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

[canny]

There was so much innovation under Jobs. All those devices and apps - iLife and iWork. Stuff that people were excited about.

Under Cook, there has been nothing. He's just really dull and unimaginative. And he seems to be actively AGAINST Apple customers. Worse than Ballmer at MS. Cook is a boring spreadsheet man. At least Ballmer could get excited sometimes. All Cook wants to do is sell you more dongles.

The board should get rid of him.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

Apple was created and repeatedly saved with Steve, Apple is doomed without someone like Steve to lead them.

Meanwhile everyone buys Apple products, and everyone copies Apple products because, well...Apple is doomed. Go figure.

Fixed the first part for you. As for the second part that is beginning to shift and the data is readily available to see it...they're losing PC market share...again...they're losing smartphone share...again.

Apple is not doomed. They are however missing an opportunity to reassert their recent hard won dominance and are instead in danger of squandering it away.

Apple's current woes are the result of not having a rabid visionary in charge. They were forged and tempered with that sort of crazy fire and now it's missing. This isn't about Steve or Tim, it's about what Steve was for them and what Tim isn't.

We need one of the crazy ones again.

 

[Tiltasauras]

My iPhone 7 plus has a stuck pixel, my Apple Watch 2 has a loud haptic engine, and my MacBook has major light leakage.
Apple certainly isn't doomed anytime soon, but their recent track record has left the door wide open for someone to knock them down a few pegs. Whether Google and Microsoft (or Samsung) can take advantage of the opportunity? Who knows...

 

[Juicy Box]

ITT, Kodak and Pan Am are just a few mega corps that went bankrupt while everyone thought of them as 'too big to fail'.

It is funny you mention Kodak.

A few months back, there was a MR article about the crazy amount of R&D spending Apple was doing. I posted a comment comparing Apple to Kodak, and saying that if Apple doesn't watch it they might end up in the same place. Kodak had one of the most highest R&D spending of any company a few decades ago, but it did not materialize into anything. Project Titan anyone?

Of course this comment was quoted a few time with replies saying that I was "Apple bashing" or something similar. Which of course was not true.

 

[jay_app]

I've been an Apple guy since the 80's. We had some bad times before Steve Jobs came back. We will have some bad times again. I have some issues with Tim. 1) stop with the social/political stuff, it's a really poor way to run a large company. The customers are why you exist and that stuff alienates a diverse customer base. 2) We like Apple because of the "it just works" experience through the entire product line, at home and work. When you you stop taking the entire experience serious it effect everything. Things hurting the experience - not taking pros seriously, getting ride of Apple networking products, getting ride of pro apps, etc. I want to use all Apple products at home and for work so it all works together. The Mac Pro is embarrassing. 3) keep the product line simple like Steve Jobs did. They no longer make sense. The naming is crazy. iPhone SE, what? iPad, iPad air, iPad Pro, iPad mini, what? Dongels? The iPhone now comes with a dongle. You can't use the new MacBook Pro without dongles, weird un-Apple experience. It's like Tim makes desions only on profit not the experience first, which leads to profit. I could go on.

 

[bingeciren]

Time to sell my stocks I guess

Bought it at 95 sold it when it was 113. I'm done with AAPL.

 

[Afee]

There was so much innovation under Jobs. All those devices and apps - iLife and iWork. Stuff that people were excited about.

Under Cook, there has been nothing. He's just really dull and unimaginative. And he seems to be actively AGAINST Apple customers. Worse than Ballmer at MS. Cook is a boring spreadsheet man. At least Ballmer could get excited sometimes. All Cook wants to do is sell you more dongles.

The board should get rid of him.

Employees at Apple aren't scared anymore. Jobs was a tyrant, he fired you at the spot if you f***ed up, he would yell and curse when things like MobileMe didn't work well, ánd he had a vision. He was the voice of the angry, frustrated Apple user, always striving for a better product, DEMANDING the same of his personnel. That gave him lots of praise and respect.

Then came Cook. I really like him, I think he's a nice guy, but that's exactly the problem. Nice CEO's are often bad performers. HE should be the one with the vision and the ultimate executionary power. A CEO with no vision needs lots of advisors, resulting in a ship with multiple captains; a doomsday scenario.

