Apple out of ideas?

[G51989]

The first iPod was introduced in October, 2001. It defined MP3 players.

No.

The first iPhone was released June, 2007. It defined the smart phone.

No, it was the first super popular consumer smartphones, Phones like Blackberrys and Pocket PC's and Palms were well developed and very widely used in business.

iPad was introduced in March, 2010. It defined the tablet, and at the same time pretty much gutted the netbook market.

No, tablets existed for many many years before the iPad. They were already defined before the iPad.

It did not " gut the netbook market ". Netbooks were already on the way out of mainstream before the iPad. The netbook Market still exists. For those who need ultra portability. But need a full blown OS. ( Windows 7 is better than iOS )

On a side note, the Bose bashers on this thread...I'm not a Bose loyalist but my 8 year old noise-cancelling headphones still rock...and our 3+ year old Wave system is great. Is Bose pricey? Sure. So is Apple. But the Bose stuff just works...looks nice...and is easy to use. Their speakers are great. If Bose released "garbage" as many of you claimed, they would not still be in business after 50+ years.

Bose isn't so much garbage. They are just the Apple of the stereo world. They perfer form over how it performs. For most people, Bose is great. But if your really after sound quailty. There are so many other brands that will blow Bose out of the water for less money.

I personally perfer Cerwin Vega for all my speakers. Better than anything Bose puts out.

Tho I will admit. I have a pair of basic 130 dollar Bose Over Ear Headphones, I love them. Good pair of Headphones for a pretty cheap price. To bad you can't say the same thing about their stereos.

Translation - Haters will hate on Apple because they can never be Apple.

Good, if every software/hardware company operated like Apple. It would be a horrible computing world.

Anyone with any audio sense knows to stay as far away from Bose products as possible.

Indeed, the thing I do like about Bose, is everything they make is so easy to setup and get working properly. For your average consumer/listener. I think they are great systems. I'll stick with Cerwin Vega myself.

[smoledman]

OMG, you are so delusional. Sure Apple didn't invent any of those segments, but none of them become HUGE, enormous until Apple introduced the iPod, iPhone & iPad. They were all niche markets with horrible quality products until Apple. I remember the Intel & Samsung MP3 players I had before and they were always terrible in one way or another.

[G51989]

Originally Posted by smoledman

OMG, you are so delusional. Sure Apple didn't invent any of those segments, but none of them become HUGE, enormous until Apple introduced the iPod, iPhone & iPad. They were all niche markets with horrible quality products until Apple. I remember the Intel & Samsung MP3 players I had before and they were always terrible in one way or another.

Wrong again, Smartphones were VERY popular in the business world WELL before the iPhone. Just because the general public didn't use them personally does NOT mean hardly anyone used them.

iPad? Tablets were popular before the iPad as well, but a lot of the isheep will buy anything that says Apple on it.

Personally? I don't and won't own a tablet. My netbook blows any tablet out of the water.

iPod? What made other MP3 players so bad? I had a Gateway DMP20, thing had a 20gig hard drive. About the same size as an ipod, supported more file formats. Longer battery life. And was better made.

Apple puts out some good products, but they did not invent the smartphone, tablet, or MP3 player. And their products are NOT for everyone.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by G51989

iPod? What made other MP3 players so bad? I had a Gateway DMP20, thing had a 20gig hard drive. About the same size as an ipod, supported more file formats. Longer battery life. And was better made.

At the time (2001), 128 MB of Flash made other MP3 players so bad. The other player, the Creative Nomad, with its IBM micro drive (same as the iPod), was big like a portable CD player.

In 2001, when Apple shipped the iPod though, it failed to catch on. For one thing : it was limited to Macs and used Firewire. It wasn't until they released a Windows compatible iPod with USB that it finally caught on and became mainstream, so it's disingenuous to claim the iPod was an instant success for Apple. Slowly but surely they grabbed the market from then on, but it required introducing smaller models (the mini and then nano) at lower price point because a problem with the iPod (the first and the one known as classic now) is that it is darn expensive.

