How Would You Feel If Apple Shared Nokia’s Fate?

[CrabQueenInc]

“[Apple] in the middle [2000s] was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” - Hunter S. Thompson

 

[Happy_John]

How would you feel if Apple ended up sharing Nokia’s fate and its current business disappeared, becoming, for example, just a semiconductor manufacturer?

For many of us, Apple is an important part of our everyday user experience. It’s more than just a company that makes devices; it’s an ecosystem and, for some, even a lifestyle. Many of us also enjoy following Apple and everything related to it, including discussions here on this forum.

Apple have made very sure they won’t suffer Nokia’s fate.

Nokia’s fatal flaw was producing a near perfect range of mobile phones for the time (pre proper internet on phones). There were no compelling reason to upgrade your Nokia to a newer model other than aesthetics or to flex.

Little compelling new functionality or massive improvements - s, ageing, if you had a Nokia, there was little reason to upgrade to a newer Nokia.

Smartphone manufacturers learned the lessons from Nola’s ruse snd fall, he se the constant hyping of new hardware iterations, and constant adding to the OS and functionality, to make sure buyers become repeat buyers.

The fundamental problem of making the perfect device is that people only need to buy it once.

 

[Harddrive]

I think Apple had everyone when Jobs walked out on the stage and described the all in one function of the iPhone and said it fits in your pocket not to mention it included iTunes (iPod) which if memory serves me almost everyone around me including myself owned one .Things have not been the same since.

 

[serpico007]

I would like to see more Big Tech companies follow Nokia and Blackberry's fate. We need a big disruption right about now. Unfortunately, these companies now have more money because many of us continue buying their products and subscriptions. 🤦‍♂️

 

[eveluvsrainbows]

Wouldn't really care at all.

In fact, I think it's healthier over the long term if companies come/go eventually.

Aggregating power to the point of it becoming impossible to fail has an entire set of baked in problems inherent to it.

Whether Apple fans have realized it or not, the company has already veered quite a ways away from many of the core ideas and ideology. Branding is very good at obfuscating that stuff. It's why "brand" is so heavily valued and leaned into it. People trust it even as the underlying entity changes.

Please feel free to explain how exactly Apple has "veered away" from its core ideas and ideology because I don't believe they have.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

No alternative? There’s plenty of alternatives available.

I think you misunderstood the original post.
There’s only one alternative to the iPhone, and that’s android.

Every other smartphone that you can purchase from regular mobile retailers are all android phones.
Of course there are operating systems that you can manually flash yourself, but no regular consumer is doing that.
The only realistic alternative to the iPhone for the majority of regular United States consumers, is android.
Of course, every company puts their own little skin on it, but at the end of the day, Samsung, Google,it’s all the same. Even by the end of their smartphone making days, both Microsoft and BlackBerry eventually just threw in the towel and made Android phones.

 

[iHorseHead]

I think you misunderstood the original post.
There’s only one alternative to the iPhone, and that’s android.

Every other smartphone that you can purchase from regular mobile retailers are all android phones.
Of course there are operating systems that you can manually flash yourself, but no regular consumer is doing that.
The only realistic alternative to the iPhone for the majority of regular United States consumers, is android.
Of course, every company puts their own little skin on it, but at the end of the day, Samsung, Google,it’s all the same. Even by the end of their smartphone making days, both Microsoft and BlackBerry eventually just threw in the towel and made Android phones.

No, there's KaiOS etc as well. Many phones used in Africa.
Nokia still makes phones. They have Android phones now.
They also still make dumb phones
https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_235_4g_2nd_edition-14773.php and they have Android phones as well. It's just Samsung dominated the market.
My family (except me, I use iPhone) will always use Samsung. Everywhere I look, I see Samsung phones.

Explore Nokia smartphones & tablets - HMD

Browse Nokia smartphones & tablets . From early models to more recent devices, explore the range of Nokia smartphones & tablets. Click to discover more.

www.hmd.com

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Please feel free to explain how exactly Apple has "veered away" from its core ideas and ideology because I don't believe they have.

Same here, i’ve never understood these values and ideologies people yammmer on about.
It always seems to go back to this completely misguided thought belief system that people have, Steve Jobs is only for good, Tim Cook is only for bad. Which is just so ridiculous.


The only explanation that I’ve ever seen that has some level of truth to it is that Apple over the last 15 years has focused significantly more on service growth. Except for the fact that, Steve literally said that’s what they would be doing, at the all things digital conference in 2010. He was very much aware that services would be the next form of significant growth for Apple, and anyone who looks at his last three years of Apple events can easily put that together.
Within his last year at the company, he introduced iAds, iTunes Ping, iTunes in the cloud,Game Center, iMessage, iCloud and iTunes Match.
Literally seven different Internet services, several of which were recurring subscriptions, introduced between June 2010 and June 2011.
And several of them were just predecessors to what we have today, iTunes in the cloud was the earliest form of what’s now just Apple Music and Apple TV, iTunes match was the first step to you renting and not owning your content, anyone who was actually paying attention should be able to know that the modern service driven Apple is nothing new, nothing exclusive to the Tim Cook era, and was always inevitable.