Fire Tim... for the sake of Apple.

 

[TMRJIJ]

I hope they put more focus on their Mac lineup and iPad software. I like my iPhone 6 and in on hurry to upgrade to the 7 (maybe around Christmas).
My iPad Air 2 is great, however, I wish there were more Powerful apps to justify it as a standalone device that they claim. Most apps out are just blown up iPhone apps with little to no added features. Nothing is pushing the hardware especially for the Pro.
I love the new MacBook Pro and definitely willing to switch to USB-C. The iMac and Mac Pros need to be updated as soon as possible though. I understand Intel is a extremely slow at releasing chips now but Apple had a few chances to do small spec bumps every now and then.

 

[Rogifan]

Just like when Apple was doomed because it didn't have a 7" tablet on the market (and now tablets as a category are declining in sales) and how it was doomed if it didn't have a smart watch on the market (now Pebble is being gobbled up by Fitbit and Motorola is basically getting out of the market all together). Right now Wall Street is obsessed with "services" and the cloud so Apple is doomed if it isn't leading there. Until the next big thing comes along and then Apple will be doomed for not leading that...

 

[Labeno]

Thanks Tim (sarcasm), Make sure your short-term investors are happy, since they don't mind stepping on customers to get a quick money grab. Take your stock piled billions, and talk about your imaginary pipeline.

I'm not usually this negative, but over the years I've learned that the business world is not about pleasing customers at a reasonable profit, but about pleasing greedy investors with excessive products until the company runs dry. I miss Apple premium products at a reasonable price. Not outdated products at a ridiculous price.

Tesla and SpaceX should get into computers and phones, cause they would truly innovate. Or just hire Elon Musk to take over Apple.

 

[lcseds]

I won't whine about the course of Apple. I have been a long time customer. My purchase of a Dell XPS was not a knee jerk reaction to the direction Apple is taking. It was a long and somewhat painful decision (not trying to sound too dramatic here...). They choose to discontinue or ignore core products for iDevices, cars, photo books, etc. they feel are not in their best business interest. They are making a boatload of cash with what they are doing now. However, no longer will any cash come from me. By the time they introduce really, really exciting products (if they ever do again), so many of their core customers will have already left. Myself being one of them. No hard feelings though, they want to go left, I want to go right.
I say they are jumping the shark for my interests. But I wish them well with the new core audience they seek.

 

[bingeciren]

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.

Don't say that in the iPad forum. You'll be beaten to pulp.

 

[Robert.Walter]

"We believe Apple is about to embark on a decade-long malaise. The risks to the company have never been greater."

Never?

This statement seems to call into question Oppenheimer's competence.

Seems to me The Street is trying to put downward pressure on the stock.

 

[now i see it]

We all knew this was eventually going to happen. Nothing new here.

 

[Rogifan]

There was so much innovation under Jobs. All those devices and apps - iLife and iWork. Stuff that people were excited about.

Under Cook, there has been nothing. He's just really dull and unimaginative. And he seems to be actively AGAINST Apple customers. Worse than Ballmer at MS. Cook is a boring spreadsheet man. At least Ballmer could get excited sometimes. All Cook wants to do is sell you more dongles.

The board should get rid of him.

Aside from the original Mac GUI and multi touch, what was all this innovation under Jobs, and would we be calling it innovation if the exact same stuff was happening under Cook right now? Imagine the comments here if Tim Cook had an event showing off iPod socks and a black and red custom U2 iPod....

 

[joueboy]

Making great product is not about talking to the news and late night shows about race, sexuality and political views and try to instill that to your workplace. Tim Cook has the responsibility to create a harmonious workplace despite of our differences. He has to inspire everyone to work for a common goal to create the best product, not to force others to believe his own personal beliefs. If he wants something and use the company to push his own agenda then he needs to find another career maybe in politics.

 

[daveeasa]

There is literally nothing Apple could do to stop this culture of negativity. No product will ever satisfy the incessant neediness of people who call themselves fans of the company.

And profits continue to flow, stock prices stay relatively the same, and normal people keep buying Apple devices.

