Do you guys feel that apple is losing their magic?

aerok said:

I know all that already, still very frustrating. Ignoring past customers like this.

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Past customers already gave them their money, and they gave them the promised product. If the effort/profit ratio is no longer there, what is the value in supporting "past customers" ?

Apple moved on. Anyone with any sense knew of this... back in 1996. Remember when someone said this ?

If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.

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Do you know who was the guy who said this ? No, not Michael Dell. Try again. It's someone that eventually did run Apple, and you know what he did ? He freaking milked the Macintosh for all it's worth and got busy on the next great thing.

Now look at the pie chart of their revenue, and you know what the "next great thing" was. And if the people at Apple follow what this guy said and did, you know what they'll do ?

They'll milk the iPhone and iPads for all they're worth - and get busy on the next great thing. The smartphone wars are almost over. Done.

War results in profits, when segments stop growing and enter a maturity/sustaining phase, then growth is over and profits stagnate. Just like we're starting to see with Apple. There comes a point when the iPhone market will simply be saturated and any business will be return business, not new business.

Then it will be time to hit with the next great thing.

KnightWRX said:

Past customers already gave them their money, and they gave them the promised product. If the effort/profit ratio is no longer there, what is the value in supporting "past customers" ?

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Yup this is the sad truth unfortunately, and apparently this makes me an Apple hating Android Fanboy because I don't like iOS as much I like OSX.

Even Woz confirmed yesterday talking about the iJOBs movie that Steve was always more of a $$$$ grubber then motivated to innovate.

smoledman said:

Even Woz confirmed yesterday talking about the iJOBs movie that Steve was always more of a $$$$ grubber then motivated to innovate.

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You need to put it into perspective. If Woz had his way in the beginning, there would be no Apple computer today. He wanted to give away the plans to the Apple I and just let hobbyists build them for nothing.

thewitt said:

You need to put it into perspective. If Woz had his way in the beginning, there would be no Apple computer today. He wanted to give away the plans to the Apple I and just let hobbyists build them for nothing.

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And this of course would have been a bad thing!

I mean if you can't monetize it whats the point

GermanyChris said:

And this of course would have been a bad thing!

I mean if you can't monetize it whats the point

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Do you USE any Apple products?

Do you even read what you write?

thewitt said:

Do you USE any Apple products?

Do you even read what you write?

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Yes and yes. I will disagree with just about everything you say until one of us leaves…

You can have good things that are not monetized, not everything in life should be for a buck, with Jobs it was for a buck, with Woz it was a cool project to be shared with friends i.e. the process has the value.

GermanyChris said:

Yes and yes. I will disagree with just about everything you say until one of us leaves…

You can have good things that are not monetized, not everything in life should be for a buck, with Jobs it was for a buck, with Woz it was a cool project to be shared with friends i.e. the process has the value.

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Open source and Free software are more akin to what Woz was proposing in giving out the plans and letting others build it. There is great value in the open source movement and even Apple profits from it.

Without such a model where monetizing is not the driving factor, we wouldn't have Safari or OS X or iOS or anything. Apple would have had to build a lot more from scratch and we might not even be at the level we are today.

GermanyChris said:

And this of course would have been a bad thing!

I mean if you can't monetize it whats the point

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You think everything should be free? Who works for nothing?

Rogifan said:

You think everything should be free? Who works for nothing?

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Money is not the only reward in this life.

To me, Apple is not a religion or a philosophy, it's a company making advanced tech products that I use. I like their products and they all work well together for me. I'm not in the stock market so how their stock performs means nothing to me. I will buy their products as long as they fit my needs. I did try Microsoft once and found the experience lacking and the HP computer a sub standard build. I have done all this since 1982 and I stll find Apple is the best. Only time will tell if they remain so. As for magic, isn't that for children?

KnightWRX said:

Open source and Free software are more akin to what Woz was proposing in giving out the plans and letting others build it. There is great value in the open source movement and even Apple profits from it.

Without such a model where monetizing is not the driving factor, we wouldn't have Safari or OS X or iOS or anything. Apple would have had to build a lot more from scratch and we might not even be at the level we are today.

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What made/makes Apple unique is it offers a product that can be as much as you want it to be or as little. I don't think the simple appliance that everyone could use was Job's idea, PARC sort of shows us that. Would we have a company like Apple today if there was no Jobs? I think so there were just to many smart kids there at that time.

The push to monetize is what has given us this duopoly, Steve and Bill. I don't necessarily consider that a good thing. Steve has his stove pipe and Bill has his MS based standards. I like the industry standards which monetization has given us but I don't like the limitations. The computer industry has become largely boring, Intel/AMD..Windows/OSX..Nvidia/ATI computers are faster than most people will ever need, the OS's are so sophisticated that even techies won't reach their limitations. That make things unspectacular we really need someone to come in and change things someone to be different.

I still hold out hope that Canonical can actually make a real go of Ubuntu but then we have what turns me off about android one company writes all the source and everyone else modifies it..a hybrid bazaar

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Rogifan said:

You think everything should be free? Who works for nothing?

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Actually I get get to work for nothing, if the debt ceiling doesn't get raised I'll get to do it again..the common thread of people who work for nothing is the believe that the mission is greater than the person. Computers are no longer just baubles for the rich or workstations, they are communications tools that keep the world community together, the Arab spring happened because kids communicated and bonded via computers and we know about it for the same reason. Occupy happened for the same reasons this is all bigger than your or my paycheck.

Is this it for Apple?

Apple had been rebuilt on the genius of Steve Jobs. Now he's gone and all the projects he had planned have been finished. So now is the time when we will see whether Apple sinks or floats. Personally I think Apple has reached it's peak and has gone over it. Apple will never be such a great company again, it's competitors have caught up. The iphone is no longer the most popular phone (beaten by Samsung), the iPad too has many competitors. What is left for Apple? Normally this would be the time Steve Jobs would introduce some product that would blow everyone away and become the #1 selling product all year round. We will see this year (2013) if Apple can do the same without Steve.

Yes, Apple just had the best quarter ever by any public company but this is it.

So, the iPhone and iPad are all that Apple sells?

Back in 1997, Dell famously said that if he were put in charge of Apple, "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

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http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/18/dell-speaks-out-on-infamous-apple-quote/

They never had magic, just innovative, good ideas. In my opinion they've run out of those. Now they're just kind of coasting on a wave of successful products designed 2+ years ago. They were also always the first to make a market popular, like tablets, MP3 players, all-in-one computers etc. Now they're as far behind as the rest of them - the iPad Mini is a good example of that. It took the success of Kindle Fire/Nexus 7/Nook to finally get Apple to realize there was a demand there.