The overly devoted Apple customer is hurting Apple...

[daveathall]

It is what it is, I hear members talking about the iPhone 5 as though it is a bad phone, IMHO, it's not, it's superb, I think the problem is that the wow factor was missing and has been since the iPhone 4. I don't think that this matters to most people outside of these boards, TBH, specs don't really matter that much to the normal consumer, reputations however, do, and in a big way. If you ask the man in the street which is the best smartphone I'm sure that the iPhone would come very high on the list, and will, for some time to come. I prefer my Nexus 4 to the iPhone 5, that doesn't make it better, it is just that I enjoy/prefer one over the other.

I do feel though, that at some stage Apple will need another iPhone 4 moment (This changes everything) to keep up with the pack. The defining moment for Apple is not when members of boards like this are criticising there phone (they will take note though) it is when Joe public stop buying them.

IMHO, phone manufacturers are changing the smart phone into portable small computers with a phone capability attached, rather than the other way round. I am not so sure that Apple are embracing this concept yet.

[MonkeySee....]

Sooooo many negative threads on this forum is actually getting too hard to ignore.

People who seemed to be sooo concerned over Apple don't even use an iPhone.

Pretty sad

[daveathall]

Originally Posted by MonkeySee....

People who seemed to be sooo concerned over Apple don't even use an iPhone.

Pretty sad

Apple don't just make phones.

[onthecouchagain]

Originally Posted by matttye

Such as?

Typing - Ios' keyboard is horribly outdated.
Attachments in email.
Opening more than 8 tabs.

Few examples. I won't elaborate because this thread isn't about that.

[MonkeySee....]

Originally Posted by daveathall

Apple don't just make phones.

That's very true. This thread is about the iPhone though.

[mattopotamus]

Originally Posted by Timzer

I've said this many times, and now it seems to be showing. The Apple customer who believes Apple can do no wrong. That 3.5 inches is the perfect screen size, that LTE is not needed yet, that NFC is still not needed, that bigger screens are ridiculous, that quad core CPUs are overkill, that 2GB or RAM is overkill, that iOS is amazing even though it's still not much different than in 2007, etc... will be the very customers that bring Apple down. DEMANDING loyal customers are what feed innovation in a market and in a company. Now the competition is coming out in full force and have clearly shot past the iPhone in terms of hardware. Lets forget the OS for now. Hardware sells. Especially when that hardware clearly shows better on the sales floor. Believe what you like, but one thing is for certain, the market waits for no one. I truly believe you will see Apple coming out with a screen size well above 4 inches sooner than later. Samsung and Google seem to be on the fast road to world domination.

Those things really are not needed, and that is the truth....phones come nowhere near needing a quad core processor. I do agree about IOS being stale though, and they need to change things; however, this next user I quoted nailed it.

Originally Posted by gnr319

If anything, I think it's actually the significant group of non-devoted Apple loyalists who are "bringing Apple down." These are people who are not techies/gearheads and don't care about having the most cutting-edge device. They just want something that will allow them to do simple tasks easily. For this crowd, the stale, limited and innovation-less iOS is actually a selling point as it makes the phone easier to use. The less features a phone has, the easier it will be to engage. This is why I think iphones are the best smartphones for old people/senior citizens/corporate personnel.

The problem is that this segment of iOS users account for a huge chunk of Apple's bottom line and I don't see Apple doing anything drastic with the software for fear of alienating such a strong source of revenue.

For myself, I had to switch to an iphone 5 because my work doesn't support Android devices. I had just upgraded to a Note 2 in November. Having spent two months with a top-end Android device, I find the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 insulting.

Exactly. Apple has taken over BB in corporate america, and there is no way in hell they are going to make drastic changes while they have this market. You may see a lot more switching to windows in order to integrate better, but apple will keep playing it safe when this is a massive portion of their market.

A perfect example, I have a friend who works at corporate for Petsmart....and instead of updating their year 2000 Dells, they decided to give them ipad 4's and new iphones.

