Apple's Profit Downturn and Negative Customer Opinions Threaten 'Decade-Long Malaise' for Company

[deany]

Ludicrous to suggest that a building move is responsible for lack of innovation, executive arrogance/ignorance and an erosion of customer trust and a weak product line. Why would it affect staff so much? It shouldn't affect the leadership at all, they are paid handsomely to run the business and a spot of building work would not distract world class management (which they are clearly not).
[doublepost=1480723682][/doublepost]
Yup, they have moved every product line into a dead end. The last media event really underlined how weak Apple have become. A competent, confident company would have addressed the mountain of growing criticism by launching some great product changes as an FU to the nay-sayers. Instead we got the touch bar, nothing else, just the touch bar. Meanwhile calendar gets spammed, batteries get recalls, "touch disease" is dismissed as our fault and Cook keeps spouting on about the great future and his own political agenda. Very sad.

Their present offices are stunting apples growth and productivity.

Apple have out grown their present offices and they have even had to rent interim offices:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Inside-Apple-s-massive-Bay-Area-expansion-6773064.php

A company is only as good as its staff - clearly present offices are 'not fit for purpose'.

The new Mothership will make a big difference in many ways least of all from a psychological view point.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...etty-views-employees-productive?client=safari

 

[Sandybox]

Their present offices are stunting apples growth and productivity.

Apple have out grown their present offices and they have even had to rent interim offices:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Inside-Apple-s-massive-Bay-Area-expansion-6773064.php

A company is only as good as its staff - clearly present offices are 'not fit for purpose'.

The new Mothership will make a big difference in many ways least of all from a psychological view point.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustain...etty-views-employees-productive?client=safari

Seriously? Hardly proof of your assertion. Have Apple reported such issues via shareholder communications? There are plenty of highly innovative, creative businesses run from shabby premises (or the local coffee shop).

 

[trifid]

Nokia, Palm, Ericsson and many others also relied on ONE product. Didn't seem possible at that time
that those huge companies would be gone in such a shot time. But guess what? They are gone
and nobody today knows what Palm was...

And Blackberry. RIP.

 

[thefourthpope]

When will people stop being in denial that Apple isn't the same anymore they are all about profit and that is turning people away now. Apple was about customer service and products and they aren't doing too well in that anymore with no MacPros etc

I completely get the complaints about hardware - the updates have been delayed and underwhelming. But I'm not sure what we expect on the service front. The company is just so big and the customer base so incredibly massive. Is there any way apple could have maintained the feel of one-to-one connection they had back in the 90s?

 

[APlotdevice]

I completely get the complaints about hardware - the updates have been delayed and underwhelming. But I'm not sure what we expect on the service front. The company is just so big and the customer base so incredibly massive. Is there any way apple could have maintained the feel of one-to-one connection they had back in the 90s?

One thing they could do is put more resources into pinpointing the major software bugs that keep cropping up.

 

[kirky29]

For the first time since the original iPhone (and owning everyone to current iPhone 7) I keep thinking about switching to Android.

I'll stick with OS X because for me it's better than Windows but I've already stopped using my Apple TV, iPad, Apple Watch etc.

For me... Apple isn't great anymore.

 

[Naimfan]

And on cue, more reports of graphics problems on the new 15" Macbooks . . .

Drip, drip, drip goes the bad news . . .

 

[Rookbird]

Anyone who legitimately believes that iPads are the future of computing are fooling themselves. Just because Apple says so, doesn't mean it's reality.

iPads could be the future but iOS is just to limited. If they could make a macOS that would run on an iPad so that you could run real software and work on boosting the Ax chip even more then I think they would have a winner.

 

[tentales]

... I'm old enough to remember being mocked for using a MOUSE instead of MSDOS. Anybody who cares about computers know they are going the wrong direction. Microsoft is licking it's chops. They will soon be the only player and be a monopoly again.

So true.
In 1989 I was teaching WordPerfect courses as part of my 1st job at a university. Anyone remember PCSA cards ?
Then I brought my Mac II to work, because I was just loathing those cumbersome PCs.
My boss told me to leave that toy at home, we're a university supporting serious computing users and cannot be seen to be wasting our time with niche products.

Those were the rebel days, the crazy ones. Now Apple is 1990s Microsoft and Nadella is smelling blood.
MS is not quite there yet, but we can all see the rejuvenation he's brought to the company since Ballmer departed.

 

[apolloa]

Depends how it was handled. APple still have iPads, computers, watch. All those still make a profit. no iPhones. The company would have to downsize.

