The issue long-term for Apple is will people pay a premium for a phone in years to come when a £200 phone will do everything they need and more?
IBM used to sell expensive PCs with massive cost to profit ratio, but once competition had caught up and started to out innovate them, their profits started to fall down a cliff. Blackberry suffered the same fate. What's different this time is Apple has monopoly on its app store, and this is why Apple will turn into a services company. However regulators may see this as anti competitive and allow likes of e.g Amazon to setup its own Apple app store. Wouldn't that be good for consumers!
Apple cannot have a monopoly on its own App Store, in much the same way that Toyota cannot have a monopoly for selling Toyota cars.
The market is for app stores, not the App Store. Apple does not have the biggest app store, and even if it did, there is nothing illegal in having a monopoly, so regulators have no case.
Hope that makes things a little clearer for you.
Now if Walmart forced the consumer to only buy Cheerios from its stores, it has a Monopoly on that product.
Monopoly means: "the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service"
Apple has sole control over everything it sells to Apple devices. That can be seen as anti competitive when a company has too much power, like Apple, bad for consumers, and for companies like Spotify etc.
No streaming service can compete with Apples, because Apple can price theirs better than everyone else who sells competing products, plus they take a cut of competing products revenue too as it has to be sold through app store, not fair.
Hope that educates you.
Glad you used Wal-mart as a comparison. I always wondered this: So Walmart (or any other store/grocer) can sell Cherrios in its store and charge them for shelf space. Then, right along side Cherrios, they can sell their own Walmart-O's at a much lower price. Is this anti-competitive? Kind of feel App Store is the same. Apple charges you for shelf space in the App Store and right along side offers there own similar services to what you offer (Spotify, Apple Music). Seems there are very similar parrallels but I don't ever hear people or companies complaining about this. I could be way off though, not as smart as most here....
Great example. Retailers like Walmart groceries chains often charge those product makers "slotting fees" to even sit on the shelves -- fees they obviously don't have to pay themselves for their in-house knockoffs. Fair? Maybe not from the perspective of the Cheerios people, but legal and normal.
if a company does manage to come up with a way to make an add-on without paying you, then they too are absolutely entitled to do so. This is why you can make alternative refills for your printer and HP cannot take you to court.
Not that I'm disagreeing with your broader point, but printer cartridge manufacturers would very much like to take alternative suppliers to court, and have been trying to for a long time.
I love these editorials! So many anti-apple articles make it to the front pages of online tech media it's refreshing to see (and be reminded of) a pro Apple article with the facts to back it up! It's discouraging to see so many skewed articles trolling for clicks, keep up the positive and informative (and correct) perspectives!
Interestingly enough, there were a couple of links to charts regarding Li-ion battery design and production. Cobalt seems to be the most promising material for the cathode; Apple uses 100% cobalt cathodes, and I would guess the other majors do as well.
Still think Tesla will win the EV race? If they do, it will be because of current generation battery production. Lots of new EV models coming to market, and luxury brands aren't far behind. Soon enough, EV's will be cheaper to own and run than hydrocarbon fueled vehicles. Lots of disruption in the oil patch if that happens.
All this time, Apple "fell behind" Samsung, perpetually losing out in metrics such as market share, units shipped and numbers of enthusiastic think-pieces about how Samsung was dominating a market in virtually every respect apart from profitability, where it was distantly behind. This is like watching a team lose a ballgame, but be congratulated on their hard work: their ball-time possession statistics, their score attempts and the fact that they decorated the stadium and made the uniforms for both teams. Wait, which team lost again? It's hard to say really. Points scored isn't the only way of measuring success in pro sports, is it?"
Correction: any Tom, Dick, and Harry can make a phone or PC with off-the-shelf components. However, not every Tom, Dick, and Harry can create their own OS and design their custom SoC etc. One of the reasons Apple has been so successful is that they're not trying to compete with off-the-shelf parts or 3rd party supplied operating systems.
In the end what really matters is that my money was very well spent on my combo of iPhone 7 + Apple Watch 2, even if Samsung offered the same combo one year earlier than Apple. Now I have my perfectly working, beautiful Apple devices while the ones who bought Samsung have a pair of outdated ugly, dysfunctional devices.
Future is cloud services, that's where the money is, not in hardware, any Tom dick and harry can make a phone. That's why the pc market is suffering and will continue to do so as margins are minimal.
There was no education gained by your link, other than they want to double their cloud services revenue and push more into that segment.
