Cue all the armchair product strategists coming in to tell us all the mistakes Apple made in it's product line up, or $29 batteries, or some other bullshit.
Look, the reason iPhone sales are slipping is because of China's recent poor economic performance. Apple said EXACTLY that in their last earnings guidance:
> While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.
A slowdown in China this big is actually huge news so I'm surprised so many people are missing the forest for the trees. It means less foreign investment capital will be coming to the West and might potentially signal another global recession.
> Look, the reason iPhone sales are slipping is because of China's recent poor economic performance. Apple said EXACTLY that in their last earnings guidance:
Sure but that was one of the sections with reasons. They also said
> While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.
You've cherry-picked one sentence out of the whole document. And even that sentence mentions US dollar strength.
Right before your quote they use the words VAST MAJORITY to describe China's impact. And it's not just one section, it's stated at the top of the release in the summary, along with supply constraints, as the reason for the revised estimate.
My point is that almost every other comment here was confirmation bias about things hnews readers think are important. They're not important. They're worthy of a throwaway sentence in an earnings estimate at best. It's obnoxious.
Meh, IMHO, I loved buying the top tier phone...and that top tier phone jumped from $900-ish to $1200-ish and I'm choosing to not make the jump. The changes are not compelling enough to make me feel like spending that kinda dough.
Incorporating the carrier costs in the analysis, are you getting more than $5 in value a day? Because with an Xs max and a noncapped plan, that's what I'd be spending.
Being really honest: yes, I probably get more than $5 of value a day. That is less than I make in 10 minutes, I use my phone most of the time I'm off of my work desk, I use it to read my books, watch stuff online (even while home), to research basic subjects, etc.
So even with that price I'd consider it more valuable than what I'm spending.
With that said, of course I can have a very similar experience while using a cheaper phone so a better ROI but I think that phones are actually our most bang-for-the-buck gadget nowadays.
Cue the guy assumingg weak performance in China is solely due to macroeconomic and trade issues, and not, say, due to Apple making an uncompetitive value offer with its products in a major market, where some (not all) competitors do fine or thrive with better price/quality offers.
Decreasing sales in China may also indicate increasing preference for domestic brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi. Ask most westerners and they have probably never heard of these brands but in China they may actually be more desirable.
These brands are quite well known in Europe, but not in a good way. When my Matebook stopped charging after two months people called me dumb for buying a Huawei product. Just an anecdote.
I likewise have Xiaoimi products and their Mi Home app for smart home products is awful and a far cry from Apple's polish.
I guess it depends on country. In Spain I'd say Xiaomi and Huawei have a very good brand image. Especially Xiaomi. They recently opened a store in my city and there were people queueing all night for the opening day.
On the other hand, Apple has its minority but staunch followers, but it's rather common to diss them or see them as brainwashed fools for spending 1K € on a phone.
This is a neutral opinion, I'm in the middle ground with my 500 € HTC.
> These brands are quite well known in Europe, but not in a good way.
They are very popular and desired in many EU countries. Xiaomi / Ninebot dominate the electric scooter business and the phones and home appliances are very popular and desired. I just bought the xiaomi vacuum robot for instance which blows all others out of the water.
Similarly with the Huawei P20 Pro which is one of the most desired phones right now here.
When it comes to high-value products like laptops, always go with a vendor that has in-person support services in your country. By 'high value', I mean things you'd be utterly screwed without. I could lose my phone, but there's nothing critical on it. My laptop on the other hand....
I once had a Toshiba laptop purchased in Singapore. When the motherboard died and I looked for a replacement, the only option was to ship it back to Singapore, which was of course a no-go.
Since then, I've only purchased Apple or Dell laptops, as both of them have fast turnaround times, since they're actually available in my country. Definitely costs a little more, but you can't beat that peace of mind.
My prediction: Eventually the Chinese companies will be known as premium brands.
When I was a kid, I remember my parent's and grandparent's generation talking about the cheap Japanese crap, and they would only buy American. A few decades alter the Japanese stuff was the good stuff, and the American's couldn't compete.
Interestingly, Japan still has some stellar products, but they are falling behind as Americans have in many types of manufacturing. It's a shame to watch countries lose touch with the importance of strong domestic manufacturing; particularly when they have a history of excellence.
