The question begs the answer: Because HomePod can also serve as a speakerphone for the iPhone (and perhaps some time in the future as a speakerphone for a Mac). And then, there’s such a concept as ecosystem, which Apple is trying to dismantle with its incompetent half-assed product releases.
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Gurman: Apple's 'Spring Loaded' Event Won't Feature Anything 'Particularly Innovative'
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I am a customer not a shareholder. I couldn’t care less what their share price is.
Seriously? Is the best you can come up with. In the last 10 years of Steve Jobs leadership Apple launched the iPod, iPhone, iPad, totally new iMac, MB Air, iTunes, iOS, etc, etc. Everything that we identify as Apple today was created by Steve Jobs. Tim Cook is a joke, he has created nothing.Tim Cook has helped push the iPhone install base to over 1 billion users, by marketing to more demographics of users and building up the iPhone ecosystem. We see more iPhone models targeting a wider variety of price points, more accessories and more services. Even initiatives like their trade in programme are pretty clever when you think about it, because they work by running counter to the popular narrative that Apple needs to offer cheaper iPhones (their ASP has actually be steadily rising).
At the same time, Tim Cook helps secure Apple’s supply chain and ensure that Apple is actually able to mass-produce the products they design and get out into the market to sell.
Above Avalon: Designed by Apple in California, Not Assembled in China
One phrase that has become a fixture on Apple device boxes and some Apple products is “Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China.” Those eight words may not mean much to the average Apple consumer, but they sufficiently sum up how a company now worth more than two trillion dollars became owww.aboveavalon.com
I think that’s really his legacy here. Tim Cook gets the big picture, seems pretty politically savvy, and is probably the best person to run the Apple is this era (just as Steve Jobs was the right man for his era).
By themselves, something like Apple Card may seem pretty ho hum. Put everything together and you can actually go pretty far using only Apple products and services. Which means Apple is able to continue earning from consumers long after the sales of the initial iPhone. Something you see many other android OEMs unable to do, and what it means for the android ecosystem overall.
The tradeoff here is that Apple very likely lost focus on the Mac at some point because all attention was being directed to the iPhone and the Apple Watch. But for someone who has using his iPad increasingly more (and his Mac less), I will say I have (largely) been in the right place at the right time.
Well, there’s the Apple Watch, the AirPods, the M1 chip, but really, who cares?
Each of them has played their part in building Apple up. Steve Jobs built up the foundation at Apple, while Tim Cook went on to refine it. Steve Jobs created the iphone, Tim Cook went on to put it in the hands of more than a billion people.
Steve Jobs created the ipad, Tim Cook went on to give it a stylus and keyboard, have the Apple TV support peer-to-peer airplay mirroring, and bring additional productivity features to iOS.
Admitting that Tim Cook has done great by Apple doesn’t make Steve Job’s accomplishments any less. What all this means is that Steve Jobs was right for his era, just as Tim Cook is the right man for this current era. In my opinion, Tim Cook has done as fine a job as any CEO in American history, if not world business history.
One is Churchill, the other is Eisenhower, they each have their own way of running Apple, and we are better off for it.
Apple Watch, CarPlay, Airplay, HomePod, M1 Macs, Apple Pay, AirPods, Apple Pencil, etc. Nothing at all?
The point about the share price is the business tgst apple has been doing. Your opinion, apple has stagnated. The hundreds of millions of customers buy apple product and services why? Because iOS 14 looks like iOS 5 and the iPhone hasn’t moved forward in his long and apple is in stagnation?
It’s okay if that’s what your opinion is but I’m thinking the masses don’t agree.
And maybe that’s the problem. You are grading Apple based on a very narrow view of how many new product categories they have created since Tim Cook took over the reins.
From what I see, Apple hasn’t just held its own in the smartphone space but continues to take market share from android. Their other products (ipad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods) continue to grow in user base, while more apple users are paying for subscriptions.
All this add together to paint a picture of the Apple ecosystem gaining momentum. In 2010, we had 90 million people who owned at least one Apple device. In 2019, we crossed the 1 billion mark. Today, we have 1.6 billion. And Apple is only just getting started, because even at this point, only about 1 in every 2 Apple users still own just one apple device - an iphone. This means that there is a huge untapped market for Apple to sell additional products like the ipad, Apple Watch, AirPods and other services.