Tom, dick, and harry can never make an exactly designed Apple hardware product. Apple will always create hardware.
The issue long-term for Apple is will people pay a premium for a phone in years to come when a £200 phone will do everything they need and more?
IBM used to sell expensive PCs with massive cost to profit ratio, but once competition had caught up and started to out innovate them, their profits started to fall down a cliff. Blackberry suffered the same fate. What's different this time is Apple has monopoly on its app store, and this is why Apple will turn into a services company. However regulators may see this as anti competitive and allow likes of e.g Amazon to setup its own Apple app store. Wouldn't that be good for consumers!
There are already cheap tablets, PCs, smart phones, etc. Apple still sells a lot of them and in regards to phones and tablets, outsells them all.
blackberry suffered due to Apple lest you forget that.
Apple isnt big Enough in the market to be a monopoly. Don't like the App Store, code for Android. Everyone knows Android is "winning".
Future is cloud services, that's where the money is, not in hardware, any Tom dick and harry can make a phone. That's why the pc market is suffering and will continue to do so as margins are minimal.
It's not a binary choice. Apple is already undeniably a services company as their revenue from services alone has grown to the equivalent of a Fortune 100 company and far exceeds all of Facebook's revenue!. They are also undeniably a hardware company as they have even greater revenue from hardware sales, and since they own almost all of the industry's profits, you might want to correct your statement that "any Tom dick and harry can make a phone" with a big caveat, "but only Apple can make a profitable one!"
Oh no! It seems Apple is "years behind" competitors in Virtual Reality, TV content subscriptions, self driving cars and home voice assistants. That's a clear sign the company may be studying the market like a cat about to pounce on its target, just as it did with iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods. There is a solid decade of evidence that, for Apple, being behind is a competitive advantage.
Apple really needs to start partnering with Amazon and really start exploiting their hardware expertise, and Amazon web services expertise. Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos can take over the world if they would just work together on it. Have Amazon take over all of Apple's iCloud services since they don't work, and have Apple and Amazon work together on VR technology so a consumer could use a 3D camera and VR to try on virtual clothes in front of their iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, or MacBook. Imagine how many clothes Amazon would sale if consumers could try them on virtually first, and then have them delivered to their doorstep in 24 hours. Apple could develop the VR technology and GPU and 3D camera technology to do this, and integrate this technology into their 'A' chips which could be used in iPhone's, iPad's, Apple TV's and Amazon Alexa devices. Imagine if Apple and Amazon worked together on iBooks and developed a low cost iPad for high school and college students, they could easily replace Google's chrome books. Amazon controls all of the web services, and Apple makes the devices. Apple can surely create a cheaper version of the iPad that is cheaper and better then a chrome book! Later on both companies capitalize on these students when they become adults and continue to consume Apple and Amazon products. Imagine autonomous CAT4 car technology developed by Apple, and controlled through Amazon web services. Imagine an Apple TV with superior GPU technology that can be used to replace Sony Playstation and Xbox along with control your home through Apple's HomeKit technology. Apple has the hardware talent to do all of this, all they need to do is exploit it properly with the proper web services which they have not, and seemingly can't do on their own. iCloud continues to be a prime example of how not to do web services on a grand scale. Apple needs to do with Pages what Google has done with Google Docs, and do it with reliable web services that only Amazon possess.
Oh no! It seems Apple is "years behind" competitors in Virtual Reality, TV content subscriptions, self driving cars and home voice assistants. That's a clear sign the company may be studying the market like a cat about to pounce on its target, just as it did with iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods. There is a solid decade of evidence that, for Apple, being behind is a competitive advantage.
Apple is dangerously behind, so watch out
It seems hard to argue that Apple isn't behind. It has no Virtual Reality products like Samsung's Gear VR, Google's Cardboard Daydream and Facebook's Oculus. No library of subscription TV content like Netflix or Amazon Prime. No electric car strategy circulating like Google, Tesla or Faraday Future. And Apple's Siri appears to be behind Alexa and Google in the race to dribble out a few million cloud-based, voice surveillance appliances aimed at home installation.
Lots of brands have fallen behind in the markets they once mattered in and ended up unable to ever catch up again. Prime examples are Sony, Palm, Nokia, Windows Phone and Windows Tablet PC, Blackberry, Google Maps and FitBit.
The common thread among these isn't evidence that Apple "could be next." The common thread was that Apple entered their markets and crushed them.
Is Apple the next Apple?