I'm not sure if there is a perception in US for Huawei in general, but I'd bet many people know them from the Boot Loop issue the Nexus 6p had. Unfortunately both me and my wife had that phone and we both had to purchase new phones (13, 18 months).
Completely agree. Also, lenovo phones are also well known in Europe, not in a good way. the dual-sim one I had while living in Kiev was dirt cheap, plastic screen, as fast as the samsungs out at that time but about 2mm thicker. that plastic screen was awesome and saved me many replacements.
the problem with the chinese crap, not just phones but TVs, pads, whatever, is they literally dump a bunch of decent hardware in there, and just stop. no QA, no support, nothing you can find online - so in a few months when any little thing breaks, or there's no way to fix an annoying feature, it goes in the trash.
lots of stories, but here's a couple. got a chinese phone so I never have to put a chinese sim into my real phone. pretty popular in china, good specs. root it and put a non-chinese OS? nothing, and I've searched in chinese.
About 4 years ago got a xiaoimi tablet. quad core, 2GB ram, mini-hdmi output, $70 on amazon. first month perfect. then - wifi started turning off after about 5min, only fixed by a reboot. no support, no documentation, nothing on forums - and it was sold for about 3 months and then they started selling some identical crap with a different model#. seriously, I have no problem paying $1-2k for a phone or pad. What I don't want is useless crap that wastes days of time and gets me pissed off so I can't fall asleep, a year later on a Tuesday.
The thing is, the Chinese culture is used to half-working crap, and they think it's normal. They pump shit out of the sewers, boil it, then use the oil floating on top to dilute cooking oil. At most restaurants. Phone has awkward interface, security holes, and 1 security update after release? who cares - your thoughts are on rent in a dirty apartment and food. If you order your steak medium - it's well done, because yes, they don't toss the beef when it goes bad - they serve it to you, everywhere.
Buildings use a bunch more cement and reinforcement than normal countries. Why? Because the construction workers eyeball all measurements and just don't care - if you don't account for error, it'll collapse.
Not knocking on the Chinese race (my wife is Chinese), but I am knocking their culture. Zero attention to detail, zero cares, zero pride in what you do. It works there, because life is shitty and you don't care about a UI bug when you're broke, there's no law, and an oppressive police force that puts you in jail to harvest your organs for the rich.
I would call the Chinese people very "enterprising". The lack of regulations / lack of enforcement of regulations leads to cutting corners for raw profit. But is this kind of deregulation not the wet dream of many American politicians? </snark>
Chinese companies are getting better and better. A desoldering device (Zhongdi) and a 3D-printer (Anycubic) I bought recently are my anecdotal examples. When looking at older Youtube reviews and at my devices, one can clearly see that problematic details very corrected or improved in later versions of the device.
Isn't this the same cylce Japan went through? At first cheap imitation, then better quality, then innovation? Wasn't "Made in Germany" first established as a British measure to warn consumers about a crappy product?
In conclusion: there are many crappy Chinese products, but not all Chinese products are crappy. The better manufactures strive for more stable costumer relationships.
> They pump shit out of the sewers, boil it, then use the oil floating on top to dilute cooking oil. At most restaurants.
Citation needed. My understanding was that there are some crooks producing the sewer oil, but that it's used as an adulterant in cooking oil and the restaurants aren't knowingly cooking in sewer oil.
You can certainly request a source if you disagree with the statement but it is not helpful to shout ‘citation needed’ as if this is an encyclopedia and everything you post needs references. You could say ‘I don’t think that is true, do you have references for that?’
It isn't, no. But that comment came as a reply to the sort of extraordinary statement that demands substantiation. Due to Wikipedia's cultural impact, "citation needed" has become a popular way to request exactly that.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
‘Citation needed’ teaches nothing but it is certainly very easy to type. It might be reasonable if there is a rule that citations are required like on Wikipedia, but here they are not.
The fact that some behaviors are popular doesn’t make them appropriate. Trolling is also quite popular and so are a lot of inappropriate behaviors.
