Apple needs to come up with the "next thing" - it's been over 7 years since Jobs died and the only "new" thing was a watch. Tim should bring a tech visionary into the company if there isn't one there already.
Apple needs to come up with the "next thing" - it's been over 7 years since Jobs died and the only "new" thing was a watch. Tim should bring a tech visionary into the company if there isn't one there already.
Right because the “tech visionary” is just going to waive his or her magic wand and create the next big thing. Good grief.
I'ma gonna add "tech visionary" to my LinkedIn page pronto!
Personally, I’m not that crazy about the “X” phones and may get an iPhone 8 instead. I don’t want to give up the ease of use I like about having a home button to be honest and I don’t care for Face ID.
Not a great fan of faceid myself and I have a X. The failure rate of the faceid vs finger id is at least 10x higher.
I love Face ID and would never go back to Touch ID but it’s possible that is a factor. Last year one of the new phones still had Touch ID. This year all the new phones were Face ID only. Perhaps people are more attached to the home button than we think.
The last few years Apple can be Charactized as Charging more for less. Take away head phone jack, take away smaller phones, take away touchId, take away MagSafe, take away SD card slot. Sure there are a ton of buyers, but this is how you either lose people or they just decide to hold onto their 6S or their 2013 MBP because people can’t afford to spend another small fortune on dongles, This May be radical but release a laptop with more keyboard Travel.
1) Cook said to CNBC that over 100% of the difference in estimates from the guidelines and today is from China. That means that (World - China) revenues were better than Apple had expected. 2) At $84B, this will be Apple's second-highest quarter ever.
(also, came for idiotic "this wouldn't have happened if Jobs was in charge" takes, and wasn't disappointed.)
Apple downgrades its guidance and suddenly all the naysayers are geniuses in their own fabricated little universes. Amazing. It's like a broken clock that is accurate exactly twice a day. Again, Apple is always hiring so let's see those broken clock expert resumes heading out to Cupertino so the angry army of ephemeral redemption can set Tim & Co. back on to the righteous path to profitability.
The sad thing to realize for those who revel in Apple's quarterly shortfall is that this is a clear signal that the mass incineration of wealth taking place under the current US administration has no limits. Nobody is too smart, too innovative, or too efficient to escape the gross incompetence that is now a cancer on the US and world economy. This is not an "Apple problem" or a "Tim Cook problem." This is what happens when you send a boy (brain) in to do a man's job. The US economy is the mothership upon which the rich, poor, and all of those in-between rely on for safety, security, and long term financial sustainment. It's now being scuttled from within for the personal whims and sick amusement of someone who is as far out of touch with reality as a living organism can possibly be.
They only policy decision that Trump made that affected Apple was to cut taxes so much that Tim Cook could swim in an Olympic Swimming pool of $100 bills. I don’t think that Trump put any Tariff on the iPhone or any other Apple product, but since Cook tried to Blame Trump for his leadership failures, Trump is very likely to fire back and put Tariffs on any phone from China including the IPhone. Then watch The stock tank.
1) Cook said to CNBC that over 100% of the difference in estimates from the guidelines and today is from China. That means that (World - China) revenues were better than Apple had expected. 2) At $84B, this will be Apple's second-highest quarter ever.
(also, came for idiotic "this wouldn't have happened if Jobs was in charge" takes, and wasn't disappointed.)
This was also in cook’s letter so it’s not just China.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/ While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.
Personally, I’m not that crazy about the “X” phones and may get an iPhone 8 instead. I don’t want to give up the ease of use I like about having a home button to be honest and I don’t care for Face ID.
Not a great fan of faceid myself and I have a X. The failure rate of the faceid vs finger id is at least 10x higher.
I love Face ID and would never go back to Touch ID but it’s possible that is a factor. Last year one of the new phones still had Touch ID. This year all the new phones were Face ID only. Perhaps people are more attached to the home button than we think.
The last few years Apple can be Charactized as Charging more for less. Take away head phone jack, take away smaller phones, take away touchId, take away MagSafe, take away SD card slot. Sure there are a ton of buyers, but this is how you either lose people or they just decide to hold onto their 6S or their 2013 MBP because people can’t afford to spend another small fortune on dongles, This May be radical but release a laptop with more keyboard Travel.