Recall last year's punditry cycle of "is Apple the next Blackberry?" In that pinnacle of fallacious logic, the fact that Blackberry (nee RIM) could dramatically fall from its massively successful perch was evidence that Apple could too, sort of like how Nancy Kerrigan was evidence that Tonya Harding could be attacked, because she too was a figure skater.
Or for a less obscure reference, does FitBit's massive decline in smartwatch shipments present evidence that Apple Watch might be next? Who knows, really!? Cause and effect are so difficult to connect together in a relationship. /s.
It's actually quite easy to see the relationship between death and killer when you have a series of bodies each marked with a telltale mark of the same assassin. That would be evidence that vulnerable targets should be on the lookout for flying bullets, not evidence that a sniper is probably about to fall from his perch because it's apparently dangerous to be outside.
A decade of Apple being crazy behind--like a fox!
I've been writing about Apple for more than a decade. So looking back, the broken record of observations that Apple is being "passed up by True Innovators who are years ahead" leaps out as evidence of a clear misunderstanding of what is actually happening in the tech sector, and why.
Examine a decade of history recounting the various companies leisurely crossing the tracks just ahead of the Apple Train, while the media cheered them on as being avant-garde rather than fated for death. Consider why their celebrated efforts to crush Apple with various "iPhone-killers" failed. Note: because this game involves capitalist enterprise, points are awarded in dollars rather than pats-on-the-back or participation trophies.
MP3 Phone
2007: A year prior to Peak iPod, Microsoft announced its own Zune to much fanfare as the "iPod-killer," just as pundits began imagining in parallel that phones playing MP3s would kill Apple's iPod empire. Everything seemed so dire for Apple. Zune could do wireless WiFi sync and MP3-playing feature phones appeared to cost much less than an iPod!
However, that year Apple introduced iPhone. Steve Jobs described it as "a widescreen iPod" in addition to a phone and "breakthrough internet device". Zune staggered along like a zombie until it was terminated while basic phones playing MP3s were blown away by Apple's "iPod phone" with a real web browser.
Incredibly, we also had proof collected by PR firm ABI that given a contrived survey, many participants exposed to slanted marketing would agree that they might actually buy a Zune. But headlines aren't facts, and Zune lost miserably. The feature phone industry did too, despite its "overwhelming global market share of units shipped." Apple also overcame being clearly behind in smartphones--which had been around for half a decade by the time Apple showed up. And it was just getting started.
App Store
2008: Before iPhone even went on sale, the same ABI group that had previously insisted Zunes were 'potentially capable of selling' next announced that Apple's new iPhone "wasn't a smartphone" because it didn't run third party apps like "real platforms" such as Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry, Symbian, Flash Lite and Java ME.
ABI analyst Philip Solis explained, "We must conclude at this point that, based on our current definition, the iPhone is not a smartphone, but rather a high-end feature phone."
In the spring of 2008, Apple launched the App Store, and developers jumped to join. By mid-2009, iPhone had outsold Windows Mobile globally. Nothing since has caught up to the profitable success of the iOS App Store. Mobile software markets for those other "real platforms" died off really quickly.
While pundits desperately tried to vilify Apple's App Store as a terrible Walled Garden where developers were forced to sign their apps and pay $99 (!) a year and contribute 30 percent of their revenues to support the store's infrastructure, the reality was that mobile developers had been paying tens of thousands of dollars for rights to make basic mobile apps for platforms like Symbian, while most other platforms offered zero effective security at all, enabling malware authors to colonize a festering "toxic hellstew" of mobile sewage. This is so obvious that in hindsight it's crazy why so many people lied about what was going on.
IM
2009: Blackberry was supposed to keep Apple out of government and corporate enterprise due to the "Crackberry" allure of its centralized Blackberry Enterprise Server messaging platform. Meanwhile, Apple didn't even support MMS photo messaging with other smartphones!
In iOS 3, Apple replaced iPhone's basic Text app with Messages, enabling MMS picture messaging as well as basic SMS. iOS 5 bridged Mac and iPad instant messaging with SMS and encrypted all communications, effectively making IM free and erasing much of the value of services like BES. Coincidentally, BES also suffered a series of service embarrassing blackouts. A leader dropped the ball just as Apple was poised to run with it.
Today, iMessage has become one of the largest messaging platforms. It distinguishes Apple users with blue bubbles, highlighting that conversations are encrypted (and SMS chats with Android users are not).
Last year, Apple introduced an apps platform for iOS 10 that integrates iMessage with utilities, games, message effects and Stickers, borrowing from other popular standalone chat platforms. This year, it may integrate Siri into iMessage for assisted chat. Blackberry barely even exists. So much for being behind.