Steve straight up said what his vision for Apple was in 1997, he wanted to make them the Nike of the tech world. That’s basically what they are today.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

No, there's KaiOS etc as well. Many phones used in Africa.

Reading comprehension, it’s important.

The only realistic alternative to the iPhone for the majority of regular United States consumers, is android.

 

[TracerAnalog]

If Apple would 'do a Nokia' it would mean there's something better for us consumers. Overall a win I would say! And before people misunderstand me, I'm happy with my Apple gear.

 

[theluggage]

What they should have done is toughed it out a few more years and really tried to get the enterprise market. It was an awesome OS.

The mobile market was kryptonite to Microsoft because "real" Windows just couldn't work on a phone: x86 processors couldn't compete with ARM on power consumption, the Windows user interface was unusable on a phone and software needed completely re-thinking anyway. Suddenly, Microsoft couldn't fall back on the vast x86 Windows software catalogue which was the Unique Selling Point of regular Windows and, for the first time since they "made" PC DOS, had to make a product that could compete with other systems on merit. Oops!

The original Windows Mobile was pretty awful because it was designed too much like a cut-down desktop Windows, needed a toothpick to use and still couldn't run "real" Windows software. (I had a Windows Mobile phone - it was not great). The iPhone - designed from the ground up as a smartphone OS - made it look like a pocket full of spare parts - but before that even Symbian and Blackberry gave it a run for its money.

Yes, Windows Phone 7 (2010) - with the interface formally known as metro - had promise but by the time it was released, iPhone and Android had hit critical mass - and it still didn't gain much advantage from being "Windows". Worse, MS then tried to force the Metro interface (designed for mobile/touch) into Windows 8 - and we all remember how that went down - which didn't exactly act as a halo product for Windows Phone!

How would you feel if Apple ended up sharing Nokia’s fate and its current business disappeared, becoming, for example, just a semiconductor manufacturer?

All things come to an end. However, as long as the Apple Board doesn't get persuaded to hire a Microsoft suit as CEO and get embraced, extended and extinguished (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia#2010–2014) they might avoid suffering exactly the same fate as Nokia.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

The mobile market was kryptonite to Microsoft because "real" Windows just couldn't work on a phone: x86 processors couldn't compete with ARM on power consumption, the Windows user interface was unusable on a phone and software needed completely re-thinking anyway. Suddenly, Microsoft couldn't fall back on the vast x86 Windows software catalogue which was the Unique Selling Point of regular Windows and, for the first time since they "made" PC DOS, had to make a product that could compete with other systems on merit. Oops!

The original Windows Mobile was pretty awful because it was designed too much like a cut-down desktop Windows, needed a toothpick to use and still couldn't run "real" Windows software. (I had a Windows Mobile phone - it was not great). The iPhone - designed from the ground up as a smartphone OS - made it look like a pocket full of spare parts - but before that even Symbian and Blackberry gave it a run for its money.

Yes, Windows Phone 7 (2010) - with the interface formally known as metro - had promise but by the time it was released, iPhone and Android had hit critical mass - and it still didn't gain much advantage from being "Windows". Worse, MS then tried to force the Metro interface (designed for mobile/touch) into Windows 8 - and we all remember how that went down - which didn't exactly act as a halo product for Windows Phone!


All things come to an end. However, as long as the Apple Board doesn't get persuaded to hire a Microsoft suit as CEO and get embraced, extended and extinguished (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia#2010–2014) they might avoid suffering exactly the same fate as Nokia.

I agree with this factually, but if they had kept going, a solution would have presented itself. They could have forked Android. They could have made Windows on ARM a thing. There are a dozen things they could have done, but instead they took their ball and went home.

 

[maflynn]

Android will disappear long before the iPhone.

People probably said that with BlackBerry.

 

[Le_Chiffre]

People probably said that with BlackBerry.

That blackberry would disappear long before the iPhone would.

I did post it on crackberry forums a long time ago.

 

[romanof]

Companies are exactly like humans in that they have a lifespan that starts young, grow to middle aged and then finally enter their dotage. Of course, some die early but EVERY SINGLE company that does not will eventually get to old age where it cannot move with any speed and is overtaken by youth.

I once challenged my students to name a single corporation - starting in 1900 and over maybe 30 years old - that was still at the top of the list. There are hundreds that came into existance, bloomed, then died off or settled down to the equivalent of living in a senior center.

