When IDC is all that's there and even IDC can't figure out a way to falsify information, Tim uses it, that's why.
The next step is figuring out what legal avenues are available to Apple to force companies like IDC from providing obviously false and misleading information. There are ways to pull commercials, especially in Europe, that are misleading so why are IDC and others allowed to made statements like they do unchallenged?
Could lack of a challenge possibly be due to Apple generally considering IDC accurate? Tim Cook hasn't shied away from "correcting the record" when it's plainly wrong in Apple's view so what's stopping him now if it's so misleading?
In the 2010 - 2012 timeframe both IDC and Gartner made some unavoidably accurate observations about Apple's performance in relation to both the PC and mobile markets that Tim Cook, not unexpectedly, did mention. Since then their agenda does seem to have changed back to data manipulation and obfuscation.
Whether that is due to pressure from their customer base to stop advertising just how much Apple is dominating the market is hard to know with certainty, but DED presents a credible case for it. Your argument that it can't be true because Tim Cook has occasionally endorsed previous analyses and not attempted to refute the recent ones seems weak to me, since it appears to be predicated on two unreasonable assumptions; that IDC's motives and reporting fidelity are inherently constant, and that Tim Cook would be expected to use refutation and endorsement equally.
There's quite a good reason for paying that Mac Tax and going with Apple. Not only are the OS X upgrades now free, you can trust them to be genuine improvements. Microsoft's only batting about 1 in 3 for new versions being actual improvements.
I agree that Apple's probably not that threatened in the smartphone or tablet markets. There's a good reason for that. If you assume a 3-year life for a product (dad/mom for two years, the kids for one), Then paying an extra $200 for an iOS product you'll love is only about 18 cents a day more than a barely name brand product that you'll want to discard after six months. And given how the iTunes store works, once someone buys a set of iOS apps, they've essentially got a lifetime subscription to those apps on every iOS device they buy in the future. That keeps them in the Apple family.
Perhaps the only way current conditions hurt Apple is that may consumers conclude that their iDevice (particularly the iPad) is 'good enough' that they need not buy or upgrade that Mac quite yet.
That's my situation. My six-year-old MacBook has missed out on the latest two OS X upgrades, but it's still reliable and still runs every app I need to run on it. I may be tempted to upgrade it to the latest MacBook Air, but every time I do, I find myself deciding that my iPad 3 has the same long battery life and with a keyboard will serve as well for simple writing tasks on browsing on the go.
Also influencing me is the fact that, with their recent Mac line, Apple seems to have declared war on upgradability and repairability. I can replace the hard drive and RAM on that old MacBook in about 10 minutes and change out the battery in mere seconds. I can't replace or upgrade the RAM or SSD on the new MBA at all and replacing the battery involved a lot of mucking about with glued in parts.
The last is particularly frustrating. All Apple would need to do to make battery change easy would be to keep that battery in place with velcro rather than glue.
My biggest problem with these methodologies that they're plainly wrong, and yet no one really cares (Gatorguy, please don't bother with your proforma Tim Cook comment -- it's beside the point). People use it with abandon nonetheless.
What do I mean? Simply put, we cannot calculate market share numbers without data on volumes sold. Apple is the only company for which we have ACTUAL, audited data on [I]volumes[/I] and [I]sales[/I]. All the other companies give us only [I]values[/I] and [I]shipments[/I]. So, their volumes sold have to be estimated.
What does a company like IDC do? It takes Apple's actuals and conflates it with [I]estimates[/I] for other companies. That is the first problem, right there. Second, they don't tell us anywhere what their methodology is. For example there is always this massive category of 'Others' that is never explained; similarly, they never explain their sampling approaches. Third, if they wanted to be even halfway honest -- at least consistent -- they should report an [I]estimate[/I] for Apple using the same methodology that they adopt for other manufacturers. But I can see why they won't do that: because they'd be caught out -- we'd be able to compare their estimates against actuals for Apple!