Touch ID was replaced with Face ID which in my opinion is vastly superior.
1) Cook said to CNBC that over 100% of the difference in estimates from the guidelines and today is from China. That means that (World - China) revenues were better than Apple had expected. 2) At $84B, this will be Apple's second-highest quarter ever.
(also, came for idiotic "this wouldn't have happened if Jobs was in charge" takes, and wasn't disappointed.)
1) Cook said to CNBC that over 100% of the difference in estimates from the guidelines and today is from China. That means that (World - China) revenues were better than Apple had expected. 2) At $84B, this will be Apple's second-highest quarter ever.
(also, came for idiotic "this wouldn't have happened if Jobs was in charge" takes, and wasn't disappointed.)
This was also in cook’s letter so it’s not just China.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/ While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.
1) Cook said to CNBC that over 100% of the difference in estimates from the guidelines and today is from China. That means that (World - China) revenues were better than Apple had expected. 2) At $84B, this will be Apple's second-highest quarter ever.
(also, came for idiotic "this wouldn't have happened if Jobs was in charge" takes, and wasn't disappointed.)
This was also in cook’s letter so it’s not just China.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/ While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.
So it is the $29 battery (that cost them less than a $1) fault. Lol
Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) 1/2/19, 5:24 PM IMHO, complaints about pricing, price points, home buttons, headphone jacks, batteries, upgrade cycles, etc. are all valid but are also all besides the point, which remains: Can Apple transition iPhone from growth driver to platform that enables more growth drivers? That’s it.
This is pretty spot on. Apple has hundreds of millions of iPhone customers. How do you get those people to buy more things? And what are those things? Clearly they aren't Macs. They are AirPods, however. And Apple Music subscriptions. Video is the logical next step.
As someone who has bought Apple products (and stock) for almost 40 years, I remember many long years where Apple sold 1 device for every 1000 the other guys sold. They struck silver with the iPod and then gold with the iPhone. The iPod appealed to all sorts of people. You didn't have to be a techie. Apple built a better mousetrap and the public responded. And then came the iPhone. Everyone needs a phone. Apple built a better phone and, again, the public responded. So what else has incredibly broad appeal and needs a better use experience? And is Apple even the company to deliver these days? I personally wish they'd focus more on home automation and deliver some killer first party products in that area. I also think they should get serious about audio, maybe buy Sonos. HomePod was a huge miss. I would have bought at least 6 for my house if it wasn't such a gimped product.
Agree 100%. And with a new video service coming maybe Apple should get into the TV business. I know TVs are a low margin business but it wouldn’t be about the TV so much as about tvOS and Apple’s video service. Every time I go into Best Buy the busiest part of the store is their TV section. I have a 4K TCL TV with Roku. I hardly ever fire up my Apple TV box. But if Apple sold a smart TV with tvOS and all the benefits of the Apple ecosystem I’d seriously think about getting one. And it wouldnt have to be outrageously priced because it would be all about getting Apple video service subs.
That makes zero sense. Whats's the difference between your TV plus an AppleTV versus an Apple-built TV with a built-in AppleTV? Nothing.
What’s the difference? A better user experience. And not having to fork over additional dollars for a streaming media box and cable to connect to my TV. With one push of a button I can see all my streaming apps and easily launch Netflix, HBO, Amazon etc. What is the point of having dongles and boxes when it can all be built right into the TV?
This should have been Apple’s TV from the get-go. Instead of trying to crack some grand, inscrutable business model for the future of television. They went on and on in a silly fashion about it being a “hobby” for the longest time, and even Apple die-hards like me moved on from what has become an embarrassingly low-quality, low-functionality, poorly-designed product that AppleTV is today.
A similar thing is starting to happen with HomePods. It doesn’t play well with others, unlike Alexa.
I upgraded last year to an 8. I'd love to have an XS Max but just can't bite that big a bullet one year later.
I think the unspoken story here is that Apple got too ambitious with the price increases across their product line. Price of entry on everything went up significantly.