[daveathall]

Originally Posted by MonkeySee....

That's very true. This thread is about the iPhone though.

Not according to the title.

[onthecouchagain]

Originally Posted by daveathall

It is what it is, I hear members talking about the iPhone 5 as though it is a bad phone, IMHO, it's not, it's superb, I think the problem is that the wow factor was missing and has been since the iPhone 4. I don't think that this matters to most people outside of these boards, TBH, specs don't really matter that much to the normal consumer, reputations however, do, and in a big way. If you ask the man in the street which is the best smartphone I'm sure that the iPhone would come very high on the list, and will, for some time to come. I prefer my Nexus 4 to the iPhone 5, that doesn't make it better, it is just that I enjoy/prefer one over the other.

I do feel though, that at some stage Apple will need another iPhone 4 moment (This changes everything) to keep up with the pack. The defining moment for Apple is not when members of boards like this are criticising there phone (they will take note though) it is when Joe public stop buying them.

IMHO, phone manufacturers are changing the smart phone into portable small computers with a phone capability attached, rather than the other way round. I am not so sure that Apple are embracing this concept yet.

Well said but isn't the Wsj suggesting that the average Joe may not be buying the iphone 5? "Weak demand" and all.

[Rodster]

My 0.02 cents reading all of this is that there is some truth to both sides of the argument. What's currently happening to Apple's product line is normal for any company. That is, when the competition catches up you offer something different.

In the past Apple had that luxury with Steve Jobs running the show. Investors in particular knew that something new and something great was waiting in the wings. With Jobs no longer around that's the BIG question. Is Apple capable of introducing the next great, fresh idea? Once Apple does that then investors and the markets will relax.

For now the competition is coming fast and furious after Apple and they need a fresh product that will get the competition to change course.

[daveathall]

Originally Posted by onthecouchagain

Well said but isn't the Wsj suggesting that the average Joe may not be buying the iphone 5? "Weak demand" and all.

Oops, I was guilty of not reading the article before putting my brain into gear. Yep, I think you're right there.

[Beeplance]

Quote from Katewes, a forumer here. Think it applies here.

Apple is living in a distortion field where they think Apple is invulnerable. I suspect that most Apple employees weren't around in the bad old days when the company was a few weeks away from bankruptcy. Apple staff seriously cannot see the possibility of Android taking over the dominant place in smartphones and tablets. Thus, Apple is living dangerously.

In a recent interview, Tim Cook said that Apple could avoid Sony's spiral by keeping focused on a core area of excellence. Sure, Tim, if that was Sony's one and only frailty. There was a time in the late 90's where Sony had the slogan, "because it's a SONY". That was the era when consumers were willing to pay a bit extra just to get a Sony ... me included. Apple is there now, and it cannot see itself losing that aura. Hence, Apple is now in the danger zone. The worst way to navigate the danger zone is sheer arrogance to the point of blindness. Apple is exhibiting arrogance and blindness in bucket loads.

Baked into Apple's DNA is Steve Jobs' mantra that Apple does not listen to customers - "We don't do customer research .. we see what customers don't see etc etc". Well, I would say that every mega titan corporation that ever was the darling of its era went through a purple patch where they had a string of products that captured the market. But history shows that titans do fall.

The sheer arrogance of Apple thinking that it can focus on consumer product features, and thumb its nose at professional and corporate users. Take for instance, the issue of matte anti-glare screens. Probably a minority -- a large one though -- mostly in the professional areas, but also ordinary users who suffer from eye strain. Apple, fro 6 years, has thumbed its nose at those segment who need such products.

Then there's the removal of key features, ostensibly because the majority of consumers don't use that feature. Key example, the removal of colored icons from the left column in the Finder. Apple could have had an option in Preferences to show or hide the colors, but, no, Apple shafts those users, and focuses on the consumer majority. There are some users, who rely in their computers to get work done, and value speed over visual art. Don't tell me that the monochrome look appears nicer, because I AGREE, it does look cool, but sometimes I need to work fast, and having to read the writing in the Finder is slower than having colors to visual cues.

