The future death of Apple?

[Odessa]

I think hardware side, Apple has yet to peak, Their stuff just set the trend. be the notch, the lack of audio-jack, the super high resolution display, the subnotebook form factor, etc... and even now, amd and intel try to catch up with apple cpu that focus on power efficiency rather than dumb raw power.
On the other hand, i feel like software side, the quality have deteriorated a lot. More and more bugs, memory leaks, bloat... remember when macOS/iOS was super clean and lean and stable while windows/android was a nasty buggy mess? Windows and Android got a lot better now while apple software stagnated. I still think apple OS are better but the gap is not as wide as it used to be.

 

[HiVolt]

Interesting article... I do agree that Apple designs are not as bold as they used to be, even though I wasn't a fan of some of the designs in the past like the original translucent iMacs and iBooks - mainly because it gave birth to ghastly accessories from many brands that mimicked the translucent effects. I always hated that... I was also never a fan of the white iBooks. It worked for the iPods - I had several, but not the iBooks.

But once they switched to the aluminum designs, they all look practically the same since. And the fact that they don't update the designs more often than they do, just shows that people will buy spec bumped designs for years without demanding something new.

The 27" iMac used the same look for 10 years. TEN! Mac mini, still essentially the same shape as the 2010 Mac mini minus the optical drive, that's 12 years. The Apple TV since 2nd gen just grew taller, still the same look. Heck even the Mac studio, is just a taller Mac mini look.

That said, I've owned more Tim Cook era devices than I did the Steve Jobs era devices which for me started in 2002 with an iPod, but not by much.

I'm also not a fan of Apple almost never lowering the price of a product during its life cycle as costs typically decrease as they get ROI, even if its several years without an update. Sometimes what they will do is a minimal spec bump but keep the same base price. And don't get me started on the RAM/SSD upgrade costs. Which you can't upgrade post purchase thanks to Tim Cook's policies. And they charge 2-3x what consumer level RAM/SSD upgrades cost at RETAIL stores with multiple people making profit along the way. Its just not a good look.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If there is anything in the article which I do think is going to be a real issue for Apple and we are starting to see it already.

"Apple will soon have a hard time justifying its price tag to frequent, repeat customers, which has been the lifeblood of the company since its birth."

Great point

This has been a problem with Apple and myself now for almost 5 years

 

[turbineseaplane]

"Steve Jobs asked me never to ask what he would have done"

..and it shows, that's for sure..

I wish Tim would disobey Steve on that here and there

 

[bwillwall]

Actually Thinner well not an issue, everyone wants a successor product to be more compact and better, pretty sure you too don't want a Thicker MacBook Pro, until it throttles, so if it throttles, put the blame on the PM Team, which ratifies those products after intense testing, if they didn't find flaws and ratify, we need to blame engineers, secondly, real computers, now? It isn't because Jony left, that is because we have got a innovative semiconductor ideas, that have changed the game

Nope. Jony was head of all design. That's why these decisions were made in the late 2010s.

 

[bwillwall]

I must disagree. The CEO is to blame. The buck stops with him. His he in charge of Apple or not?

And the CEO decided that Ive did a bad job as the final decision maker and gave him a different role.

 

[Johnontheweb]

Interesting article with many good points. As an Apple customer since the first McIntosh, I too feel the magic is gone. Thoughts from the group?

Apple Is Already Dying, And This Process Has a Name

Why Apple’s slow and painful downfall is Steve Jobs’s own fault

alan-12169.medium.com

Hi AJ,

Me Tooooo. I was there in 1976 with IBM 360 Punchcards, Wang Laboratories 2200 series desktops and the first Apple II. The Magic is gone, but that's because rate of change has dramatically slowed. That's because the expectations are way too high. Think of it like flying business class on the same airline 200 days each year. They can't wow, they can only meet expectations. Best not screw it up. The days of Apple vs. Microsoft are over. Thank you. I had an eerie feeling while walking through the old Compaq computer campus in Houston in 199ish. Empty building after building. Apple remains overpriced as it has been forever, but gets better and more stable in some things. Things like HomeKit and Siri are a disaster. Find the quiet route to the hearts and minds of apple users and expand that base. The stores are huge part of it. When Steve came back after NEXT, that video lives in infamy, free on the web. When Gareth Chang says he has owned every machine Apple has produced, we all saw that in ourselves. Tim inherited a geeky business and now has to make it work for every man, woman and child on the planet. That is where I don't envy the man, won't buy the stock, and wish the company well. The only way I can help Tim is to buy apple products. I hope I helped. - J

 

[Devyn89]

Yet another article saying Apple is dead… yawn. Meanwhile raking in record quarter after record quarter. To me their overall financial success is neither here nor there but in the current system we have that is a way to measure success. I think things are better than they’ve ever been. I don’t need huge innovations all the time, i’m fine with the refinements they’ve made over the last few years. If you‘re not fair enough, I’m not gonna tell you how to feel. At the same token don’t tell me how to feel, I think Craigs done an amazing job with software (a few misses certainly but overall I’m happy with the software), the hardware is incredible (my 13 pro feels exactly the same as when I bought it).