Not really. An entry level iPad is cheaper today than when the iPad was first released. Same goes for an iPhone. You can get a new iPhone for under $500. What did a new iPhone (without subsidies) cost when it launched? Much more. Everyone is so focused on the top of the line prices. They are expensive, maybe too expensive, but that’s not the problem.
The cheaper products all use much older technologies. The screen in entry iPad isn’t good as the screen my iPad Air2 which was introduced in 2014.
Personally, I’m not that crazy about the “X” phones and may get an iPhone 8 instead. I don’t want to give up the ease of use I like about having a home button to be honest and I don’t care for Face ID.
Not a great fan of faceid myself and I have a X. The failure rate of the faceid vs finger id is at least 10x higher.
I love Face ID and would never go back to Touch ID but it’s possible that is a factor. Last year one of the new phones still had Touch ID. This year all the new phones were Face ID only. Perhaps people are more attached to the home button than we think.
Perhaps the TouchID-based iPhones are just good enough. It might be prudent for Apple to keep 2 iPhones in development
iPhone Classic: iPhone 8 / 8 Plus design with upgraded internals (SoC + Camera) => $499 / $599 starting prices
The SE is gone and there is no new phone at the price range that the 6/6S/7 launched at. I hope 2019 iPhones are cheaper but outside of the original iPhone when’s the last time Apple has done a major price cut on the product?
Hopefully Apple will do a 5.5 in phone this year (That’s my guess/estimate of the diagonal corner to corner of the 4.7 model in X fashion.
Well, that was pretty clear. At least in part, pricing really IS an issue and I think a DED article today was implying China was performing well for Apple.
And yet nothing in Cook’s letter that specifically talks about price. The biggest blunder in the last couple years is the 23% increase in iPhone prices. Apple raised prices to offset declining unit growth and its come back to bite the company.
Whilst not directly mentioning price , it’s the only thing that explains this quote from Tim. -
"While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be."
Well, it could be possible the new negative gain antennas affected more people than they thought; interestingly enough, the unhappy early adopters who are usually the most loyal customers that they totally ignored. To this day have they dignified those fans with an admittance, an explanation, or a promise to make things right? Or is Tim still ignoring it/them, just like he ignored his stockholders as the price plummeted?
Are you talking about the Crappy intel modems that Apple put in so that they could force QualComm to give up their Intellectual property on the cheap.
And right on cue, the salivating trolls come marching onto EVERY Apple site in existence by the truckload!
Forget trolls. What is your opinion on what is happening on iPhone?
The rest of the business seems to be doing ok. They have a lot of cash reserves to pull on. That won't save them from a roller coaster ride, short term, but iPhone is suffering. Do you agree with TCs line or do you think he is airbrushing bits? Are prices too high? Is competition playing a part? Are iPhones underperforming on features? Etc.
The smartphone market is mature. I can easily afford the top of the line iPhone model, but I see no reason to upgrade from my 7 Plus. I think a lot of people feel this way. Even if Apple dropped prices tomorrow, I still wouldn’t upgrade. My 7 Plus is great. I’d like FaceID, but that’s not enough of a reason to upgrade.
I dont think prices are the issue. There are iPhone models under $500. Top of the line is very pricey, but Apple has nice offerings at several price points. The market is saturated and mature and this was bound to happen.
If price wasn’t an issue why did Tim keep mentioning subsidies going away? Why did he mention not marketing the trade-in program enough? Both of those things scream price issues. Which was obvious when the front page of apple.com was displaying this:
I know many people with older phones and none of them WANT to upgrade. They don’t care about pricing. They are satisfied with their current devices. I was just helping a friend with her Mac today. It’s 8 years old and works fine. She sees no reason to upgrade. The same thing is happening with phones.
As I said, Apple has phone models at a variety of price points. Stop focusing on the top of the line. Phones are mature. The tech is mature. There aren’t a lot of new features. Faster, better screen, better camera...yawn. My phone is fast enough and the camera is fine. The days of annual upgrades are over.
Price is a factor, but it’s not the issue.