Notifications
2010: Apple was woefully behind webOS (remember that?) in the emerging arena of Notifications. Android was also floating support for local app and remote push notifications organized in a single log of events. iOS didn't have any of that.
Apple introduced Mobile Me with the unreliable sloppiness of a Google beta launch, earning much finger wagging. It then hired away key webOS developer Rich Dellinger to create Notification Center and built a robust, secure Push Notifications System integrated with Mobile Me (renamed iCloud) to build a powerful messaging and rich app notification system.
In iOS 10, notifications can even serve as payloads for video clips, such as when a HomeKit camera alerts you that you have a delivery person at the door.
Apple's not behind in Notifications anymore
Google also comes up with new ideas for Android, but these frequently wither on the vine because it takes a year for even a tenth of the installed base to get moved to a major new release, and multiple years for an Android version to represent the majority of devices. This problem began in 2010 but has only gotten worse every year since, despite ineffectual attempts at addressing this huge delay in deployment.
NFC vs BT
2011: Google floated another feature Apple lacked for several years: Near Field Communications, or NFC, used in Google Wallet contactless payments. Google was supposed to rule in this arena, but Wallet failed to ever gain much traction, despite efforts to build out NFC payment infrastructure. Apple didn't have NFC because it was so behind.
What Apple did instead was rapidly introduce Bluetooth 4 (starting with iPhone 4s) and build out a platform of near-proximity wireless integration between iOS devices, Macs and Apple Watch that was later branded as Continuity. Prior to launching Apple Pay, the company also lined up the dots for Touch ID, building security right into the design of its products.
Apple didn't introduce Apple Pay until 2014, at least three years behind Wallet. However, the effort Apple put into building foundational support, and its prescience in supporting the much faster Bluetooth 4 rather than NFC for nearby connectivity, launched Apple far ahead of Google in both support for modern Bluetooth and in NFC payments, despite (or perhaps, because of) not being first to rush a loose payment concept to market.
That same year Apple also launched Siri, while the heads of Google and Microsoft both publicly scoffed at the idea of voice assistants on a mobile device. That changed as Siri clearly helped to sell new iPhones. Since then, a narrative that Apple isn't advancing Siri fast enough has emerged, implying Apple is again behind and, of course, won't be able to catch up.
For everyone thinking Apple isn't getting usage data to make Siri smarter, Siri is by far the most used voice assistant than any out there.
Today, even though the media is infatuated with Amazon's Alexa--and its innovative new "landline telephone paired with a stationary television"--Apple continues to dominate the global market for voice assistance in terms of millions of users, device penetration, international language support, and in use on mobile devices people actually carry around and use.
Plus-sized Phones
2012 Samsung had just debuted its "phablet" Galaxy Note, sporting a big screen larger than 5 inches and a tablet-like stylus. Apple's iPhone had been a much smaller 3.5 inches since birth, and by the end of 2012 the biggest phone Apple could offer was 4 inches--albeit just as narrow with a taller profile to make it easier to hold with one hand. Samsung was already selling a "regular sized" Galaxy SIII flagship that was 4.3 inches, significantly larger and wider than iPhone 5/5s/5c. Apple was so behind!Samsung's Note convergence play combined Apple's two massively profitable markets into one moderately-successful one, and this was hailed as genius
For the next two full years, Apple had nothing like Samsung's increasingly popular "phablet," which was like a tablet and a phone in one box. Apple was forced to sell its customers two boxes: a small iPhone and an iPad. Apple also took efforts to clearly distinguish its small iOS phone platform from its larger tablet size, resulting in two markets for apps: one for iPhone and the other optimized for iPad. Samsung's Note convergence play combined Apple's two massively profitable markets into one moderately-successful one, and this was hailed as genius.
Samsung's phones just kept getting bigger, both in the Note-phablet category (growing by a quarter inch each year!) and its standard Galaxy S line (which even more rapidly grew into phablet proportions itself). Apple was stuck selling scores of millions of small iPhones (far greater than Samsung's Note and S lines combined) and tens of millions of iPads (while Samsung was struggling to give away its tablets with the purchase of almost anything).
