Editorial: Will Apple's 1990's "Golden Age" collapse repeat itself?

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  • Reply 61 of 108
    Solisoli Posts: 10,038member
    There is no comparison between now and then because Apple is now operating in a market the likes of which has never  been seen in the past. The Earth has truly become a global village and Apple has been largely responsible for it's exponential growth and will forever remain, even if their domination diminished, a huge player.
    That’s over reaching a bit. 
    Except for the use of “will forever remain” I agree with his statement.
    jony0
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  • Reply 62 of 108
    racerhomie3racerhomie3 Posts: 1,264member
    The simple fact that Apple discontinued the routers , without fear , shows that they are very different than the 90s Apple.
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  • Reply 63 of 108
    monstrositymonstrosity Posts: 2,234member
    The biggest 'Apple Killer' could be free speech. I've been the worlds biggest Apple fan since the early 1990's, but if they dictate what apps or content I can view to any greater extent to what they are already doing, I'll jump ship to whatever free speech alternative arrises (which sure as hell won't be anything to do with Google, they are even worse)
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  • Reply 64 of 108
    Solisoli Posts: 10,038member
    The simple fact that Apple discontinued the routers , without fear , shows that they are very different than the 90s Apple.
    Yeah, that's no different than they've ever done.

    The biggest 'Apple Killer' could be free speech. I've been the worlds biggest Apple fan since the early 1990's, but if they dictate what apps or content I can view to any greater extent to what they are already doing, I'll jump ship to whatever free speech alternative arrises (which sure as hell won't be anything to do with Google, they are even worse)
     🤦‍♂️
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  • Reply 65 of 108
    djsherlydjsherly Posts: 1,031member
    vmarks said:
    Actually Mac OS Classic had a very good memory management within the limits of its capabilities. It was just not a true operating system.
    Is that like the
    "No True Scotsman" fallacy? It was software that initialized the hardware, handled input from the keyboard, output to a display, read and wrote to storage media, and ran software on top of that software. In every definition, it was a true operating system. It was modern for the time, even if we've since moved past it.
    If you want to go pedantic, all the forum is yours. Of course everyone here knows what CP/M is. We're talking about something booting from a 400K diskette, just a System file and a Finder file along with the ImageWriter driver and a few other files. Yes that was an achievement but an achievement that shaped all the future evolution. When OS/2, Windows NT and others opened the path to modern PC operating systems it would have no chance of survival. Even Amiga's Tramiel OS was ahead of Mac OS with its true multitasking.
    Amiga had AmigaOS - Jack Tramiel was Commodore but left for Atari, and TOS appeared in their Atari ST, the Amiga’s natural competitor.

    Amiga OS was preemptive multitasking but I think pretty much the whole thing was run in Userland.
    watto_cobra
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  • Reply 66 of 108
    saltyzipsaltyzip Posts: 193member
    mwhite said:
    saltyzip said:
    Why do apple peeps keep thinking android manufacturers are copying the notch? 

    To get a phone with next to zero bezel you have to have a notch, unless you have a pop up camera, so it's a natural progression manufacturers will follow. The essential phone was the first with a notch that I remember and that released in August 17 before the iPhone X.

    Also what are the iPhone X sales numbers, all I hear is it is certainly not selling as well as they had anticipated, but as the profit margin on the phone is absolutely ridiculous, apple are still making stupid profit.

