Longer replacement cycles as smartphones have become good enough and improvements are now largely incremental.
Higher prices due to FX impacting demand
Apple perhaps overestimating the % of the install base that wanted larger screen iPhone
Intangible; some people just don't like the 6 series for whatever reason
I'd like to see Apple release a flagship 4" phone and then see what percent of
I think the TCO of an iPhone in many markets is a huge deterrent (and by that, I mean initial cost and very high subscription price). The pricing is even ridiculous compared to Apple's own iPads.. (I can get an iPad Air 16Gb for $350..,). I don't mind it being somewhat more than competitors, but it's just too much really.
Yes, The 6 is somehow awful, it's like trying to hold a bar of soap. Nearly everybody I know who has one has the same opinion and had dropped/damaged it despite them liking it in other ways.. The 5S is much nicer in comparison. Both are easily scratched/damaged and have poor battery life.
I'm not sure I want a 4", something like a 4.3 would be better, I worry that people want a "smaller" phone, but have forgotten how small 4" really is....
Some years ago, I wanted an iPhone because all my family/friends had one, all that cool iMessage & FaceTime stuff, but now that WhatsApp is universal we all use that now so there's less drive for me. If WhatsApp introduce video calls it will be the end of that need for me.. I think Apple should open both to a wider audience...
As for other products: the 12" MacBook is nice but useless, no ports, the Air is so visually outdated now (that large bezel..) despite having great battery life and low weight - why oh why didn't they update this with a retina screen and make it a bit more modern, the 13/15" Macbook Pro is nice and not as expensive as some competitors actually (check comparable ultrabook prices..) but the fixed ram story is a deterrent. My current 2012 Macbook Pro (non retina) would have been a paper-weight now if I hadn't been able to upgrade the RAM to 16gb after Mavericks.. The watch is a joke, really.. I can't tell you how many colleagues had to be first in that queue, then saw how it didnt' really do anything exceptionally useful and the battery life.., and then Ebayed them.
Apple forecasts one not so great quarter mostly due to tough comps and macro-economic challenges and now all their products suck and are a joke? BS. Apple isn't immune to the wider economy and what's going on in the world. Btw, Apple specifically called out the Watch on the earnings call as being a big seller. I have a Watch and have no issues with battery life so I call BS on your anecdote there.
Yeah, the problem with many of outside observers here is exactly that: they're outside. As far as I can tell, Cook has no problem firing under-performers. He got rid of Browett and Forstall, so if he hasn't bounced Eddy Cue then I think he's perhaps doing something right.
Good Point. And wasn't it Cue who got the biggest salary raise last year?
As outsiders we will never have a clear idea of the dynamics in team Apple. It is therefore a mystery why we're left with such an abysmal iTunes and Music experience. And iCloud is clue-less as well.
IF Apple is transitioning to a services company it will be interesting to see how they go about it. Their business model has been free (or very low cost) software and services all baked in to the price of the device. Apple says there are 1 billion active devices now. That doesn't mean 1 billion unique users but it's a lot. And right now they've got only ~10M or so subscribing to Apple Music. Eddy Cue says ~40M or so are using Apple News app but do we know if these are active daily users? My guess is not. Also is Apple making any money off these users? The only way they really could is advertising (something Apple isn't that fond of) or adding subscription content and taking a cut of that (something publishers probably aren't that interested it). But how much news content is out there that people are willing to pay a monthly fee for? My guess is not much.
I don't see much in the way of services that will bring in big recurring revenue stream. The skinny TV bundles haven't taken off yet and I'm not sure they ever will unless or until people are able to pick the channels they want in their bundle. I suppose Apple start spending money on original content or buy Netflix but then they're not really a neutral platform, they're in direct completion with things they want on their platform.
What I'd like to see Apple do is kind of radical: make it Apple as a Service and expand the iPhone upgrade program across all their product lines. You pick the bundle of products you want and Apple quotes you a monthly installment fee (that includes Apple Care). And Apple can keep adding things to this bundle, like additional iCloud storage, Apple Music, Apple TV service (if it happens) etc. Pay a higher monthly fee for the ability to upgrade more often or a cheaper fee if you plan to keep your devices longer. And give people the option to pay off the devices and own them if they so choose. I would sign up for that in a heartbeat.
