I have been using apple devices since 1989 and still use them. and one thing i have learned is that they have become very greedy. I am using an iphone SE and refuse to pay £1000 upwards for something that in real terms has a life of 5 years due to software updates. I thought they may have learnt from them almost going under until Steve came back and saved them. I always think, that if you lower a price of something a bit that you have more chance of selling more, Rather than having such a high price that the unit sales are less. I must say on ending, That the build quality is better than the rest and i have always prefered apple stuff, But my pocket money just can’t and won’t keep up.
If they find a very large portion of their customers are not buying new products, they’ll rethink their mix of offerings. Because this setback is wholly China-related, your particular issue doesn’t seem to be the issue which is affecting them right now.
They lost price discipline. Ahrendts gained too much influence and appears to have convinced Tim that they could go full out fashion house pricing strategy “we priced super high so people that want spend a lot can”.
hopefully that’s a lesson Tim learns. Let Angela run the stores, let the professionals run the business.
I guarantee you Angela Ahrents has no involvement in setting iPhone prices. I doubt Jony Ive does either.
I also find it interesting that when Tim hired Browett to run the stores, a guy who was well known for being a penny-pincher, who then did all these anti-employee things which caused Apple Store employees to quit, blog, or try to form unions, that after the goal of cost reduction was achieved, Browett was fired, issued an apology, but it’s not like Tim went back and reversed those policies.
So, Arhendts recently made some very public announcements about her being “non-technical”. Around the same time, the prices of all the products shot up. How much do you want to bet that when Apple more or less realizes that their “innovative” pricing is bullshit, then she becomes the fall person? It’s not like the public knows that head of retail doesn’t set prices! But it’s great to have a scapegoat if you’re incompetent!
I am certain that she doesn’t set the prices, nor does she issue directives on cost versus profit.
I am a huge Apple fan and have owned many iPhones all the way back to 2007. However, they have priced themselves out of reach for a lot of the middle class Apple fans. It just doesn’t seem worth it to upgrade from a 7 plus 256gb to a 256gb XS Max when they only give you $300 trade in value. I would love to have one and can afford it, I just don’t think it is worth that much of a price increase...in my humble opinion.
This is the kick in the ass Apple and Tim needed. Nice reality check. No company on earth has more good brains and more treasure to invest. Now it’s time to get down to bringing new products and services to market.
As an aside, if you vote conservative, you just got a lesson. Next time we need money to avert depression (remember 2009?), the Chinese are gonna say stick it to US bonds. Bridge burned.
This is the kick in the ass Apple and Tim needed. Nice reality check. No company on earth has more good brains and more treasure to invest. Now it’s time to get down to bringing new products and services to market.
As an aside, if you vote conservative, you just got a lesson. Next time we need money to avert depression (remember 2009?), the Chinese are gonna say stick it to US bonds. Bridge burned.
The iPhone has become too expensive. Apple needs to remedy this issue in the next iPhone iterations. Also, the innovation shall be in the transition to have computing influence in one’s environment. HomePod, Siri, and AirPods are a step. The true transition is in the cooperation of Mac and iOS. For, example, why would one have separate computers in the form of a Mac or iPhones? That paradigm is old and outmoded. Imagine if your iPhone in your pocket connected automatically to an Apple screen when you approached it- and your Mac was presented to you. Except, it was also hosted on your iPhone. This is not a merger of the two. It is environmental context to the computing to the end user. Truly portable and revolutionary. One device with multiple contexts. I’m not interested any longer in buying separate devices to access the same things. Apple’s increased investment and development of iCloud services is key to this stealth merger of devices. For this plan to be successful, all cooperating devices will be Apple made. Devices that cooperate and present user interfaces as appropriate to the environment are a step into ubiquitous computing. And Apple has the only infrastructure to do this. What’s keeping them?
"Learn" and "take action" are other words for "react".
In tech, by the time you learn and take action, it is too late. What Apple needs is real vision. That means anticipating future trends and taking advantage of opportunity before it exists. It means designing products that customers won't know they want before they see them. The most recent products like this are the Air Pods and the Apple Watch. Both are great but neither rise to the level of the iPod or iPhone (or even the iPad). Cook is great at getting the products produced, shipped and supported. He is unfortunately not so good at creating those products.
I think that’s a fair criticism. On the other hand, we know they are spending a ton of money on R&D right now. That will presumably lead to some sort of payoff in the future.
A lot of that R&D money is going to Project Titan / AR / Wearables
Hold on didn't he say yesterday that China was the reason Apple's sales have declined? Seems like an excuse to me. That said, it's not exactly a disastrous decline, its certainly not great but even Apple sans Jobs needs a kick up its ass every now and then, to bring the execs back to planet Earth.