In 2007, when Apple introduced the iPhone, it didn't catch on. No carrier subsidy hurt its initial acceptation, the 4GB model was a complete mistake. Apple turned around fast enough, dropped the price and scrapped the 4GB model. The iPhone has been a great success. It popularized the form factor it uses, one that has been seen around the industry since 2002 but hadn't become mainstream, lagging behind flips and BB types. Apple still has to conquer the business side of the market though, where BB is still champ.

Finally, I'd argue there is no tablet market. There never was one and even now after 3 iPad models, there still isn't one. No one really wants tablets. They want iPads. I'd dare say if Apple were shipping a 9.7" laptop form factor with iOS and an ARM SoC for the price of an iPad, it would sell as well. People just don't care about tablets in general, the things are awkward to use (I can't stand using my TouchPad and go right back to my MBA, much more comfortable, be it standing, in bed, on the sofa, on the can, at the desk, wherever...).

[Carl Sagan]

Originally Posted by G51989

Hate to break it to you. The iphone is indeed a phone.

Yeah I think that point is clear but the lack of brand language was surprising, standards slipping?

[Carl Sagan]

Originally Posted by G51989

Wrong again, Smartphones were VERY popular in the business world WELL before the iPhone. Just because the general public didn't use them personally does NOT mean hardly anyone used them.

iPad? Tablets were popular before the iPad as well, but a lot of the isheep will buy anything that says Apple on it.

Personally? I don't and won't own a tablet. My netbook blows any tablet out of the water.

iPod? What made other MP3 players so bad? I had a Gateway DMP20, thing had a 20gig hard drive. About the same size as an ipod, supported more file formats. Longer battery life. And was better made.

Apple puts out some good products, but they did not invent the smartphone, tablet, or MP3 player. And their products are NOT for everyone.

None of them were selling millions in the mass market or as embedded into popular consciousness before Apple's entry into each market. None of them.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by Carl Sagan

None of them were selling millions in the mass market or as embedded into popular consciousness before Apple's entry into each market. None of them.

Smartphones were. MP3 players were (heck, even in 2001 when Apple shipped the iPod, it didn't blimp on radars, most folks were still buying the 1 album at a time 128 MB players, everyone around me had them).

Tablets... well they still don't sell except for iPad.

[hafr]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

Smartphones were.

No, they really weren't. Sure, "everyone" knew about BB, the N-series and so on, but they were never as popular as the iPhone and far, far from being as user friendly and intuitive - which is (together with the screen) what really made a difference. Also, far from everyone who had smartphones used it as more than a phone, for texting and taking pictures. iPhone DID revolutionize the smartphone market, that's just a fact.

MP3 players were (heck, even in 2001 when Apple shipped the iPod, it didn't blimp on radars, most folks were still buying the 1 album at a time 128 MB players, everyone around me had them).

I agree to 100 %, but Apple did, thanks to aggressive promotion and iTunes, help to push the market forward, and I guess we've all heard someone at one point or another say iPod when they referred to an MP3-player. For a while, I thought Apple would do a Hoover

[Carl Sagan]

They really weren't, smartphones sell more than feature phones now. No one I know who has an iPhone now new what my old smartphones were in 2005/6...

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by hafr

No, they really weren't. Sure, "everyone" knew about BB, the N-series and so on, but they were never as popular as the iPhone and far, far from being as user friendly and intuitive - which is (together with the screen) what really made a difference. Also, far from everyone who had smartphones used it as more than a phone, for texting and taking pictures. iPhone DID revolutionize the smartphone market, that's just a fact.

The first iPhone wasn't even a Smartphone. My Sony Ericsson feature phone could do more stuff (and had "desktop" backgrounds/themes to boot).