Good Point. And wasn't it Cue who got the biggest salary raise last year?
As outsiders we will never have a clear idea of the dynamics in team Apple. It is therefore a mystery why we're left with such an abysmal iTunes and Music experience. And iCloud is clue-less as well.
IF Apple is transitioning to a services company it will be interesting to see how they go about it. Their business model has been free (or very low cost) software and services all baked in to the price of the device.
What I'd like to see Apple do is kind of radical: make it Apple as a Service and expand the iPhone upgrade program across all their product lines. You pick the bundle of products you want and Apple quotes you a monthly installment fee (that includes Apple Care). And Apple can keep adding things to this bundle, like additional iCloud storage, Apple Music, Apple TV service (if it happens) etc. Pay a higher monthly fee for the ability to upgrade more often or a cheaper fee if you plan to keep your devices longer. And give people the option to pay off the devices and own them if they so choose. I would sign up for that in a heartbeat.
Make it* free** and have people pay for convenience. Apple.com is a great place to start using their apps straight away. No more marketing wish-wash.
(*) Life, a suite of Apple services in the cloud.
(**) There should always be a free version, in order to make it an inclusive experience and relevant to people's lives. The upsell is in Convenience, which could be tied to Storage, Device or Software (?). However, it should never end up in a fragmented mess like Microsoft's suite of crippled Windows versions.
Call me naive, but I don't understand how any product is supposed to grow quarter after quarter indefinitely.
This can't be said enough. Wasn't 2015Q2 a massive blowout and shocking to everyone everywhere? EVERYONE should have known that unless the general economies of the world were firing on all cylinders that the chance of not being able to meet such a quarter again would be tough to do. I thought this when it was happening.
This insane quest (for anyone, not just Apple) for ALWAYS beating EVERY YoY quarterly results is defeatist.
A few years ago some guy has tried to turn Hewlett-Packard into a services company and has been fired immediately. After that, no CEO and no board would even try such a thing...
I think the TCO of an iPhone in many markets is a huge deterrent (and by that, I mean initial cost and very high subscription price). The pricing is even ridiculous compared to Apple's own iPads.. (I can get an iPad Air 16Gb for $350..,). I don't mind it being somewhat more than competitors, but it's just too much really.
Yes, The 6 is somehow awful, it's like trying to hold a bar of soap. Nearly everybody I know who has one has the same opinion and had dropped/damaged it despite them liking it in other ways.. The 5S is much nicer in comparison. Both are easily scratched/damaged and have poor battery life.
I'm not sure I want a 4", something like a 4.3 would be better, I worry that people want a "smaller" phone, but have forgotten how small 4" really is....
Some years ago, I wanted an iPhone because all my family/friends had one, all that cool iMessage & FaceTime stuff, but now that WhatsApp is universal we all use that now so there's less drive for me. If WhatsApp introduce video calls it will be the end of that need for me.. I think Apple should open both to a wider audience...
As for other products: the 12" MacBook is nice but useless, no ports, the Air is so visually outdated now (that large bezel..) despite having great battery life and low weight - why oh why didn't they update this with a retina screen and make it a bit more modern, the 13/15" Macbook Pro is nice and not as expensive as some competitors actually (check comparable ultrabook prices..) but the fixed ram story is a deterrent. My current 2012 Macbook Pro (non retina) would have been a paper-weight now if I hadn't been able to upgrade the RAM to 16gb after Mavericks.. The watch is a joke, really.. I can't tell you how many colleagues had to be first in that queue, then saw how it didnt' really do anything exceptionally useful and the battery life.., and then Ebayed them.
Apple forecasts one not so great quarter mostly due to tough comps and macro-economic challenges and now all their products suck and are a joke? BS. Apple isn't immune to the wider economy and what's going on in the world. Btw, Apple specifically called out the Watch on the earnings call as being a big seller. I have a Watch and have no issues with battery life so I call BS on your anecdote there.
I never said "all their products", and I am well aware that they make nearly all the smartphone profit on only 25% of all smartphone sales etc. and this is just one quarter.