 

[AbhiAchShan]

Nope. Jony was head of all design. That's why these decisions were made in the late 2010s.

Jony was head of design, just check some of Apple interviews, you will know how design worked at Apple, you can Google, and get plenty of sources or just read 'After Steve', you will conclude yourself who to blame and why should you blame

 

[Mr. Dee]

I think hardware side, Apple has yet to peak, Their stuff just set the trend. be the notch, the lack of audio-jack, the super high resolution display, the subnotebook form factor, etc... and even now, amd and intel try to catch up with apple cpu that focus on power efficiency rather than dumb raw power.
On the other hand, i feel like software side, the quality have deteriorated a lot. More and more bugs, memory leaks, bloat... remember when macOS/iOS was super clean and lean and stable while windows/android was a nasty buggy mess? Windows and Android got a lot better now while apple software stagnated. I still think apple OS are better but the gap is not as wide as it used to be.

I am seeing some serious bugs in iOS and iPadOS lately. I noticed when I use the Wallet app (with Apple Pay) on the iPhone and if I don't exit the app after the purchase, the screen freezes requiring a reboot. Right now, my iPad gestures are groggy and non-responsive. Swiping up from the bottom to bring up the Dock or back to an app is just not working. Then again, I am using much older Apple devices, iPhone X and 2017 iPad Pro.

At the end of the day, iOS/iPadOS/macOS are much larger and complex software platform. iPhone OS 1.0 was just 98 MBs, iOS today is a good 5 GBs in size and does a lot more than launch a few apps. So, I would say, its still amazingly stable considering what it does. Windows is debatable, its stable when its managed well. If you are using just a set of specific applications, especially if they are LOB apps, the operating system can be quite stable. I have to say, the descriptions of Windows stability lacking have not been the case for the past 25 years. Windows 2000 Professional and up, its been really stable. Of course, there have been new challenges: malware, spam, ransomeware, DDOS, worms are all issues that have plagued it for years.

 

[skippermonkey]

"The buzz is slowly wearing off."

Not sure it's even that slow. I used to be absolutely glued to Macworld keynotes, and later to Apple's own events. I would plan my evening round them (I'm in the UK). Now I just skim the MacRumors news summary, nod to myself and move on. Nothing to see here. Again.

 

[Strider64]

I'm old school when it comes to computers as long as the computer doesn't look like a lump of coal I don't care as it is what is inside the computer case that matters to me. Apple designs are very good even if some people consider them subpar, but after being a PC person for over 40 years and joining the Apple ecosystem since 2014 I have had only one major issue. Fortunately the major issue was still under AppleCare and was fixed.

 

[MayaUser]

"The buzz is slowly wearing off."

Not sure it's even that slow. I used to be absolutely glued to Macworld keynotes, and later to Apple's own events. I would plan my evening round them (I'm in the UK). Now I just skim the MacRumors news summary, nod to myself and move on. Nothing to see here. Again.

that is called growing up
When you are a kid or teenager you are more focus on gadget etc but with time, family and other stuff to do...you start to see the real important things in life
Mac segment its on its peak since apple silicon...iphones from the joke of battery life now became the benchmark of it , apple watch, airpods set the benchmark of their segment and so on...is not like Apple is down..its just people grow up and place other things on top of their priorities

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Apple sells somewhere between 20 million and 30 million Macs in a year. It would surprise some to find out that those are NOT being sold to the same 20-30 million people. Most recently (and consistently in the past), Apple has indicated that half of those are being sold to people that have never owned a Mac before. Given that there are over 6 billion people in the world, Apple will be able to find new macOS users for a little while longer. If not? Well, it’s not like the Mac being deprecated would be the end of the world. They currently make most of their money on non-macOS things, that will likely continue.