If you're Pepsi and you're getting outsold by Coke, why not print headlines that statistically compare Coke to every cola on earth, or perhaps every drink containing caffeine? Poor Coke! After inventing such news its "market share" would now ostensibly be slipping into irrelevance, calling into question the fact that it sells the most product in its actual market, makes the most money, and people everywhere pay a premium for its name brand. What a miserable loser Coke suddenly is, just with some creative reporting of meaningless, contrived statistics.
This is exactly right, Daniel! They define fake markets to minimize Apple's market share.
Perhaps the best example of this is the US "smartphone" market. The total US cell phone market is growing very slowly right now, but most feature phones are being replaced with low-end Android devices. Soon they will all be "smartphones", but for the moment the US smartphone market is growing explosively. So despite the fact that iPhone now has a 25.1% share of all cell phones in use in the US (according to comScore mobiLens, who have the best figures on this), and that a year ago it was 17.5% and two years ago it was 10.2%, Apple is losing smartphone marketshare!
Of course the US smartphone market will stop growing fast soon, since smartphone penetration will reach 75% in another year or so (it's currently around 50%). At that point these people will have to find another fake market to compare iPhone to!
Could lack of a challenge possibly be due to Apple generally considering IDC accurate? Tim Cook hasn't shied away from "correcting the record" when it's plainly wrong in Apple's view so what's stopping him now if it's so misleading?
Another possible interpretation:
When you catch IDC or whoever putting out figures in your favor, exploit it for what you can get out of it.
Whatever you do, don't start a PR war with them, because you will lose, since they are in the business of twisting the truth for their clients: the companies lined up against you, the analysts, and the lapdog journalists. Their infrastructure of mendacity for hire is in place. The only thing you can do is use a tidbit here and there when it happens to come out in your favor.
20 yr Windows IT admin here, bought my first iMac G5 in'05, and have bought 2 MPBs, 2 Minis, 2 iPads and 6 iPhones for our household since. I did buy one intel desktop for Windows server VM work -- stuffed it in a closet and use the MS RDP client to access it.. from my macs.
This is a great teardown piece DED. I see what they're doing, and most AppleInsider readers can see what their doing. I haven't had a slimmer of respect for Gartner or IDC for over a decade -- I know the game they play for their paying customers. Unfortunately their damning statistics game does have some impact on the less educated consumers out there.
I really like your comparison between Apple and Samsung sales -- Samsung acts as a good proxy for the Android market since Samsung seems to be the only manufacturer with volume and profit. In my mind that makes Apple 66% of the market, and Samsung 33%. Not bad for god ol' little Apple. ;-)
If the theme of this drama piece is that analytic firms have a hidden agenda, why the exposition quote from Dvorak who apparently based his prediction on what was presumably unbiased data from W3C? As far as I know Dvorak is just a pathetic Windows fan boy and a bit of a buffoon, but what does his prognostication have to do with the central premise of the article?
Quote: Dvorak article from 2004
I've been thinking about this marketing dilemma ever since seeing those w3C numbers, and I've concluded that the real problem with Mac marketing is a weird logical inconsistency that can only worsen the product's market situation. In fact, unless something changes drastically, I can't see the circumstances improving. Ironically, this logical inconsistency is also what makes the Mac great. There's a conundrum in choosing to go with simplicity versus complexity.
FWIW, they are the same morons from not too long ago!
The iPhone is a success -- there is no argument to be made that it's not -- but prior to its debut, various upgrades, redesigns and record-breaking sales figures, there were plenty of folks who thought it would flop.
Now that we've seen the release of eight different iPhones, let's take a look back at some of the most ridiculous things that eight "experts" have said about Apple's original foray into the smartphone market.
