- Failures in AI.
- Failed execution and investment with Apple Vision Pro.
- Anti-consumer subscription-based models.
- Bloated and unfocused product categories.
- Vaporware (AirPower and Apple Car).
- Unnecessary products (HomePod, anyone?).
AI - depends on when the bubble bursts. Currently it seems to be what the
industry wants rather than what
customers want.
Apple Vision Pro - does look like a flop. Basically reminds me of the Newton - in 10 years+ we'll be saying "wasn't it ahead of its time?" but at the moment the hardware is still to cumbersome to use for 8 hours straight in a work environment.
Subscription-based models: unfortunately, that seems to be the way the industry is going and Apple won't compete without it - unless customers suddenly learn their twelve times table. Unlike AI, punters seem to like it, and the economics of software subscriptions can be better for businesses. For software, the reality is that software needs ongoing maintenance (esp. in the modern security environment). There are people who paid $200-$300 one off for Logic Pro or FCPx 10 years ago and are still getting free updates with substantial new functionality - very nice, but hardly sustainable. Some people are taking the mickey with software subscriptions but where Apple have introduced them at something like $50/year for a large application that might have cost $200-$300 one off I don't think it is unreasonable. For things like music and video - I think the advent of on-demand streaming has changed the game, and subscribing to a large library makes perfect sense - I hope the
option to buy and keep albums, videos etc. doesn't go away, but I think it's going to be for "favourites" rather than the main way of getting media.
Product categories - yeah, iPhone and iPad ranges are a mess - too much reliance on 'last year's model' as the budget option rather than actually designing new models for lower price points. Don't see much problem with the current Mac line up, though. Jobs' nice simple "product grids" are lauded as some sort of magical, universal fix all, but I think they mostly made sense for a company that was circling the drain financially and had to ruthlessly slash its operations. What Jobs
did next was to completely tear up his own rules about focussing on Apple's strengths and go off on a complete tangent with the potty idea of launching a
music player. Great example of "the point of rules is to make you think before breaking them!"
- Vapourware/Unnecessary products - He Who Makes No Mistakes Usually Makes Nothing. On the bad side of St. Jobs' score sheet I give you
iPod HiFi, the G4 Cube,
Apple Ping plus,
if you'd asked punters in 2001, the widely derided iPod. Then, with things like the Apple Car and Vision Pro, who knows how many patents they've notched up which may turn to future cash cows. At the time, everybody seemed to think that by 2025 we'd be riding around in self-driving cars, telling them to "take us to a burger joint" and endowing a windfall on whoever got the ad revenue from McDonalds. I think the prospect of dead pedestrians and cars driving into the sea until self-driving software makes some sort of quantum leap put the brakes on that one.
Unfortunately, the destruction of the internet by AI, dangerously false AI news summaries and accumulating technical debt from impenetrable bug-ridden "vibe coding" is easier for managers and industry pundits to pull an Emperor's-new-clothes over.