See this expose from a software developer on why the removal of color hinders usability. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/?p=271

Every aspect of Apple's approach reeks of Steve Jobs' arrogance that's been hard baked into Apple's DNA. If you don't believe that a $120 billion cash company can be reduced to dust in 2 decades, first (1) read some history books, and (2) let's bookmark this for 2 decades and see who's right. Errr, anyone remember Digital Corporation, the Sony dominance of the 80's and 90's, Netscape etc.

Apple's penchant for crippling the upgradeability of its products, forcing you to buy new hardware, rather than extending the lifespan by a few years -- all that is going to come back reaped as a whirlwind. So many years ago now, Apple loyalist used to rave about how Apple computers last longer than PC's, and that the higher cost was actually an investment. Now, look at iFixit's rant from their disgust at how what used to be upgradeable components are either soldered, GLUED, or positioned behind major components so you cannot upgrade the memory and hard drive. How many of you, given the choice of having a smooth rear panel for the iMac, versus a removable panel to replace RAM and hard drives, would choose the non-upgrade path. Sure, there's the argument that 90% of people don't replace the RAM and hard drives -- but that's because Apple makes you jump through hoops to open up. If it was a simple matter of opening up a window, and inserting the new RAM or hard drive, more people would. I raise these points as evidence of Apple's sheer arrogance of dictating its agenda to consumers, with the vindictive knowledge that people will continue to buy Apple's products irrespective. Well, that's the sort of attitude that form the seeds of destruction where a titan corporation can disintegrate over a decade or two.

I speak this bitter disappointment in Apple, as a user who has been loyal to Apple since the mid 80's. I speak these words, not as an outside critic, but as someone who's grown up with Apple products all my life, who's been a Mac evangelist, someone who felt Apple was a special part of my life. Only to see it evolve into a corporate huckster, where the first decision is whether any step is going to make more money. Apple is so nice about it, couching it words such as, "we can't please everyone" and "we need to be focused" -- but how many of you would argue that that's just spin for: "If we can't make buckets of money out of you, then we're not going to make stuff for you". Without thinking, you can argue that any corporation's first role is to make money, but I'd argue that when a company gets to a certain market dominance, where people rely on its products, there comes a responsibility to supply certain minority niches that don't necessarily make tons of profit. I come back to the matte, anti-glare issue. Let's get this straight, not everyone needs matte, anti-glare screens. Not every likes them. Not every sees any need for them. Great. But many people do. Unlike DVD's - where you can carry an external DVD drive, people who need matte screens can't substitute them. It would be fine if Apple made the Mac Mini as powerful as the iMac, but, no, the Mac Mini is made slower than the iMac, so that people who are forced to buy non-Apple matte screens are restricted to using a slower Mac Mini.

All I'm saying is that, inspite of the $120 million cash mattress that Apple sleeps on, there are in 2012 the seeds of Apple's destruction clearly shown in its corporate arrogance. I grieve, because, over my lifetime, Apple has been one of my loves.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

[theluggage]

Originally Posted by 76ShovelHead

Apple needs to come down to earth.
They haven't produced anything great since Leopard.

No, they've just:

* Produced the definitive Ultrabook.
* Drastically improved the design of Laptop pointing devices with their large, multitouch touch pads.
* Pushed the idea of 'retina' displays when the rest of the industry had hit 1080p and stuck.
* Helped popularise SSDs in high-end laptops
* Promoted 'hybrid' storage with the 'Fusion Drive' (I know they didn't invent the concept - although Fusion is a slightly different spin on the idea).
* Thunderbolt... at least deserves marks for effort. I suspect that people who have a professional need to connect fast RAID arrays or pro audio/video capture cards to their laptop are more impressed than the regular punters who don't see the point of paying $200 extra for a backup drive...

That's not a bad list on a 'mature technology' like PC laptops.

