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Angela Ahrendts Departing Apple in April, Deirdre O'Brien to Oversee Retail and People
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The Apple Watch, HomePod, AirPods, Health App now driving iPhone sales. An interesting change in direction. Need an excellent Health product, Watch and iPhone combination. Sign here.
For those who are saying she isn't to blame for the failure to recognize the changing China market. Who else would get the blame other than the head of retail for the entire company?
As a former Apple Care Advisor, I agree this is great. I always hated sending customers to a store. Appointments in cities with one store are often fully booked and we had to encourage them to get to a store before it opened to cajole Retail to help sans appointment.
Knowing how underpaid AC are, Retail is worse off because, well, it’s retail. They should be rewarded more.
Apple was enjoying a surge in popularity prior to the iPhone. If had won the respect of the Windows masses with its iPod and iTunes Store. At the same time, those who bought their iPods at Apple’s stores, gave the Mac and Macbook a look. Most Windows users were admittedly frustrated with the complexity, bugs, and viruses that plagued their PCs. The “Mac vs. PC” ads hit a nerve.
Imagine if the iPhone wasn’t invented. Whose smartphone would have inspired consumers? Palm’s? Would they have inspired a similar app industry and mobile convenience that made home PCs unnecessary? If not, Apple would still be competing with Microsoft, whose failure to remain in the smartphone race hasn’t prevented them from staying relevant.
I am not surprised some people have had experiences like yours, it is how it should be at the Apple Store.
I guess this just shows how inconsistent the retail experience has been @ the Apple Store.
She made millions for doing absolutely nothing. Sweet gig if you can get it.
Virtue signal received. Posters have criticized all of Apple's C-Suite Team including Tim, Jony, etc. Guess what, it has nothing to do with their gender. Go figure.
I don't understand why you think there has to be one single person to be identified as the scapegoat.
Happy to see she's leaving, absolutely have no idea what she did to the retail store. She's been trying to make apple product a fashion item rather than a tech item (AW is one example). The pricing model also move to luxury item and she believe an average person would spent 1k to buy a phone just a women would spent 2k to buy a hand bag. The Chinese market was so mis calculate and hence the poor sale of the iphone XR.
I'd say being able to walk into a store, and use an app to have someone give you your online order seems like an improvement....or being able to walk into a store, scan a phone case with your phone and walk out seems like an improvement...unless you wanna speak to the manager LMAOO
If you haven’t met a tech person who cannot dumb it down you’ve met bad tech people. A person who truly understands higher level things can always explain it.
Apple policy is to not stop/confront shoplifters.
Boz's presentation was cringe-worthy. It showed that she didn't "know her audience" which is the first rule of public speaking. Imagine if Eddy Cue went to an HBCU football game and tried to get them to dance and sing to an Aerosmith song. He'd be boo'd out of the stadium.
Is she the one who was responsible for the online-only launch of Apple Watch? I remember there being 0 stock in basically every single store on launch day and I believe she was at the helm at the time.
I don't think you understand the meaning of the word scapegoat. She is tasked with defining the retail strategy for the entire company. She isn't a scapegoat if she defined the strategy and said strategy failed.
If it's one thing I have learnt as a teacher, it's that being good at something doesn't necessarily mean you are able to break it down into simpler terms for other people. A great soccer player may not make a good coach, someone who is good at Maths might not be able to teach it well, being tech savvy doesn't necessarily mean you can explain it in a manner which makes sense for the average user.
She made pre-ordering iPhones/ Apple devices more seamless. I’ve never had to que up to get an iPhone or other device on launch day since she took over. Ordering online is simple.
"Dumbing it down" doesn't mean you understand the person you're dealing with. Hell, the term itself even carries the connotation that you think the person you're talking to isn't as smart as you. You need to be able to get a message across to people in their own terms. Someone who just needs a laptop for writing essays and dabbling in photography doesn't need someone unintentionally making them feel small.
The head(s) of marketing. Marketing is not sales. ( at least where Marketing involves market research as oppose to solely spin crafters. ). That would be Mr. "Can't innovate my ass"
https://www.apple.com/leadership/philip-w-schiller/
So you can add " Can't see sales slips and design corners" to the list.
She was probably more focused on sales per square ft per store. They could be selling pet rocks as long as the $/ft were high and the store experience rating was relatively high they probably just heaped another round of bonuses on her.
Apple's overall product sales are not primarily through the "in house" Retail wing.
"Her tenure is fair game" I'm saying criticize but talking about looks is irrelevant.
Couldn’t be more dismissive and wrong.Seriously? You think that TC has done more to carry Apple forward than Steve Jobs?
What has Tim done from the ground up that has been wildly successful?
Apple Watch? I love mine, but it’s hardly ‘made’ the company.
Apple TV? LOL
Apple Car?
HomePod?
Perfecting Siri? (Every time I ask my wife, “Are you serious?” my phone chimes in, “I can help you with that.”
China was a bust until they lowered the price on the most recent phones. He’s paying France a half-Billion dollars in back taxes.
All the stuff that drives the company is still riding the coat tails of Steve.
$500M is probably in Apple’s lobby couch couches.
Cook grew Apple from about $100B in sales at their peak with jobs to over $265B in sales. He’s created $600B in shareholder value.
Watch, AirPods, silicon, Apple Pay, Apple Music, and the entire services business are just a few of Cook’s accomplishments.
Remember, Jobs picked Cook because he also recognized Cook was a genius and the brains behind Apple. If not for Cook, Apple would still be trying to make all the own components and have a supply chain disaster.