I think there are big question marks about their inability to update some product lines (maybe they can't manage such large a portfolio of products, surprising given their financial clout), or simply develop new ones that don't seem to have some big handicap due to the design teams limited view of the world.. I can't plug an external monitor into a Macbook and charge it simultanously - really..!?! All the people I know who have them are walking around with multi-port adapters as they need to interface to the real world sometime, all because that design team didn't see the need for one more port..
I bet these people think twice before (blindly) buying apple stuff again - and isn't that the point: with Apple it should "just work" but actually in a number of cases it's not quite..
Any do you really think that daily charging of a watch is ok? I don't. And I know a few ex-owners who agree, it's just not worth the extra hassle for the little functional gain.
The take this morning on the news from their analyst about the Apple earnings was that actually Apple totally avoided stating figures on the watch as it's not been such a big success.. Who knows.
The rise of 40% of the US dollar over 2 years.... That's one major obstacle to buying in many places. It may lead to you're #1, but the main factor is that. Others are not a factor directly.
There are only so many rich people in the world. They should try making a phone for the "regular" person instead of just the rich, if they truly want to dominate the market. They could also try to be better world citizens and stop raping their customers for cash.
raping their customers so bad that they have the highest consumer satisfaction ratings. oops. try a new troll trope, please.
Longer replacement cycles as smartphones have become good enough and improvements are now largely incremental.
Higher prices due to FX impacting demand
Apple perhaps overestimating the % of the install base that wanted larger screen iPhone
Intangible; some people just don't like the 6 series for whatever reason
I'd like to see Apple release a flagship 4" phone and then see what percent of
As for other products: the 12" MacBook is nice but useless, no ports, the Air is so visually outdated now (that large bezel..) despite having great battery life and low weight - why oh why didn't they update this with a retina screen and make it a bit more modern, the 13/15" Macbook Pro is nice and not as expensive as some competitors actually (check comparable ultrabook prices..) but the fixed ram story is a deterrent. My current 2012 Macbook Pro (non retina) would have been a paper-weight now if I hadn't been able to upgrade the RAM to 16gb after Mavericks.. The watch is a joke, really.. I can't tell you how many colleagues had to be first in that queue, then saw how it didnt' really do anything exceptionally useful and the battery life.., and then Ebayed them.
you got one thing right – I doubt you can tell us how many of you colleagues eBayed their watches...
Apple forecasts one not so great quarter mostly due to tough comps and macro-economic challenges and now all their products suck and are a joke? BS. Apple isn't immune to the wider economy and what's going on in the world. Btw, Apple specifically called out the Watch on the earnings call as being a big seller. I have a Watch and have no issues with battery life so I call BS on your anecdote there.
I never said "all their products", and I am well aware that they make nearly all the smartphone profit on only 25% of all smartphone sales etc. and this is just one quarter.
I think there are big question marks about their inability to update some product lines (maybe they can't manage such large a portfolio of products, surprising given their financial clout), or simply develop new ones that don't seem to have some big handicap due to the design teams limited view of the world.. I can't plug an external monitor into a Macbook and charge it simultanously - really..!?! All the people I know who have them are walking around with multi-port adapters as they need to interface to the real world sometime, all because that design team didn't see the need for one more port..
I bet these people think twice before (blindly) buying apple stuff again - and isn't that the point: with Apple it should "just work" but actually in a number of cases it's not quite..
Any do you really think that daily charging of a watch is ok? I don't. And I know a few ex-owners who agree, it's just not worth the extra hassle for the little functional gain.
daily charging for a device that is an accessory to a device which itself requires daily charging? yes, that completely makes sense. the phone needs to charge every night. the watch charges alongside it in your sleep. even still, mine routine has a nearly a half-charge when i place it into my bedside charger.
sounds like your coworkers w/ MacBooks were confused when they bought an ultraportable notebook. sounds like perhaps they needed a pro and not an ultraportable. thankfully apple has several options in the product line...so this oversight is the buyer's alone, not apple's. durr
Call me naive, but I don't understand how any product is supposed to grow quarter after quarter indefinitely.
