Despite claiming to have laser focus, Apple decided to make frivolous halo products like the $1000 monitor stands, $700 wheels, and $500 nano surface... while scrimping on key components. This so called rumor just reinforced what I suspect - Apple is now all about marketing and no longer customer satisfaction.
You would be incorrect.
Apple doesn't have to compete on features alone because it has very little competition from Android OS device makers, all because of it customer satisfaction. Going back years, Apple has almost always been behind in screen size, cameras, arcane features, and lately, 5G. It has almost never been an actual marketing problem, and that's because the iPhone has such a long life cycle, and maintains a high trade in value, that most customers are not worried about whether Apple has the latest and greatest features that Android OS devices have; they can always wait for another release cycle or two for particular features.
Apple has undisputed reign in SoC's, and because Apple has such a tight integration with its OS variants and hardware, it can work off a very long roadmap of product development. Apple doesn't need to have the very same features at the very same time as Android OS device makers, and will add these as it makes sense in terms of value and ubiquity in the iPhone product line.
I would leave you with this analysis from Horace Dediu:
I don’t know if the lack of competition is why Apple is resting on its laurels. But I disagree that most customers are ok with their iPhones lagging their competition. If anything it’s the ecosystem that’s making it hard for people to switch. That said holding your customers hostage in a walled garden is not a sustainable strategy. If Apple doesn’t take back the mantle of innovation or at least keep pace, they’ll continue to lose market share.
That horrible, horrendus, "walled garden" you seem to think is holding people captive like a jail, is one of the things that makes Apple's products exceptional and sets them apart from their lesser competitors who only offer hardware and generic software.
As i said above: IBM was the gold standard in the 20th century not for their hardware (which lagged) but for their software, services and ecosystem. Today, Apple has taken that same approach and, their software, services and ecosystem are what raises them above all others and makes them the gold standard. For both organizations, the hardware, software, services and ecosystem all come together, work together and compliment each other to produce a product that "just works".
Despite claiming to have laser focus, Apple decided to make frivolous halo products like the $1000 monitor stands, $700 wheels, and $500 nano surface... while scrimping on key components. This so called rumor just reinforced what I suspect - Apple is now all about marketing and no longer customer satisfaction.
You would be incorrect.
Apple doesn't have to compete on features alone because it has very little competition from Android OS device makers, all because of it customer satisfaction. Going back years, Apple has almost always been behind in screen size, cameras, arcane features, and lately, 5G. It has almost never been an actual marketing problem, and that's because the iPhone has such a long life cycle, and maintains a high trade in value, that most customers are not worried about whether Apple has the latest and greatest features that Android OS devices have; they can always wait for another release cycle or two for particular features.
Apple has undisputed reign in SoC's, and because Apple has such a tight integration with its OS variants and hardware, it can work off a very long roadmap of product development. Apple doesn't need to have the very same features at the very same time as Android OS device makers, and will add these as it makes sense in terms of value and ubiquity in the iPhone product line.
I would leave you with this analysis from Horace Dediu:
It's his opinion and I've been down the same route. Re-sale value will likely plummet the minute Apple releases 5G across the board.
Four years of flat sales tell us that it's very possible that new purchases were not made, precisely because of the points he raised.
I think that they are BOTH correct!
Apple DOES lag on hardware features.
But so did IBM in pretty much the exact same way (adjusted for multiple decades of technological advances)
But, regardless people still not only bought IBM. but it was regarded as the gold standard. Why? Because the saying "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" was, in fact, true. And, likewise, "Nobody ever got disappointed by buying Apple", although I just made that up, is equally true.
Both companies separated themselves from the competition with the intangibles of quality that showed up in multiple ways that all contributed to customer satisfaction. And, a big part of that, in the case of both IBM and Apple, comes from their software as well as their support both before and after the sale.
Perhaps Apple said it best: "It just works" (even if it doesn't have a 40 Giga Pixel camera!). And, making it "just work" goes well beyond mere hardware features.
Interesting you mentioned IBM. Where are they now in the consumer PC world? When a high tech company doesn’t drive innovation and value, they’ll be replaced by another that could. It was IBM to Apple to Microsoft to Nokia and back to Apple and Google. Success can be very transient in consumer IT.
I don’t deny that the overall customer experience is still good with IPhones. The customer care is better than its competition for instance. I love their retail presence. I like their build quality and frequent OS updates. I like that iOS doesn’t slow down much over time. But that doesn’t mean they can lag behind the competition on hardware features! How hard is it to give us proper quick charging?? Instead Apple tries to charge us for a quick charging charger that’s not even half as quick as some android flagships. I get that iPhones are super duper efficient but to what end? Just so Apple can save a few cents giving us half the battery capacity of other Android flagships? How about being efficient AND having a large battery as well? Small things perhaps but they add up and it’s galling when we are talking about a $2T company charging a premium for their products.
IBM ruled the mainframe world just as Apple rules the mobile world.
It wasn't a lack of innovation that hurt them but a shift into personal computing -- mostly driven by Microsoft. As for innovation: even in the PC world they partnered with Microsoft till Gates shafted them. Then they developed OS2 which was far superior to any other OS on the market. Unfortunately, it not only required powerful hardware to run but got trashed by analysts, so they bowed out of the personal market and went back to their forte: Business. It was a smart move because the PC market devolved into a commodity market driven by price.
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Curious what time zone are you posting from?
As for innovation: even in the PC world they partnered with Microsoft till Gates shafted them. Then they developed OS2 which was far superior to any other OS on the market. Unfortunately, it not only required powerful hardware to run but got trashed by analysts, so they bowed out of the personal market and went back to their forte: Business. It was a smart move because the PC market devolved into a commodity market driven by price.