So yes, Steve Job’s innovations made all this possible. But the progress that Tim Cook has made with Apple since 2010 cannot be swept under the carpet just like that. Maybe it helps that I really only got into Apple products in 2011, shortly because the death of Steve Jobs, so I don’t really feel much attraction to him, but I just don’t understand why even as Apple continues to grow and grow, the narrative surrounding Apple continues to be one of it being just one flop away from implosion.
Meanwhile, the beautiful irony is that while the critics have constantly made it sound like Apple was just one flop away from imposing, it is the competition who is imploding due to poor product bets and lack of vision.
Samsung is basically throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks, and none of them is resonating with the public. Google continues to prioritise technology over design. Amazon’s bet on smart speakers is clearly not going anywhere. Microsoft’s surface venture seems to appeal to mainly niche groups and commercial clients (meaning they are taking market share and profits from other OEMs, not Apple). Apple Music is taking critical share away from Spotify in developed countries. Huawei has its own issues abroad. And Apple is now going head-on with Facebook.
And my refrain today is the same as it always was - one bets against Apple to your own detriment.
At the same time, Apple continues to surge ahead in wearables because it possesses a corporate culture and product development process that few other companies have.
What this portents is that Apple will go on to remove much of the remaining oxygen from the markets that they play in, leaving the competition to fight over scraps.
And this is why I laugh when people say that competition is good. Apple is its own greatest competitor at this point. Nobody else even comes close.
To be fair, they pale in comparison to Jobs' achievements.
M1 Macs are not a particular achievement that Tim Cook made. They are the result of the long investment in CPU design that started with the A4... under Steve Jobs. Who knows, if Cook was making decision back then, we may have Qualcomm or Samsung SoCs inside iPhones, and no M1 Macs.
And if we listed achievements as minor as "Airplay" in Jobs's list, that list would be a page long. For one thing you would first have to add "Intel Macs".
But that's fine. Technology matures and it becomes harder and harder to propose groundbreaking products. The next breakthrough might be AR, and Apple may surprise us again.
You obviously think like a shareholder or an employee or maybe both. That is the big problem. You defend Apple when they do nothing and release nothing because your shares keep going up. That’s great for you but bad for customers like me who are only interested in new products. One day I will run out of patience and start buying products from someone else instead.
HomePod got axed. Didn’t you get the memo. The Watch and M1 are ok but the rest are minor incidental products. If that’s the best Tim Cook can do in 10 years it’s a shameful lack of innovation.
Who is we? I’m not better for it. I haven’t bought an Apple product for years because they haven’t released anything new or innovative.
Once again you think Tim Cook is doing well simply because your shares have gone up in value. By any measure product innovation at Apple has dried up under Tim Cook as he seeks to cash cow the existing products.
Revenue and Innovation are not the same things.
But I don't own any Apple shares, or even shares for that matter. I am an Apple customer through and through.
I think Apple is being extremely disciplined when it comes to what product categories to enter and what to stay out of.
I addressed your point about Apple treating the iPhone like a cash cow. I agree, and feel that it makes complete sense. The smartphone is not going anywhere, so why not build up a formidable ecosystem that makes people want to enter and stay inside it? Continue to monetise this user base while working on wearables as the next big thing.
What other company has a comparable wearables platform? None, because (1) they don't have an affluent smartphone user base and (2) they lack the design-led product culture that something as intimate and personal as wearables require.
Other companies are trying to come up with the next thing to leapfrog or bypass the smartphone, and they are not succeeding.
Here's my Apple product purchase history, for the purposes of discussion.
2011 - bought iPhone 4s, 27" iMac
2012 - bought iPad 3, 11" MBA
2013 - iPad mini 2, iPhone 5s
2015 - Apple TV gained peer-to-peer airplay mirroring, iPhone 6s+
2016 - upgraded to 9.7" iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, Apple TV, Apple Watch, AirPods
2017 - bought 5k iMac, iPhone 8+, 4k Apple TV
2018 - 11" iPad Pro with smart keyboard and apple pencil, AirPods Gen2
2019 - S5 Apple Watch
2020 - M1 MBA (base model)
2021 - projected to upgrade my Apple TV, get the iPhone 13, maybe airtags?
So while my pace of purchasing Apple hardware has slowed, Apple continues to add value via software updates and new services.