No, you're underestimating what the smartphone was in 2007. Apple brought an evolution, not a revolution. What they brought, everyone else had in one form or another. Someone said before Apple, no one sold millions of smartphone. RIM in 2006 sold 7 million units. The BB Pearl 8100 in its total shelf life shipped over 15 million units.

These numbers are not post-iPhone. The iPhone came into the market as the smartphone was exploding to new markets beyond businesses.

I have an iPhone, it's a great device. It's just not the revolution some people want it to be. It was an evolution, it was darn popular. It built on the shoulders of giants before it however.

[smoledman]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

The first iPhone wasn't even a Smartphone. My Sony Ericsson feature phone could do more stuff (and had "desktop" backgrounds/themes to boot).

No, you're underestimating what the smartphone was in 2007. Apple brought an evolution, not a revolution. What they brought, everyone else had in one form or another. Someone said before Apple, no one sold millions of smartphone. RIM in 2006 sold 7 million units. The BB Pearl 8100 in its total shelf life shipped over 15 million units.

These numbers are not post-iPhone. The iPhone came into the market as the smartphone was exploding to new markets beyond businesses.

I have an iPhone, it's a great device. It's just not the revolution some people want it to be. It was an evolution, it was darn popular. It built on the shoulders of giants before it however.

The revolution was:

pinch-to-zoom, smooth scrolling & transitions and an app store that grew exponentially

[G51989]

Originally Posted by smoledman

The revolution was:

pinch-to-zoom, smooth scrolling & transitions and an app store that grew exponentially

Oh man, pinch to zoom! All those years on my pocket PC just tapping a button were wasted

And Apps? Expect for ****** mobile games, I can't think of ONE thing the early iPhones did that my Pocket PC couldn't do. My pocket PC phone came out in 2003.

The iPhone is/was a great product. It was a consumer revolution for sure, but for people that alreadyd used Pocket PC/Blackberries and Palms to get work done, it wasn't anything new.

[hafr]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

The first iPhone wasn't even a Smartphone. My Sony Ericsson feature phone could do more stuff (and had "desktop" backgrounds/themes to boot).

A phone with all touchscreen, web browser, e-mail client, maps and so on is NOT a smartphone? Stop it, you're not being honest.

No, you're underestimating what the smartphone was in 2007. Apple brought an evolution, not a revolution. What they brought, everyone else had in one form or another. Someone said before Apple, no one sold millions of smartphone. RIM in 2006 sold 7 million units. The BB Pearl 8100 in its total shelf life shipped over 15 million units.

RIM was established and sold seven million units worldwide in 2006, iPhone was new on the market and sold about the same amount of units its first year on the market - with availability being only in the US and a handful of European countries.

But I'm not claiming no one had smartphones before the iPhone, as I said: Sure, "everyone" knew about BB, the N-series and so on, but they were never as popular as the iPhone and far, far from being as user friendly and intuitive - which is (together with the screen) what really made a difference. Also, far from everyone who had smartphones used it as more than a phone, for texting and taking pictures.

The introduction of the iPhone brought smartphones to the general population, having them use the iPhone the same way other smartphones manufacturers had tried to make their customers use them for years. Except for the screen, the only novel thing was how god damn easy it was to use. That's the revolutionary part - taking something that already exists, remaking it totally and making it a hit. And, remember that the functions were in fact lacking in comparison to other models (I myself had the original iPhone, but switched back to an older Nokia due to things like the lack of MMS and 3G).

These numbers are not post-iPhone. The iPhone came into the market as the smartphone was exploding to new markets beyond businesses.

That's not correct. Smartphones had been on the market for a while, and whilst most of them were still business orientated, it was not because of a lack of trying. For instance, in 2004 the carrier 3 launched where I lived, offering sweet subscription deals with free smartphones aimed at non-business people. Pretty much the sole reason to why it didn't completely revolutionize the market then was because if you used the internet, called video calls and MMS (in short, used the 3G connection), the battery life was ridiculous. We're talking three hours of effective use - tops. People literally had two batteries (they came with two) and many even had two cell phones - the smartphone for playing with and a regular so that you could be reached after lunch...

