When it comes to catching the next big wave, an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity may end up representing the single biggest game-changing device Apple has shipped since the original iPhone. It would be that big of a deal.
I don't think so. For that to happen there would have to be a quantum leap in user interfaces and right now I don't see any technology on the horizon that could provide that leap. Watch screens are too small for anything but displaying simplistic stuff, let alone letting the user meaningfully and fluidly control the device.
Voice interfaces have been tried for decades. They mostly failed. People are comfortable with them in very private environments (e.g. cars) but not when others are around (for good reason).
I think the author is right to conclude that Apple thinks we're still firmly in the smartphone era.
The idea that cell connectivity on a watch is a good idea is just insane, for this reason:
You're going to carry your phone with you anyway.
Even if the phone did have a cell antenna and did have a battery good enough for it, and even if it had human-level natural language processing, you'll want a phone-sized screen for, you know, all the stuff that you use your phone for today, for examples including but certainly not limited to: reading anything longer than an SMS. Looking at a web page. Looking at a map. Playing games. Taking a photo. Showing pictures/video to other people.
The idea that we'll give up on having screens big enough to actually look at things is just crazy. We love our phone screens. The one thing that people demonstrably want their phone screens to be is bigger.
If you're going to be carrying a phone-sized screen with you 95%+ of the time anyway, why on earth would you make the expensive, difficult decision to jam a cell antenna into your watch. Much less all the valid points that people make about voice interfaces and battery and so forth.
> You're going to carry your phone with you anyway
The ability to not carry my phone is the only reason I'd be tempted to try a wearable device again (I had a gen 1 Apple Watch and sold it within a month). I'm not really interested in using it as an "always on" watch, but if I go for a run or take the kids to the park I'd love to be able to leave my phone at home and rely solely on my watch to stay connected. I wouldn't be using it for browsing or meaningful work, but to be able to receive calls, text messages and scan emails without carrying my phone would be great (cracked screens make the playground an expensive activity!).
People don't always carry their phones with them (if they're in athletic or formal wear that doesn't have convenient pockets). In those cases, they'll settle for whatever reduced internet-connected experience they can get, even if the ergonomics don't really make the full phone experience available.
Just like how yes, if you have your laptop on you, you'd almost always prefer to use that over your phone, but your phone can be with you in many more scenarios.
I think this is a very good point, thank you. I didn't intend to comment this but now I am reminded of the initial iPad release in which I believe a criticism was raised that there "was no use case for this device".
Sure, but those times (athletic and formal wear) are less than 10% of your life for 90% of all people. Probably less than 5% of your life for 50%+ of all people.
A product that sacrifices general utility in pursuit of a 5%-10% use case is a niche product. Nothing wrong with that, but Apple isn't looking to add a new niche product.
Now, obviously, if you could throw cell connectivity onto a watch for very little cost and very few compromises to the rest of the watch, then sure, you would. But in the real world, cellular connectivity for a watch would be an enormous additional cost both monetarily and to anything else you wanted the watch to do. It doesn't make sense for a product that's trying for mass appeal.
The idea that a personal computer is a good idea is just insane, for this reason:
You're going to be connected to a mainframe anyway.
Even if your personal computer did have enough storage and power you're still going to want connect to the mainframe to access reports and data.
So if you're going to have a connection to a mainframe anyway, why bother with all that local computing power?
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I'm not saying it's a good idea in the current ecosystem but there are advantages to the watch having it's own network connectivity, and in fact I believe the current watch does connect directly to your wifi access point using credentials shared by the phone when possible.
The main issue with watch cellular access at the moment, is cost of paying for a phone contract for a watch, when at least at the moment, you will probably want a phone too.
I believe that misses the point entirely. Forgetting the fact that I never even saw a mainframe until the late 90s, back in the PC day you were still using the same keyboard + monitor for both.
I like the mainframe PC analogy but I think in this case we are running up against ergonomics. People's hands are not shrinking and our eyes aren't getting any better. More interface may get offloaded to audio/voice, but we are such visual creatures. Until we are beaming data directly into our eyes, I don't think we will abandon the palm-sized display-- maybe foldable one like paper, or a tattoo, or my shirt sleave, but something.
Except it was never the case in any country that ~70% of people had access to a mainframe at work, let alone home. If a much smaller percentage of people had smartphones and putting cellular on a watch was cheaper/more convenient enough to get the rest of the population on board, then your comparison would make some sense.
Yet google glass wasn't popular, partly because of camera-privacy, partly because it couldn't block light, only add it (though Magic Leap has apparently solved this latter problem.)
Tim Cook also pooh-poohed headsup displays as a barrier between people, instead of connecting them. But, since earplugs and people checking their phones already disconnect people, this seems like diversionary bs to me. Apple is surely working on this, as they work on many things.
Small displays are the problem, bigger phones are popular despite their awkwardness. Headsup displays solve both: large display, out of the way.
Not sure about input; gesturing to yourself is going to look even crazier than talking to yourself.