Xiaomi's A-series phones (A1, A2, "A2 lite" - a misnomer, in some ways it's better than the A2) are quite nice especially for the price, can be unlocked very easily (for installation of a custom ROM) and are sold globally including in the U.S. Their MIUI-using phones (and Huawei's, with their EMUI) are a different matter, though.
Its reached a plateau technologically, there isn't much else they can do to excite consumers to entice them to replace what they already have, and most people have a phone as well.
Chinese people also have a higher rate of fixing things when they break and they have specialist repair shops everywhere that can replace any component of the phone, so its a different market.
You can't just look at a market and say "oh, its going down for no reason whatsoever" there is always a reason. Its just a question whether the lack of growth will cause a crash in the overall market now.
> A slowdown in China this big is actually huge news so I'm surprised so many people are missing the forest for the trees.
I don't think ppl are ignoring it. Appl cannot only be a 'good economy company'. Look at Xiaomi for example in your link, its winning international markets by making good affordable phones. Apple should adapt to the market conditions, like xiaomi did, and give ppl what they want in all economic circumstances. Pointing out that apple is( self-admittedly) a fair weather company is not missing forest for trees.
From your own link
> Samsung loses ground in global phone market as Chinese rivals gain share
> While Samsung still leads the world in smartphone sales, it’s being squeezed by Chinese handset makers like Huawei Technologies Co.
I think I missed it somewhere but where did samsung say that their slowdown is due to 'poor economic performance' of china?
> Look at Xiaomi for example in your link, its winning international markets by making good affordable phones.
True, but that's why Samsung is hurt more than Apple.
> Apples should adapt to the market conditions and give ppl what they want in all economic circumstances.
There's a hole in their phone line-up about the size of an iPhone SE or iPhone 6. I think the new iPhones are great and there's something to be said to have premium and super premium tiers. Their Mac line-up used to be four different products as well divided in more or less the same way (pro / prosumer and desktop / portable) where in this case it should be premium / super premium and phablet / pocketable.
The pocketable premium phone doesn't exist anymore.
> True, but that's why Samsung is hurt more than Apple.
It should hurt apple too right? doesn't 'poor economic performance' mean ppl are buying cheaper phones(xiaomi) vs appl's expensive phones? Chinese didn't just stop buying phones( looking at those graphs) but just stopped buying expensive apple phones.
Apple blaming the economy is like farmer blaming the monsoon instead of admitting that he should've built a reservoir last year.
Samsung's earnings have been hit, but not by similar factors.
Samsung's declining earnings has all to do with the declining memory price. The company had been under pressure to increase production to lower the price of memory products all year last year. Apple's problem is in China, fewer unit sales -- their timing is pure coincidence.
Also note that Samsung's market share in China is almost nil, from #1 just four years ago. The company has really nothing to lose at this point.
I think people are saturated with rehashed versions of yesterday's technology. Remove a headphone jack here, round some screen corners there. Yes there's "economic deceleration" a major factor being a stalling of innovation.
It's telling that Chinese consumers aren't buying cheaper, locally-produced alternatives. That demonstrates that while consumers don't have the money for a new Apple phone they're also happy keeping their old Apple and Samsung hardware rather than buying new cheaper alternative. That could be good news for Apple as it shows effective vendor lock-in, but it might also show that consumers are going to keep phones for longer and that the 18 month sales cycle is getting longer. That would have a big impact on future hardware sales.
Ok, but "armchair strategists" at Apple themselves blamed batteries on their conference call.
You want to know the main reason for the revenue shortfall? Market saturation. China certainly has to do with it as well, but generally Chinese fluctuation have been offset by other markets...but now they aren't, due to saturation.
> A slowdown in China this big is actually huge news so I'm surprised so many people are missing the forest for the trees. It means less foreign investment capital will be coming to the West and might potentially signal another global recession.
Ding ding ding.
There are all kinds of variables driving a global recession but the biggest pieces are the Chinese economy plateauing, Brexit and Trump showing just how divided the Western world really is. America's political civil war just driving this point home even more. These factors combined with a changing climate and a general populace that is only short of revolting thanks to the infinite variety of 'bread and circuses' available to us. It's like this is by design or something...