"This is not a great phone. It's an interesting design." -- Rob Enderle, analyst with the Enderle Group
"That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone. Don't be surprised if a sizable contingent of iPhone buyers express some remorse at ditching their BlackBerry when they spend an extra hour each day pumping out emails on the road." -- Seth Porges, CrunchGear
"Apple will sell a few to its fans, but the iPhone won't make a long-term mark on the industry." -- Matthew Lynn, columnist at Bloomberg
"I'm more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular." --David Haskin, Computerworld
"Implementing a cellphone is absolutely more difficult than anything Apple's done to date. Go out and buy an iPod and hold it at waist level and drop it. That's the end of the iPod. I don't think Apple's going to be a big player in this at all." -- Edward Snyder, analyst with Charter Equity Research
"There is no reason to have an 8GB iPod on the phone. Give us a 2GB capacity so we can put our favorite stuff on it and listen when we want, cut the price to $299 and you may have something." -- Todd Sullivan, Seeking Alpha
"[The iPhone] will have very little impact on the business community." -- Avi Greengart, analyst with Current Analysis
"Sales for the phone will skyrocket initially. However, things will calm down, and the Apple phone will take its place on the shelves with the random video cameras, cellphones, wireless routers and other would-be hits." -- Michael Kanellos, editor at CNET
Yes, hindsight is 20-20. That said, you are now encouraged to point at these quotes and laugh maniacally.
Really? LOL. It reminds me of the ranting of the right about the left wing mass media "conspiracy."
AI lost me when they pointed to a Dvorak article and tried to take it seriously. Dvorak is paid say outrageous things, stir up the hornets nest if you will. The author doesn't seem to understand that. Basic math also seems a challenge because they don't seem to understand the simple fact that sales can increase while the percentage of the market share goes down.
Time would have been better spent on the fact that market share numbers, especially on their own, mean absolutely nothing.
As I recall Tim Cook has used IDC (or was it Gartner? Doesn't matter) market reports in his investor calls when they look favorably on Apple. Apparently Apple is OK with their overall accuracy, else why would they quote them?
No doubt they're unlikely to paint an entirely accurate picture in every report in every market they cover but I suspect they're much closer to right than wrong which is why Apple uses them.
EDIT: Daniel even trusts Strategy Analytics (!) when they make a claim he wants to believe. A bit disingenuous to claim here they have an agenda and just making stuff up to fit a storyline when they're reliable enough to suit his own editorial storylines.
...Guess DED trusts IDC too (put aside in the interest of today's editorial of course) as did many of the regulars commenting on this very recent opinion piece from Mr. Dilger:
I don't think he's (entirely) questioning their data so much as arguing they are choosing to present the results in a way that is not flattering to Apple.
Mercedes has around 2% of the US automobile market share. Does anyone get in a tizzy over that? Should Mercedes be excluded from being counted as an automobile? No. Its a valid number and whether that market share is growing or declining is pretty important to both Mercedes and Wall Street. Everyone recognizes their margins are higher and you can also find an equal number of data sets and articles that focus solely on only *premium* automobile market share and will have relative shares of BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes.
They are two different discussion. Both are important. Both are valid.
Within the premium phone market Apple is kicking butt. It is not hard to find a plethora of articles supporting that. Daniel seems to believe that that is the only valid discussion and should be the only one any articles focus on. I agree with him that it is an important one, but not that it should be the only one.
From Wall Streets perspective the premium phone market is certainly not dead, but its growth has slowed to a trickle. Apple doing well within the segment that is growing slowly *is* of note to Wall Street, but what they are more interested in is the segment of the market that is poised for huge growth- the low end segment. Call them 'junk phones' if it makes you feel better, but that's where the huge growth is going to be in the next few years. Wall Street is rightfully interested in any data it can get on that, and it may even be true that they are *more* interested in that than the data on the more established and predictable high end market. Apple chose not compete in the high growth segment and that is fine.
Getting mad at data firms and Wall Street for looking at the data that is important to them just because doesn't align with your belief that it should instead focus on how awesome your favorite company is would seem silly if it didn't serve the higher purpose of rallying the other members of the fan base.
I do like the Mac history in the article. Despite being a great product its high price/margins did have it on the ropes. The Mac certainly had its merits, but that is not what saved it. Had Apple continued to just iterate the Mac in incremental improvements it would have died. The breakthrough home run that saved the Mac was the iPod, followed by the Grand Slam iPhone. High margins *can't* be maintained in a competitive market and Apple has done tremendously by consistenly and amazingly innovating new ones. The iPhones have done tremendously but the market *is* becoming a competitive one- Apple reported less operating income in 2013 than 2012 despite better sales and their impressive growth in the high end segment. The pressure is there. If Daniels story is accurate he is saying that Apple *can* maintain their high margins and grow even more as a company- all they need to do is hit the next 'home run.' That seems to be in agreement with Wall Street, so why do Apple fans always seem to get mad when Wall Street indicates its really time for Apple to come out with something new? I'm hoping they do because the world then just becomes that much of a cooler place.