> Not sure about input; gesturing to yourself is going to look even crazier than talking to yourself.
In the early seventies I used to carry my Philips portable cassette player and headphones everywhere, people thought I was crazy until Akio Morita had the same idea and got Sony to create the Walkman. Now people wear headphones in the street and hardly anyone thinks about it at all.
My point is that what you think is crazy now might well be normal in ten years time, or perhaps even tomorrow.
What kind of exercise? A modern smartphone is pretty light and easy to carry in all but the most extreme forms of activity. One of my friends takes her iPhone surfing.
I for one am strongly in the smartphone-fatigue niche, and I think my camp will get bigger over time. I eagerly await an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity so I can be aware and undistracted.
Until multi-sensory AR becomes a functional reality. A set of glasses and a watch would fit smoothly into many/most peoples' lives. Add a set of indiscreet wireless earphones (and gloves?) and you're set.
It is obvious Apple is headed for more and more autonomous watch functionality. A cellular radio would lie on this path. It doesn't need to match the functionality of a smartphone to be beneficial.
But battery and power draw constraints put this two to five years out, depending on aggregate data needs.
> I don't see any technology on the horizon that could provide that leap
What about above-device "floating" gestures, e.g. Project Soli [1]. Gesturing above instead of on the device means much more space in which to do things.
The problem with "floating gestures" and the like is that they're even less tactile than touch screens, which I would argue is the biggest downside to touch interfaces. With the smartphone, the touch screen offered a ton of potential and flexibility, but I don't think the same can be said of "floating" gestures.
Floating gestures might have more success with Theremin-esque[0] audio feedback. Imagine an interface that hums when you put your hand near it, and also makes other interaction noises as you use it.
Now imagine a train or a plane packed full of people using Theremin-esque humming devices.
We're basically out of technology for the next innovation period. The truly "magical" next step is a direct neural interface, and we're an unknown number of years away from that.
Nothing else can improve on the hand-sized touch screen. The alternatives all come with serious compromises. Voice is too loud and public, portable floating holographic displays haven't been invented yet and may suffer from privacy issues, and there's not much else available.
In-eye projection is probably the most promising approach, but the product would have to be no heavier than existing glasses, and I can't imagine that being viable for five years at a minimum. A decade would be more realistic.
We might have LCDs with holographic resolution by then, so all kinds of interesting things might be possible. But for now, hand-sized touch screens are as good as it gets - and will be for quite a while.
Of course there's still a lot you can do with a small touch panel. There's huge scope to make software much, much better and smarter than it is today.
Imagine a train full of people with giant paper displays, flapping the paper, hearing crinkle and crumple each time they so much as flip a page! What a racket!
On the other hand the biggest downside to touch interfaces is that you're essentially always hiding what you're interacting with.
If I could have floating gestures in front of my desktop I'd be very happy. Scrolling a page by waving my hand while leaning back in my seat. I think someone made something like this with Kinect.
That's more or less what you can get with a Leap Motion. Some issues with tracking quality, but for gestures it works. It's a lot harder to make good screen interactions in mid air than one might think, so I'm not convinced it's all that great for normal desktop use (Having virtual hands in VR is cool though!).
It has been a while since I've used one and got to that opinion, and apparently software quality has gotten better. so if you are interested in this kind of thing it's maybe something to look into.
Cell connectivity is a big deal and will increase its usefulness. But a watch can't replace a smartphone. There are core functions of a smartphone that a watch can never replace: typing, reading, camera...
If you have paid attention, Apple has reduced the ambitions of the watch. It's targeted at health/fitness and notifications now.
I think the gap the watch won't be able to fill is always having a camera with you. Having that in your pocket at all times has become essential. I know some watches have cameras but I think it may be awhile before a watch has both a cellular radio and a camera that matches the quality achieved by the iPhone.
> Watch screens are too small for anything but displaying simplistic stuff, let alone letting the user meaningfully and fluidly control the device.
I wonder if you've seen the rotating bezel of Samsung gear s3 in action, it might change your mind. But the watch UI is not the bottleneck, the constant wearing of a watch is.
What I would prefer is cellular connectivity in an iPad. Throw it in the backpack to use when I want a screen, but use watch/wireless headphones while walking around, or talking on the phone.
All of the current iPads comes with cellular connectivity as an option. However, unlike Android devices they can't be used to make phone calls.
I know it sounds a bit gimmicky (like using an iPad as a camera), but my father in law has a Galaxy Tab which is what he uses as a phone/tablet/computer. He just carries it wherever he goes.
Cook's comments followed a report on Monday from technology research firm IDC estimating that the tech giant sold 1.1 million units of the Apple Watch during the third quarter of 2016, down 71 percent from the year-ago quarter.
The problem with YoY compares is the Apple Watch was on an 18 month update cycle. YoY makes sense for something that isn't regularly updated, or that updates every 12 months.
Not explicitly mentioned but presumably intended is the reference to Steve Jobs' 1996 statement: “If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth — and get busy on the next great thing.”