1. You (and, to be fair, a lot of people) don't appear to understand the difference between an "excuse" and "an explanation." An excuse would be claiming that all the bad press about questionable supplier reports then exaggerated by pundits into FLOP territory -- which, as usual, did not turn out to be true -- was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cook's explanation was that nearly all of the drop was caused by a sudden, massive pullback in Chinese consumer spending -- which is absolutely true:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-31/china-s-economic-slowdown-is-worsening-stop-dithering-beijing
2. "It's not exactly a disasterous decline" -- well, there is the ongoing problem of how to sell iPhones in countries with a small middle- and upper-class (see also: India), and that's not going away, but your conclusion is spot on: the entire drop is equal to five days of global iPhone sales -- or less than one week out of 12.
3. "Even Apple ... needs a kick up its ass every now and then." As does every company, but this one in particular can be laid almost entirely at the door of exactly one entirely-external factor: China's massive drop in consumer spending as a result of the trade wars. The good news is that services, wearables, and Apple's other revenue streams grew big (again, as usual) and iPhone sales in almost all other territories appears to be up as well. Depending on how long the China issue sticks around, this setback actually bodes rather well for late 2019 or 2020. In short, turns out "iPhone pricing" wasn't an issue, "consumer excitement" wasn't an issue, and "people holding onto their iPhones for longer, thanks in large part to Apple's own battery-replacement reforms" was only a minor factor.
All of my apple products are older except for my ipad, and my macbook air. I can't see buying another iPhone or a mac that isn't as versatile as the cheese grater tower.
...Spend more time on running a tech company and less time leading the charge on social issues
Focus on hardware not curated content by the self absorbed flavor-of-the-day ‘experts’ and media personalities...
'learn' and 'take action‘ - Quite interesting. So will we see Nvidia GPUs again? Will Apple scrap the TouchBar, reintroduce reasonable prices and take back deprecation of OpenGL? Will we ever see a decent keyboard again? Standard M2 slots and socketed RAM? Guess not - Apple go crash and burn!
I am really disgusted with Cook right now. Regardless of whether you agree with Alex Jones or not, why would you spearhead a movement to deplatform anyone by multiple companies? Plus, he said it’s a sin to not ban more people. Meanwhile, Apple allows artists that talk about raping and killing people and even supporting Louis Farrakhan, who is anti-Semitic and against women’s rights (just listen to Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” and you’ll hear Chuck D advocate for him). Also, if you don’t toe the left-leaning political line at the company you can apparently get harassed and even fired for your political and/or religious beliefs. I am a Christian, a centrist, and a Trump supporter, but I deserve as much attention as a customer of Apple’s as someone on the left or right.
Secondly, he says external forces are to blame? What about Bendgate 2.0? It’s not ok to receive bent iPad Pros! Also, you cannot just blame the American dollar for your lackluster revenue. Hell, didn’t your company give millions of dollars to the Trump administration to contribute to the strengthening of the American dollar? Also, don’t even get me started on China and Foxconn and all the suicide nets in their factories, the communism regime over there, and the fact that China itself wants to overthrow America economically.
To be honest, Tim, the reason Apple is lackluster is because you are losing touch with your customer base. YOU are sabotaging Apple, not the economy, not China, not anyone else. I am not one of those fanatics that will call Apple the mark of the Beast or whatnot, but you really are not making Apple look as illustrious as when Steve Jobs was CEO. I hope that when you learn from this you look at yourself and think how you can change as a person as well.
I am really disgusted with Cook right now. Regardless of whether you agree with Alex Jones or not, why would you spearhead a movement to deplatform anyone by multiple companies? Plus, he said it’s a sin to not ban more people. Meanwhile, Apple allows artists that talk about raping and killing people and even supporting Louis Farrakhan, who is anti-Semitic and against women’s rights (just listen to Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” and you’ll hear Chuck D advocate for him). Also, if you don’t toe the left-leaning political line at the company you can apparently get harassed and even fired for your political and/or religious beliefs. I am a Christian, a centrist, and a Trump supporter, but I deserve as much attention as a customer of Apple’s as someone on the left or right.
Secondly, he says external forces are to blame? What about Bendgate 2.0? It’s not ok to receive bent iPad Pros! Also, you cannot just blame the American dollar for your lackluster revenue. Hell, didn’t your company give millions of dollars to the Trump administration to contribute to the strengthening of the American dollar? Also, don’t even get me started on China and Foxconn and all the suicide nets in their factories, the communism regime over there, and the fact that China itself wants to overthrow America economically.
To be honest, Tim, the reason Apple is lackluster is because you are losing touch with your customer base. YOU are sabotaging Apple, not the economy, not China, not anyone else. I am not one of those fanatics that will call Apple the mark of the Beast or whatnot, but you really are not making Apple look as illustrious as when Steve Jobs was CEO. I hope that when you learn from this you look at yourself and think how you can change as a person as well.