A company selling devices to the same few people over and over is not “lifeblood”. Because, once those people are not physically able to buy devices anymore, then the “blood” runs dry REAL quick.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

For those who were fans of the Apple II, Apple died a LOONG time ago. Everything since then has been a staggering husk, lurching in it’s death throes! For those who were fans of Apple printers, Apple died a LOOONG time ago, and the trillion dollar shambling pile of cash will soon turn into dust and blow away. For those that were fans of Apple routers, Apple surely died quite some time ago and, like a chicken suffering from a d-level capitation, is just wobbling around making billions of dollars a year, sure… BUT, mark my words, their uppence is nigh!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

that is called growing up
When you are a kid or teenager you are more focus on gadget etc but with time, family and other stuff to do...you start to see the real important things in life

And, fortunately for Apple, there are millions out there that are just now arriving at the point of watching every event excitedly and preordering what was announced. At some point in the future, the “buzz” will wear off for them and, if Apple continues to be good at what they do, there will be a new set of millions excited about the events.

When one looks at Apple and sees “they’ve changed”, YES, they have. Apple’s now focusing on the age group those people USED to be in. The Apple commercials their parents thought were silly are now the commercial THEY think are silly. But, that marketing and advertising having the right effect on the folks they’re targeted on, and that’s what’s most important to Apple’s future.

 

[yukari]

All big companies, Sony (use to be de facto electronic device maker), IBM, Bell Labs, GE, AOL (who?), etc., will eventually "die".

 

[ahurst]

that is called growing up
When you are a kid or teenager you are more focus on gadget etc but with time, family and other stuff to do...you start to see the real important things in life
Mac segment its on its peak since apple silicon...iphones from the joke of battery life now became the benchmark of it , apple watch, airpods set the benchmark of their segment and so on...is not like Apple is down..its just people grow up and place other things on top of their priorities

It’s also maturation of the market: it’s not the early days of the smartphone wars when every phone was new and trying something different (BlackBerry Torch, Palm Pre, HTC HD2, Nokia N900, HTC Desire Z... remember all of those in the iPhone 4 era?). The basic smartphone template and OS design has been more-or-less settled since then and most of the “that would be handy” things you’d want in a phone have already been added, so the year-over-year improvements aren’t going to be as exciting or cool as they were back in the early 2010’s.

That doesn’t mean Apple (or anyone else) is losing their touch, it just means that it’s a lot harder than it was in 2010 to add a groundbreaking new feature that no one else had thought of or done well yet, because after almost 15 years post-iPhone most of that low-hanging fruit is long gone.

 

[ian87w]

Yet another article saying Apple is dead… yawn. Meanwhile raking in record quarter after record quarter. To me their overall financial success is neither here nor there but in the current system we have that is a way to measure success. I think things are better than they’ve ever been.

Yes. However, that's a dangerous situation to be with. Extremely succesful financial performance can put a company to be stuck in its comfort zone. Take Nokia, Blackberry, etc, they were very succesful, but all went down during their height of their business, they were so comfortable that they missed out Apple and Google taking over their main bread and butter. Not saying Apple is in this situation just yet, Apple Silicon is highly innovative. But we see some of the foundations starting to shake a little bit, from their talents leaving, from their poor HR decisions, and their seemingly less and less care for supporting customers in the name of profit. These things will bite back sooner or later unless Apple makes changes for the better.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Extremely succesful financial performance can put a company to be stuck in its comfort zone.

Apple, the company that innovated year over year with the iPod long after they were declared the undisputed winner of the mp3 market. Apple, the company that continued to produce more and more performant iPhone CPU’s when they left the swiftest competition behind years ago. Apple, that no longer depends on the comfort or macOS systems to survive and have multiple growing businesses that, again are based on continuing to iterate even when your competition hasn’t caught up with your stuff from two years ago.

Apple’s continually bumping themselves out of their own comfort zone, competitors won’t ever have a chance!

 

[ian87w]

Apple, the company that innovated year over year with the iPod long after they were declared the undisputed winner of the mp3 market. Apple, the company that continued to produce more and more performant iPhone CPU’s when they left the swiftest competition behind years ago. Apple, that no longer depends on the comfort or macOS systems to survive and have multiple growing businesses that, again are based on continuing to iterate even when your competition hasn’t caught up with your stuff from two years ago.

Apple’s continually bumping themselves out of their own comfort zone, competitors won’t ever have a chance!

Not saying Apple is in this situation just yet, Apple Silicon is highly innovative. But we see some of the foundations starting to shake a little bit, from their talents leaving, from their poor HR decisions, and their seemingly less and less care for supporting customers in the name of profit. These things will bite back sooner or later unless Apple makes changes for the better.

