Apple to Cut Back on New Hires Following Disappointing Holiday iPhone Sales

[Kabeyun]

Because some other manufactures have copied these moves is not proof that it was the correct move.

There are many people, myself included, that view the removal of the headphone jack as a consumer-hostile move simply designed to increase profits by pushing people into wireless headsets. If this is untrue, why hasn't the company released a case that includes a headphone jack? It is not for lack of demand.

Maybe true, but not my point. If all phones eventually look like this, then they’re all “bad” according to the assertion, which means none has a competitive disadvantage, which means is will have nothing to do with hiring rates.
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I think Apple is failing at trying to convince us that $1000 phones is the “new normal”. Bring back the SE for the rest of us who aren’t completely addicted to their smartphones .

Or who just prefer a smaller form factor. Like me!

 

[ksec]

Since Steve Jobs passed away from 2012 and 2018, Apple had nearly double the headcount. It used to be the majority of Apple headcount were Retail. Apple had 390 Stores in 2012 and 508 in 2018, that is a 30% increase in stores, and if we assume larger floor space, more Retails staff due to more foot traffic, lets make that up to 50%.

Which still leads the question, where did the other 50% increase in head count gone to?

What have they produce? I have had the feeling for long Time that ever since Steve Jobs passed away Apple's productivity has been dropping. Steve used to be that yard stick, not it is gone.

 

[tallscot]

"Let's jack up the entry price from $350 to $450. That will be awesome!"

We decided to install a new battery in an old iPhone 6 and give it to my son instead of giving him a new SE.

 

[psingh01]

I bought a MBP to replace my 2010 MBP, and except for display and processor, the new machine is inferior in every way. Older machine was thicker and heavier, but also had multiple connections like ethernet, USB, SD card, DVD, and a very usable keyboard. The new machine has only to connections, requires a dongle for everything, and is so fragile that having a hinge that stuck ever so slightly cracked the screen (replaced under warranty). If I want to use an external display and ethernet simultaneously, I need not one but two dongles or a third-party dock.

There is nothing less "Apple" than having to use a dongle.

I used to upgrade every three years.

Titanium PB 2001 -> Alum PowerBook 2004 -> 17" MBP 2007 -> 17" MBP 2010

In 2013 I was not impressed with the MBP offerings. Settled for an Air. Traded off performance/expandability for portability.

Since then I've not seen a reason to upgrade from that. I don't like the current MBPs. I have a work issued one but I wouldn't spend my own money for one. Even the new Air isn't much of an upgrade. Geekbench scores are maybe 20-25% better than my 5 year old machine. Besides the better screen, it has a worse keyboard and less ports. Not worth it.

I'd probably be more willing to look past some of those things if the cpu's were much faster, but improvements them seem to have hit a wall some years ago. At least for my uses.

They've really turned these into appliances. Except how often do you need a new toaster? Only when your old one breaks.

 

[9081094]

Here's my hot take: Apple knows more than we do about pricing and market realities. The new iPhones are more expensive because Apple knows it will sell fewer and fewer iPhone upgrades (due to the maturity of the technology and high customer satisfaction with their current devices). To cope with falling sales numbers, Apple is raising prices on the fewer phones it sells. As sales volume goes down, the unit price goes up. In terms of actual price increases, I don't think most consumers are bothered by a few extra dollars a month on their carrier bill due to a slightly larger phone payment. The problem is that consumers don't see the point of upgrading at all.

TL;DR: iPhone sales aren't dropping because the price is rising. Prices are rising because Apple knows they've reached the point where upgrades (and therefore sales volume) is decreasing, and are raising unit prices to compensate.

I think the opposite. Yes the phonemarket is maturing but the companies that aggressively innovate and offer the consumers more value for money are winning here. Look at Huawei and other brands. Apple can ask more for their phones but to justify those price hikes it has to give the consumer a reason to go or stay with Apple.

iOS as MacOS are stagnant for years. Sure there have been updates but competition are on par or better. Apple can make a hiring freeze to satisfy investors, but its short term. Now it’s the time to push the envelope and invest in R&D for the future.

Since 2012 there has been only incremental updates and they’ve lost the crown in areas they were king. Even in design they seem to languish.

