But don't forget, they're doomed. Experts said so.
/s
Alright, first of all, I don't think they are doomed, but I do think they are climbing down the ladder, but which one?
Doom, what do we mean by that? I think different people talk about Apple's doom or lack thereof from different perspective, often because they have different investments into the company, mostly customer vs. investor.
Investors want more marketshare, more sales, more of all those lovely numbers.
As a customer of Apple however, I really don't give a damn about their growth.
Sure, to some extend it helps a lot. You get more software, you get more friends who might need less tech support or they use the same integrated services, etc...
Sure, it can be nice, but the problem is: From a customer perspective, often it's smart to go with the ones who invest a lot of effort not falling behind, covered by the shadows of the big ones who already have a trusted name.
Not always, but it does happen.
Apple's ethos, at least under Jobs, always been to not cut corners, to only ship what truly will offer a good experience, etc... keysoanxiety explained this really well, so I quoted him further down below.
Why do people buy Apple? Well, I guess I don't have to explain to this community, the bottomline is, with an Apple product - personally - I always felt I got my money's worth, all factors considered.
Rarely the cheapest, but new technology, cutting edge, always found a way in their products and they didn't like compromising on their lines, so many very advanced technologies found their way to what many others usually charged extra for, but at the very least you could freely configure for the most part. (iOS devices are an exception for example)
So yes, my iMac from 2011 is still a powerhouse for what it is.
And lo and behold, until Yosemite it was fairly easy to add an SSD.
Now...
To cut a long story short, they changed a lot. Change is not bad per sé, change is not my argument here.
My point is, of course an investor will want to see the margins grow as well as the marketshare.
As a customer the marketshare growth is less of my concern, until it becomes a problem in either extreme (too few units moved or too many and therefore too powerful in the market), but I certainly don't want them to have extreme margins. As customer it's my "job" to get the most for my money, just like the investor's job is to get the most capital return for his money.
That's all a fair game.
Steve Jobs struck the balance really well.
I don't want to enter the "Steve Jobs would specifically do this differently" game, but it's obvious that he didn't like compromising on the experience, even if it meant costs.
He ordered back iPods shortly before launch, simply because their button press sound didn't sound the way he intended.
Now, that's extreme, but that's the kind of detail Apple became famous for and it's why they have such a remarkably different position in the world of technology.
Even if the anecdote is wrong, which I don't even think is the case, but even then it's still a good metaphor for what definitely isn't in place anymore: the same amount of obsession for perfection and balancing investor vs. customer interests.
I suggest anyone to take a look at a definition of a word they highlight on iOS 7.
iOS 6 UI. Okay. They didn't fix that for a year right?
iOS 8 - same game. 2 major versions and it's STILL the glaring omission.
Look at Yosemite's graphic design bugs. Bugs are bugs, they will be ironed out, but it doesn't help Apple's case.
Look at the many many other instances of lack of obsession: Mac Mini.
Even if you wanted to give Apple a really nice premium on the BTO option of 4 cores, you won't get it.
Wow wait, but you want those core, you have money, they have plenty of 4-core options, what's the holdup?
I and many other forum members have their theory on this, but it doesn't even matter what we think here, and that's not something nice we suspect, but even if it's just an omission without malintent, it's certainly again not helping them in the case of striving for perfection.
Hopefully not. I say hopefully because to gain that sort of marketshare, they'd need some competitively cheap products. Seeing the new low-cost Mac Mini, low-cost iMac, and the outdated non-Retina 13" MacBook Pro, Apple can't do 'low cost' without the quality/performance slipping.
To paraphrase Steve, they don't ship junk. If you're going to offer a low-priced option, ensure it's competitive and that people get the 'Apple experience' that Tim Cook & the rest can't stop talking about. If you can't do quality across the line, don't offer a low-cost option.
Sadly that's not the case.