In 2006 (2005 maybe?), I even had a phone with OTA cable TV (DVB-H). The screen could be flipped into wide screen, the image quality was great and it even had a decent camera and browser. But it was super thick and heavy (I even believe part of it was metal). It was the Samsung P900, probably one of the best cell phones I've had to be honest...

Looking back at all of these phones (Sony, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and so on), I agree that the iPhone didn't introduce smartphones to the market. On the other hand, the iPhone completely changed it, with a phone that on paper was inferior. That's the revolutionary part.

I have an iPhone, it's a great device. It's just not the revolution some people want it to be. It was an evolution, it was darn popular. It built on the shoulders of giants before it however.

If we're talking evolution, there is more than one missing link between the iPhone and what was available at the time

----------

Originally Posted by G51989

The iPhone is/was a great product. It was a consumer revolution for sure, but for people that alreadyd used Pocket PC/Blackberries and Palms to get work done, it wasn't anything new.

In terms of functions, no. It was even already old and outdated in that sense (which is why I switched back). It was the GUI, the screen and the reception of the general public that was the kick in the nuts of all the other manufacturers.

[Carl Sagan]

Anyone got the numbers of smartphones sold worldwide prior to
IPhone compared today?

[hafr]

Originally Posted by Carl Sagan

Anyone got the numbers of smartphones sold worldwide prior to
IPhone compared today?

I found a site saying 80 million smartphones were sold in 2006 (16 million iPhones were sold in 2011). But this apparently includes all phones being able to play music, sync to a computer and so on. Meaning really cheap phones that lack browser, e-mail client and so on are included.

The same year, 6 million BlackBerries were sold. Worldwide, that is. Apple sold about five million iPhones its first year, during which it was only sold in the US in the beginning, and later on also in Germany, Italy, France and the UK....

Reaching the same numbers as an established brand with several models selling worldwide, with a single device only accessible in a handful of countries and only with a subscription, is quite impressive for a newcomer.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by hafr

A phone with all touchscreen, web browser, e-mail client, maps and so on is NOT a smartphone? Stop it, you're not being honest.

A smartphone was described back then as one where you could not only web browse and e-mail (my dumbphone could do both), but one where you could install 3rd party applications.

The original iPhone fails this last criteria. It wasn't until the iPhone 3G that the app store appeared. To the industry, the original iPhone wasn't a smartphone. That doesn't make it bad or less evolutionary.

Originally Posted by hafr

RIM was established and sold seven million units worldwide in 2006, iPhone was new on the market and sold about the same amount of units its first year on the market -

Apple sold 2.3 million iPhones in 2007, the original iPhone went on to sell about 4 million units. They were definately way under RIM's number then.

The point is moot, the smartphone landscape was just appearing back then, it was in essence in its birth. BB (with the pearl) were pushing for consumers to begin adoption. Apple got in on the growth around floor 2. They have ridden the massive wave of growth that is the smartphone market with a solid offering that pleased consumers more than the rehashed "business smartphone" did.

Rest of your post is just rose-colored glasses looking at the industry, trying to paint the iPhone in some kind of light that didn't shine on it. I think i'll stop here, I'm wasting my characters anyhow, no one way you'll even listen to facts.

[Carl Sagan]

Originally Posted by hafr

I found a site saying 80 million smartphones were sold in 2006 (16 million iPhones were sold in 2011). But this apparently includes all phones being able to play music, sync to a computer and so on. Meaning really cheap phones that lack browser, e-mail client and so on are included.

The same year, 6 million BlackBerries were sold. Worldwide, that is. Apple sold about five million iPhones its first year, during which it was only sold in the US in the beginning, and later on also in Germany, Italy, France and the UK....