Apple used to rule education, video and publishing... those were the markets that set the stage for future developments. It’s in a very sad state today.

Apple computers have become a synonym for overpriced old hardware.

Greed and focus on investors will be their downfall. Every other tech company in the world are overhauling their whole range of offerings at least once a year. That’s how technology works.

To give you an example you can have an Samsung Galaxy S9 for € 27,-/month while the very old iPhone 8 still cost you € 42,-/month. Even diehard Apple fans should understand that there is no competition here in favor of Apple. The Huawei P20 Pro is even more affordable.

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Since Steve Jobs passed away from 2012 and 2018, Apple had nearly double the headcount. It used to be the majority of Apple headcount were Retail. Apple had 390 Stores in 2012 and 508 in 2018, that is a 30% increase in stores, and if we assume larger floor space, more Retails staff due to more foot traffic, lets make that up to 50%.

Which still leads the question, where did the other 50% increase in head count gone to?

What have they produce? I have had the feeling for long Time that ever since Steve Jobs passed away Apple's productivity has been dropping. Steve used to be that yard stick, not it is gone.

For a company the size of Apple there is remarkably little coming out since 2012. Where in 2012 they were leading the industry (which justified the price by offering state of the art hard- and software), they’ve become overpriced followers with outdated tech.

Yes, they’ve made big profits. But at the cost of what? They’ve lost markets they were once king and I don’t see a bright profitable future at the pace they’re innovating since 2012.

The excuse of an maturing phone market doesn’t hit Huawei and others. It’s better for Cook & Co to be realistic and look at the real reasons. They’re not offering value for money like they used to.

 

[madmac30]

Maybe because an iPhone costs more than a root canal. Could that be why they aren't selling?

 

[Peperino]

Oh?

Never said it would...increasing price will increase the revenue from the fewer units that sell each year. Falling sales is unavoidable at this point for Apple (and other smartphone makers).

My phone payment through my carrier has gone up by a few dollars this past year. It's hardly noticeable for the vast majority of people. That's not why people aren't upgrading.

The reason people aren't upgrading is that they don't need a new phone. Since 2014 all high-end smartphones have had all the features most people could ever want. I know many people who used to upgrade frequently and now hang onto their phones until they break. That's a huge shift from the early days of the smartphone.

The price did not go up just a few dollars. The price raised in an obscene way, so much so that it cost as much as a Macbook Pro, with no innovation to support it whatsoever.
And it seems that a lot of people agreed with my views. The reason people are holding longer to the phones is because it is getting ridicuously expensive to upgrade. As simple as that.
Furthermore, technology with time actually gets cheaper not more expensive.
Look at LED TVs. In complete contrast, iPhones, actually raised almost 100% in the past 2-3 years.

Unfortunately, Apple's greed is out of control.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

but groups like the AI team will continue to add employees

Will the new employees know how to update Siri instead of releasing an app designed around it?

 

[Peperino]

I think this is a healthy problem to have, I think it could spur some innovation and focus on getting some technology to the iPhone in 2019 that might have taken til 2020 or 2021 to adopt.

For people who say that Apple hasn't created a product under Tim Cook, I kind of disagree. I get that products may have been planned out 2-3 years after Steve had to leave. But, AirPods are extremely well made and have captured the market, even with younger kids who gravitate towards non-Apple phones, still love AirPods. Also, Apple Watch has really changed and made more meaningful upgrades the past two generations.

HomePod probably needs a major version 2 upgrade like the Watch needed.

I love the new iPad Pro, but even those get very close to $2,000 or more if you want the really top models, and that's hard to budget for.!

I agree that the Apple Watch and the iPods were pretty good, especially the Watch. Though there were no major other innovations in the entire line up.
The HomePod was late to the game and way overpriced to compete.
The iPad Pro, although it looks great, it is quite expensive.

The rest of the entire computer line up, did not have any major innovation whatsoever, larger updated cycles and way overpriced.
iMac external design not updated in 10 years.
Mac Mini, after 4 years the external design is still the same and 70% more expensive.
Mac Pro another design failure.
Macbook Pro 2016-18 a complete failure. So much so that less than a week within release they discounted the entire dongle/adaptors. Even that did not help with one of the worse products Apple ever designed.