All this time, Apple "fell behind" Samsung, perpetually losing out in metrics such as market share, units shipped and numbers of enthusiastic think-pieces about how Samsung was dominating a market in virtually every respect apart from profitability, where it was distantly behind. This is like watching a team lose a ballgame, but be congratulated on their hard work: their ball-time possession statistics, their score attempts and the fact that they decorated the stadium and made the uniforms for both teams. Wait, which team lost again? It's hard to say really. Points scored isn't the only way of measuring success in pro sports, is it?
Apple did eventually deliver larger iPhones with the 6 and 6 Plus in 2014, about three years after Samsung debuted the Note. As soon as it did, sales of Galaxy phablets flatlined, never again growing past the Galaxy S4 peak even though Samsung's screen sizes kept climbing. Profits fell from "less than Apple" to "devastated."
Meanwhile, Apple's larger iPhones hit a new sales platform twice as high as its previous 4 inch iPhone 5 models, and it has maintained this for the last three years while incrementally increasing Average Selling Prices and selling increasingly more apps, Music and other Services to its vast installed base of luxury phone buyers.
Somehow, despite Samsung's reported, ostensible "recovery" and its resumption of "size innovations" (including a new phone with a screen that's larger, but just as narrow with a taller profile to make it easier to hold with one hand--what a great idea!), Apple continues to perform better financially while Samsung Mobile profits have declined each year.
Modern UI
2013 Prior to launching iPhone 6, Apple's iOS 6 was being framed as looking old and boring, particularly in comparison to Android, but there was also a handful of pundits holding up Windows Phone and describing how innovative it was to replace developer branded app icons with animated boxes of brightly colored squares in Live Tiles. Innovation literally means "new," so a scoring system counting the number of arbitrary changes introduced should win this smartphone game, right?
In addition to looking old, iOS 6 had also kicked out Google Maps, replacing it with native Apple Maps data that was distantly behind Google in search as well as correctly labeled points of interest. On top, Apple was also struggling to get developers to adopt its iCloud service for backup and sync, but early implementation flaws were frustrating app developers to the point of making it unusable. Apple's concept of a cloud didn't even expose a file system! Apple was so behind in looks, maps and in cloud that it seemed it could never catch up to Google. Android was winning.
However, that year in iOS 7 Apple introduced a clean new "deference" interface that radically updated the look and feel of not just the new iPhone 5s, but iPhones dating back to the three year old iPhone 4. What Apple at the time called "the fastest software upgrade in history" gave the modern-looking iOS 7 a massive installed base, causing developers to rush to update their own apps to look fresh and modern, too.
Meanwhile, any new ideas in Android Land or at Microsoft could only hope to dribble out on sales of new phones, because why would anyone waste their time fixing software on phones that had already been sold? After dumping legacy Windows Mobile phones, Microsoft actually did begin copying Apple's aggressive software updates, but by then its installed base of WP7 phones was so small that it didn't really matter.
Alongside its fresh new iOS 7 platform look, Apple also pushed out an internally developed 64-bit A7 chip with a Secure Enclave supporting Touch ID fingerprint recognition for easy unlocking, to guarantee the use of a passcode, enabling full device encryption and securing the device for Activation Lock to foil thieves. With iPhone 5s, Apple outlined the future of security and authentication, changing our ideas of what privacy could be while frustrating the FBI, Russian spies and phone thieves. Since then, every other phone maker has worked to copy Apple's security model. With iPhone 5s, Apple outlined the future of security and authentication, changing our ideas of what privacy could be while frustrating the FBI, Russian spies and phone thieves
Google had been mostly working on fresh looks in Android, so it was suddenly caught blindsided by iOS in areas including support for 64-bit processors, hardware security, fingerprint support, encryption, and other things that don't matter to techie writers who preferred what Android looked like compared to iOS 6.
When Samsung and HTC attempted to catch up to Apple in fingerprint sensors on their new phones in 2014, Google hadn't added fingerprint support in Android so hardware makers slopped together their own, using laughably insecure implementations that copied users' fingerprint data unencrypted into the phones' readily accessible file system.
Even two years later, no Android phones were fast enough to perform full disk encryption in software (as Google didn't support hardware encryption), so users rarely turned encryption on. Good thing, because FDE security on Android was also broken.
Qualcomm first denigrated Apple's 64-bit A7 as a "marketing gimmick," then belatedly scrambled to catch up with its own slower chips that didn't work well and overheated, handing Android makers a defective high-end CPU just as Apple shifted into high gear in performance and efficiency metrics. The other thing Apple was ahead in was profits. It was earning more than the rest of the smartphone industry combined. Not bad, for being so far behind.