How much cash in hand do Apple have - a tidy sum.

Sure apple would go through a very rocky period - but kill them stone dead? No

Investors will tell you, want to invest in a company with bucket loads of cash, invest in a bank and not a consumer electronics corporation. That money will mean squat when the share price hits zero. People invest for returns, take away 60% of those returns on purpose and they'll jump ship no matter what and Apple is nothing special if it's 60% smaller.

 

[tentales]

Maybe he's been reading Mac sites / lots of Apple experience for years prior to signing up?

"Join date" means jack ****.

Posting to MR is not going to help short Apple's share prices... MR is rather insignificant in that regard.

Ditto. Joined MR in 2003, but because of an email/password complication, had to rejoin under a new name in 2010.
Accelerating shorts is done differently than posting to MR.

 

[Lidar]

Oh the good old days when this was actually true.

I switched from PC to Mac during these add periods. I look back nostalgically now and wonder where they went wrong. They were turning heads for a while. People noticed. Now all of the heads they turned seem to be slowly looking other places because Apple has lost itself - which Justin Long did an amazing job of representing.

 

[furi0usbee]

To me, the Apple I knew died with Jobs. 2005-2012. That time I really enjoyed Apple and as late as 2012, with my rMBP, I really thought they were going in the right direction. They've essentially not moved at all since then. You couldn't give me a new MBP. I like to keep my ports thank you.

 

[APlotdevice]

iPads could be the future but iOS is just to limited. If they could make a macOS that would run on an iPad so that you could run real software and work on boosting the Ax chip even more then I think they would have a winner.

There are two serious problems with running macOS software on an iPad:
1. Its all written for x86, and thus would have to be emulated (on a weaker family of processors no less)
2. They're not designed to work with a touch interface.

For these reasons the applications would need to be written to be practical anyway.

Also, have you noticed that the same software tends to cost less on the iPad than on the PC/Mac, even when it has all the same features? The pricing standards are very different. I suspect this discourages companies from producing advanced software on the platform more than anything else.

 

[GalaDaliGirl]

Just using iTunes makes all of this 100% true.

Apple is nothing without Steven Paul Jobs.

 

[hh83917]

Apple under Cook is just a machine made to make money. So far their strategies are selling lower end devices, upping price of the pro devices while taking away basic features. I remember under Jobs, the products would get a price down for a year, then go back a little bit in a year to strike a balance, but there is almost always a compelling enough reason to upgrade.

Most importantly, Cook is a operations guys and businessman, Jobs is a "visionary". You can't compare them, because they are very different, but we can see the difference after how Apple under Cook is doing things after these years. What people admires about Jobs is that he have the ability to almost foresee what the tech future will be, and even make it happen in a relatively short period of time comparing to other tech companies.

 

[Jt69yupper]

I gave up on Apple when the disappointing iPhone 7 plus came out. Change of color and no headphone jack.I got the s7 edge. I lasted 2 months. Bought a new iPhone 7 plus.Man do I appreciate what a great piece of tech the iPhone 7 plus and ios10 is now. I won't doubt Apple again.

 

[GalaDaliGirl]

Apple is the MySpace at its declining moment.

Apple will be gone in 5 years.

 

[TBN27]

I don't know. I listened to others and left apple to try other stuff like returning to android and it didn't go well for me. My 2012 MacBook still works well so I am not in need of a new laptop. But after test driving windows 10, I am pretty much indifferent to it. I get being up in arms over the removal of jacks and ports on the laptops and they shouldn't have removed them. Reversing that on their next versions would look bad on them. But for me personally right now, 8 am straight up ignoring the doom and gloom of apple because of far the "far better" alternatives currently have let me down or aren't so significant in their quotidian purposes. I.E. I went to a Galaxy S7 that just started becoming sluggish and rebooting, then went the awesome One Plus 3 that later was filled with bugs though they were worked out with a couple of updates. I just switched back to the iPhone 6S in my drawer because it works better than the other two I had though it has its glitches here and there. So due to all that, I will only move apple when they totally don't exist or if their is something that is far more satisfying for me.

 

[Darshizzle]

"The constant bright spots in Apple's revenue remain its services category, including the App Store, iCloud, and Apple Music."

iCloud s@cks, Apple Music - nobody cares and App Store is there because we have no choice.
Where is the innovation in those "great performing" categories?

OH NO U DI'NT? iCloud a "bright spot"????

 

[macduke]

I think you are supporting his point. AW and some other Apple product line models are more confusing than they used to be.