It is quite sad to see that not just the design, but the quality of Apple products have been dramatically going down the drain, particularly in the computer line up.
Bad designs.

Now there are too many different products within a single category instead of making fewer better ones.

Apple used to be a king and rule in product design and innovation.
The entire computer line up has become a synonym for overpriced, underspec hardware. And that is way they have been losing market share.

What is sad that Apple does nothing to learn and correct their own mistakes or it is taking to long to correct them.

Sales and guidance are down, and this is not even in a recession. If we go into a recession, then it would be much worse.

What is happening to Apple?

 

[hans1972]

The company has over a Trillion Dollars with obscene amount of money overseas that can't be taxed, but they need to "cut back"?

They had at the end of financial year 2018, only $25 billion dollars in cash in total. If you include short and long term securities it is still something like $237 billions.

And they do have $250 billion in short and long term liabilities.

 

[jeremiah256]

I think the opposite. Yes the phonemarket is maturing but the companies that aggressively innovate and offer the consumers more value for money are winning here. Look at Huawei and other brands. Apple can ask more for their phones but to justify those price hikes it has to give the consumer a reason to go or stay with Apple.

iOS as MacOS are stagnant for years. Sure there have been updates but competition are on par or better. Apple can make a hiring freeze to satisfy investors, but its short term. Now it’s the time to push the envelope and invest in R&D for the future.

Since 2012 there has been only incremental updates and they’ve lost the crown in areas they were king. Even in design they seem to languish.

Apple used to rule education, video and publishing... those were the markets that set the stage for future developments. It’s in a very sad state today.

Apple computers have become a synonym for overpriced old hardware.

Greed and focus on investors will be their downfall. Every other tech company in the world are overhauling their whole range of offerings at least once a year. That’s how technology works.

To give you an example you can have an Samsung Galaxy S9 for € 27,-/month while the very old iPhone 8 still cost you € 42,-/month. Even diehard Apple fans should understand that there is no competition here in favor of Apple. The Huawei P20 Pro is even more affordable.
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For a company the size of Apple there is remarkably little coming out since 2012. Where in 2012 they were leading the industry (which justified the price by offering state of the art hard- and software), they’ve become overpriced followers with outdated tech.

Yes, they’ve made big profits. But at the cost of what? They’ve lost markets they were once king and I don’t see a bright profitable future at the pace they’re innovating since 2012.

The excuse of an maturing phone market doesn’t hit Huawei and others. It’s better for Cook & Co to be realistic and look at the real reasons. They’re not offering value for money like they used to.

It hurt me to give you an up vote.

I still think iOS is the superior platform vs Android from a business or professional workflow standpoint. The better quantity, quality, and security available for iOS device users is still not matched by Android devices and I don't see that changing in the near future. But, for the average user? Yeah, there's no denying that Android devices match and exceed the normal uses anyone would want or need from their smartphones, at a lower cost.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Apple is greedy, period. Stop defending these people. Some people are greedy in any situation, welcome to life.
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Proof? How many actually told you that?

You nor I know FOR SURE if that is correct or not.

Because the devices that do have those features are not seeing better growth compared to those that doesn't, meaning that average consumers are not viewing them as a significant factor in their purchases.

 

[Mendota]

Perhaps Apple should move to an ~18 month cycle like the iPad if they can't innovate fast enough.

I've owned nearly every iPhone generation except one year when I had my first kid and bought my first house after graduating from college so I didn't get around to it because my life was so crazy. So for the first time since launch I'm purposely considering not upgrading. Why? Well it has to do with both price and a lack of new features. When I upgraded from the X to the XS, I think I made an exhaustive list on the forums with every new feature. And while I found there were lots of new features, for the most part the thing still feels like the X. The camera is better in dynamic range, and the battery life seems better, but otherwise it's mostly the same phone. I didn't even notice a performance difference because the X was already so fast.