I don’t think higher prices is the only factor but it is A factor. It’s not like upgrade cycles just started lengthening this year. It’s possible too that the XR just introduced confusion to the lineup. People weren’t sure what to buy so they didn’t buy anything.
DEAD ON with the XR confusion. A lot of people went into the Apple store prepared to drop $1000+ on a XS and left with a cheaper XR with a larger screen....
1. Apple’s reluctancy to do major investments through acquisitions is ridiculous. 2. Apple’s price hikes is a short-sighted stopgap to counter lower unit sales and it’s alresdt failing. Their weak iCloud services need to be improved to match Google’s or Microsoft’s, so that enterprises and pro-users will find it a compelling alternative. iPhones and iPads are just vending machines for services, so stop overcharging for those and focus on SaaS more.
Apple needs new leadership. Cook’s not the right person moving forward.
Wow, this one brought out everyone, have not seen a thread this long in long time.
BTW, I was at the Apple store yesterday 1/1 getting my battery replace on my 6S (work Phone) 18 months old, for the last month the battery was dead by noon each day with light usage and supposed 89% life on the battery. Went to schedule an appointment last week and all the store with in 50 miles were booked through the 1st for in store support. When I call apple support they confirm as long as I book the appointment for the repair before 12/31 the store would still honor the discounted replacement.
Get to the store the story there was completely different, they refuse to honor the discount replacement, did not even want to talk about, refuse to call Apple online support to see what they were telling people, there were two other people at my table who were told the exact same thing. They made us all pay the full price. But they were more than happy to talk to us about trading in our old phone for a brand new one. Not sure how many time they reference trading in the phone.
After that experience I believe all the employees at the store were told no not talk about the battery replacement and push people to trade in their old phones.
I have to say this was the worse Apple experience I had. If this is the game they are going to play this is not going to go well for Apple.
1. Apple’s reluctancy to do major investments through acquisitions is ridiculous. 2. Apple’s price hikes is a short-sighted stopgap to counter lower unit sales and it’s alresdt failing. Their weak iCloud services need to be improved to match Google’s or Microsoft’s, so that enterprises and pro-users will find it a compelling alternative. iPhones and iPads are just vending machines for services, so stop overcharging for those and focus on SaaS more.
Apple needs new leadership, someone who’s
Is it safe to assume Forstall's phone is ringing right about now? /S
Comments
The last few years Apple can be Charactized as Charging more for less. Take away head phone jack, take away smaller phones, take away touchId, take away MagSafe, take away SD card slot. Sure there are a ton of buyers, but this is how you either lose people or they just decide to hold onto their 6S or their 2013 MBP because people can’t afford to spend another small fortune on dongles, This May be radical but release a laptop with more keyboard Travel.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/
While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.
A similar thing is starting to happen with HomePods. It doesn’t play well with others, unlike Alexa.
2. Apple’s price hikes is a short-sighted stopgap to counter lower unit sales and it’s alresdt failing. Their weak iCloud services need to be improved to match Google’s or Microsoft’s, so that enterprises and pro-users will find it a compelling alternative. iPhones and iPads are just vending machines for services, so stop overcharging for those and focus on SaaS more.
Apple needs new leadership. Cook’s not the right person moving forward.
BTW, I was at the Apple store yesterday 1/1 getting my battery replace on my 6S (work Phone) 18 months old, for the last month the battery was dead by noon each day with light usage and supposed 89% life on the battery. Went to schedule an appointment last week and all the store with in 50 miles were booked through the 1st for in store support. When I call apple support they confirm as long as I book the appointment for the repair before 12/31 the store would still honor the discounted replacement.
Get to the store the story there was completely different, they refuse to honor the discount replacement, did not even want to talk about, refuse to call Apple online support to see what they were telling people, there were two other people at my table who were told the exact same thing. They made us all pay the full price. But they were more than happy to talk to us about trading in our old phone for a brand new one. Not sure how many time they reference trading in the phone.
After that experience I believe all the employees at the store were told no not talk about the battery replacement and push people to trade in their old phones.
I have to say this was the worse Apple experience I had. If this is the game they are going to play this is not going to go well for Apple.