Wasn't the whole point of the iPhone SE to shore up the lower end for exactly these types of situations? Why then did they kill it and simultaneously release the most expensive versions yet? It's easy to say "well China had a rough year" but if your business model doesn't account for market swings like that you're Doing It Rong™
> Cue all the armchair product strategists coming in to tell us all the mistakes Apple made in it's product line up, or $29 batteries, or some other bullshit. Look, the reason iPhone sales are slipping is because of China's recent poor economic performance.
Because then it would be illegal for Apple to tell shareholders: "most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline occurred in Greater China"
That quote only says that the revenue declined in China, not why. Economic downturn might be a reason, losing market share in China due to local competition, product strategy or similar might be another reason.
> Bit of a conflict there. They’re not going to lower prices elsewhere just to expand in India.
The thing is they can - if they manufacture the phones in India.
When they import the phones from China to India, they have to pay duty on it, which is ultimately passed on to the customer, thus making the iPhone costlier in India. So even if the manufacturing cost ends up the same as in China, the made in India iPhone can be priced cheaper.
The problem with Apple's current approach is that they want a SINGLE MINIMUM PRICE POINT for all their devices, and the CEILING for that minimum price point is fixed based on the US and European market (the developed countries).
Note that for a developing country like India or China, even a $750 (for example) iPhone puts it in the very high-segment "luxury" range.
So Apple can still preserve its perception of highly desirable luxury / fashion / tech company, even with a lower price, in developing countries.
Ofcourse, their fear is that these cheaper phones may then be imported to the developed countries and poach sales there.
That is the dilemma that they face and need to crack.
I posted this comment twice, which I thought should be ok, but somebody probably flagged it as spam? No idea ... could be Apple's social media reputation team ...
Apple is selling its products globally, not just China. Why China's economy decreasing would impact Apple's revenue so dramatically? All blames go to China?
this is impossibly naive. Of course it's illegal to lie to shareholders, but guaranteed 100% of publicly traded companies do.
What's the SEC going to do? They are in furloughs right now and have no budget to go after anyone. Looking further ahead, if a company has enough money, they can buy off the SEC by getting laws passed that will let the do whatever they want.
We've known that Chinese consumer demand has been plunging for months now.
>DONGGUAN, China — China’s consumers and businesses are losing confidence. Car sales have plunged. The housing market is stumbling. Some factories are letting workers off for the big Lunar New Year holiday two months early.
China’s economy has slowed sharply in recent months, presenting perhaps the biggest challenge to its top leader, Xi Jinping, in his six years of rule.
The situation in China is bad enough that local press coverage of the economic situation has been censored since last September.
>BEIJING — China has long made it clear that reporting on politics, civil society and sensitive historical events is forbidden. Increasingly, it wants to keep negative news about the economy under control, too.
A government directive sent to journalists in China on Friday named six economic topics to be “managed,” according to a copy of the order that was reviewed by The New York Times.
The list of topics includes:
■ Worse-than-expected data that could show the economy is slowing.
■ The impact of the trade war with the United States.
■ Signs of declining consumer confidence
Sometimes a drop in consumer demand in a particular market is more a reflection of the local economic situation than an indictment of a product line that is selling fine elsewhere.
To be fair wouldn't it be two in this case? One for the projection expecting sales to be down, and another for the projection being 10% higher than it should have been.
And that’s why Apple is focusing on service revenue and ancillary devices like the Watch, AirPods, etc.
What tech company has a better,more profitable business model than Apple? Even long term, the only two other tech companies I would bet on are Microsoft because of Azure and Office (definitely not Windows) and Amazon because of AWS and to a lesser extent the stickiness of Amazon Prime.
News of economic downturn are everywhere, regardless of what happens. First thing you do in such cases is control your luxury spending. Maybe that "old" iPhone is good enough for now?
Samsung ruined their reputation with their irresponsible reaction in China during the Note 7 scandal. It’s just that Chinese makers are gaining more market share.
Samsung smartphone market share peaked in 2013 and dropped to really nothing, well before the Note 7 scandal. It really has nothing whatsoever to do with the Note 7.
My chats with colleagues suggest that: with the increase price of the new iphones and there're many more cost performance phones made by local companies(Huawei,Xiaomi...)they have no motivation to replace the old ones,even if they have,they will first consider a local brand.