Reaching the same numbers as an established brand with several models selling worldwide, with a single device only accessible in a handful of countries and only with a subscription, is quite impressive for a newcomer.

So no numbers on total smartphones sold in 2012?

[hafr]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

A smartphone was described back then as one where you could not only web browse and e-mail (my dumbphone could do both), but one where you could install 3rd party applications.

The original iPhone fails this last criteria. It wasn't until the iPhone 3G that the app store appeared. To the industry, the original iPhone wasn't a smartphone. That doesn't make it bad or less evolutionary.

That the iPhone wasn't considered a smartphone was news to me, have anything to back this up with? Third party applications could be installed by jailbreaking the iPhone before the release of App Store though.

Apple sold 2.3 million iPhones in 2007, the original iPhone went on to sell about 4 million units. They were definately way under RIM's number then.

Apple sold about 1,4 million units in 2007, and over 6 million units in total.

The point is moot, the smartphone landscape was just appearing back then, it was in essence in its birth. BB (with the pearl) were pushing for consumers to begin adoption. Apple got in on the growth around floor 2. They have ridden the massive wave of growth that is the smartphone market with a solid offering that pleased consumers more than the rehashed "business smartphone" did.

"Just appearing"? I had a Nokia Communicator in 2001, and by then it had already been out for a while. I had video calls in 2004 and cable TV on my phone in 2005 or 2006. Apple didn't come in as the smartphone landscape was appearing, they managed to bring smartphones to the people in a way that no one else had managed before. And they did it with a phone that was outdated on paper.

Rest of your post is just rose-colored glasses looking at the industry, trying to paint the iPhone in some kind of light that didn't shine on it. I think i'll stop here, I'm wasting my characters anyhow, no one way you'll even listen to facts.

If you want people to listen to facts, you should try presenting facts instead of these posts. But I guess it's easier to just close your eyes, throw out a few false statements and say I'm wrong...

It's pigeon chess, that's what it is.

----------

Originally Posted by Carl Sagan

So no numbers on total smartphones sold in 2012?

I guess you mean 2011? I found a site saying almost 500 million in 2011, but it seems like these kind of numbers are talking about a very, very wide variety of phones. Because when looking at OS market shares, iOS grabs around a quarter, but they haven't sold enough iPhones since the original one to be able to have even a quarter of the phones sold in 2011...

It seems like there isn't really a fixed definition of what constitutes a smartphone.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by hafr

That the iPhone wasn't considered a smartphone was news to me, have anything to back this up with? Third party applications could be installed by jailbreaking the iPhone before the release of App Store though.

No one in the industry considers jailbreaking. It simply was the definition back then, people called it a feature phone, no one wrote articles about the fact.

Originally Posted by hafr

Apple sold about 1,4 million units in 2007, and over 6 million units in total.

Your sales figures are wrong. Apple sold more than that in the oct-dec period of 2007 alone.

Here are the real numbers which I've bothered to dig up :

http://brandtao.wordpress.com/2012/0...-2007-to-2012/

Originally Posted by hafr

"Just appearing"? I had a Nokia Communicator in 2001, [...] blah blah blah followed by Apple circle jerk [...]

Yes, just appearing. Before 2005-2006, the Smartphone was a niche. A blip on the collective radar. It was used mostly in business, unsubsidized by carriers (or ridiculously small subsidies), etc.. etc.. I remember looking at SE P800, the P900, then a few Blackberries for myself and frankly, the price was never affordable.

BlackBerry tried to change it with the Pearl. Before the iPhone. The market for consumers started growing from around that point, with like you say, Nokia and RIM leading the charge. Apple got in early in that revolution, but they brought an evolution of what was before. The iPhone wasn't revolutionary. Frankly, it was everything everyone else did, in a better package with good marketing to push it. It was an evolution.

I don't know why some people feel the need to make the iPhone out to be what it wasn't. It was a smashing success for Apple, it's a very good device, with good software and good hardware. No need to invent things about it to make it out to be some kind of god phone, it was plenty good as it is.