I think this would turn things around:

1. 13" Air 8gb / 256gb w skylake, Retina display, usb-c tb3 instead of the tb2 port, keep magsafe and 2x usb-a, $999 price point
2. mac mini at $499 w skylake, 256gb blade ssd, user replaceable ddr4 memory
3. TB3 display at $499 w integrated dock for macbook and macbook pro, 1440p is fine, no need for 5k, compatibility and price trump pixels, use the same panel just trim the bezels and thin it out to match iMac, drop the damn price, it'd be a hit.
4. New mac pro as modular design which can be upgraded over time, snap-in logic board, processor, memory, video card, storage. So you buy the container / thermal unit as a base and then add/upgrade anytime you want to latest specs, with some dependencies (memory and processor must match logic board family but storage and gpu selection should be a standard backwards-compatible option. Serious pro users are willing to pay the apple tax and want 5+ years of use with upgrades rather than 3 years and throwaway. Not that there's any upgrade option right now anyway. Slowly drift prices down with old tech here, like every other vendor, encouraging upgrades of very old tech for less-old tech.
5. user-swappable storage on all laptops and desktops using a sim-like port to remove/replace a blade ssd. This can stay proprietary as the ssd's currently are. This alone would be a gigantic win, allowing you to pack and travel with just your data in a tiny container rather than carrying around hardware for frequent travelers. Something similar to the sd card slot but super high speed storage with OS and data. Since apple has control of all the hardware and can bundle all drivers, it should be possible to make an image which runs on all currently supported hardware.
6. External gpu in 5k monitor leveraging tb3 40gb/s bandwidth to pair with new macbook pros. Push the edge of what is possible with tb3 now that it's out, use the laptop for processor/mem/storage, use the external display and gpu for rendering. We've been talking about that for years, now it's possible bandwidth-wise, but TC is not the guy to lead this type of innovation.
7. Ditch lightening for usb-c across the board (iphone, ipad, pencil, mouse, etc) so you can plug any device into any other device with a single cable using either end in either orientation for each side. This would be a horrible business decision but a fantastic and gigantic change in philosophy and could go a very long way to convincing users to stay.
8. Update the SE in the near future with latest specs. Maybe this will happen.

Some of these are more radical than others, some are poor business decisions, all but the last would be a bigger surprise than the 2016 election results.

I think most if not all are technically possible today and would still be cashflow positive though not 100% profit. Then they can still make their gigantic markup on the phones themselves while using these revenue neutral elements to keep existing users and feed new user adoption.

Meanwhile, they EOL their routers which work well, look nice and don't need to be updated very often because they don't make a ton of money off them. Which is the exact reason why none of the above would ever happen.

 

[Naimfan]

Two things are sad.

First, somehow any critique of Apple is construed as bashing. We're approaching godwin's law with it - say anything less than glowing and be accused of being anti-Apple, or not a "pro," or worse. I'm not anti-Apple, having used Apple since 1980 - I am, however, more interested in myself and what I need to do than in the the company.

Second, Aple has not meaningfully innovated in quite a while - perhaps 2012 with the introduction of the retina MBP, which seems to be the last product to have spurred competitors, on however small a scale. That is the problem.

 

[Macwatcher123]

Why is everyone citing this weeks old statement?
http://www.applemust.com/on-analyst-andrew-uerkwitzs-apple-fud-moment/

It's such nonsense

 

[Juicy Box]

Employees at Apple aren't scared anymore. Jobs was a tyrant, he fired you at the spot if you f***ed up, he would yell and curse when things like MobileMe didn't work well, ánd he had a vision. He was the voice of the angry, frustrated Apple user, always striving for a better product, DEMANDING the same of his personnel. That gave him lots of praise and respect.

Great point. Steve Jobs was not always right, and he was an A-whole, but I think he genuinely cared about the user experience of Apple's products. If it was not right, heads would roll.

 

[miknos]

Apple is not doomed like many say. Even if iPhone/iPad disappears tomorrow (ain't gonna happen that fast), Apple will still be making BILLIONS in profit (not only revenue). That's still enough to be in a top ranking worldwide. Sure, stock could lose some value but having +$230 billion in the bank gives you a nice cushion.