Despite initial flaws, Apple Maps rapidly began displacing Google Maps on iOS. It also enabled Apple to launch CarPlay (centered around Maps navigation) a year ahead of Google's own automotive support for Android. Suddenly Google's solid 7 year lead in mapping didn't seem to be helping the company at all. Apple's being behind again looks like an advantage more than a detriment. It is as if Apple gives everyone else an opportunity to fail to set a baseline for it to exceed.
Wearables
2014 Just before being blindsided by iPhone 6, Samsung rushed to introduce proof that it was the True Innovator, ahead of Apple in a key new segment: wearables. It had launched its first modern smartwatch at the end of 2013, with such great ideas as a less than half-VGA resolution video camera.
Google rushed out Android Wear in 2014, citing support from over a dozen industry players including its own newly jettisoned hardware subsidiary Motorola. Pebble had introduced a crowdfunded smartwatch starting in 2012, and FitBit, Asus, Sony, Qualcomm and LG were also building smartwatches, with more planned from luxury watch makers. It was like the smartphone market in 2006: how could Apple possibly expect to "just walk in" after falling so far behind?
At the end of 2014 it walked Apple Watch in alongside its most anticipated new iPhone ever--with premium, expensive versions that climbed up toward $15,000 for a solid gold Edition. Rather than sporting a pixelated camera, Apple focused on notifications (remember when Apple was behind in notifications?), messaging (remember when?) and fitness. Apple Watch sales eviscerated Samsung and gutted not only the smartwatch industry at large but also froze growth in high-end watch sales as well.
Again a pattern emerges that "being years behind" appears to be a competitive advantage for Apple. Meanwhile, all this time Apple was consistently increasing cash flow, building global production infrastructure and investing in the next areas it was "behind in."
Detachables
2015 While Android's various first-mover advantages evaporated, Microsoft began to gain attention for Surface Pro, which supposedly invented pairing a hardware keyboard with a tablet. Microsoft was slipping behind Apple so rapidly in mobile devices that it needed to demonstrate that it was the True Innovator in releasing a new Surface Book and another Surface Pro, both of which were neither tablets nor notebooks but rather a new made-up category of Detachables, evading direct comparisons with Apple's far-behind MacBooks and iPads, neither of which Detached.
How could Apple ever catch up in Detachables? Apple was stuck earning about $12 billion per quarter from iPads and Macs, while Microsoft was leading Detachables with about $815 million per quarter of Detachables. If you don't like the rules of the game, introduce your own playing field and play with yourself. You get all the points!
Having built Detachables since introducing Surface RT back in 2012, it seemed there was no way Apple could just walk in and take Detachables the way it had taken MP3 players, phones, apps, messaging, maps, encryption, mobile Application Processors and watches.
That fall Apple introduced iPad Pro, which immediately outsold all Surface sales, meaning it now also dominated Detachables because iPad Pro is indeed sold with a keyboard that can be removed.
It's like when you're winning playing a game by yourself and somebody walks in and plays you and beats you soundly. But Microsoft can't really even get mad about it because that's just how karma works.
iPad Pro is also sold without a keyboard, because it's an iPad and "Detachables" isn't actually a real word nor a significant or credible market segment. It's an invention to flatter Microsoft. It didn't appreciably help.
Since 2015, Surface sales haven't grown. Apple's iPad unit sales haven't either, but they have shifted from low-end sales to higher ASPs, thanks to Pro sales. Microsoft is still earning around $815 million per quarter from Surface while Apple just earned $9.7 billion in Q2 from its non-iPhone computers. Apple's computer sales are also bucking the failing trend among PC makers.
But rather than being coddled into its own Surface Success Fantasy by industry research outfits inventing a new "category of computing" playing field where players can be successful just by participating, Apple's computer sales (and in particular its iPad sales) are frequently compared against the most successful tech business ever: Apple's iPhone. Compared to iPhone, everything else Apple does is behind!
That's how Apple Watch decisively won in watches, but ended up denigrated as a failure because as we all know, Apple isn't competing against other smartwatches, it's trying to beat the iPhone.
The tech media laughs at Apple for tying its shoes because it can't outrun the bear. But it's not trying to outrun the bear. It owns the bear. It's trying to outrun everyone else still putting their shoes on as iPhone bear runs around eating everyone.
It's popular to say that Apple is "behind" in smartwatches because it isn't offering 4G mobile connectivity that could replace your phone with a watch--as some other smartwatches attempt to do. The same people who are advising that Apple cannibalize its iPhone sales to less expensive Watches also seem to think that its a bad thing that Apple isn't still selling more iPads instead of higher-ASP, big screen iPhones. It's almost as if the only way Apple can be successful is if it makes less money.