Eventually SpaceX, Microsoft, Nvidia, etc will just be ordinary corporations, living from day to day but accomplishing nothing new. And Apple too. The original leaders will retire and eventually (hopefully a long time from now) will be replaced by that curse of modern business - the MBA in the CEO chair. He/she will settle at the desk, look around at what can be done to enhance the next quarter (and bonuses, of course), then call in some flunkey in with the question, "Why are we using all this expensive aluminum? Has anyone in this company ever heard of plastic? And the fancy packaging. What is wrong with plain cardboard?"

The list beginning with IBM, RCA, Xerox, Dec, Boeing, Intel, Westinghouse, Sylvania, etc, etc, etc, will eventually have added those that are in the headlines today.

Call it evolution by quarterly report.

 

[WebHead]

The original leaders will retire and eventually (hopefully a long time from now) will be replaced by that curse of modern business - the MBA in the CEO chair

In a way this has already happened with Apple. Cook is more a sales guy than a product guy, and has mostly milked Jobs's inventions for all they're worth.

The product guy Ternus may restore some vision and innovation.

 

[capamac]

Jobs said Apple was about three months away from bankruptcy in the 1990s. And the world was doing just fine.

If Apple, then, had gone bankrupt, the world still would have been just totally fine.

If Apple went bankrupt today, the world would go on without hardly skipping a beat.

The problems humanity faces today are so gigantically enormous that whether or not the iPhone creator continues to exist or not really doesn't matter one whit. : )

What led to Apple's downfall in the 1990s was the "corporate mindset" that dominated when Jobs was ousted in 1985. Then Jobs returned to Apple in the late 90s and Apple again prospered. Now what do we have in Apple today? The corporate mentality has returned. We have enshiddification. Apple's number one goal now is making money. And that is a weakness. Jobs was into making money as well but Jobs had a gifted sense for good design and an appreciation for art that 99 percent of corporate-minded folks totally lack.

 

[triumvirate]

In a way this has already happened with Apple. Cook is more a sales guy than a product guy, and has mostly milked Jobs's inventions for all they're worth.

The product guy Ternus may restore some vision and innovation.

I have said for many, many years now that Cook is really just riding on a very efficient wave of success that was truly born in the Jobs era. Cook could find a way to milk out a cactus in the desert and live off it for another 30 years if he really had to. He was necessary for Apple's rise to what it is today... but, what is that, a conglomeration of half-rate subscription services and buggy software updates?

 

[WebHead]

If Apple, then, had gone bankrupt, the world still would have been just totally fine.

True, but would anyone else have invented a smartphone with a simple interface and no keyboard or stylus?

 

[capamac]

True, but would anyone else have invented a smartphone with a simple interface and no keyboard or stylus?

I don't think it matters if we have or do not have such smartphones.

Touch UIs aren't new ... I remember using 'em in, maybe, the 1980s and definitely sometime by the 1990s. They had 'em on CRT displays here and there. I never much liked 'em. I am likewise not a fan of touch UI today. The problem is your hand blocks a significant portion of the display. Also you get smudges. Arm fatigue. A keyboard and trackpad/mouse are vastly faster and have pixel-level precision.

According to Wikipedia, the first touchscreen was in use in 1965.

Sketchpad (1963) used a light pen for CAD stuff. Alan Kay talking about it here:

iPhone UI is really just a modern implementation of 60s tech.

 

[drrich2]

I'd be disgusted, but I figure I'd likely keep doing the things I do now on Windows (I'd rather go Linux but it sounds like it's still not 'there' in terms of polish) and Android. I'd miss Apple's ecosystem experience and polish.

 

[WebHead]

iPhone UI is really just a modern implementation of 60s tech.

True, but Apple's forté has always been making it for "the rest of us". Remember how complex the Nokia interface was, and how cumbersome the BlackBerry's keyboard was? Palm and PocketPC stylii?

Smartphones didn't go mainstream until Apple made them easy for the average Joe.

Back on the subject of management...

 

[teh_hunterer]

How would you feel if Apple ended up sharing Nokia’s fate and its current business disappeared, becoming, for example, just a semiconductor manufacturer?

For many of us, Apple is an important part of our everyday user experience. It’s more than just a company that makes devices; it’s an ecosystem and, for some, even a lifestyle. Many of us also enjoy following Apple and everything related to it, including discussions here on this forum.

Very confused. What is the point of this thread? They're not going to suffer the same fate.

 

[Luftkopf]

I mean, it could happen. It is theoretically possible, but from the position they're in now, they'd need to do a lot of hard work mismanaging things, and make a lot of bad decisions to make entire ranges of products that are awful to use and terribly unpopular. I don't see that happening very quickly.

If they did make it to that position, there is likely something out that is much better, so we'd all be off using that.

 

[Atog]

No alternative? There’s plenty of alternatives available.

Like what precisely?