-The new ntMBP is a great Macbook Air upgrade (it's a good computer for $1300 or less if you get discount).
-iPhone continues to be the best smartphone year over year.
-iPad also the best tablet. Its a good device that last years.
-App Store continues to be No1 spot if you're a developer and has a massive revenue.
-Apple Music is doing fine. Same for iTunes Store. One is complementing the other.
-Macs manage to be profitable. That's very impressive taking into account the industry is falling.

I could go on and on. Thing is; Apple is not doomed. At least not now and not soon. Maybe we're expecting too much from Apple.

 

[weup togo]

In this new age of media where disinformation is the norm, I find it hard to believe any analyst or forecast. There's often so little background on the predictions, they come off as wild guesses. If anything, Cook has been a good steward of Apple's finances. They have enough cash to weather the storm as they search for the next big trend. After all, they created a slew of innovations over the course of a decade. I'm willing to be patient with them.

Apple doesn't need financial stewardship. It's needs creativity.

Apple isn't supposed to find the next big tend. It's supposed to make it.

Your patience will only lead to disappointment.

 

[tentales]

Eehh, a lot of negativity, but practically there's not an awful lot that would need to be done in order to make a lot of people happy.

1) Drop all spinning drives or make 128GB Fusion the absolute minimum on every computer. The OS running on platters is much too slow and gives a horrendous user experience, especially for people buying a (still expensive) entry level Mac. They wouldn't want to buy one again.

2) Get a consistent hardware upgrade cycle for the computers and try not to upsell. If you can't make an entry-level computer have decent real-world performance at a certain price point, then don't offer the entry-level model.

3) If you don't have any new CPU/GPU options for hardware refreshes, upgrade storage options instead, or reduce pricing a little.

Sure, tweaking margins and hardware on the less than 10% revenue product line is sure to fix it.
/s

The problem's so much bigger than the Mac feature set and when the financial analysts start yapping about it, you better put on your shorts.

 

[satchmo]

Lately I have a feeling that Apple lives in a bubble. They produce products that people view as limited and not matching their use cases. Some will buy it anyway, but the bulk of people will vote with their wallet, the only way of communication that the current Apple seems to listen to.

And soon they'll be living in a spaceship.

Tim: "Screw those earthling, we are their overloads. We tell them what is right. muhhhaahha"

 

[crsh1976]

I've been listening to this BS about Apple for years, and it's always at a fever pitch around this time of year when all the big players have released all their stuff. There's nothing more to talk about for 2016, so time to start cranking out the doom and gloom articles.

That being said, it does start getting to me. Just last night, I was thinking about what my options would be if this is the year the critics are right. I supposed my best tablet/computer options are something from the Surface line, and my best phone option is probably the (gag) Pixel phone. And I suppose I could just rebuild my music library in Spotify instead of Apple Music, as much of a PITA that would be. Not sure what I would do with my movie/TV show collection in iTunes--I guess I would just have it on a PC of some kind until it goes down with the allegedly sinking ship. And I suppose I would have to move all my iCloud documents somewhere and figure out what I'm going to do with all my GarageBand and Ferrite files.

I also think about my older son who desperately wants an iPad this Christmas and wants to throw in all the money he's saved for the year to help pay for it. What do I tell him? The negativity really starts getting to me sometimes, and part of me wants to say, "Sorry buddy, probably not the best investment at the moment."

There are highs and lows throughout the year when you're an Apple fan who follows the media closely. This is one of the lowest lows I've ever seen as far as the naysaying goes.

Except Cook still hasn't made a hit product since taking over - everybody is still waiting for that game-changing product.

The Mac Pro failed to make a dent due to shear lack of interest on Apple's part, the Watch is a dud (caveat: all smart watches are duds, the fad is already dead), the iPad Pro and rMB are iterations of existing products that add nothing more than a very thick layer of marketing, etc.

Cook has shown everybody he can milk the crap out of the iPhone and keep shovelling metric tons of them every year despite little improvements, profits are out of this world, but everybody knows it's not sustainable if that's all he can do.