Apple Problem #1 is that the smartphone/tablet market that Apple pretty much created (at least in its modern form) is moving much faster. Some of the decisions made with the original iOS (restricted multitasking, no widgets etc.) were sensible in the light of the hardware available at the time. I had an early-ish Android phone (HTC Hero) and it was all too easy to slow it down to near-unusability with widgets and background processes. Recent phones like the Note 2 don't break a sweat.

Problem #2 is this 'only one iPhone (+ last year's model for cheapskates)' policy which, frankly, is bizarre. Even Apple don't take this 'one size fits all' approach with any of their other lines.

Problem #3 is Maps (which is improving as they get the kinks out of the data) and iCloud (with it's ridiculous app-centric approach and uselessness for cross-platform purposes). Please, please just add hooks for 3rd-party file sharing services like DropBox and Google Drive...

Problem #4 is the 'brave decision' to change iPhone connectors. Losing easy compatibility with all those speakers, clock radios and car adaptors removed a major USP for new iDevices. Maybe it needed doing for technical reasons, but they could at least have come up with an adapter that would fit in a universal dock and hold the device securely.

[NT1440]

Originally Posted by onthecouchagain

Apple fans should truly be embarrassed anytime the phrase "it just works" is uttered.

Yea, I feel embarrassed anytime someone uses a nearly decade old slogan too...

[davidinva]

Not "overly devoted" in my case. Satisfied with the Apple items I have. If something else works better and I need it, I will go that direction. If I don't need (different than want) it, I see no reason to change. Can't afford it anyway.

[onthecouchagain]

Originally Posted by NT1440

Yea, I feel embarrassed anytime someone uses a nearly decade old slogan too...

That's not quite the reason I was thinking of.

[MonkeySee....]

Originally Posted by onthecouchagain

Apple fans should truly be embarrassed anytime the phrase "it just works" is uttered.

I use that term all the time because for me it does "just work".

My iPhone isn't jailbroken its stock like most iPhones. I don't think you could say that about most Android phones out there? All I hear is how people have rooted their device etc.

[Twixt]

Originally Posted by gnr319

Personally, I do feel insulted. I paid 300 for a phone that is a faster version of my iPhone 4. The tall screen is a farce adding nothing to the usability of the device and the build quality feels cheaper than the iPhone 4. The OS experience is the same with no improvement to the notifications system. These are just a few of my own misgivings.

Overall I just feel the iPhone is the new dumb phone. It makes great calls but do anything else on it and you'll be crippled by the small screen or some software limitation apple has programmed.

No offense but why buying then ? All these negative points you underline were highly anticipated even before iphone5 was launched...

[TheHateMachine]

Originally Posted by mattopotamus

Those things really are not needed, and that is the truth....phones come nowhere near needing a quad core processor. I do agree about IOS being stale though, and they need to change things; however, this next user I quoted nailed it.

While some of things like quad core is not needed now. Android might tighten up their multi-core instruction processing in the future, so it is really more of a future proofing feature. As for the other stuff they add convenience really. Which when you look at a smartphone it is really built around adding features that you do not really need but add convenience and allow the device to transcend the level of a regular phone. Hell a Mobile doesn't need anything more than a dialpad and a radio. Things like rear speakers, cameras, dual microphones, GPS, sd cards and high res full color touch screens aren't really needed but they sure make the phones cool.

[mattopotamus]

Originally Posted by TheHateMachine

While some of things like quad core is not needed now. Android might tighten up their multi-core instruction processing in the future, so it is really more of a future proofing feature. As for the other stuff they add convenience really. Which when you look at a smartphone it is really built around adding features that you do not really need but add convenience and allow the device to transcend the level of a regular phone. Hell a Mobile doesn't need anything more than a dialpad and a radio. Things like rear speakers, cameras, dual microphones, GPS, sd cards and high res full color touch screens aren't really needed but they sure make the phones cool.

Future proofing a phone is silly since they become crippled b.c lack of software updates. I have not had a phone for more than a year since 2007.