It's hard not to agree with the idea behind the article. In fact, I challenge anyone to do so.
My only problem with it, is that the author is again trying to step over the line and start: "trash" this, "junk" that.
It isn't appropriate just like it isn't correct. Samsung has tremendous power on the smartphone platform, mostly in part because Google makes such a fantastic OS that no matter how samsung tries to **** things up, it still is bearable even if the knowledge of the user is limited.
Just install Nova and G-apps like: Hangouts, play music, google now, play books, youtube, chrome, gmail and deactivate the Samsung equivalents.
Like it or not, samsung is teaching something to Apple, here: There's room for choice and growth on the high end, just make another iPhone line with the big screen. Unfortunately, I have to agree that the medium to low end does not deserve Apple's attention, but they are making a mistake with the "no choice" iPhone, and that's the only reason for less growth than most OEMs.
Sorry for this off-topic bit, but I did it to say this:
The same is happening to tablets. Only a completely ignorant would call a cheap tablet (like the nexus 7 and similar tablets that are starting to show up) crap. Fortunately, Apple did the right thing and already offers choice. But a bigger iPad should come, too. I know lots of users that would love it, especially since a 12" iPad pro (similar to the Air) would weight the same or less than the iPad 4.
While DED in this case does have more logic than usual, the white label vendors of tablets should be named or ignored, he is guilty as usual of assuming the conclusion. iPads are apparantly as dominant as iPods. But the same analysts who admit iPod dominance dispute the dominance of the iPad.
Look. This is a business. DED sells kool aid to believers. You can believe what you want but actual facts matter - the iPad is not as dominant as it was and nowhere near as dominant as the iPod.
When you catch IDC or whoever putting out figures in your favor, exploit it for what you can get out of it.
Whatever you do, don't start a PR war with them, because you will lose, since they are in the business of twisting the truth for their clients: the companies lined up against you, the analysts, and the lapdog journalists. Their infrastructure of mendacity for hire is in place. The only thing you can do is use a tidbit here and there when it happens to come out in your favor.
Late yesterday Fortune published an article about Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley stating Apple’s iPad now trails Android in both units shipped AND revenues.
Katy based her revenues on the IDC report where the 10 million white box tablets were found.
It is bizarre that she chose present the estimates as real based on questionable data, but it does fit with the systematic effort to destroy Apple in the worldwide market place for smartphones and tablets.
Here is the link to the Fortune article...
tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/15/ap-idc
Morgan-Stanley isn't the most reliable company, nor IDC, nor Gartner.
Anyone who still believes what any of these guys say isn't worthy of having any money to invest anywhere.
The market called: "People Who Just Wants Macs" is large enough by itself to play to, and for Apple to continue to innovate for, for a long, long time.
This article highlights the "Cheat to win" strategy that is so prevalent in today's society. The practice is disgusting, morally wrong and indefensible.
Bravo Daniel Eran Dilger and Apple Insider, bravo!
Comments
In the 2010 - 2012 timeframe both IDC and Gartner made some unavoidably accurate observations about Apple's performance in relation to both the PC and mobile markets that Tim Cook, not unexpectedly, did mention. Since then their agenda does seem to have changed back to data manipulation and obfuscation.
Whether that is due to pressure from their customer base to stop advertising just how much Apple is dominating the market is hard to know with certainty, but DED presents a credible case for it. Your argument that it can't be true because Tim Cook has occasionally endorsed previous analyses and not attempted to refute the recent ones seems weak to me, since it appears to be predicated on two unreasonable assumptions; that IDC's motives and reporting fidelity are inherently constant, and that Tim Cook would be expected to use refutation and endorsement equally.