At this point the iPhone is so incredibly refined that there aren't a lot of things that I can even think of that I'd want in a new iPhone. It used to be so easy to rattle off a list on the forums because there was so much low-hanging fruit. Sure there are new technologies like 5G, but LTE is already plenty fast for mobile use (websites load in a fraction of a second with a content blocker) and it's going to take a while to roll it out. And what in the world am I going to do with WiFi 6 up to 10Gbps on a phone? And beyond that, the iPhone isn't even rumored to get 5G this year. The one thing I want the most is my iPhone to unfold into an iPad, but that is many years away and will probably increase the cost by 50%. But the fact remains that if they had kept the price lower and kept chipping away with small new features every year, I'd probably still keep buying it. But I just don't know anymore. The thing that keeps me hooked is the iPhone Upgrade Program, because I have to keep making monthly payments towards my old iPhone when I could just switch to a new one and make the same payments. So IDK what I'm going to do. I should probably get off the upgrade train.

Yes. You should get off the upgrade train. There is really no benefit to renting vs owning, and you deciding when to upgrade.

 

[9081094]

Because the devices that do have those features are not seeing better growth compared to those that doesn't, meaning that average consumers are not viewing them as a significant factor in their purchases.

Huawei is growing double digits, so does Oppo and some more.

 

[Abazigal]

https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/the_r_word

If Tim Cook suspects that China is headed towards a recession, it makes sense to scale back. In short, it is not due to any missteps Apple has made; it is simply a company reacting to an ever-changing market the way any rational business would.

But yeah, it’s much more carthatic to hallucinate that this is somehow retribution for Apple raising their prices.

 

[9081094]

https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/the_r_word

If Tim Cook suspects that China is headed towards a recession, it makes sense to scale back. In short, it is not due to any missteps Apple has made; it is simply a company reacting to an ever-changing market the way any rational business would.

But yeah, it’s much more carthatic to hallucinate that this is somehow retribution for Apple raising their prices.

Can’t it just be that Apple is pricing itself totally out of the market as for an example the ancient iPhone 8 is almost twice the price of an Samsung Galaxy S9. Not to mention the Huawei, oppo and OnePlus phones which are even less expensive. Who on earth will buy an Apple at those insane prices when you can have so much more for a lot less.

The argument that’s more convenient to use iOS doesn’t hold up here because outside the USA little services from Apple actually work. With that in mind and the poor state of Siri, maps, iWork and cloud offerings from Apple compared to the competition, it’s no wonder that Apple is doing so poor. Economy you say? Oh well, the other manufacturers are growing double digits.

Here is the proof:

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https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/the_r_word

If Tim Cook suspects that China is headed towards a recession, it makes sense to scale back. In short, it is not due to any missteps Apple has made; it is simply a company reacting to an ever-changing market the way any rational business would.

But yeah, it’s much more carthatic to hallucinate that this is somehow retribution for Apple raising their prices.

What recession are you talking about?

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-growth-annual

GDP Annual Growth Rate in China is expected to be 6.60 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate GDP Annual Growth Rate in China to stand at 6.40 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the China GDP Annual Growth Rate is projected to trend around 5.80 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.

I think most countries would envy a growth rate of even 5.8% by 2020. Is it growing at a slower speed? Sure, but it’s normal and there still isn’t any sign of recession. The growth rate of my country or the USA is substantial lower than that of China. Another excuse from the fact Apple can’t compete in that market.


[doublepost=1547814134][/doublepost]

It hurt me to give you an up vote.

I still think iOS is the superior platform vs Android from a business or professional workflow standpoint. The better quantity, quality, and security available for iOS device users is still not matched by Android devices and I don't see that changing in the near future. But, for the average user? Yeah, there's no denying that Android devices match and exceed the normal uses anyone would want or need from their smartphones, at a lower cost.

I feel you and I don’t like it either but you can’t ignore the facts that Apple is overplaying it’s hands since 2012.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Huawei is growing double digits, so does Oppo and some more.

Almost all of their phones have notches except for the findX. Neither of their flagships offer the headphone jack either. Yet, both brands' flagships are selling quite well.

 

[pmore]

It’s Tim’s fault.

iPhones that you cannot plug into a new Mac with the cord in the box
iPads that ship bent
Pricing is insane
HomePod and Siri are a disaster
Mac lineup is outdated
Failing in China and India

Tim Cook’s Apple is starting to look pretty rotten.

Tim Cook is making Apple look greedy. I know all companies are, but they hide better than Apple.