[AQUADock]

Originally Posted by MonkeySee....

Sooooo many negative threads on this forum is actually getting too hard to ignore.

People who seemed to be sooo concerned over Apple don't even use an iPhone.

Pretty sad

Im glad im not the only one who thinks this, they should rename this forum to MacDoomed.

[VulchR]

My 2 cents:

• Multiple cores are of no use unless they're used. Perhaps they might boost performance by allowing one core to take over when another heats up, but honestly iPhones are not meant to be computers and never will be.
• As an iOS user, I am more concerned about what Apple is doing rather than what they haven't done. iOS 6 was really a mixed bag: Maps has a lot of inaccuracies, the App store GUI is frustrating, the DND/date bug was amateurish, etc. Maps is particularly annoying, for many user-submitted corrections have not been dealt with.
• The reason why I don't care about LTE or NFC is not because I am a 'fanboy'. I've had NFC on my credit card for more than a year and I have never been able to use it. No merchant where I live have NFC equipment and none will spend the money to acquire NFC equipment in this economy. Also, in the UK LTE is expensive and limited to cities. Frankly 3G does fine when I am out in the countryside and free WiFi access works well in town. I am in no hurry to upgrade to LTE, and users like me don't care how long Apple took to implement LTE.
• I have been around awhile, including the Apple's disastrous years in the late 1980's in which everybody predicted Apple would fold. I've heard all this kind of talk about Apple before. Yet Apple are here, while many other computer and mobile phone manufacturers are not.
• I do agree Apple's next releases should have a little more of the 'wow' factor, for the string of incremental updates hasn't addressed some basic issues with the iPhone (screen size, mechanical home button, etc.).
• When Apple does adopt new technology the appropriate discussion is not which manufacturer had it first, but how successful Apple's implementation is compared to other manufacturers'. Usually Apple does pretty well in this regard, and that is one of the reasons why people like Apple products.
• Funny how nobody here talk about how far ahead Samsung and other Android manufacturers are in customer service *cough* *cough*.

[matttye]

Originally Posted by onthecouchagain

Typing - Ios' keyboard is horribly outdated.
Attachments in email.
Opening more than 8 tabs.

Few examples. I won't elaborate because this thread isn't about that.

Android keyboard is better because you can customise the user dictionary and only have to tell it once that you don't want something to be corrected. iOS keyboard is still perfectly capable to type on. It's taken me about 15 seconds to type this post so far on my iPhone.

Attachments could be better but you can at least use the individual apps to email attachments. Can add multiple pics/videos from the email itself.

Never have eight tabs open but I can see why it would be annoying for the people that do. I would however question why you'd ever need more than eight tabs open, you can't be actively using all eight tabs at the same time, so just add websites you visit regularly to your bookmarks and browse to them that way whenever you want to.

Some valid points but that last one is a bit silly.

[AQUADock]

Originally Posted by VulchR

Funny how nobody here talk about how far ahead Samsung and other Android manufacturers are in customer service *cough* *cough*.

It's funny how any if Apple had bad service you would be hearing about it all the time but if its from another company it's almost overlooked or not much of an issue.

[mattopotamus]

Something else I feel like apple does better than any company is tie all of their products together really well....apple tv, mac, iphone. They need to improve on some things, but are miles ahead of the competition in terms of integration across devices.

Sony is trying to do that with the xperia and bravia TV's....but do they really expect me to buy a new tv to be compatible with my phone. At least apple sells apple tv at $100

[maxosx]

It's those programmed by Steve Jobs that are the extremists.

Now that their leader is gone, no more new iFans are being created. Gradually Apple will become more of a regular company, it's already happening.

Once the magic has faded & the hype machine loses traction, Apple will be forced to operate like its competitors.

No longer able to command huge margins, Apple will begin creating what mainstream users want. Not what they're told they need. Unable to sell solely based on sheer marketing magic will do Apple good. We'll find out how relevant they are under real world circumstances.