Wearables, part 2
2016 Samsung rang in the year with a Galaxy Gear-like spectacular, albeit one that played down smartwatches to instead focus on how ahead-of-Apple it was in smartphone Virtual Reality. The new Gear VR headset was a collaboration with Facebook's Oculus, and served as a key strategy for upselling Samsung phone buyers to its premium Galaxy S6 and S7 models. Apple offered nothing like this! Another important way Samsung was ahead last spring: water resistance.
Samsung was clearly ahead of Apple in delivering those features, just as it was previously ahead in selling smartphones, in phone cameras, in NFC, in phablets and in smartwatches. It isn't ahead in those areas anymore, however. And by the end of 2016, Samsung phones had failed two major water resistance tests and Apple had introduced its own water resistant iPhone 7.
Originally intended to make a big VR splash--and distract some holiday season attention away from iPhone 7--Samsung's VR-phablet Note 7 instead imploded as bad QA resulted in battery failures causing fires and an embarrassing recall. Samsung had to cancel the entire production for an incredible $5 billion loss and Oculus remotely disabled their Gear VR headsets so that nobody could even try to use them.
Rather than cementing Samsung's "aheadedness," VR turned out to be the biggest loser of 2016. Instead, the most popular and critically acclaimed new wearable turned out to be Apple's AirPods, an effort to deliver perfected wireless sound with a voice based, audio Augmented Reality. In a sort of double sting, AirPods also work with Apple Watch, giving Apple two major wins in wearables compared to two painful bellyflops from Samsung.
Where is Apple behind in 2017?
Microsoft just finished Build, and Google is set to outline what it's been working on at its IO conference in the second half of next week. After that we get two weeks to contemplate what Apple will be showing off at WWDC in the first week of June. We'll be looking for areas where Apple may be behind its rivals.
It's getting harder to find them.
Apple really needs to start partnering with Amazon and really start exploiting their hardware expertise, and Amazon web services expertise. Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos can take over the world if they would just work together on it. Have Amazon take over all of Apple's iCloud services since they don't work, and have Apple and Amazon work together on VR technology so a consumer could use a 3D camera and VR to try on virtual clothes in front of their iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, or MacBook. Imagine how many clothes Amazon would sale if consumers could try them on virtually first, and then have them delivered to their doorstep in 24 hours. Apple could develop the VR technology and GPU and 3D camera technology to do this, and integrate this technology into their 'A' chips which could be used in iPhone's, iPad's, Apple TV's and Amazon Alexa devices. Imagine if Apple and Amazon worked together on iBooks and developed a low cost iPad for high school and college students, they could easily replace Google's chrome books. Amazon controls all of the web services, and Apple makes the devices. Apple can surely create a cheaper version of the iPad that is cheaper and better then a chrome book! Later on both companies capitalize on these students when they become adults and continue to consume Apple and Amazon products. Imagine autonomous CAT4 car technology developed by Apple, and controlled through Amazon web services. Imagine an Apple TV with superior GPU technology that can be used to replace Sony Playstation and Xbox along with control your home through Apple's HomeKit technology. Apple has the hardware talent to do all of this, all they need to do is exploit it properly with the proper web services which they have not, and seemingly can't do on their own. iCloud continues to be a prime example of how not to do web services on a grand scale. Apple needs to do with Pages what Google has done with Google Docs, and do it with reliable web services that only Amazon possess.
Bro you are imaging way too many things whereas Apple is actually doing the practical work for us by making products which works fantastic and they are well synchronized.
By the way, cheaper iPad already exists checkout iPad 2017, not sure how much more cheaper you want it...
The issue long-term for Apple is will people pay a premium for a phone in years to come when a £200 phone will do everything they need and more?
IBM used to sell expensive PCs with massive cost to profit ratio, but once competition had caught up and started to out innovate them, their profits started to fall down a cliff. Blackberry suffered the same fate. What's different this time is Apple has monopoly on its app store, and this is why Apple will turn into a services company. However regulators may see this as anti competitive and allow likes of e.g Amazon to setup its own Apple app store. Wouldn't that be good for consumers!