You're not naive, but I don't think you're representing the stock market valuation properly. It's not an expectation that Apple should grow iPhone sales, it's a requirement that they increase their prospect for profitability if they are to experience a growth in share price. Don't do that? Ok, share price goes down. That's not a problem, it's the market valuation acting as it should, which is the way of things. It may well turn around next quarter as prospects change.
The only expectations at play are those of naive investors and analysts who think with their hearts and/or their wallets instead of their heads.
I think Apple is becoming a victim of its own success. The analysts got addicted to unbelievable growth that Apple has shown since 2007 year over year. It seems to me that Apple should have used the same strategy as the Soviet (Ukrainian) champion pole vaulter Sergey Bubka used back starting in 1984. He knew he could jump over one meter higher than his opponents, but instead of making it a one-time or two-time world record, he spread this advantage over a decade, by setting a new world record during each major competition. He milked that golden cow for a a decade.
Similarly, Apple should have grown their market share much slower than they have, which is now becoming obvious in hindsight. An 8% year-over-year growth stretched out over 20 years would have worked for their stock price much better than record growth they showed over 5-6 years. There's no way Apple can grow at that rate anymore, and Wall Street doesn't seem to be interested in considering the profits that Apple is raking in quarterly. Instead, Wall Street is only interested in revenue growth and maybe somewhat in profits growth, but not in absolute numbers. Apple is bringing in more revenue and profit in absolute numbers than most any other company in the world, and AAPL P/E is less than 1/3 that of GOOG, but AAPL has not stabilized upwards of where it was in the summer of 2012. And what about the AMZN P/E of 872.19 vs AAPL's 10.87? It should make AAPL 80 times as attractive to investors as AMZN. It's ridiculous that Wall Street would award AMZN with such a high stock price based on their P/E ratio, while not rewarding AAPL much at all.
What I'd like to see Apple do is kind of radical: make it Apple as a Service and expand the iPhone upgrade program across all their product lines. You pick the bundle of products you want and Apple quotes you a monthly installment fee (that includes Apple Care). And Apple can keep adding things to this bundle, like additional iCloud storage, Apple Music, Apple TV service (if it happens) etc. Pay a higher monthly fee for the ability to upgrade more often or a cheaper fee if you plan to keep your devices longer. And give people the option to pay off the devices and own them if they so choose. I would sign up for that in a heartbeat.
This is exactly the kind of ideas that Tim Cook lacks. The guy has absolutely no vision.
Apple has an install base of 1 billion. If you can charge each device $20 per month ( music, TV, cab rides, ads, home security, Apple care, leasing, ect) that would be $240 billion in revenue a year on SERVICES alone. That's more than all Apple's hardware sales in 2015. At that point hardware sales would be the icing on the cake.
Per device?
That's stupid. Apple customers are very likely to own more than one device and wouldn't pay a price per device. It's entirely contrary to Apples existing subscription models.
Cab rides? Wtf are you talking about? Where is that in Apples offering in any form?
A few years ago some guy has tried to turn Hewlett-Packard into a services company and has been fired immediately. After that, no CEO and no board would even try such a thing...
Hewlett packard just recently split into two companies. One is PC/Printers and the other mostly services.
Lesson learned? The two cannot go together or what...
That's stupid. Apple customers are very likely to own more than one device and wouldn't pay a price per device. It's entirely contrary to Apples existing subscription models.
Cab rides? Wtf are you talking about? Where is that in Apples offering in any form?
$20 per device on average. The average Cable bill right now is over $100 a month. Home security is $30 a month.
So even if a person owns 2 devices that would only be $40 worth of services a month.
Also note I'm including in services the iPhone lease plans.
I'm not saying they need to get $20 a month per device RIGHT NOW. It will probably take 10 years. But that alone would DOUBLE revenue. Apple needs to step up its services game.
1. Live TV subs - $40-$80 a month 2. Video streaming - $15 - $20 a month 3. Home automation/security - $30 -$40 a month 4. iCloud - $5-$20 a month 5. Gaming subs on AppleTV - $15-$25 a month 6. Taxi services 7. Apple Pay 8. Apple Music 9. Apple Leasing 10. iTunes 11. AppStore 12. Video share (like Youtube) 13. Photo share 14. Social 15. Sub banking (not a true bank but offer creditcards) 16. Virtual reality 17. Game publishing 18. Music publishing
and one more thing.............
they should compete with Amazon in online retail.