    If people think the phone is good value for money then fine, but I believe smartphones have become commodity devices and for the majority of the people living on the planet they would be more than happy with a device in the midrange bracket. So apples problem is how do they keep those ridiculous iPhone profits coming in, and the answer is they won't be able to for much longer.
    Why do Android jerks come on here go to you're own site stay away from here ahole......
    Some has to educate you.
    gatorguy
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  • Reply 67 of 108
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,999member
    This article is interesting reading but I would take it as a single perspective in a vastly more complex topic and not draw any conclusions without doing a much deeper dive into the reasons why companies decline and fail. Otherwise it quickly transcends into an instance of survivorship bias based on one specific data point: the construction of elaborate edifices to a company's "success" or in some case, vanity. Thanks DED for tickling the topic because there is a lot more to discover here that this article only touches on quite briefly, at least once the Google and Microsoft sidebars are scraped off.
    pscooter63
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  • Reply 68 of 108
    19831983 Posts: 1,225member
    Instead of focusing this article on what was good, then bad and then good again about Apple. A large proportion of it was just Microsoft and Google bashing! Now I’m not a fanboy of either corporation, in fact neither of them really interest me all that much to be honest. It just sounds like the writer is a bit pissed off and jealous of how (a biased) tech media treats them as compared to Apple. Chill, Apple is doing just fine and is likely less ‘hurt’ by that bias than the author of this article seems to be. As for the failed projects of Microsoft and especially Google, the difference between them and a 90s era Apple is that despite those failures, they’re still making bucket loads of dosh from other things, keeping their shareholders happy as a result. Which wasn’t the case with Apple back in the mid to late 90s.
    edited April 2018
    muthuk_vanalingam
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  • Reply 69 of 108
    StrangeDaysstrangedays Posts: 13,172member
    Apple today is much more a traditional ‘corporate’ than it was then — or perhaps ever. You know, systems, processes, admin, chain of command, etc. Sadly, in that world, hings become more traditional and incremental, boring even, making radical innovation difficult. Add to it the fact that sheer size becomes its own enemy for making seismic shifts (unless the company splits up). 
    Actually, iterative product development (incremental) is how Apple rolls, and long has been. Gruber wrote an entire column about in back in 2010:

    https://www.macworld.com/article/1151235/macs/apple-rolls.html
    iPod? iPhone? iPad? Watch? Iterative product development?

    C’mon... you can’t be serious...
    No idea what you’re trying express. 

    Yes, iterative product development is how Apple rolls. 
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  • Reply 70 of 108
    StrangeDaysstrangedays Posts: 13,172member
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    This, in the purely comsumer space. If we throw in political/protectionist elements (the government space), the risk of major impact is real in the short term. Allowing Huawei unrestricted access to the US handset market would be a major threat to Apple. 
    Nah. Americans won’t be enamored with a knockoff brand they can’t even pronounce. That brand just won’t flourish here. Doing KFC-branded iphone-ripoffs just won’t cut it...




    Doing KFC branded phones does actually cut it. How ironic that such a company could pull this off:
    .
    https://www.counterpointresearch.com/huawei-surpasses-apple/
    Gimmicky iphone ripoffs work in China, where the ripoff culture flourishes. 

    As for Samsung, American consumers can pronounce it. Can’t with your chinese knockoffs. 
    edited April 2018
    watto_cobra
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  • Reply 71 of 108
    StrangeDaysstrangedays Posts: 13,172member
    saltyzip said:
    Why do apple peeps keep thinking android manufacturers are copying the notch? 

    To get a phone with next to zero bezel you have to have a notch, unless you have a pop up camera, so it's a natural progression manufacturers will follow. The essential phone was the first with a notch that I remember and that released in August 17 before the iPhone X.
    Another knockoff defender. Here ya go:

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/4/17077458/iphone-design-clones-mwc-2018