What keeps me using Apple products is how well they all work together. I am still using my iPhone 8+, which thanks to Apple's long support timeframe means it is still going strong on iOS 14 and I still get all the functionality. I continue to teach with my iPad Pro in the classroom, which is mirrored to the whiteboard via my Apple TV (I still have 3 3rd gen tvs which are in various classrooms). Of all my Apple products, I probably get the most mileage out of my iPad. I like being able to airdrop files between my Apple devices. I can stream music and pay for stuff from my Apple Watch. AirPods continue to be the most portable and comfortable pair of earbuds I have ever used. When the time comes for me to upgrade my 8+ later this year, I will be able to unlock it with my watch as well, if mask wearing is still a thing.
This to me is meaningful innovation that I can get behind, and because I hang on to my apple products for 3-4 years on average, they more than pay for themselves in the form of greater productivity and fewer problems overall.
No they don't.
This is probably the biggest denial of anything Apple related I've seen on MacRumors.
Don't you believe that companies leverage their expertise and expand on it over time. Do you think Jobs told Cook in 2010 to build an M1 mac? (I mean you could think that, but who knows it its' true)
Sure list away. One thing is for sure, whatever Macrumors posters give Cook credit for, the company is where it is due to Cook. It's all a team and Cook got them together very well and Cook sent Apple into the stratosphere.
I don't know who your universe of us is, but Apple has been surprising us since 2011.
And that's my perogative? Isn't it? I don't think like a critic though.
Totally understand this is your opinion, not shared by the hundreds of millions of customers who recently bought Apple products and services. You don't think they bought product because they were lacking and crappy?
Apple can't please everybody.
One model got axed. The concept of computational sound lives and will resurrected. One thing I've learned at MacRumors is that innovation is a personal moving definition and some people won't recognize it if it hit them over the head. After all the iphone 1 was a glorified cell phone, nothing really innovative in making a phone call.
Those incidental products accounted for how many billions in revenue?
We might be me, my family, etc. We are better for those products.
And you should vote with your dollars.
One has to reflect on why shares are going up. Customers are buying products. Apple has had record breaking quarters. Could be because Cook is steering the Apple ship in a directions that many like. In one sentence you criticize Cook and indirectly believe that the hundreds of millions of customers buying products and services that lack innovation are who...under the "reality distortion field"?
Buying Apple products are an opt-in experience. Innovation flowing in to products drives product sales. Product sales drive revenue. Unless you believe that customers are under the reality distortion field...customers are buying products due to reasons they know...assumingly spending their income on products that benefit them, not products that are lackluster.
Since this about the spring event: there does not have to be innovation dripping from everything. Innovation has to be sprinkled with the right sauce, in the right places at the right time.
That's a matter of opinion I suppose, but if you think that Cook has achieved anything as innovative and impactful as the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and App Store, I'd like to know what it is. Even if TV+ and Apple Music prove to be impactful, I wouldn't call them particularly innovative.
As nice as M1 Macs are, they do not constitute a new design paradigm like the iPod, iPhone and iPad. It's the same paradigm, just with a better processor in it. The AS transition will go smoothly, just like the Intel transition did. Cook is master at management and logistics, there's not doubt about it.
But jobs had a vision. He had the balls to say "no buttons, no stylus" and "no macOS on that tablet" while everyone else was going in the other direction. And his vision proved to be correct.
Cook is very competent, but he's yet to prove that he's a visionary. He should have said no to Ive's pursuit of absolute thinness against common sense. This resulted in two major failures, the MacBook and the butterfly keyboard.
The Apple Watch is nice (I'm told), but I don't find it that innovative. The Touch Bar was truly something new, but it largely failed IMO, and Apple will soon get rid of it.
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There's a definitional debate at hand and by asking me what they are, my counter is, what wasn't?
Innovation vs impactful vs new categories of products. Three different things, three different yardsticks. Steve didn't invent the cell phone, but he did invent the iphone. It was definitely an impactful product.
Tim Cook didn't invent the iphone but he invented the iphone 6, which most assuredly was innovative and impactful. the M1 macs constitute a design paradigm shift for Apple...how can it not? The AW and airpods and apple pay (and more) were all poo-pooed (or a better way of saying this, there was not universal agreement Apple was headed in the right direction). Major innovation and design paradigm changes they were...and today they are a force to be reckoned with.
To ride on the heels of Jobs, bring Apple to $2T, record breaking revenue during Covid, how could Cook not be a visionary.