Truly. The economy in the other side is actually a mystery to the Western society. And here we are pretending we understand, and we place bets as if we know.
It's a mystery because any numbers coming out of a China or from Chinese companies are of questionable validity. The most accurate measures we have are proxy numbers from companies not based in China.
And the abnormal price hikes of the new model of iPhones indicate that Apple was well aware of the possible economic downturn, and thus sought to compensate the anticipated fall in sales by squeezing higher profit margins.
But what is their excuse for not penetrating the next biggest market in the world, one of the world's fastest growing economy, right next to China - India?
To me, Apple's attitude in India, and many other countries, is akin to that of a spolied brat who won't do things unless he has his own way. Some examples -
a) Apple management lamenting that India doesn't have a debt-based culture. (That's a broad view - the comment was more on how the cellular services providers don't sell their phones bundled with "plans" in India, and Indians and to buy their cell phones outright which obviously makes the iPhones to expensive and unaffordable to many).
b) In the last 2 decades are so, India has witnessed a revolution in digital payments and seen various innovations in this area. This has made it very easy to do micro-transactions. And yet Apple in India REFUSES to integrate with the local financial infrastructure of the country, and only accepts credit cards / debit cards from Visa or MasterCard for Apple Pay or iTunes. (Note that this is deliberate because the indian options give more privacy to the user - for example, with a credit card, Apple can know our credit rating and better profile us, but with certain indian payment options they will be deprived of this valuable information).
c) Objecting to certain policies of the government (this is understandable though from a capitalist point of view to maximise profit).
d) Totally ignoring the way how Indians use their phones and their requirements. (For example, Indians have been demanding a dual SIM phone for many years, and it is kind of a de facto standard feature here. And yet, it took about a decade or so for Apple to respond to that).
To summarise, Apple's management seems to lack creativity and the COURAGE to step out of thier comfort zone and try out new business models and / or new processes in other countries.
> Let’s start with Apple’s decision that it will no longer be reporting the sales numbers of the iPhone. Given the flat annual sales of the iPhone since the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launch, the story about rising numbers no longer belonged to the actual unit sales, it belongs to the increasing margins and increasing average selling price.
> If you’re going to sell success, you need bigger numbers. With the iPhone XS Plus clocking in at $1500 in some configurations the scope for larger margins and higher selling prices is pretty much priced out the market. Hiding the iPhone numbers means that the focus can be placed on the increasing revenue from software and services, rather than hardware revenue.
This is correct. If Apple made a mistake (still a big if), it's building a phone that was simply too expensive.
The margin numbers that can be found are also for Apple as a company. Given the growth in services which should be high margin, this means the iPhones margins have been shrinking even with the price increases.
Looking at the iPhone SE, I wonder if it's relatively low profit and retail cost had a role to play in it's death.
If I was Apple having that customer buy a 7 instead seems like a better deal for me.
(On another note - can someone tell me why I am unable to edit my post and correct the typos? When I click edit, I am able to edit the post, but clicking update doesn't seem to reflect the changes made, even if I refresh the web page.)
So the massive share price drop is because of China? Go and buy an XR but don't try to lull us with your shaky 'crisis communication', the case Apple is crystal-clear.
If it's every non-Chinese company doing business in China seeing slowed Chinese growth (or even reduced Chinese demand), then it's pretty clear that China's market is the problem and not Apple.
In this case, it's not just Apple and Samsung. It's a great many other industries, especially luxury goods, that have seen large drops in Chinese consumer demand.
> why hasn't Samsung's share price suffered as much as Apple's?
Samsung’s and Apple’s stocks are apples and oranges. iPhone is a principal value driver for Apple. Small swings in iPhone demand mean big swings in Apple value. Samsung, on the other hand, is a diversified conglomerate. Moreover, Apple is—corporate structure-wise, for an investor—simple. Single Delaware corporation priced in U.S. dollars and traded in New York. Samsung is a chaebol. Lots of interlocking entities and agreements, parts of which are listed in Korea.
