails to research yet they release the iPhone, iPad, MBA, etc while the other "innovators" release copies of said products. You are so full of --it. Note they still have the vast majority of profits for mobile, tablets, "ultra books".
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Originally Posted by jungmark
Apple fails to research yet they release the iPhone, iPad, MBA, etc while the other "innovators" release copies of said products. You are so full of --it. Note they still have the vast majority of profits for mobile, tablets, "ultra books".
They also charge the highest price in said segments. I hope they make the most profits... Otherwise something would be really wrong.
It has been two years now since Apple really release something innovative. And that's the first iPad.
Since then, they just refurbished, renewed these devices. The biggest changes in the last couple of years were the iPad mini and the slightly bigger screen on the iPhone 5. But these two changes clearly were "defensive" change because Apple realized that the consumers want bigger screens on smartphones and smaller and more portable tablets.
Because of that, saying that the competition is copying Apple is in my opinion wrong.
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Why are the discussion about all these things so 'emotional'? It's a technical device, nothing more.
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