    ...all iphone notch copies. Absurdly so because they still have chins, and they don’t have face id, so there’s no need for a notch. except to copy apple, of course. which is what they’re doing....poorly. 
    edited April 2018
    pscooter63ericthehalfbeejony0watto_cobra
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  • Reply 72 of 108
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Soli said:
    No it's not.
    You’re in for a fun few decades.
    myopic
    Your evidence being?
    alt right
    Please. Those lefties?  :D
    the world isn't going to stop trade
    I don’t recall wanting it to. I like trade. I like a pair of nations that say, “Hey, we have beef, but we have no comprehension of how to make trains. You do, though, and you’re lacking in beef. Wha’cha’wanna do about that?” “Well, I rather think we could work out a number of trains to be sent in exchange for a number of tons of beef, yeah?” And boom, trade. “Free” trade, on the other hand–and all that the concept means in practice? And the demolishing of borders and peoples? Yeah, that’s well on the way out. Any company that bases its growth model on the continuation of globalist policies is not one to invest in for the long term. Apple isn’t one of these companies. Apple knows what it’s doing. Apple is actually trying to bring manufacturing back to the US. They’re also branching out to India and… Brazil (right?) to manufacture there, thanks to the protectionist policies of those nations. GOOD. They should have those policies. Every nation should. Apple actually gives a damn about these people. It’s great stuff to see. Apple won’t really be hurt when the “free” trade delusion ends.
    If you really hate that goods and services are sourced outside the US
    Never crossed my mind. I’d never buy rice from anywhere but Dehra Dun. And I’m not going to get any domestic ginger or cinnamon, am I? I could get sugar, if the fucking ILLEGAL CORN AND SOY SUBSIDIES were removed, but I’d rather stick with it from places that have been growing it uninterrupted for centuries. Other than that, and despite the United States being the LEAST globally integrated economy on the planet (as a percentage of GDP), I rather prefer to just not see third world peoples exploited and first world industries destroyed as they’ve been thanks to “globalism.” And to cap it off, I’ll go ahead quote someone that will make you dismiss my statements entirely–and without refutation–but your act of doing so will show that you openly support that which he spoke against.
    Everyone with knowledge of history is aware how the financial forces in the ‘30s went into these backwards countries–into India, into the Empire, into Hong Kong, into Japan, into China–and exploited these people to produce cheap sweated goods which ruined the great industries of Europe. Which got Lancashire out of business in the cotton trade, Yorkshire out of business in the woollen trade. These poor devils were exploited for a few shillings a week. For what purpose? To enable the city of London and Wall Street New York to make fatter profits. That is why it was done, that was the whole purpose. But with what result?

    China thrown in the arms of communism. The largest population in the world simply tossed as a present to communism. Because if you treat people like that, it's the only possible result. If there's no one to save them, no one to help them, and they've simply be ground into poverty and sweating and exploitated, what can you expect apart from them going communist as they did? All these countries that have been exploited–thrown and tossed aside by finance–are becoming the victims of communism. So finance seeks fresh fields of exploitation. Where do they turn when the old people are exhausted? When many poor labourers died of consumption and other horrible diseases in their sweatshops, or when their exhausted fields of exploitation, where do they turn now?

    New pastures, new forests, fresh virgin land. And then when we vote and elect a government, and under that government we allow these things to happen as we have done in the past. Those poor devils are going to be sweating and exploited in Africa like the other poor souls in China, India and Japan. A great new field for sweatshops to be opened up. So that these new industries which we're creating in Europe today will be destroyed as the old industries were. Simplified, rationalized machinery holding a few white surveyors at the cost of masses of cheap coloured labour. Torn off the land and taken into the sweatshops to work and labour and cough their guts out with tuberculosis. Until they too are thrown in the scrapheap of the sweatshops.

    Is that worthy of Britain? Is that to be the future of Europe? Is this competition to be organized within our European Brotherhood? Bringing in these sweatfields in Africa into our European civilization, so that the financial power in one European country can use it against the financial power in another. All the great financial central power of the world has shifted from our own countries to Wall Street, New York. Which shall be able–on the mass of money, of wealth and of power, which it brings to it–again and again to exert its influence in politics. As you see today.