I don’t blame you for your political views, but there is a lot of disinformation and speculation mixed in with that post. The exact reason why Apple is getting hammered by the stock market is due to trade issues with China right now. That will be solved because the Chinese government needs it to be solved.
I am really disgusted with Cook right now. Regardless of whether you agree with Alex Jones or not, why would you spearhead a movement to deplatform anyone by multiple companies? Plus, he said it’s a sin to not ban more people. Meanwhile, Apple allows artists that talk about raping and killing people and even supporting Louis Farrakhan, who is anti-Semitic and against women’s rights (just listen to Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” and you’ll hear Chuck D advocate for him). Also, if you don’t toe the left-leaning political line at the company you can apparently get harassed and even fired for your political and/or religious beliefs. I am a Christian, a centrist, and a Trump supporter, but I deserve as much attention as a customer of Apple’s as someone on the left or right.
Secondly, he says external forces are to blame? What about Bendgate 2.0? It’s not ok to receive bent iPad Pros! Also, you cannot just blame the American dollar for your lackluster revenue. Hell, didn’t your company give millions of dollars to the Trump administration to contribute to the strengthening of the American dollar? Also, don’t even get me started on China and Foxconn and all the suicide nets in their factories, the communism regime over there, and the fact that China itself wants to overthrow America economically.
To be honest, Tim, the reason Apple is lackluster is because you are losing touch with your customer base. YOU are sabotaging Apple, not the economy, not China, not anyone else. I am not one of those fanatics that will call Apple the mark of the Beast or whatnot, but you really are not making Apple look as illustrious as when Steve Jobs was CEO. I hope that when you learn from this you look at yourself and think how you can change as a person as well.
I don’t blame you for your political views, but there is a lot of disinformation and speculation mixed in with that post. The exact reason why Apple is getting hammered by the stock market is due to trade issues with China right now. That will be solved because the Chinese government needs it to be solved.
Reading between the lines - my inference is that the reduction in iPhone sales cannot be attributed to China ALONE. It is widespread, all over the world. May be, it is way too severe in China (say around 30%-40%), but less so in Rest of the world (say around 10%), Overall revenue reduction (of $5 Billion) attributed to China iPhone sales alone, but other segments grew. Where did that revenue growth go away? Possibly, in the Rest of world iphone sales, hence the other explanations about soft demand for iPhones (battery replacement, longer replacement cycles etc)? Just my line of thinking at this time. This will hopefully be clear when more details are shared by Apple during the quarterly earnings call.
Could part of it be that the new X design is just not being well received? A few people I asked who have the X or XS have lukewarm comments on it. “It’s okay” or “I miss my old phone” are some of the things I heard. I myself am on the fence with the larger sizes.
Complete Bullsh**.
I've never heard of this, not even on anti-Apple sites.
Comments
I also find it interesting that when Tim hired Browett to run the stores, a guy who was well known for being a penny-pincher, who then did all these anti-employee things which caused Apple Store employees to quit, blog, or try to form unions, that after the goal of cost reduction was achieved, Browett was fired, issued an apology, but it’s not like Tim went back and reversed those policies.
So, Arhendts recently made some very public announcements about her being “non-technical”. Around the same time, the prices of all the products shot up. How much do you want to bet that when Apple more or less realizes that their “innovative” pricing is bullshit, then she becomes the fall person? It’s not like the public knows that head of retail doesn’t set prices! But it’s great to have a scapegoat if you’re incompetent!
I am certain that she doesn’t set the prices, nor does she issue directives on cost versus profit.
As an aside, if you vote conservative, you just got a lesson. Next time we need money to avert depression (remember 2009?), the Chinese are gonna say stick it to US bonds. Bridge burned.
2. "It's not exactly a disasterous decline" -- well, there is the ongoing problem of how to sell iPhones in countries with a small middle- and upper-class (see also: India), and that's not going away, but your conclusion is spot on: the entire drop is equal to five days of global iPhone sales -- or less than one week out of 12.
3. "Even Apple ... needs a kick up its ass every now and then." As does every company, but this one in particular can be laid almost entirely at the door of exactly one entirely-external factor: China's massive drop in consumer spending as a result of the trade wars. The good news is that services, wearables, and Apple's other revenue streams grew big (again, as usual) and iPhone sales in almost all other territories appears to be up as well. Depending on how long the China issue sticks around, this setback actually bodes rather well for late 2019 or 2020. In short, turns out "iPhone pricing" wasn't an issue, "consumer excitement" wasn't an issue, and "people holding onto their iPhones for longer, thanks in large part to Apple's own battery-replacement reforms" was only a minor factor.
I've never heard of this, not even on anti-Apple sites.