I agree that Apple's probably not that threatened in the smartphone or tablet markets. There's a good reason for that. If you assume a 3-year life for a product (dad/mom for two years, the kids for one), Then paying an extra $200 for an iOS product you'll love is only about 18 cents a day more than a barely name brand product that you'll want to discard after six months. And given how the iTunes store works, once someone buys a set of iOS apps, they've essentially got a lifetime subscription to those apps on every iOS device they buy in the future. That keeps them in the Apple family.
Perhaps the only way current conditions hurt Apple is that may consumers conclude that their iDevice (particularly the iPad) is 'good enough' that they need not buy or upgrade that Mac quite yet.
That's my situation. My six-year-old MacBook has missed out on the latest two OS X upgrades, but it's still reliable and still runs every app I need to run on it. I may be tempted to upgrade it to the latest MacBook Air, but every time I do, I find myself deciding that my iPad 3 has the same long battery life and with a keyboard will serve as well for simple writing tasks on browsing on the go.
Also influencing me is the fact that, with their recent Mac line, Apple seems to have declared war on upgradability and repairability. I can replace the hard drive and RAM on that old MacBook in about 10 minutes and change out the battery in mere seconds. I can't replace or upgrade the RAM or SSD on the new MBA at all and replacing the battery involved a lot of mucking about with glued in parts.
The last is particularly frustrating. All Apple would need to do to make battery change easy would be to keep that battery in place with velcro rather than glue.
What do I mean? Simply put, we cannot calculate market share numbers without data on volumes sold. Apple is the only company for which we have ACTUAL, audited data on [I]volumes[/I] and [I]sales[/I]. All the other companies give us only [I]values[/I] and [I]shipments[/I]. So, their volumes sold have to be estimated.
What does a company like IDC do? It takes Apple's actuals and conflates it with [I]estimates[/I] for other companies. That is the first problem, right there. Second, they don't tell us anywhere what their methodology is. For example there is always this massive category of 'Others' that is never explained; similarly, they never explain their sampling approaches. Third, if they wanted to be even halfway honest -- at least consistent -- they should report an [I]estimate[/I] for Apple using the same methodology that they adopt for other manufacturers. But I can see why they won't do that: because they'd be caught out -- we'd be able to compare their estimates against actuals for Apple!
So essentially, what we have is trash data.
A services/polling company publishes a report, an analyst publishes an analysis, a writer publishes an article, a reader posts an opinion...
These people each have an agenda?.
What a novel thought!
If you're Pepsi and you're getting outsold by Coke, why not print headlines that statistically compare Coke to every cola on earth, or perhaps every drink containing caffeine? Poor Coke! After inventing such news its "market share" would now ostensibly be slipping into irrelevance, calling into question the fact that it sells the most product in its actual market, makes the most money, and people everywhere pay a premium for its name brand. What a miserable loser Coke suddenly is, just with some creative reporting of meaningless, contrived statistics.
This is exactly right, Daniel! They define fake markets to minimize Apple's market share.
Perhaps the best example of this is the US "smartphone" market. The total US cell phone market is growing very slowly right now, but most feature phones are being replaced with low-end Android devices. Soon they will all be "smartphones", but for the moment the US smartphone market is growing explosively. So despite the fact that iPhone now has a 25.1% share of all cell phones in use in the US (according to comScore mobiLens, who have the best figures on this), and that a year ago it was 17.5% and two years ago it was 10.2%, Apple is losing smartphone marketshare!
Of course the US smartphone market will stop growing fast soon, since smartphone penetration will reach 75% in another year or so (it's currently around 50%). At that point these people will have to find another fake market to compare iPhone to!
Well done. Priceless article. AGAIN!
....influencing consumer behavior and buying preferences...
These lazy a$$ morons can never influence a smart and well-informed consumer looking for the BEST not android shit!
Another possible interpretation:
When you catch IDC or whoever putting out figures in your favor, exploit it for what you can get out of it.
Whatever you do, don't start a PR war with them, because you will lose, since they are in the business of twisting the truth for their clients: the companies lined up against you, the analysts, and the lapdog journalists. Their infrastructure of mendacity for hire is in place. The only thing you can do is use a tidbit here and there when it happens to come out in your favor.