OT: Tim Cook/Apple is on the wrong track. The entire line-up of a product company is fundamentally flawed and heading to nowhere:
Today was the first time, I saw the new iPad Pro in action in a shopping mall nearby. It was a lazy Tuesday evening and I was in shopping mood. The first thing I did was running Sun Spider in Safari. Not an up-to-date benchmark but still a good indicator for performance. This thing reached insane 119ms. Without having any noisy fans and a battery that runs for days. Then, there is a buttersmooth 120hz screen, also the first time I saw a hi-fps screen live and it's so nice. All packed in some slick enclosure, thinner and lighter than any Surface Microsoft ever made.
I would have bought this device without thinking (this is what malls are for after all) and I really don't care if it's 1,000, 2,000 or even 3,000 bucks.
But tell me--what should I do with an iPad Pro? The OS is not just crippled but utterly useless for any real use case. You don't have to be a pro.
I could work via SSH on a remote server, nah I can't test properly without the major browser being installed or at least Safari's dev tool. Maybe some mockups with Affinity Designer? It has the most responsive digitizer, so c'mon. Nope, the files are so big and exchange to my desktop goes always through a slow cloud, this feels like going back in time and juggling floppy disks. Maybe some Word? No, I prefer full-fledged Word. Contracts are too important to fiddle them together on a subpar Word, I don't open Word for fun, I make or lose money with contracts. If I used this device the entire day I would also eventually get RSI from moving my hand up and down all the time (there is no Vimium for Safari).
This is what I mean, Tim Cook does not have this obsession with details like Jobs had. Let me not start with Macbooks, non-existing Mac Pros or odd, LG-branded screens. Steve thought all features to the end. Tim doesn't and ships one half-baken product after another.
It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision. There’s no purpose to these devices. Sometimes it seems like there’s too much attention to arbitrary details. For example, the thinness and speed of the iPad, but to what end?
The original iPhone was rather underpowered even at the time for what it tried to do, but it was so crazy focused and the vision of what it would allow you to do so exciting, that you were willing to look past it. It didn’t matter that it didn’t have 3G or the best camera. Now we’re in literally the opposite scenario, devices ridiculously overpowered that we wish we could figure out something to do with. Best chip, best camera, best number to write on the back of the box. Boring.
As an aside, I am increasingly certain that the sad truth of the iPad today is that a majority of sales are probably the cheaper models used as Envoy terminals, POS devices, and conference room check-ins. If I count iPad’s I see day to day, it’s incredibly lopsided to these uses. What a waste.
With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac.
What’s the narrative of the hodge-podge of devices we have now? Vague speeches about “health” and “AR”, always troublingly highly reliant on the hope others will make use of these technologies. Apple used to lead by example, the first party software set the bar for what others should do. Nowadays there’s just the hope that Adobe bringing Photoshop to the iPad will breathe new life into it. Meanwhile, Apple has not released a new flagship app for the iPad since its original release with iWork and Garageband. It’s been 8 years! Apple can’t figure out a single new app that can take our breath away? If they’ve run out of ideas of how this thing can be used, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
Why does everyone write this stuff with such absolutism? There’s no purpose to these devices? I have 2 iPad Pros, one I use every day to consume content like twitter, hacker news, and YouTube. The other I use approximately weekly to play and record music (connected to a digital piano).
Are there even reports that iPad pros aren’t selling well? I think they are the best computers ever made.
The current 'pleb' ipad is $329 and does an awesome job being a twitter appliance. I'm only slightly annoyed as it was half the price I paid for my iPad Air 2 2-3 years ago.
Daniel Lemire had a bet with a colleague about the usefulness of an iPad, leading him to use it as his primary work device for a year and post about it after [0]. He found it much more effective than I’d have expected. While I have no interest in using one, I’ve become less judgemental about it as a platform.
I couldn't agree more. The other, perhaps equally worrying thing is that the App Store is becoming a graveyard of abandoned and unsupported (as in not running on newer versions of iOS) apps drowned out by apps and games designed to fleece (vulnerable) people.
Instead of curating the store and promoting quality apps and games Apple is actively promoting the 'evil' apps. Apple should be working with apps and games publishers on other platforms to port their successful titles to iOS- instead Apple is only interested in taking their 'cut'.