    It is childish nonsense to say that a British government rules Britain. It has nothing to do with British government or the British people. The government of the world is the financial government. The power of money and money alone.
    And so I reject the globalist worldview. I hate communism and I don’t have to like it. I like the US of the Jacksonian days. I like Washington’s Farewell Address. And I like my Indian rice. The strawman delusion you’ve created of “uneducated” masses wanting to simply boycott everything non-domestic is, ironically, ONLY possible in the United States. No other nation could get by with doing that for any extended period. But I don’t even want that. Not yet, anyway. I want all nations to be internally self-sufficient, as best they can be with the resources they have. And I want the goddamn UN to stop saying borders are permanent, at the same time that it’s trying to eradicate all of them. Doublespeak never sat well with me.
    muthuk_vanalingam
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  • Reply 73 of 108
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member

    saltyzip said:
    Some has to educate you.
    So who educates you?
    edited April 2018
    pscooter63bestkeptsecretcrossladwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 74 of 108
    StrangeDaysstrangedays Posts: 13,172member
    lmac said:
    Apple is far from doomed, but they aren't hitting it out of the park like they were in the post-Jobs return days. Cook is a production guy with no tech savvy and no vision. He only knows how to milk the profits from the pre-existing hits. CarPlay is lame. Safari is slipping. Siri is sad. Apple Maps suck. Music has been fumbled. Apple Watch and HomePod are mediocre, and they missed the mark with the Mac Pro cylinder. Sure, the iPhone is wildly successful, but Apple is becoming more and more dependent on that one big hit. Ask Blackberry and Nokia how that ends. All it takes is one stumble, or one innovator, and Apple begins to look like present-day Microsoft.
    Bullshit. Cook has a bachelors of science, industrial engineering. That’s more science than Jobs ever had.

    Retina macs. Watch. AirPods, all post Jobs.

    Also, Apple is actually more and more less dependent on one big hit. Their smaller product lines are bigger than the google and facebooks of the world and their own fortune 100s if spun off. 

    In short, very ignorant post. Try again. 
    Soliericthehalfbeeradarthekatwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 75 of 108
    StrangeDaysstrangedays Posts: 13,172member


    And the current Apple leadership without any attention to detail, knowledge of good UX, or stable code is going to run Apple right back into the ground. And I say this as an avid FanGirl since switching in 2007. I loathe iOS to the point I've considered if the grass really is greener, and Mac's and macOS is stagnant except for juvenile crap and emojis and a half baked bastardisation with iOS.

    I miss Steve every day I have to use my crappy iPhone / iPad / MacBook Pro / iMac.
    Nonsense. Todays macs and idevices are the finest versions I’ve ever used, as an avid fan going back to the 1980s and ‘90s. Hilarious you claim they’re stagnant when it’s Apple who pioneers things that get copied by the knockoffs — macbook designs, iOS 64-bit, actually good biometrics, the notch, etc..

    BTW, it’s almost as as if you actually believe Apple is wasting time inventing emoji rather than is simply implementing a character set defined by a cross-industry committee. Strange. 
    My take on her post was frustration over the small things that Apple misses when it ships new hardware or software. 

    Sure Apple would do it intermittently during Steve's tenure, but now it's like clockwork. 
    A software bug that is annoying, but not crippling, or worse a software feature that really isn't explained well that ended up having the whole world claim Apple was caught creating planned obsolescence.
    An issue in a Major OS X release that causes the update to fail and most will have to erase and install the OS again due to the conversion of file system failure. Not to mention all of the quality programs that have been announced in the past 2 years, some are for newer hardware. 

    These are just a few examples of Apple rushing to meet deadlines and not testing long enough before they sign off on something that is ready to ship. 

    IMHO, everyone who posts here regularly loves and uses Apple products and for the most part gives them a lot of leeway when something unacceptable happens.
    That's good, but when it becomes more frequent and we either turn a blind eye or become very defensive, that's bad and we are not helping Apple. We're guilty of giving the impression that Apple can do nothing wrong and that is what makes Apple complacent in not living up to their own established standards. 
    I don’t know anybody who claims Apple can do no wrong. I do know lots of people who make absurd bullshit claims that aren’t based on reality, however. 
    radarthekat
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  • Reply 76 of 108
    StrangeDaysstrangedays Posts: 13,172member
    KITA said:

    Surface RT
    Microsoft's Newton

    From that, came these:



    So while Windows RT on an ARM tablet was a dead end at the time, the Surface line was not.