I'd say Apple Watch is less "next great thing" and more "Apple Newton." One of the first things Steve did upon his return to Apple was kill the Newton.
The new MacBook Pro was greeted with the usual amount of bitching that accompanies any new edition of that product. But by all reports it is selling very well.
And Apple exited displays and WiFi routers because they are shrinking commodity markets. Neither Apple nor their customers would benefit from Apple continuing to chase that.
Apple pioneered the laser printer in the U.S. market and made a lot of money selling them. Nevertheless, they got out of the printer business when it became clear that printers were a commodity. No one today complains that Apple doesn't make printers. In fact if Apple started to, everyone would say they lost their minds.
Thus it will soon be with displays and WiFi routers.
So I'm having trouble buying the premise of the article.
Apple gave up on trying to be a complete duplicate of the Windows PC market a long time ago. Yes they want to build a compelling ecosystem that will draw in and retain a broad audience, but they don't want or need to be a complete solution for everybody. So I think they're perfectly fine with leaving the 17" laptop market, and other niche categories, to other manufacturers.
Isn't that the case with everything that they sell? Eventually, They will not sell anything if they stop selling products when they become a commodities.
Not if they control the ecosystem (App Store, platform, hardware). They do of course have a formidable competitor in android that arguably currently has the edge..
Apple's reputation has been sliding every year since Tim took over. At this point Apple can no longer rely on:
- the press painting them in a good light.
- customers evangelizing its products.
- hiring, and retaining, the very best talent in the valley.
Some of the changes have also boosted sales. If you're sacrificing your ability to compete in the future, short-term profit is just "operation was a success, but the patient is dead"
Spot on. Apple is not, say, your local car dealer where increasing sales is the goal.
Sure, Apple needs to increase sales but how it increases sales and how it positions itself strategically to keep growing shareholder value is the key thing.
"When contemplating a smart home, there is nowhere better to start than developing smart rooms on wheels." would require some explanation.
Even considering that Apple is looking seriously at wearable is debatable. You need to include the airpod as a wearable so that you have something else than the rarely updated Apple Watch.
Apple needs to do one thing to reassert their dominance for the next decade... allow users to easily connect iphones to displays and keyboards. Iphones easily have enough CPU to run a simple desktop for the average email/websurfing/video consuming public. Why even buy a desktop or laptop if you could just plug in your phone and have all your documents/programs right there along with high speed internet. No brainer.
I don't think they're even that far off given Bluetooth connectivity and AirPlay. There are some OS things to tweak: I've definitely noticed UI issues using a keyboard with an iPad, for example. But then again, the size of a laptop is no longer much larger than the IO devices: screen, keyboard, and trackpad. Advantages of having a single device is likely data and configuration, or possibly separation of domain, such as work and home. If this is largely sync'd, how much use will there be for these separate devices other than form factor?
Agree, lighting ports on iOS devices also offer a lot of flexibility. Apple's processors also offer far more power than is needed to just run a phone. They seem to be converging towards this.
Im pretty doubtful iOS would be pleasant as a desktop without significant work. Try using iOS in a simulator for a few days on fullscreen and see if youd really want to buy that.
>Apple needs to do one thing to reassert their dominance for the next decade... allow users to easily connect iphones to displays and keyboards.
They might do that, but it's not that high on user's priorities by any long shot.
Phone/tablet use has surpassed desktop use, and most of it happens on the go, on the sofa, on the bus, on the restaurant, and in other such places where no displays and keyboards make much sense.
For a niche, yes, they would be great (writers working on the coffee shop typing on their iPhone etc) but not for any majority of people, and not for Apple to "reassert their dominance".
That doesn't seem like an Apple-like solution to me at all. Their answer to this sort of seamless computing is Continuity. Leveraging their deep hardware and software integration to develop technology that transitions tasks and context across devices, not all-in-one devices.
They're clearly going that way. I just wonder why they haven't "allowed" iOS devices to connect to external displays yet. Maybe when/if they get a usb-c connector.
>It feels like cracks are forming at Apple's edges. The company is straining to push out hardware updates. Supply issues are getting worse. Apple is reportedly moving away from selling beloved products like stand-alone displays and wireless routers. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Amazon, and Snap are gaining buzz with new niche hardware while Apple appears to be hanging back and resting on its laurels.
So, business as usual? As I've been hearing the exact same things, only with more fanfare ("iPod Killer", "iPhone killer", "Macbook Air killer" etc.) for 15 years now...
My thoughts exactly, same old story since the start. Doesn't mean people shouldn't try though - competition and questioning your purchases are both very wise things to do, but to make hugely over generalised statements based on essentially no scientific or statistical proof is another.
That's very clearly not true. In just the last couple of years they have worked very hard to enhance the Mac OS line.
5K displays years before anyone else, even developing custom controller chips.
Wide colour gamut displays on laptops and desktops
Continuity to tie in the Mac and iOS systems.
Integrating a complete hardware subsystem with it's own OS and display in the form of the Touch Bar.