This is a great teardown piece DED. I see what they're doing, and most AppleInsider readers can see what their doing. I haven't had a slimmer of respect for Gartner or IDC for over a decade -- I know the game they play for their paying customers. Unfortunately their damning statistics game does have some impact on the less educated consumers out there.
I really like your comparison between Apple and Samsung sales -- Samsung acts as a good proxy for the Android market since Samsung seems to be the only manufacturer with volume and profit. In my mind that makes Apple 66% of the market, and Samsung 33%. Not bad for god ol' little Apple. ;-)
If the theme of this drama piece is that analytic firms have a hidden agenda, why the exposition quote from Dvorak who apparently based his prediction on what was presumably unbiased data from W3C? As far as I know Dvorak is just a pathetic Windows fan boy and a bit of a buffoon, but what does his prognostication have to do with the central premise of the article?
FWIW, they are the same morons from not too long ago!
The iPhone is a success -- there is no argument to be made that it's not -- but prior to its debut, various upgrades, redesigns and record-breaking sales figures, there were plenty of folks who thought it would flop.
Now that we've seen the release of eight different iPhones, let's take a look back at some of the most ridiculous things that eight "experts" have said about Apple's original foray into the smartphone market.
Yes, hindsight is 20-20. That said, you are now encouraged to point at these quotes and laugh maniacally.
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/11/12/eight-amazing-quotes-from-experts-who-were-sure-the-iphone-would/
Great piece.
Really? LOL. It reminds me of the ranting of the right about the left wing mass media "conspiracy."
AI lost me when they pointed to a Dvorak article and tried to take it seriously. Dvorak is paid say outrageous things, stir up the hornets nest if you will. The author doesn't seem to understand that. Basic math also seems a challenge because they don't seem to understand the simple fact that sales can increase while the percentage of the market share goes down.
Time would have been better spent on the fact that market share numbers, especially on their own, mean absolutely nothing.
-kpluck
As I recall Tim Cook has used IDC (or was it Gartner? Doesn't matter) market reports in his investor calls when they look favorably on Apple. Apparently Apple is OK with their overall accuracy, else why would they quote them?
No doubt they're unlikely to paint an entirely accurate picture in every report in every market they cover but I suspect they're much closer to right than wrong which is why Apple uses them.
EDIT: Daniel even trusts Strategy Analytics (!) when they make a claim he wants to believe. A bit disingenuous to claim here they have an agenda and just making stuff up to fit a storyline when they're reliable enough to suit his own editorial storylines.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/30/apple-earned-more-than-samsung-lg-nokia-huawei-lenovo-motorolas-mobile-shipments-combined
...Guess DED trusts IDC too (put aside in the interest of today's editorial of course) as did many of the regulars commenting on this very recent opinion piece from Mr. Dilger:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/12/idc-data-shows-66-of-androids-81-smartphone-share-are-junk-phones-selling-for-215
strange little article...
I don't think he's (entirely) questioning their data so much as arguing they are choosing to present the results in a way that is not flattering to Apple.
Mercedes has around 2% of the US automobile market share. Does anyone get in a tizzy over that? Should Mercedes be excluded from being counted as an automobile? No. Its a valid number and whether that market share is growing or declining is pretty important to both Mercedes and Wall Street. Everyone recognizes their margins are higher and you can also find an equal number of data sets and articles that focus solely on only *premium* automobile market share and will have relative shares of BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes.
They are two different discussion. Both are important. Both are valid.
Within the premium phone market Apple is kicking butt. It is not hard to find a plethora of articles supporting that. Daniel seems to believe that that is the only valid discussion and should be the only one any articles focus on. I agree with him that it is an important one, but not that it should be the only one.
From Wall Streets perspective the premium phone market is certainly not dead, but its growth has slowed to a trickle. Apple doing well within the segment that is growing slowly *is* of note to Wall Street, but what they are more interested in is the segment of the market that is poised for huge growth- the low end segment. Call them 'junk phones' if it makes you feel better, but that's where the huge growth is going to be in the next few years. Wall Street is rightfully interested in any data it can get on that, and it may even be true that they are *more* interested in that than the data on the more established and predictable high end market. Apple chose not compete in the high growth segment and that is fine.