Please don't even bring Cook failures into this conversation. It's not like Jobs was 100% and not listing Jobs' biggest failures slants the argument. https://bgr.com/business/steve-jobs-failures-app-store-ipod-hi-fi-4919587/
It's not like Apple is shrinking, revenues are down the user base is down and MR posters are gleefully playing arm chair ceos in an attempt to tell Apple how to run the business. The business has grown to $2T, over 1 billion active devices, record breaking revenues, most uses, big pipeline of products released over the last few years; and it's explained away as Tim Cook just iterating on what's already existing. Downplaying Tim Cooks' accomplishments.
I don't really suppose this type lack of acknowledge matters however, Apple is on their own course at this point.
Al I will say is history has taught us that when companies stop innovating they inevitably start declining and eventually get overtaken by a new breed of competitors. I have seen no evidence of innovation under Tim Cook. You are free to disagree with me.
If Apple has stopped innovating they would be in a decline, not where they are today. So I do disagree with you, and believe the hundreds of millions who have bought Apple products in the last year also disagree with you.
I wouldn’t bet on it.
As it currently stands, I do not see any competition to Apple. Not least because Apple has changed the rules of the game. While the rest of the industry was obsessed with churning out cheap phones that barely earned them any profit, Apple was steadily building up their ecosystem and adding value to every iPhone user via software updates, accessories and services.
The end result is that it is no longer enough to have a good smartphone to compete with Apple. You need to be able to match their ecosystem blow for blow. This is why (I believe) Apple has not only defied conventional wisdom when it comes to disruption, but gone on to prosper for it.
Because that’s what Apple does best. Enter a new market, subtly change the rules of the game and the incumbents find themselves unable to respond in any meaningful manner.
I am interested to know how you think Apple will fail, and who the next likely contender will be. Because as it currently stands, I am simply not seeing any worthy ones.
My prediction: A Pencil which fits completely inside an iPad. Spring-loaded like the Apple Newton styluses. Push the stylus in and it locks securely. Push the it again and it pops out, ready for action.
Because the current magnetic pencil falls off easily when carrying the iPad and can actually cause you to drop the iPad when it detaches unexpectedly. It's a really poor design.
Because the current magnetic pencil falls off easily when carrying the iPad and can actually cause you to drop the iPad when it detaches unexpectedly. It's a really poor design.
Ecosystem, you say? Like the Homepod that was never able to be played to from a Mac as computer speaker and - as the supposed Sonos killer and the best speaker ever created in the history of humanity - suddenly discontinued before all the bugs had been fixed? Or like the affordable (in the Apple sense of the word) Apple displays discontinued for no reason? Or Apple Wi-Fi routers discontinued? Or the HomePod Minis just recently released having a 2-second lag when being used as a computer speaker for the Mac? or the crappy cameras that Apple has been putting in their MacBooks for years now and refusing to enable the tethering of the amazing iPhone camera to the Mac in the age of COVID-19 and pervasive use of videoconferencing?
Is this the unmatched Apple ecosystem you are speaking of? Have you ever tried the Google ecosystem? Because it’s at least as good at this point as the Apple one, or perhaps even better at this point.
The Apple ecosystem is a great selling point and a great argument to throw at the Apple critics until one starts analyzing it and realizes that Apple under Cook has been hard at work dismantling its own ecosystem.
And of course, the glue that holds the Apple ecosystem together is Siri - the dumbest personal assistant in existence today.
Apple need to spend billions of dollars and years of R&D to rebuild its ecosystem to the point when there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Apple really cares about the ecosystem.
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Exactly.
Also... it's funny how we went from "Apple is doomed... Android/Windows is winning..."
to
"ZOMG Apple is too big and powerful... they are a monopoly... they must be stopped!!!"
Apple isn't perfect and some of your points don't support the conclusion. Homepod is a great sounding device and for me it works the way I would expect. Whether one thinks that in this space the Homepod is best is up for personal interpretation. Why they discontinued that one model, is not for public knowledge. But sure criticize a couple things and then form a negative conclusion.
Could be...so what?
I don't see it. Maybe it's happening or maybe it's not.
Siri does a darn good job of holding the ecosystem together.
I don't know how much R&D Apple needs to spend, but it's obvious it does care. Maybe not everyone agrees that Apple cares though.