Going just a little further back they introduced the Fusion Drive, a custom flash/disk storage system adapting enterprise style tiered storage in a consumer package.
To support this thesis you'd need to show that other companies have been successfully advancing their platforms with better implemented, better thought out technologies and were thus leaving Apple behind. But where are these advanced features in other desktop and laptop systems that are leaving Apple in the dust? The only thing the PC market has that MacOS doesn't is touch screens which barely anybody actually uses.
Which solution seems to have the most thought and effort put into it, slapping a commodity touch sensor on a PC screen and calling it job done, or the Touch Bar?It's too early to tell how well adopted the touch bar will become, but nobody can accuse Apple of leaving touch interfaces for laptops unaddressed.
I wouldn't say it's unfortunate. The majority of my (and many peoples') personal computing is done entirely on an iPhone and therefore improvement upon it, either incremental or innovative or otherwise, is always welcome.
The masses rarely use professional grade equipment because they don't need them. That's not a reason to stop producing or improving tools for professionals. Sure, the market size smaller, but with these tools the world stops working.
For many of us, Apple computers represent the best tool for our jobs. Sure, we can use Linux or even Windows if forced to, but it will mean a less efficient and enjoyable working experience.
Well, and the majority of my (and many peoples') personal computing is done on something other than a phone. It's unfortunate when people get left behind by a company they like. I think Apple's got the ability to go two directions at once. Giving some love to non-iPhone hardware doesn't mean that they'd have to slack off on the iPhone itself.
In the past, Apple's strength has been their cohesive ecosystem. They seem like they're continually dropping parts of it while letting other parts wither.
For the Apple Watch to actually start to steal more use cases from the iPhone, a huge change in user interfaces has to happen. Since touch input is really only useful for yes/no choices on a watch, voice becomes the primary channel – and Siri will have to become vastly more context-aware and able to carry out complex, multi-step tasks before that can happen.
If Apple's new AI push succeeds, this will happen, but the company has a long path ahead.
What a terrible analysis. It's as if this blogger is oblivious to the world outside of Apple in which he lives in. And his prediction that the Apple Watch is their next big thing is ridiculous given the years of public disregard for these devices. The Apple Watch will always be a mediocre product with lackluster sales. Accept it for what it is and stop trying to make it into something it'll never be.
>The Apple Watch will always be a mediocre product with lackluster sales. Accept it for what it is and stop trying to make it into something it'll never be.
Lackluster compared to what? Because in its field, watches in general, it's the #2 best selling watch. And in its niche, smartwatches, it's outselling the competition (Samsung, etc) by an order of magnitude or so.
It also became a multi-billion dollar business just as it came out -- and it's only in it's 2nd release (it took more time for the iPod to sell the same amount of units). And of course, compared to the profits coming in, there's probably not even a comparison, as Apple is unique in having high profit margins whereas many else are selling commodity hardware on thinner margins.
The main issue is people having unrealistic expectatations of what the sales of the Apple Watch should be. Obviously everybody has a smartphone (whether Apple or not), but very few will have a watch (whether Apple Watch or anything else). Heck, most people don't even wear an ordinary watch anymore.
So, given that, and given that Apple never said "the Apple Watch will surpass iPhone / iPad etc in sales", they just released it as another product they do, it's incredibly successful. In fact it just sold more units this quarter than it did last year, so it keeps improving too.
Where did you get these numbers? Because numbers I've seen put Fossil ahead of Apple and Swatch Group ahead of everybody (but I'll accept that Swatch group isn't really a brand)
Five years later, Apple has expanded the iPhone line to include five models, two of which are last year's flagship versions.
Here in Moscow (at Apple Premium Reseller site) it has eight models, down to iPhone 5s (which I resently purchased as a gift for a paltry price of about $344).
http://www.re-store.ru/apple-iphone/
I think the author is referring to Apple's currently active lineup. On Apple's Russian-language website (http://www.apple.com/ru/iphone/), there are indeed five models listed.
re-store.ru is not an official apple store. They can sell an iphone 3g, it does not mean Apple itself is selling that model. On apple.ru they have the same 5 models as they do here in US
The difference is mostly a technicality, taking into account that I referenced an Apple Premium Reseller site. The iPhone 5s is not discontinued yet and that was exactly the point of the article (mass-production of cheaper iPhone models).
Apple premium reseller is an empty designation. It has been given to all kinds of ho-hum retailers judging from my country (where we only have those and no official Apple Store) and a couple of other countries I've worked on.
It just means the reseller passed a few basic Apple criteria, for support, space, etc.
It says nothing about the product line, and being only allowed to sell the latest line up etc.
Cool. I had no idea they did this sort of thing. I just assumed that what they showed on apple.com was it. Searching around, I can still find a bunch of discussion about buying it new, now that I know to look for it.
I have a difficult time imagining the apple watch becoming a hit product until it can shine a holographic images like R2D2 in Star Wars could. Even then I have my doubts.
Every article predicting hard times for Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Facebook has the same flaw: not considering how many decades of runway these companies have if their business hits a rough patch.