This was one of the problems Jobs fixed when he came back to Apple in 1997, now it looks like Apple is at it again.

BTW, series 2 is already out, it came out the same time as series 1.

Hah, yeah, that was hilarious. My point couldn't have been made any better.

 

[Virinprew]

There is only one way to let them know. Don't buy their products.

 

[TheBuffather]

While I totally understand where Oppenheimer is coming from, the statement "[Apple] lacks the ability to raise prices across its iPhones, iPads and Mac products" is laughable. Did they not see the major price increase for the new MacBook Pro? Do they not understand Apple's prices are already as high as the customer base will support, given the budget specs? I mean, come on. The problem is not underpriced offerings. The problem is underpowered, stagnant products. Period.

 

[Karma*Police]

...and a few months ago it was "wait until the new MacBook Pros are released".

That went well. Apple had two options: (a) produce something truly new and radical that we didn't know we wanted until we saw it or (b) update the 2015 rMBPs with Skylake, newer GPUs, USB-C/TB3 in place of the existing TB2 while retaining the existing ports which are going to be ubiquitous for years to come. Instead, they managed to find option (c) - make it thinner and lighter at the cost of performance and versatility - oh, and jack up the price.

We don't even know if/when new iMacs are going to be released - and they could turn out to be 27" non-upgradeable tablets with keyboards. The "high performance" version of the Mac Mini was dropped 2 years ago so its wishful thinking that a quad-i7 Mini will suddenly appear now. Professional users who got their Mac Pro cylinders on 3-year leases will be looking to upgrade right around about now, and there's no whisper whether they're going to be upgraded, dropped or left alone.




That's because the Pixel is an overpriced iPhone wannabe, whereas the previous Nexus was a keenly-priced "Android at its best" product. The Galaxy Note 7 might have blown the iPhone 7 out of the water if it hadn't prematurely detonated. The Surface Studio would have blown the iMac out of the water if MS hadn't knobbled it with outdated innards* and the Surface Book 2 should have been out by now (both the Surface project have a "wow, that's new" factor that makes them stand out from Apple's offerings until you spot the flaws).

Relying on your competitors to mess up instead of making stand-out products? Now, that is courageous - especially as Google and Microsoft make their serious money from advertising/data mining and software respectively and can easily afford a few hardware flops.

I suspect many of the power users/pros/enthusiasts that are disappointed by the lack of a credible "desktop replacement" MacBook Pro will now be looking to Windows/Linux's greatest strength: the ability to choose, build, or have built-to-order a machine with exactly the hardware specs you want. If my MBP packs up tomorrow I'll probably switch to a custom PC on the desk (maybe Hackintoshed as a transitional measure) and a cheap ultrabook for the road.

(* although, at least, it seems to use a standard 2.5" HD and M.2 SSD combo that can be removed without pizza-cutters)

I don't remember people saying "wait for the MBP". The Mac was never going to materially move the needle. It's a dying product in a declining category.

That said, I bought my first Mac in over 8 years and the new 15" MBP is the best laptop I've ever owned. I've had 3 PC's in between and my last Mac was also a 15" MBP. The thinner and lighter design is fantastic, performance is stellar (unless you're a gamer) and the lack of legacy ports isn't an issue for me since I have 4 ports that can connect to anything, including two 5K monitors. The masses are probably like me; loving their new MBP's.

These boards represent a vocal minority who have been negative about everything from iPod to iPad to Apple Watch to even the iPhone, so I definitely don't view them as the voice of the masses, and certainly not the voice of reason.

But despite their loud complaints and MS's best attempts to differentiate themselves and grow the PC market, the PC market continues to decline. That's why Apple is focused on iPhone and iPad. Unlike the Mac, iPhone 8 *will* move the needle, and when Apple's financial health improves, so too will Apple sentiment; and for a time, the negativity will die down.

 

[Beavix]

I've been exclusively using Apple products since 2004 but this week I bought a Surface Pro 4. I wanted a convertible laptop so I can use it as a tablet when needed in Photoshop and Illustrator. I though I'd give SP4 a try so here I am writing this message using a Windows tablet. It works really well, it's not perfect but at least someone had the COURAGE to make it, support it and improve it all these years.

Ironically the worst piece of software I'm using on Windows is iTunes. It works just like the Mac version but it looks horrible because the UI is low resolution and looks pixilated on Retina screens. We're in 2017 soon and the biggest company in the tech industry can't be bothered to update its flagship software for Windows which is indispensable for paying Apple Music customers. This says a lot about their attitude in general.