Apple came in at the right time, just as the Smartphone was breaking out of the niche (that's what I meant by "appearing"), they came in with the right device running the right software. They had a few hiccups at the beginning (lack of subsidies, 4GB model, lack of 3rd party apps) but the iPhone 3G mostly fixed all those issues and sales exploded from there to now.

Waste of characters. Enjoy your god phone that never existed, I'll enjoy my iPhone.

[hafr]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

No one in the industry considers jailbreaking. It simply was the definition back then, people called it a feature phone, no one wrote articles about the fact.

If it was the definition, and people called it a feature phone, it shouldn't be all that difficult for you to back your claim, should it?

Your sales figures are wrong. Apple sold more than that in the oct-dec period of 2007 alone.

Here are the real numbers which I've bothered to dig up :

http://brandtao.wordpress.com/2012/0...-2007-to-2012/

Those are the same numbers I looked at for the 2007 sales, but without the months being marked. I've never seen or heard anyone talk about oct-dec of year X as being Q1 of year X+1. Odd. But adding the four first quarters, we still reach 5,6 million units sold, a bit more than 4 in other words, and quite close to the 6 million BB's sold in 2007.

Yes, just appearing. Before 2005-2006, the Smartphone was a niche. A blip on the collective radar. It was used mostly in business, unsubsidized by carriers (or ridiculously small subsidies), etc.. etc.. I remember looking at SE P800, the P900, then a few Blackberries for myself and frankly, the price was never affordable.

So obviously we're talking from two different perspectives. Smartphones in Sweden, were I lived at the time, were heavily subsidized by carriers during that time (and earlier). As I said before, free (smart)phones with advantageous subscriptions were not uncommon. The telecom market is quite advanced there. Heck, I even had 10/10 Mbps internet at home in 1999, something I couldn't get here until two years ago.

I can't promise that the P900 was subsidized when it came out (but I can't see any reason why it shouldn't have been, just about all phones have been subsidized there since at least the late 90's), but I got the P910 (P910i?) for half price with a 12 months subscription when it came out.

I don't think Blackberries even existed "over here" then, but smartphones sure wasn't just an expensive niche before 2005-2006. Well, expensive in relation to what a normal phone cost, but definitely affordable even for low income takers. But most people didn't opt for them because they didn't see the point in spending more money than necessary to get functions they didn't use. That changed with the iPhone. And the iPhone wasn't even released in Sweden... Never before have I heard about such an immense grey import trade with a phone. See why I think the impact was huge?

BlackBerry tried to change it with the Pearl. Before the iPhone. The market for consumers started growing from around that point, with like you say, Nokia and RIM leading the charge. Apple got in early in that revolution, but they brought an evolution of what was before. The iPhone wasn't revolutionary. Frankly, it was everything everyone else did, in a better package with good marketing to push it. It was an evolution.

I'm not saying the iPhone was a revolutionary phone, on the contrary I've repeated that on paper it was an inferior phone to many of the options in its price range, and even amongst cheaper phones. No 3G (which was pretty much standard for us) and no MMS (which we sent for free) are the two biggest drawbacks as I recall.

On the other hand, it opened the eyes of the people to all the functions that all the other producers had been trying to get us to adapt for years. That was the revolution. As I said before, the screen, the GUI and the marketing department was responsible for the revolution. See what I'm saying?

I don't know why some people feel the need to make the iPhone out to be what it wasn't. It was a smashing success for Apple, it's a very good device, with good software and good hardware. No need to invent things about it to make it out to be some kind of god phone, it was plenty good as it is.

I'm not making it out to be a god phone, and as I said I switched back from it due to it lacking things I felt were necessary. But you seem to want to quiet down the impact it had on the market and on the way phones developed after its release. It wasn't a phone amongst phones in terms of how it affected customers and producers.