The thing I am most excited about is integration of all a user's devices, and Apple has a good start on that.
Apple could end up adding iCar and iHome to their product line.
Heh. Rim's BlackBerry was nowhere as good as the iPhone is today (yes I know physical keyboards are the best; nevertheless), and they lasted for what, two decades after their product was clearly not as good as all the competition. Apple is doing way better at this point. Yes I think they dropped the ball on iPhone 7: it introduced very little new stuff, and this is their innovation year. But they are not screwing up, just innovating very slowly. I am not happy with the 7, but my feelings aside, it won't kill the brand.
>yes I know physical keyboards are the best; nevertheless
Citation needed, especially when it comes to mobile use.
The tactility might be good, but touch keyboards are much more flexible and let you free up tons of real estate for more screen in apps that don't need a keyboard.
Shouldn't that tradeoff be considered before one declares what's best?
I think the R2D2 hologram is cool but the problem is, it will probably come from another type of device. It could be a autonomous nano-drones, it could be in the form of an augmented reality device, etc.
Watch, and TV aren't defensive "moat like" structures intended to reinforce or barracade.
Defense, in an industry like this, is vertical integration, so more like tools such as Xcode.
The Apple watch is a luxury item and fashion statement. An advertisement and status symbol. It does not insulate or protect the appeal or practicality of other products.
As an accessory, the watch promotes deeper investment, but it's adoption is niche.
The walled garden and business partnerships of the app store to provide desirable mobile media and content that motivates actually using an iPhone for anything at all is the true moat and fortification surrounding the iPhone.
As for attacking itself as an evolutionary leap forward, Apple would need to obviate its current product line with something better that reduces dependency on said products. Phone service and phone numbers may eventually become anachronistic. At which point, phones cease to be phones, really, but the name and the digital broadband connection will still be there.
Maybe personal orbital satellites and sub-orbital high altitude personal drones will obviate today's concept of a handset? Does that sound silly, because I can't tell anymore.
> Consumers can pick and choose a range of Apple products that best fit their lifestyles. This is why Apple is very vocal about continuing to invest in the Mac.
I laughed when I read these two sentences. Speaking of the Mac, there are hardly any Apple products that fit best for many consumers. Apple and the people who write about Apple may chant that "Apple is very vocal about continuing to invest in the Mac", but what's seen in retail and online stores says a lot about the "investment" not being helpful or useful for customers who have been with Apple for long.
> …
> However, Apple's handling of the Mac line has been increasingly questionable.
Seriously, was "questionable" the best adjective that the author could come up with in this context? In my opinion, the right wording, based on facts as observed by consumers, should be, "However, Apple's abandoning of the Mac line and its usual tightlippedness has been mind numbingly incomprehensible and exasperatingly frustrating."
I think the more worrisome aspect of post-Jobs Apple is the fact that the software has taken a major nosedive on quality. Whenever I see someone break down the latest update of OSX or iOS it always seems like QA at Apple forgot to check something or didn't care. My own personal experience with iOS is from being a late comer after replacing my Galaxy S3 (yeah I'm not a fan of smart phones). What's funny is how clunky iOS felt and still feels even when compared to Jelly Bean Android. It's not like Android was great either but it's weird how the competition doesn't seem to care to beat them at least on responsiveness and intuitive workflow for navigating between apps and core functionality. It's just sad to see good hardware get bogged down by bad decisions on software.
One big sign of dysfunction at Apple is that their main competitor released phones that literally explode, and Apple was still unable recapture any foothold, while said competitor is successfully reloading as we speak.
Using your own logic, why couldn't an autonomous vehicle be a personal computer? The basic function of would be transportation, but what it would do better is integration with other Apple products and computing while on the move. I just don't see transportation and personal computing as being mutually exclusive.
It'll be interesting to see what they come up with. A phone and a watch doesn't make for much of an ecosystem, and they do seem to be leaving much of the rest by the roadside at the moment.
For every piece of the puzzle that they drop they become potentially easier to replace.
> More importantly, transportation is the gateway to the grand prize: housing. When contemplating a smart home, there is nowhere better to start than developing smart rooms on wheels.
Is the author suggesting autonomous smart caravans?
"It feels like cracks are forming at Apple's edges. " -- That literal describes my iPhone right now. The screen is popping out because the adhesive isn't holding so it is cracked all along the edge.
Apple can't afford to drop it yet. It will be refined for another iteration or two. It may or may not be dropped quietly a few years from now - possibly with Tim Cook.
Watch has been a huge and very expensive misstep. IMO Apple should have tried to own the home automation market, with secure, high-margin, high-quality products linked into the Apple ecosystem and built with some measure of AI and smart collective decision making - the kind of thing Nest tried to do, but never quite got right, and which the other players in that market (Belkin, etc) don't have the smarts to try.
Watch is a mistake because it's not useful in the way that classic Apple products are. It can do some mildly interesting things, but the whole point of an Apple product is that you're supposed to dream about owning it because you can do more with it than without it.
