It's quite interesting: Apple's entire product lineup is due for a refresh as their current offerings are sitting out there left hanging, while technology passes them by.
This is intentional and really quite gutsy. Any other CEO would panic and say what are we doing? Why have we not incorporated one tiny cpu upgrade and maybe added another port to the mac and then shipped it? That would give us some breathing room for 3-6 months. Why have we not put out a standalone 4k screen? We would not lose money on that. It's money there for the taking and will tide people over for a year. Why have we not stuck in a better camera on the iPhone with optical stablization, or added a little more battery life, or made it waterproof, or really, anything? Why are we releasing the same iPhone as last year in a few weeks? Why is the watch not getting any love? It's been a year and a half.
Apple, though, really doesn't seem to care, and they are showing their conviction and loyalty towards their principles. They really do not want to make as much money as humanly possible, because they are leaving money on the table. Almost no companies do that, especially those as large as Apple. I really do believe that Apple would rather sit on the sidelines, taking the criticism, losing money, losing fanboys, until the technology they want matures enough to execute their highly idealized vision of what they want their products to be.
And guess what: Apple has left a gaping hole for some other company to exploit, but no one has. That's on the other competitors. Consumers can complain but they aren't leaving in droves because they know that no one else has caught up to the "old technology" that Apple currently employs. Every single product they have is out-spec'd by windows and android in many ways, but people don't leave. They whine, but they don't leave. Do I enjoy paying ridiculous prices? No. Would I leave if Windows offered a coherent touchpad? Have i looked around, only to find that premium windows laptops cost as much as a mac? Yes I have done this research only to find that leaving doesn't make financial sense unless I"m willing to use a far inferior product.
I don't believe that customers are that loyal to apple. They will leave if someone makes something better. But no one has, so Apple doesn't need to innovate as fast as we would like them to because quite frankly, they're that far ahead. If the competition would bring something better to market, you'd bet that we would see Apple innovate faster. Mark my words, I think that the supply chain--owning your entire product from chips to software to distribution, is impossible to beat. Just like Amazon has an insurmountable lead, so does Apple.