A company is not only its products, but also its management, people, and customers.

 

[neutrino17]

People look at Jobs with rose colored glasses. Yes, Steve was amazing. But he didn’t walk on water. I think the longest stretch he went through without a new product was six years. Six years. People today would never stand for that. I recall when a new innovation was the shower curtain iMacs. What a hoot.

The Bondi Blue iMac had a 4GB HD, 32MB of RAM, a CRT display, a CD drive, and cost ~$2,300 in today’s dollars.

Steve also promoted the PowerMac G4 Cube which was a dud. Looked lovely, didn’t operate so well.

It is a really rare opportunity to introduce a new form factor, like the iPhone. Today‘s iPhone is nothing like the original. The original couldn’t even record video. The current one can record in 4K.

It’s not like people sit around at Apple and one day someone says “I know, let’s make a tablet!”. The ideas for these have been around for a long time. Look up the video Apple made called Knowledge Navigator. Very much like today’s iPad, but that idea was put forth in 1987, the videos came out a few years later. It took decades before the hardware was ready to implement it.

Same with Apple Watch. The first Apple Watch was just barely operable because that was the technology available at the time. But it was good enough to launch the product and they have improved it ever after.

Apple is producing amazing technology and they produce it at a jaw dropping scale. They will make more than 200 million of the next iPhone. That is stunning. Not only do they come out with new features (cameras, screens, batteries, SOCs, etc. ) but they have to make over 200 million a year. Plus all the millions of older models. Plus the tens of millions of Macs, iMacs, iPads, AirPods, etc.

Tim Cook is a genius and I am thrilled that he is the CEO. Something like 99% of Apple shareholders voted in favor of keeping him on, me included.

 

[ian87w]

People look at Jobs with rose colored glasses. Yes, Steve was amazing. But he didn’t walk on water. I think the longest stretch he went through without a new product was six years. Six years. People today would never stand for that. I recall when a new innovation was the shower curtain iMacs. What a hoot.

The Bondi Blue iMac had a 4GB HD, 32MB of RAM, a CRT display, a CD drive, and cost ~$2,300 in today’s dollars.

Steve also promoted the PowerMac G4 Cube which was a dud. Looked lovely, didn’t operate so well.

It is a really rare opportunity to introduce a new form factor, like the iPhone. Today‘s iPhone is nothing like the original. The original couldn’t even record video. The current one can record in 4K.

It’s not like people sit around at Apple and one day someone says “I know, let’s make a tablet!”. The ideas for these have been around for a long time. Look up the video Apple made called Knowledge Navigator. Very much like today’s iPad, but that idea was put forth in 1987, the videos came out a few years later. It took decades before the hardware was ready to implement it.

Same with Apple Watch. The first Apple Watch was just barely operable because that was the technology available at the time. But it was good enough to launch the product and they have improved it ever after.

Apple is producing amazing technology and they produce it at a jaw dropping scale. They will make more than 200 million of the next iPhone. That is stunning. Not only do they come out with new features (cameras, screens, batteries, SOCs, etc. ) but they have to make over 200 million a year. Plus all the millions of older models. Plus the tens of millions of Macs, iMacs, iPads, AirPods, etc.

Tim Cook is a genius and I am thrilled that he is the CEO. Something like 99% of Apple shareholders voted in favor of keeping him on, me included.

I don't think anybody is denying Tim's performance in raising value for shareholders. And the focus is clear, it's no longer making the best product, it's making more premium products to increase ASP, even if it's junk (eg using display cable that's too short).

 

[Romain_H]

Part of Apple‘s success is the weakness of competitors.

- There are smartwatches, just none of those is even remotely on par with the AW
- Nothing matches Apple Silicon
- Are there even iPad competitors?

Apart from that, there is no operating system or infrastructure to match iOS, iPadOS and macOS.
All Apple’s competitors do is using Windows & Android. Which is too bad, I‘d love a third choice.
Therefore, all Apple needs to do is go ahead on that path. Noone can match them in the foreseeable future

 

[leman]

And the focus is clear, it's no longer making the best product, it's making more premium products to increase ASP, even if it's junk (eg using display cable that's too short).

That was just one specific generation and could have been an honest engineering oversight. And Apple has long fixed that problem as well as introduced major internal improvements since then. There is a lot to criticize about Apples product portfolio but let’s do that instead of opportunistically picking on isolated failures.