Watch doesn't do that. It's a fashion accessory, not a powerful tool that happens to be beautifully designed. So even if it's refined physically - thinner, etc - it's never going to be a huge success unless someone in Cupertino works out how to change that.
How was the Watch a "huge and very expensive misstep"? The analyst estimates I've seen point to them having sold over ten million units at > $250 each. That would make it a multi billion dollar business.
Perhaps opportunity cost. Apple has limited design and engineering resources (seemly at least partially by intent) so they've had to sacrifice in other areas to develop the watch, and so far only seen modest returns.
Modest returns by whose estimates, IDC? And under their functional structure, theoretically Apple is able to shift resources to projects and collaborate better where they need to. If they needed to shift resources from other teams to launch a multibillion dollar Smartwatch business, that's great, you won't hear shareholders complaining. Keep in mind in the last 9 years Apple has launched/revived 3 multibillion dollar hardware industries - Smartphones, Smartwatches & Tablets. Google meanwhile, is struggling to launch a billion dollar business with $1B+ revenue potential like they have in their cashcow in search advertising. Heck how long have they been at it with their "other bets" now and its still a big money loser?
Modest compared to $160B in iPhone revenue. I'm not sure I agree with parent, but on the other hand as a Mac user, the quality of the last couple OS releases does lead me to believe they are stretched a bit thin.
The top of the article your commenting on puts the number at 18M. The vast majority of those would've been sold at $350+, so even being highly conservative, $300*18M = $5.4 billion in 18 months.
The next step is, in my humble opinion, obvious but not trivial in execution. It is also a perfect "Innovators Dilemma" scenario.
The next iPhone needs to be a Mac computer in your pocket and have the full functionality of a Mac.
One thing that is painfully missing from iOS is multiuser support.
It is unbelievable that, so many years later, I can't hand my iPhone or iPad to a friend, co-worker, my kids or someone at a meeting and have them be in "guest" mode or some mode where I can exercise complete access control to information and apps. Today, if you hand your unlocked iOS device to someone they have full access to anything that isn't locked out specifically by an app. And, even at that, your entire device is exposed.
The other improvement would be more granularity in selecting what lives outside and inside the lock screen. I work in an ITAR environment, which means my phone needs to have a password in order to prevent access to my ITAR email and calendar. NOTHING ELSE ON MY PHONE requires that lockout. I can't even hang-up the damn thing while on a call without entering a password because the damn lock screen locks out everything. This is ridiculous.
If I had the aforementioned multi-user mode I could setup a "work" user to deal with my ITAR stuff and a "me" user to expose what I want and how I want it.
There is no good reason I can come up with to have my friggin calculator live behind a password. I should be able to define what I want on each side of that wall.
Finally, and this would be the killer app, the new your-iphone-is-a-mac device should have the technology necessary to bring up the MacOS interface on any computer any time. In other words, when I go to work, I should be able to connect to my Mac-in-my-pocket device and bring-up MacOS on a window on my Windows 10 machine.
It should be painless and seamless. If it requires a little USB device, that's fine. The phone should have a slot for this device to be stored so it can go with you anywhere. Pop it out, plug it in and you are in business. This should also work on traditional Macs.
Now your phone is your real personal computer, everywhere.
It could even use the touchscreen as the trackpad if necessary.
The other huge evolutionary step if they took this path would be to allow full file system access. Maybe there's a distinction between MacOS and iOS apps. The iOS stuff can remain sandboxed while the MacOS apps enjoy full file system access.
Finally, the phone's physical UI needs to evolve. This business of overloading a precious few buttons is nonsense. Double click, triple click, the volume button is this and that...etc. Insane. Most people have no clue because most people don't operate that way. What the iPhone desperately needs is something like an edge mounted wheel or, even better, a two dimensional sensor (like the mice that image an amplified version of the table to determine how far you moved, only this one would image your thumb).
Something like scrolling through your address book or apps could be a single handed, single finger operation. Many years ago I had a Motorola flip phone with a piggy back accessory (forgot the name) that included a rotary wheel with a push-to-select function. It was incredibly useful and fast.
The iPhone also needs a few buttons the user can define. I want a real edge-mounted button to, for example, launch my RPN calculator. Maybe another button to launch the weather app, stocks or whatever. Physical buttons are good.
Now, I understand the minimalist design thing. Fine. Provide an unencumbered interface and protocol entrepreneurs can use to interface with the phone and build such add-on products. By unencumbered I mean something like a simple high speed serial port with power, no licensing, no walled garden, no buying proprietary chips. The range of innovation this would spur would be massive.
There's a lot they can do with the device and form factor. They need to get off this thinner, thinner, thinner bullshit. I don't want it thinner. I'd gladly have a device twice as thick as the current crop of iphones if it did a good portion of what I described above. People don't buy these things because they are thin. I am still on an iPhone 4S because there's nothing whatsoever in the new phones that is compelling or useful enough to spend the money on an upgrade.