Getting mad at data firms and Wall Street for looking at the data that is important to them just because doesn't align with your belief that it should instead focus on how awesome your favorite company is would seem silly if it didn't serve the higher purpose of rallying the other members of the fan base.
I do like the Mac history in the article. Despite being a great product its high price/margins did have it on the ropes. The Mac certainly had its merits, but that is not what saved it. Had Apple continued to just iterate the Mac in incremental improvements it would have died. The breakthrough home run that saved the Mac was the iPod, followed by the Grand Slam iPhone. High margins *can't* be maintained in a competitive market and Apple has done tremendously by consistenly and amazingly innovating new ones. The iPhones have done tremendously but the market *is* becoming a competitive one- Apple reported less operating income in 2013 than 2012 despite better sales and their impressive growth in the high end segment. The pressure is there. If Daniels story is accurate he is saying that Apple *can* maintain their high margins and grow even more as a company- all they need to do is hit the next 'home run.' That seems to be in agreement with Wall Street, so why do Apple fans always seem to get mad when Wall Street indicates its really time for Apple to come out with something new? I'm hoping they do because the world then just becomes that much of a cooler place.
It's hard not to agree with the idea behind the article. In fact, I challenge anyone to do so.
My only problem with it, is that the author is again trying to step over the line and start: "trash" this, "junk" that.
It isn't appropriate just like it isn't correct. Samsung has tremendous power on the smartphone platform, mostly in part because Google makes such a fantastic OS that no matter how samsung tries to **** things up, it still is bearable even if the knowledge of the user is limited.
Just install Nova and G-apps like: Hangouts, play music, google now, play books, youtube, chrome, gmail and deactivate the Samsung equivalents.
Like it or not, samsung is teaching something to Apple, here: There's room for choice and growth on the high end, just make another iPhone line with the big screen. Unfortunately, I have to agree that the medium to low end does not deserve Apple's attention, but they are making a mistake with the "no choice" iPhone, and that's the only reason for less growth than most OEMs.
Sorry for this off-topic bit, but I did it to say this:
The same is happening to tablets. Only a completely ignorant would call a cheap tablet (like the nexus 7 and similar tablets that are starting to show up) crap. Fortunately, Apple did the right thing and already offers choice. But a bigger iPad should come, too. I know lots of users that would love it, especially since a 12" iPad pro (similar to the Air) would weight the same or less than the iPad 4.
Thanks for the article, Daniel.
Look. This is a business. DED sells kool aid to believers. You can believe what you want but actual facts matter - the iPad is not as dominant as it was and nowhere near as dominant as the iPod.
Another possible interpretation:
When you catch IDC or whoever putting out figures in your favor, exploit it for what you can get out of it.
Whatever you do, don't start a PR war with them, because you will lose, since they are in the business of twisting the truth for their clients: the companies lined up against you, the analysts, and the lapdog journalists. Their infrastructure of mendacity for hire is in place. The only thing you can do is use a tidbit here and there when it happens to come out in your favor.
I like your analysis. Seems spot on to me.
A nice article that arrived on time.
Late yesterday Fortune published an article about Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley stating Apple’s iPad now trails Android in both units shipped AND revenues.
Katy based her revenues on the IDC report where the 10 million white box tablets were found.
It is bizarre that she chose present the estimates as real based on questionable data, but it does fit with the systematic effort to destroy Apple in the worldwide market place for smartphones and tablets.
Here is the link to the Fortune article...
tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/15/ap-idc
Morgan-Stanley isn't the most reliable company, nor IDC, nor Gartner.
Anyone who still believes what any of these guys say isn't worthy of having any money to invest anywhere.
The market called: "People Who Just Wants Macs" is large enough by itself to play to, and for Apple to continue to innovate for, for a long, long time.
This article highlights the "Cheat to win" strategy that is so prevalent in today's society. The practice is disgusting, morally wrong and indefensible.
Bravo Daniel Eran Dilger and Apple Insider, bravo!