What happen to IBM was they sold to companies and companies are not brand loyal they always buy the lowest cost solution. Apple sells to consumers and their buying habits are completely different not to say they do not look for the low cost solution, however, when they are locked into a brand cost is not the number one decision factor it tends to drop to 3 or 5 in their reasons they bought something. Coke has been on the market a long time and it's not the cheapest soda you can buy but they still hold the number one position for cola. People buy choke not because of price. So comparing what companies do to what consumers do can not be easily done.
Future is cloud services, that's where the money is, not in hardware, any Tom dick and harry can make a phone. That's why the pc market is suffering and will continue to do so as margins are minimal.
Actually they failed because they did not control the product they were selling they were controlled by Intel and Microsoft. They also failed to differentiate their product from one another they were all in the race to the bottom. It was company who figured out how to sell the cheapest product was supposed to win. Well we all know how that story ended. Apple sells a brand and an experience not are specific product. It is like going to Disney world they not selling you a ticket to ride they sell you memories of and experience.
I didn't even bother reading your post because you decided that responding by posting the entire article, therefore having readers scroll through all of it was more important than what you were attempting to say.
I didn't even bother reading your post because you decided that responding by posting the entire article, therefore having readers scroll through all of it was more important than what you were attempting to say.
First time posters should probably be informed that it's bad forum etiquette, and that there's an option to both preview a post and edit its contents for up 4 hours after posting.
"Detachables" have been around for a very long time, since the early 1990s. They used to be called either "pen computers" or "tablet PCs" depending on the generation, but I've used versions running operating systems as far back as Windows 3.11 and Windows 95. Microsoft has always encouraged the form factor and even tried to brand it under different marketing initiatives, like Origami.
Microsoft didn't create detachables in 2012 with the Surface RT. They were hoping that interest in iPad 20 years later will resurrect this niche category.
TL DR, who are you trying to convince here? Basically the article states that the last time Apple pushed out some significant innovation was in 2014. It's nearly mid 2017 now and still no sign of updated desktops. Apple is turning into a services company, but their margins strategy is still one for a hardware company with 100% control over the manufacturing. They're having a really hard time signing contracts with content producers or even just working outside the US. All fanboyism aside, this is going to bite them in the butt rather sooner than later.
Ad what has the competition turned out? Obviously nothing, because you're here blasting Apple instead of over there (wherever that is) talking about how much better your new XYZ is than last year's model.
Most, if not all upgrade problems stem from Intel's development curve. Apple is just to classy to point that out, while most users are just to technologically stupid to figure it out.
Is this just a reprint from an article one year ago? Or two years ago?
It could be, with some updates. The point is that nothing has changed in the media's narrative about Apple, while the evidence continues to mount that when Apple enters a product category it soon dominates. The media may not get it, but the consumer does.
Comments
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21707960-row-over-printer-cartridges-blot-landscape
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-5-tech-giants-make-billions/
Interestingly enough, there were a couple of links to charts regarding Li-ion battery design and production. Cobalt seems to be the most promising material for the cathode; Apple uses 100% cobalt cathodes, and I would guess the other majors do as well.
Still think Tesla will win the EV race? If they do, it will be because of current generation battery production. Lots of new EV models coming to market, and luxury brands aren't far behind. Soon enough, EV's will be cheaper to own and run than hydrocarbon fueled vehicles. Lots of disruption in the oil patch if that happens.
All this time, Apple "fell behind" Samsung, perpetually losing out in metrics such as market share, units shipped and numbers of enthusiastic think-pieces about how Samsung was dominating a market in virtually every respect apart from profitability, where it was distantly behind. This is like watching a team lose a ballgame, but be congratulated on their hard work: their ball-time possession statistics, their score attempts and the fact that they decorated the stadium and made the uniforms for both teams. Wait, which team lost again? It's hard to say really. Points scored isn't the only way of measuring success in pro sports, is it?"
Tom, dick, and harry can never make an exactly designed Apple hardware product. Apple will always create hardware.
blackberry suffered due to Apple lest you forget that.
Apple isnt big Enough in the market to be a monopoly. Don't like the App Store, code for Android. Everyone knows Android is "winning".
By the way, cheaper iPad already exists checkout iPad 2017, not sure how much more cheaper you want it...
Microsoft didn't create detachables in 2012 with the Surface RT. They were hoping that interest in iPad 20 years later will resurrect this niche category.
Most, if not all upgrade problems stem from Intel's development curve. Apple is just to classy to point that out, while most users are just to technologically stupid to figure it out.
It could be, with some updates. The point is that nothing has changed in the media's narrative about Apple, while the evidence continues to mount that when Apple enters a product category it soon dominates. The media may not get it, but the consumer does.