IF someone gives you a golden egg and it lays golden eggs, is the new master the genius? What if that new masters squeezes it and beats it and only gets 700 eggs. Is he still a genius?
And that brings me to this rant; 700B added was mostly from Chinese expansion. A baboon could have been in charge of Apple and added that market value. 3x as many phones, and how many did android sell? How much market share was lost around the world to andriod? Why is the Iphone only dominate in USA and Japan? Why is everywhere else android? When I go to Asian or Europe, i don't see Apple watches or apple phones.
But the Apple watch and Airpod are great products I give you that other than the 10k Apple watch. That was a bad move. Same with homepod (puke)
To be honest, I think shareholders should be screaming as Jobs would have added MUCH MUCH more.
I think people underestimate the effort it takes to break into new markets.
First challenge would be the supply chain. To be able to sell over 200 million iPhones a year, you need to first be able to manufacture over 200 million iPhones a year. They don't just appear out of thin air. The same goes with products like the Apple Watch and AirPods which are quite difficult to manufacture. Tim Cook's forte is ensuring that Apple is actually able to manufacture the products they create at scale, because otherwise, the best-designed product in the world is moot if you can't make enough to sell.
Second is tackling the capricious political climate that China seems infamous for. I find that Tim Cook's steady hand has helped Apple weather a fair number of storms. I can't imagine Steve Job's acerbic tone going over well with the leaders and politicians on foreign countries.
The reason why the iPhone seems more popular in developed countries like the US and Japan is because of its price, and I see this as a strength, not a disadvantage. We are fast approaching 1 billion active iPhone users. Apple has aggregated the best customers who have a strong propensity to spend, and these are the people who then go on to purchase accessories like the Apple Watch and AirPods, as well as apps and services. This is why Google pays Apple $9 billion a year to access Apple's user base. I personally do not see the logic in selling cheap iPhones in a bid to win over profitless market share.
Let the rest of the world have their 84% android market share (or whatever the number is now). Every other day, a new piece of news breaks where some new malware is found on android devices. iOS continues to get the best apps first / exclusively. Android tablets and smartwatches are a joke. Even Spotify is selling user data now. Apple's tight control over its ecosystem ensures their products remain tightly-integrated with each other, and I am appreciating the efforts Apple puts into protecting my privacy. I certainly do not expect Google to go to the same extent.
If there is some benefit to Google or the android smartphone OEMs to having such a high smartphone market share, I am not seeing it. Likewise, if there is some drawback to iOS having such a low market share comparatively, I am not feeling it either.
To revise your analogy of the goose with the golden egg, it's like you received a golden goose but was then able to train the goose to lay even more eggs than before. Credit where credit is due. Truth be told, I’m not convinced Apple would have been better off with Jobs at the helm with the company at its current size and trajectory anyways. I have to wonder if he would have stepped aside anyway by now.