That's just a list of all the stuff you can think of, without rhyme or reason, and certainly without vision. "Ideas guys" are ten a penny, and as Steve Jobs so often and eloquently put, focus and vision is as much about what you say "No" to, as what you say "Yes" to.
How on earth does Pay fit into a $20/month subscription month? How does virtual reality?
Yeah, the problem with many of outside observers here is exactly that: they're outside. As far as I can tell, Cook has no problem firing under-performers. He got rid of Browett and Forstall, so if he hasn't bounced Eddy Cue then I think he's perhaps doing something right.
Good Point. And wasn't it Cue who got the biggest salary raise last year?
As outsiders we will never have a clear idea of the dynamics in team Apple. It is therefore a mystery why we're left with such an abysmal iTunes and Music experience. And iCloud is clue-less as well.
That's exactly my point. Geeks go on about how bad iTunes and Apple Music is, but I'm more concerned about what Apple's core customer base things. And by the way, Apple's core customer base doesn't live in internet forums.
Case in point: Apple geeks have been throwing around the 'split Apple Music and iTunes into separate apps' meme like it actually makes sense, as if what an Apple customer wants is an app to listen to music, and another completely separate app… to listen to music.
Comments
I don't see much in the way of services that will bring in big recurring revenue stream. The skinny TV bundles haven't taken off yet and I'm not sure they ever will unless or until people are able to pick the channels they want in their bundle. I suppose Apple start spending money on original content or buy Netflix but then they're not really a neutral platform, they're in direct completion with things they want on their platform.
What I'd like to see Apple do is kind of radical: make it Apple as a Service and expand the iPhone upgrade program across all their product lines. You pick the bundle of products you want and Apple quotes you a monthly installment fee (that includes Apple Care). And Apple can keep adding things to this bundle, like additional iCloud storage, Apple Music, Apple TV service (if it happens) etc. Pay a higher monthly fee for the ability to upgrade more often or a cheaper fee if you plan to keep your devices longer. And give people the option to pay off the devices and own them if they so choose. I would sign up for that in a heartbeat.
This insane quest (for anyone, not just Apple) for ALWAYS beating EVERY YoY quarterly results is defeatist.
I think there are big question marks about their inability to update some product lines (maybe they can't manage such large a portfolio of products, surprising given their financial clout), or simply develop new ones that don't seem to have some big handicap due to the design teams limited view of the world.. I can't plug an external monitor into a Macbook and charge it simultanously - really..!?! All the people I know who have them are walking around with multi-port adapters as they need to interface to the real world sometime, all because that design team didn't see the need for one more port..
I bet these people think twice before (blindly) buying apple stuff again - and isn't that the point: with Apple it should "just work" but actually in a number of cases it's not quite..
Any do you really think that daily charging of a watch is ok? I don't. And I know a few ex-owners who agree, it's just not worth the extra hassle for the little functional gain.
The take this morning on the news from their analyst about the Apple earnings was that actually Apple totally avoided stating figures on the watch as it's not been such a big success.. Who knows.
sounds like your coworkers w/ MacBooks were confused when they bought an ultraportable notebook. sounds like perhaps they needed a pro and not an ultraportable. thankfully apple has several options in the product line...so this oversight is the buyer's alone, not apple's. durr
The only expectations at play are those of naive investors and analysts who think with their hearts and/or their wallets instead of their heads.
That's stupid. Apple customers are very likely to own more than one device and wouldn't pay a price per device. It's entirely contrary to Apples existing subscription models.
Cab rides? Wtf are you talking about? Where is that in Apples offering in any form?
How on earth does Pay fit into a $20/month subscription month? How does virtual reality?
Listing stuff does not make you a CEO.
EVERYTHING.
AAAAAND ignored.
Case in point: Apple geeks have been throwing around the 'split Apple Music and iTunes into separate apps' meme like it actually makes sense, as if what an Apple customer wants is an app to listen to music, and another completely separate app… to listen to music.