    It's also worth pointing out that Surface revenue was up 32% yoy this past quarter and that Microsoft has more devices in the works for later this year.
    How many do they sell?
    watto_cobra
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  • Reply 77 of 108
    Solisoli Posts: 10,038member
    tallest skil said:
    [Sad and ridiculous anti-American statements removed.]
    Ah, so you're also a hypocrite who hates the very thing you rely on. You better stock up on your Dehra Dun rice since, as you state, international trade is "ending DAMN soon."
    edited April 2018
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  • Reply 78 of 108
    Solisoli Posts: 10,038member
    lmac said:
    Apple is far from doomed, but they aren't hitting it out of the park like they were in the post-Jobs return days. Cook is a production guy with no tech savvy and no vision. He only knows how to milk the profits from the pre-existing hits. CarPlay is lame. Safari is slipping. Siri is sad. Apple Maps suck. Music has been fumbled. Apple Watch and HomePod are mediocre, and they missed the mark with the Mac Pro cylinder. Sure, the iPhone is wildly successful, but Apple is becoming more and more dependent on that one big hit. Ask Blackberry and Nokia how that ends. All it takes is one stumble, or one innovator, and Apple begins to look like present-day Microsoft.
    Bullshit. Cook has a bachelors of science, industrial engineering. That’s more science than Jobs ever had.

    Retina macs. Watch. AirPods, all post Jobs.

    Also, Apple is actually more and more less dependent on one big hit. Their smaller product lines are bigger than the google and facebooks of the world and their own fortune 100s if spun off. 

    In short, very ignorant post. Try again. 
    I don't think Cook gets enough credit for what he's done for Apple. Even when Jobs was CEO, I don't think Apple could've grown as it did without Cook making it happen. There's a reason why Cook was named acting CEO when Jobs took a time off for his health, and why he was eventually named CEO after Jobs stepped down.

    I don't understand why people need someone like Jobs to fill the roll. I've heard people on this forum state that Bezos or Musk should be CEO of Apple because it more closely reminds them of Jobs personality. While I like Musk and Bezos, they have no business running Apple, and I can't see how they could do at 1/1000ths of the efficiency or scale that Cook can.
    edited April 2018
    Foliopscooter63anomeradarthekatjony0brucemcwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 79 of 108
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 8,236member
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    This, in the purely comsumer space. If we throw in political/protectionist elements (the government space), the risk of major impact is real in the short term. Allowing Huawei unrestricted access to the US handset market would be a major threat to Apple. 
    Nah. Americans won’t be enamored with a knockoff brand they can’t even pronounce. That brand just won’t flourish here. Doing KFC-branded iphone-ripoffs just won’t cut it...




    Doing KFC branded phones does actually cut it. How ironic that such a company could pull this off:
    .
    https://www.counterpointresearch.com/huawei-surpasses-apple/
    Gimmicky iphone ripoffs work in China, where the ripoff culture flourishes. 
    Perhaps that is precisely why the phone was a limited edition in the Chinese market to celebrate KFC's 30th anniversary in China.

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  • Reply 80 of 108
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    The biggest blunder Cook made regarding iPhone X is the price. He cannot see that iPhone is beleaguered. The estimated cost of iPhone X parts is $370. He is so obsessed with profit margin that iPhone X price is set to $999. Even at $799, the profit margin is 46%. Apple is giving many buyers an impression of greedy. If you want to sell a product to mass of people, the first thing you should not do is greedy. 

    Unless Apple has a breakthrough mass product, its future is really not very bright. Cook has wasted the goodwill Jobs created for Apple. 
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