Apple came in at the right time, just as the Smartphone was breaking out of the niche (that's what I meant by "appearing"), they came in with the right device running the right software. They had a few hiccups at the beginning (lack of subsidies, 4GB model, lack of 3rd party apps) but the iPhone 3G mostly fixed all those issues and sales exploded from there to now.

Remember that the 3G was released in hell of a lot more countries than the original iPhone was as well, having an impact on the increased sales figures.

[steviem]

It wasn't particularly what the iPhone did but the way that it did it that changed the face of the smartphone industry.

[luqtotheman]

Hey ericinboston,

I have been thinking this for about the past few months. I don't see them inventing anything new that they could even advertise as "revolutionary" anymore. It seems like they are just taking the same products, adding a new processor, better camera, etc. For example going from the ipad 2 to the "new ipad" is pretty much the same thing if you ask me. You can barely tell the difference between the screens.

Granted the Retina display Macbook pro is pretty nice but in reality they made a laptop with technology that was already in other computers.

If they had new ideas that would really shake things up I doubt they would change the screen size and create a two toned iphone, I feel they are doing that because they HAVE to change something about the iphone next release.

I hope apple has some ideas holding out because another company will come and take over, it's just the nature of the technology industry.

[ericinboston]

So here we are, 5+ months later. No, I don't think Apple is crashing...yet I still am left wondering (especially after the last Apple Update) just what Apple is doing. They released the iPad Mini, which, regardless if it sells a million units or 10 million units, is still <yawn> an iOS device and simply a smaller version of the iPad...it also competes with the Touch.

Maybe the topic of this thread is a bit strong (out of ideas) but I have to say, Apple has been pretty blah blah the last few years...it's all iOS updates. Apple essentially sells 10 flavors of the iOS "device" in 3 families called the iPod, iPad, iPhone. Oh, and a handful of traditional computers. That's it.

Now...as I mentioned earlier, Apple can certainly just churn out new versions of those 3 families for the next 50 years...but I would think Apple would want to expand the offering a bit (please don't reply stating the iPad was a new/revolutionary offering a few years ago). Maybe this is why Apple's market cap has dropped 15% since mid September...from $700billion to about $580billion. That's a big drop in 45 days! I think others agree with me here...that Apple is making a great profit, but on the same old stuff they've been churning out since 2006 roughly. That gravy train, sooner or later, comes to an end. My bet is that Apple's cap sinks to $500billion or less by Christmas. Let's not forget all the executive turnover recently which doesn't sit well with shareholders. $500billion is still a lot, of course, but big drops in cap make shareholders wonder what Apple is doing to remain highly profitable.

Any next big announcement of a new product family (like some kind of television thingy) will be summer 2013. Unless Apple announces a new family of products FOR PURCHASE by August 2013, Apple is missing some boats...and likely annoying shareholders.

Thoughts?

[BaldiMac]

Originally Posted by ericinboston

Thoughts?

I think your expectations are unreasonable and your definition of new products is arbitrary.

Apple currently has plenty of room to grow in the markets it currently competes in. Innovations within their current product families (such as the recently released iPad mini) could drive significant growth for another decade.

Launching a new product category would be exciting, but hardly necessary to justify investment.

[Mad Mac]

Apple has jumped the shark. They are now run by bean counters that will only find ways to recycle existing product and squeeze profits.

Don't count on any innovations and don't count on anything "new" working properly. In short, Apple is now just another Dell, HP, Samsung, et. al. Mediocre, uninspired products that rely more on hype than reality. The new iPad Mini and its crap screen, the craptastic iOS6 and its maps app, the fugly iPhone 5, and the bug-filled Mountain Lion OS are shining examples of the new Apple.

Has any company, much less a company with Apple's stature, *ever* advertised a *beta* product? All of those Siri commercials to tout a beta product is unprecedented. Un-frickin'-believable. Laughable and pathetic. And a year later Siri *still* sucks.