There was a rumor over the weekend of an iPhone Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Ultra. I thought I remember reading on MacRumors that there were set to be three iPhone 15 models getting USBC 4 Thunderbolt speeds, and now that makes so much sense now with this info. Nobody mentioned it on here, but it sure doesn’t make sense for an iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Plus to get USBC Thunderbolt 4 speeds. So three iPhones getting that means iPhone Pro, iPhone Pro Max and iPhone Ultra. It goes on to say the Pro models get 6GB RAM and up to 1TB of SSD while Ultra gets 8GB of RAM and up to 2TB SSD. Says it’s $100 more expensive and this made me think what if Apple isn’t raising the prices at all? iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max stay the same but Ultra comes in $100 more for those couple of upgrades. Sounds feasible. Here’s the thing, let me pay an extra $1k and give me things like FaceID under the screen, 16GB RAM and 2TB SSD, and a damned SIM card slot or two and still have eSIM with up to ten spaces to reserve eSIM. Give it a 5,000 MaH battery and how about make the sides flush with back camera bezels like Jon Prosser said was happening like two years ago. And I will gladly pay another $1k if it’s made in the free world and an extra $1k if it’s Made in USA. Tim and all these other executives that shipped all US technology to China didn’t care about anything but money. If China wants to make fake NFL jerseys and rubber fart bags, let them at it. But keep our technology out of their hands. I just read about the new Huawei Phone that shows China has raided all the tech from inside SoCs like A series chips. It is the fault of every CEO like Tim who put his own interest in front of the world’s interest. We are all stakeholders.
I think iOS and iPadOS should have different software for different spec devices. So those of us who pay exorbitant prices for iPad Pros, we should get MacOS built in. For all those who say iPad is touch only, that’s just not true, and with a Magic Keyboard Ultra, it should unlock MacOS on the iPad Ultra, too. Hell charge me the price of three MacBook Pros, and I will pay it. I want one device that does it all. One! Whoever comes to market with that one device wins the game as it beats and Ecosystem every day. Make it a new OS, Samsung could do it, have it accept SIM card and be your phone also. One device. The phone could slide into the edge of the tablet, that has a keyboard and when attached it runs a full version of an OS. When keyboard is detached it runs tablet OS, and when slide out the phone, it runs a phone OS. There you go one device that handles everything. Apple may as well build it in the traditional model as well as Vision Pro as that’s what Vision Pro is slated to do.
I care more about stability, and over time add features based upon devices when they are ready rather than on set timeline. September is iPhone time but it doesn’t have to mean a rigid timeline of new iOS features every year. Where the software should be getting more stable it becomes less and less stable.
As business leaders we know that strategy is to keep doing good things over time. And when have to do bad things, like raise prices or layoff employees , you do that all at one time! People don’t want to fear the prices will keep going up or they will be cut in the next round of layoffs.
There’s a music device (an amp but more) called a Kemper and in studios, companies always come up with a Kemper Killer, but Kemper was smart enough to put all the hardware needed inside the device for ten years. Then, when some company comes out with feature X, within a few weeks he releases an update for free! He also says it was cheaper than having 10 new models every year and having to support that. He can pull out one board and know it will work in any Kemper Amp ever sold. Hell, I think the model should allow for continuous subscription model of that device. And that’s what I think Apple could do really well.
Think of the original Apple Watch. The place where Apple went wrong there was people would buy a $15k gold Apple Watch as long as every year it could be updated with the newest latest greatest features. So that would have been so easy. Think of an Apple Watch, allow the screen to pull off the front after untwisting the back. Put the new v2 display on it and screw in the back that has a new battery and SoC plus instruments for measurements like the EKG and etc. then, charge $500 per year for the update and whoever paid for the upgraded models would gladly want to keep their $10k gold band and $15k gold Apple Watch. It just made no sense that it wasn’t upgradeable. And frankly it still doesn’t. I believe Apple could make more money doing it like a subscription model.
Tim is stuck in his old ways and he just maximizes what he thinks he should do now, but he has no sense of innovation or strategy to ensure the long game of AAPL exists 50 years from now. Remember how fast Nokia fell, if Apple doesn’t get Vision Pro right, it will need to alter its strategy to ensure it truly understands technology and how to maximize recurring revenues far better than it currently does.
Also, am I the customer or is the Cell Provider/carrier? Apple keeps failing customers in focus of making the people at the carriers happier instead. I like how Steve did it. But Tim just wants to increase every penny so he can get a bit more than his $100m per year.
I fear for the company’s long term survival every year that Tim Cook is allowed to sell the future away for the present gains. Some other company will come in and disrupt the ecosystem model that AAPL counts on. Can’t wait for it.