If Apple doesn't wake up they are going to find themselves up against new contenders that will eat them for lunch. I still have hopes for a fully desktop integrated Windows phone. Microsoft won't do it but that doesn't mean companies like HP won't pull it off and knock it out of the park. If someone shows-up with powerful fully integrated Windows PC in my pocket that can connect to the desktop (and more) I am launching this 4S into orbit and switching. I want Solidworks in my pocket and usable anywhere I go. I want computing that isn't tied to and locked to my desk. I want to own my data and not have it exposed on someone's cloud.
I want the next evolutionary step in computing. It's about time. Who's going to do it?
> One thing that is painfully missing from iOS is multiuser support.
It is unbelievable that, so many years later, I can't hand my iPhone or iPad to a friend, co-worker, my kids or someone at a meeting and have them be in "guest" mode or some mode where I can exercise complete access control to information and apps. Today, if you hand your unlocked iOS device to someone they have full access to anything that isn't locked out specifically by an app. And, even at that, your entire device is exposed.
I've been looking forward to a multi-user iOS ever since the first iPad came out. I consider iPhones as more personal, where each person (or young adult/adult) in a house/family would likely have one of their own. But iPad is a different story altogether, and is more likely to be shared among people in a house/family. It's frustrating that it's still not possible to create user accounts and quickly switch between them on iOS devices.
A few months ago I watched one of the WWDC videos about a feature called "Shared iPad" [1] that allows schools to provide shared iPads to students and what developers would have to do to support it (and what comes out of the box and avoids work for developers too). Each student has their preferences and work saved on device and on iCloud and the switching process would download the appropriate bits for the next student who logs in (if/when necessary). My understanding of this, and the reason why user switching is still not around, is that this needs more flash memory in the device (to cache things and avoid going to iCloud as much as possible), a good amount of RAM on the device to support reasonably good performance for user switching (so all apps don't necessarily have to be killed or off loaded from RAM when possible), and certain other considerations that others may know better about.
But I'm still waiting for this feature to be open to everyone so we can have "Shared iPad" at home or at work.
Fair point, yet, for example, I don't use the standard calculator. I use an RPN calculator app that emulates the HP41 calculator. I have to unlock the phone to use it. Same with the clock. I use a different clock app.
Anyhow, the point I think remains: The user ought to be able to choose what's on each side of that wall.
I'm not sure I really agree with the principle of the idea that apples products are getting worse in general. There's always some products that work, some that don't and some that don't at first - but do after refinement.
For example, 2-3 years ago I thought OS X (now macOS) was really going down hill, far less stability, performance stagnation and no clear direction. Turn to 2016 and I think Sierra is the most stable and reliable macOS yet, also we now have much 'better' standboxing, protected core system storage, better battery life and an interesting file system on its way. Now, look at the iPhone 7+ - it's a great phone, it's in my opinion the best phone they've ever made, it's not perfect, the camera is good but it's still a phone camera and thus requires a lot of light and a nice clean lens to take a decent shot, its battery life is excellent compared to most other phones - you can quite happily go two days between charges unless you have something setup poorly (like a polling email account etc), iOS is more responsive and stable than ever, we have public and developer betas and finally Apple actually respond to bug reports from the feedback tool (not every time, but when it's something worth investigating).
The retina MacBook is a lovely replacement for the MacBook Air, yes it doesn't have enough RAM and could do with a bit faster CPU, but it is a truly portable, usable machine.
Since the introduction of the 5k iMac, there's been no turning back for me, I have an early 2015 model at work and late 2015 at home and they are simply a joy to work on, not just the wonderful screen but the CPUs are rarely maxed out, the upgraded GPU in my home machine easily plays any game I want to play.
The bad is that the MacBook Pro is undeniably over priced if you want to spec it out, the Mac Pro is long overdue an update and they in my opinion should have retired the Air and offered a higher spec MacBook.
On the software side of things, we have a larger than ever open source software community contributing software usable on OS X and the range and diversity of games available of macOS has grown at an amazing rate over the past few years, look at the titles on steam, gogs and the App Store - it was only 2-3 years ago you really had to use wine and friends to play such games. iTunes still kind of sucks, it's UI/UX is a lot better than when Apple Music first launched but the app is still very slow and heavy when you have a large library, but Apple Music itself has very quickly gone from being a wtf is this product to replacing Spotify for me thanks to its integration across devices, better streaming quality (or so it seems) and it's better range of full albums.
Tldr; some things work, some things don't, I think things are better than ever regardless of failed experiments or some product lines that are outdated.
The problem with moving everything you do from a nice screen to a voice based gadget on your wrist is that the main source of interaction, the Internet, is broken.
If the Internet was made up of proper semantic tagging, and actual useful, machine parsable information, then yeah, sure, make a 'watch' that can answer your spoken queries with meaningful information. Unfortunately, the Internet is so far gone as far as easy information retrieval is concerned, that even the most simplest of queries needs significant backend development of APIs and data re-formatting.
