Tough crowd.
Not surprising. The Apple-produced Beats 1 24-hr radio show is truly excellent, easily the best streaming radio station I listen to, though I wish they wouldnāt play that damn catchy Weeknd song every half hour. If they can bring the same quality to video programming, Iām all for it.
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This sounds like it might be part of that slow decline that some people were predicting would follow the departure of Steve Jobs.
(The first thing that came to mind was Appleās failed foray into video game consoles, but on the other hand, that really was a different time.)
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If by āslow declineā you mean ārecord sales and stock pricesā, I hope they keep it up.
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Anyā¦ timeā¦ now. Just keep predicting that decline year after year, punters, and in the long run you canāt go wrong. Even Rome fell, eventually.
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So Apple has gone from its creative phase to its profit management phase.
They used to combine and create technologies to make groundbreaking products like iphones, ipads, and ultra thin notebook computers.
Now they copy HBO and fitbit to create lackluster knockoffs that profit solely because of their market-share.
I mean, they got another good decade in em but man if they arenāt following the Sony model.
Great company does not always equal ārecord sales and stock pricesā
And ārecord sales and stock pricesā does not always equal great company.
When each of those products came out ā the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and the Air notebooks ā there was a collective cry among the cynical and the naysayers that Apple had finally lost their āmagic touchā.
The iPod was just another mp3 player. There were already a dozen on the market. Late to the game, itāll clearly be a bomb.
The iPhone? Who needs another phone? Thereās already tons of phones. Why is Apple getting into the phone market? They know nothing about phones. Stick to computers!
The iPad? What is this ā itās just a big iPhone, except you canāt make calls on it. What a useless piece of junk, where was Steve during this??
Iāve got a funny feeling Tim Cook knows what heās doing.
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Sure, I think he knows how to turn a profit for X number of fiscal quarters. It is probably a good investment.
But its just vertical integration. Admittedly the success of a lot of apple products has come from their ownership of the marketplace and the device so this is just an expansion of existing strategies.
That said, I do think they have moved away from the creative. The apple watch lagged so many years behind other products it was unexciting by the time they launched it. There products are still good their model is still profitable, but their next big thing? No one is even rumoring them being a part of anything next or big.
What? Someone is always rumoring exactly that. This year alone Iāve read more or less ridiculous predictions about Apple considering entering (and supposedly changing forever) the markets for:
- Television (duh)
- Tablet computers (iPad Pro)
- Cellular carriers / wireless providers
- Freaking automobiles (?)
Big enough? Maybe weāre reading different tech websites.
Now that is just hyperbole. Even if you call the Apple Watch unoriginal because both smartwatches and fitness trackers were already around, I think itās pretty clear from reviews and customer satisfaction surveys that itās an excellent contender in both markets. Same as they did to tablets; not the first, but always one of the best. Hardly a knockoff.
As for ācopying HBOā, if you mean trying to make better quality original TV content by throwing money at talent (a la Netflix), I canāt see why itās a bad thing in this era of reality shows and assorted cheap crap. Kind of early to call their efforts lackluster before even knowing what they are, no?
Now this is interesting.
From what Iāve read no one can quite agree on what caused the downfall of Sony and the other Japanese electronics giants with a (former?) reputation for innovation and quality (Sharp, Panasonic, etc).
In the case of Sony, seems a big factor was a failure to follow new consumer trends and market realities:
- clinging to proprietary formats no one really wanted, dismissing mp3 and the iPod as fads as late as 2004;
- not caring enough about smartphones when they had a chance;
- being too focused on durable, refined, top price products made to Japanese tastes while even that market was getting used to cheaper Korean and Chinese stuff, like the rest of the world.
- having every important decision made by hardware-focused men in their 60s and 70s so the newer software people couldnāt innovate, and so on.
Is this the Sony model you think Apple is following? Because I donāt see many signs of them being that out of touch, frankly. The U2 thing, maybe.
I do think theyāre so heavily skewed towards the iPhone that the ever smaller difference between āthe best smartphoneā and āthe nearly as good competitor at half the priceā from the likes of Xiaomi might end up shaking things up if they donāt differentiate hard and fast enough. Itās already eating Samsung alive.
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ok rumors yes.
But The TV rumor has been around for half a decade. Tablet computers are just an Air with a detachable keyboard and a touchscreen, Cellular is just more integration. And Unless they are developing invisible automobilesā¦
On the other hand you can go look at a pick of a google car, test google glass, stream programming through your Samsung TV and ask your amazon AI a question without it asking you if it can google word salad for you.
I know this sounds hyper critical, and in some ways it is, but I also just think its natural progression. I think Apple is going to be a strong profitable company for years to come with a series of marginal improvements in products and services. They are in a phase where they are consolidating power and reaping profit. They arenāt in a creative big growth phase with exciting groundbreaking things going on. Other smaller companies are going to have to do that work.
I guess this is what I get for playing devils advocate.
My understanding of the Sony Arc is this. They became a creative and cutting edge electronics and media firm through the guidance of their founders. After their founders left they became less focused on inventing things like the CD and focused more on using their large market share to reap profits of that. Movie and music rights while still producing slightly and slightly better versions of their standard products. When new products challenged their market share they tried to defend it through legal means or innovations that customers hated like DRM.
My understanding of the current Apple arc is that they have become a cutting edge electronics firm and media firm through the guidance of their founder. And are now more focused on using their market share to reap profits. I do like the looks of the iWatch. it looks like a good product and I would like to have one at some point. My point was just that they let the market for it build for 5 years until there were a host of other devices in the mix before launching it. maybe they were getting the technology together, but it seems from looking at the advancement from nano to watch that they sort of waited until there was a proven market demand before fielding a product. I donāt think you can say that nearly as much about previous products, sure there were some pad like things and some blackberries and some zunes out there, but it feels like they now let things get way into the safe zone before launch.
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I have no dog in this race, but if Apple is gonna get into content creation I say Good. This is a golden age, and I canāt think of anything better than a quality obsessed company with basically a quintillion dollars* getting into the game.
Ā * they donāt actually have a quintillion dollars
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