> What is the use of having hundreds of billions in the bank if you're not investing it in growing or creating product lines?
Is this an accurate characterization of Apple's strategy over the last 12-24 months? A lot of stuff has happened:
- Expansion of their cloud services. Apple Music, iCloud, HomeKit, Health are all vertically-integrated services that (in theory) just work across your Apple devices. Siri improves little-by-little every day; Maps is low-key excellent in major US cities.
- Release of the Apple Watch and (soon) Airpods. Note that the Airpods (and new Beats) include the W1 chip, which qualifies as the "no-fiddle" type of innovation you mentioned before.
- Their vision of personal computing in the iPad Pro. iOS is stale on these devices (and I suspect we'll see an overhaul this year), but Tim Cook sells these as "computers" for a reason.
- Continued growth along their main product lines. The iPhone is still the best smartphone for most people, the iPad is the best tablet available for anyone, the MBP was redesigned. These are boring points that produce crazy $$$ for Apple.
- Many rumored projects: AR, self-driving cars, a redesign of the iPhone, the ongoing play for streaming TV, a near-certain redesign of their desktops.
It's difficult to judge Apple at this point because computing has changed. Capital-O Opinions mattered more when the alternative was a muddled computing ecosystem. Since then, other companies have copied the Apple playbook, and we see
well-designed, vertically-integrated products everywhere. Apple is the tide that raised the fleet of "tech product" ships, for better or worse.
Is this an accurate characterization of Apple's strategy over the last 12-24 months? A lot of stuff has happened:
- Expansion of their cloud services. Apple Music, iCloud, HomeKit, Health are all vertically-integrated services that (in theory) just work across your Apple devices. Siri improves little-by-little every day; Maps is low-key excellent in major US cities.
- Release of the Apple Watch and (soon) Airpods. Note that the Airpods (and new Beats) include the W1 chip, which qualifies as the "no-fiddle" type of innovation you mentioned before.
- Their vision of personal computing in the iPad Pro. iOS is stale on these devices (and I suspect we'll see an overhaul this year), but Tim Cook sells these as "computers" for a reason.
- Continued growth along their main product lines. The iPhone is still the best smartphone for most people, the iPad is the best tablet available for anyone, the MBP was redesigned. These are boring points that produce crazy $$$ for Apple.
- Many rumored projects: AR, self-driving cars, a redesign of the iPhone, the ongoing play for streaming TV, a near-certain redesign of their desktops.
It's difficult to judge Apple at this point because computing has changed. Capital-O Opinions mattered more when the alternative was a muddled computing ecosystem. Since then, other companies have copied the Apple playbook, and we see well-designed, vertically-integrated products everywhere. Apple is the tide that raised the fleet of "tech product" ships, for better or worse.