Even if it were doable on a large-data scale your conversations with your watch would go like this:
User: Watch, When is the Guns'N'Roses concert on in London?
Watch: Hi, I'm about to tell you 'when is the Guns'N'Roses concert on in London',
but first here is an advert!
Watch: *LOUDLY* <jingle jingle jingle> (singing) When you get caught short,
don't be fraught, with BoneDryos.... Adult Diapers.....! <jingle jingle jingle>
Watch: The Guns'N'Roses concert in London is on...
<beep beep> Need Faster Broadband? say YES now! <beep beep>
... 16th of June 2017.
User: Watch, Great! I'll have two tickets please!
Watch: Hi, I'm about to buy you 'two tickets' for Gun'N'Roses Not In This Lifetime
Tour in London, at the London Stadium on the 16th June 2017 at 3pm but first,
here's a short promotion... <jingle jingle jing..
User: Oh, FFS...
As history has shown, once anything useful reaches critical mass, the Marketing Sharks and Money Men take it over to a level of un-usability.
> At current power ratios, not soon, and believing otherwise betrays utter cluelessness.
Why is this? Is it because of increased power requirements of 3g, 4g etc? Or all the extra useless processing devices do? (Ignoring the screen...)
My first phone was a siemens c30. Apparently the battery capacity was ~600mAh and gave >10 days standby where the Apple watch has ~200mAh and gives ~18h. So the c30 lasted over 3 times longer on the same charge?
Is it really unfeasible to expect us getting back to that same efficiency by cutting back in some areas?
I'm painfully aware of other brands, furthering my resolve to stick with iPhone for now. Had a Samsung Gear, the wristband one. That's the one that made me swear off Samsung. I work with a variety of Android phones every day. Though I can see reasons one might want something from that platform, I'm still sticking to my iPhone.
What you choose to label as ignorance others might call "making the choice that suits my needs". I mean, I don't even have cable/satellite TV and I've seen a Samsung ad. I can't imagine your average consumer has no idea of other offerings.
Apple didn't invent the smartphone either. Smartphones existed for years before, Apple arguably just was the first to make something that the "masses" would want to use.
>The Gear S3 Frontier manages mobile connectivity and superior UX with a supposed 4. Day battery life
The 4 day battery life (closer to 3 in practice) just about sums its benefits over the Apple Watch. Less features and not as well made, less applications available, and stuck with Tizen. Not so great connectivity options either.
As for the condescending "they don't know about other brands", well, I've followed Tizen development since forever, with Rasterman involved in it et all.
There is still room for improvement on the iPhone. Everything from battery life, camera to storage and other usability improvements. I would love to see an iPhone with 1TB of space. It would make it more likely for me to purchase all the app/movies/digital services Apple wants to push instead of dealing with iCloud or endless "Phone is full" messages.
Reading the article reminded me that I don't really get the fuzz around iMessage.
It's an iOS-only messaging system (meaning that the majority of the people out there can't use it), and it limited to only certain carriers (it works on only 3 our of 6 in my country, AFAIK), narrowing the audience even more.
Yet, even though it's double-niche, Apple seems to be putting effort, and features into an app, that, apparently, very few people out there can use (I don't personally know anybody how has both and iPhone and a carrier that supports iMessages, me having only the former).
Obviously it depends heavily on where you live and who you are friends with. Here in a major city in the US, virtually all of the people I exchange messages with are on iMessage. For the tiny minority who aren't (I just skimmed my message list and I found exactly three), it pretty gracefully degrades to SMS.
You don't even need a phone to use iMessage - it works just as well with an iCloud account name or on a Mac. I don't know what the carriers in your country are doing to the phone to break it (blocking it to preserve SMS revenues?). I've also traveled extensively and never had problems with iMessage so I'd wager your country is an outlier. iMessage is not even blocked in China.
It feels like cracks are forming at Apple's edges. The company is straining to push out hardware updates. Supply issues are getting worse. Apple is reportedly moving away from selling beloved products like stand-alone displays and wireless routers. ...
I stopped reading at this point since this will be another "Pile on the Bad News for Apple" type of hyperbole.
Okay, I did read the rest of the article and, unfortunately, it's still a disappointment.
For Apple to remain relevant in the future, the company will need to attack itself. Management will need to risk its own ecosystem.
...also agree and it seems like Apple has been doing this because, as stated in the article, of the lack of attention other products (and services) have recently received.
Milk the iPhone today, and then figure out what comes next.
I agree with this and fully expect Apple to do so, but where are the novel insights (that haven't been re-hashed from other recent sources (such as Bloomberg, Six Colors, etc).
I don't think so. For that to happen there would have to be a quantum leap in user interfaces and right now I don't see any technology on the horizon that could provide that leap. Watch screens are too small for anything but displaying simplistic stuff, let alone letting the user meaningfully and fluidly control the device.
Voice interfaces have been tried for decades. They mostly failed. People are comfortable with them in very private environments (e.g. cars) but not when others are around (for good reason).
I think the author is right to conclude that Apple thinks we're still firmly in the smartphone era.