It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision. There’s no purpose to these devices. Sometimes it seems like there’s too much attention to arbitrary details. For example, the thinness and speed of the iPad, but to what end?
There is a purpose to every device that Apple makes and I would dare say that they are doing it more successfully than any other business when you define “success” by profitability:
- the iPhone - no other manufacturer is making significant money on mobile phones except for Samsung and estimates are that even they make around a fifth of what Apple makes. The “vision” of the iPhone hasn’t changed. It’s a pocket computer and a good camera.
- iPad: the high end Android tablet market is dead. The PC 2n1 market is doing okay when it comes to volume but profitable it’s not.
The non Pro iPad is a consumption device mostly, but the two largest software companies - Microsoft and Adobe are taking the iPhone very seriously and just because it isn’t great for developing, it’s becoming a lot better for other Pro users.
- the Apple Watch - I don’t need it but it’s better in execution than any other smart watch and it’s allowing people to leave their phone at home and of course health and fitness.
- AppleTV: Unlike the Roku (and I have three Roku TVs), they make money the old fashion way - I give Apple money and they give me a box with much better performance than any other settop box without trying to monetize me with ads and without a remote with buttons that go to the highest bidder - unlike one of Roku remotes that have a hard coded button to RDio.
- Mac: a well built computer that I can open up without it looking like a NASCAR car with stickers and crap wars.
With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac.
Well yeah, they were both imagined (and the Mac, more than imagined - most of the parts invented/built) in the early 70s at Xerox PARC, Jobs heard about/saw them there. Sorry, maybe you know that, but it didn't sound like it.
Thats what happens when you put the metric maximizing corporate robots in charge. They keep things running hyper efficiently for no sane reason, other than the fact that it is the only thing they know to do.
After the iPhone 4 or 5 it's been going no where vision wise.
With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac.
Jobs just wanted the software engineers to blow up the iPhone interface for the iPad. The fact that the original iPad had any affordances for the larger screen was because of engineers’ push back.
Unfortunately, the only sources I have are interviews from Nitin Ganatra, who was over some of the iPad apps at the time, from the Debug podcast.
Apple has not released a new flagship app for the iPad since its original release with iWork and Garageband.
In its whole 40 year existence, Apple has usually just made barely passable apps and let third parties produce the high end apps.
The exceptions were the original Apple // version of AppleWorks, ClarisWorks and maybe FileMaker.
> Now we’re in literally the opposite scenario, devices ridiculously overpowered that we wish we could figure out something to do with.
Wrong. We know exactly what we want to do with these devices.
However, Apple won't allow us to do those things.
A friend of mine bought an iPad Pro before going on vacation so that he wouldn't need to bring his laptop.
He wanted to upload/download his photos from his camera, share them to other people, do some light photo editing, hunt down tourist sites, book train tickets, etc.
He had nothing but problems. My 2015 Macbook Pro? No issues at all.
The iPad Pro went back and now he's back on his laptop.
I think you’re on to the core of the problem. Apple is a software company that build its own hardware because it had to.
But for the past decade, they haven’t really made any interesting software. iOS is great for iPhones, it’s not great for a laptop replacement. I think OS/x would be a much better fit for the iPad Pro, but perhaps something completely new would be even better? I think the surface book shows us just why that is by the way. If I didn’t personally find windows so terrible, I would leave Apple for one of those in a heartbeat.
Apple is a hardware company that prioritized design and built / bought (next step) software because it had to, and ignored web services because it didn’t value it (at least in earlier days)
Then why does apple play such hardball against open source software [1]? If they really are just a hardware company they should be supporting open source.
Apple dislikes the GPL, not all open source (they work on Webkit, LLVM+Clang, CUPS, Swift, FoundationDB, and a few others).
It's not so different from other companies (e.g. on Android, Google used the Linux kernel, but replaced all other userspace components of the traditional GNU/Linux distro by non-copyleft versions, including developing their own libc).
Maybe it started that way, but I personally buy into the old Jobs view on Apple as a software company.
I do this because I myself primarily buy Apple products for their software. It’s anecdotal of course, but I own a MacBook Pro because I like OS/X more than Linux, and, certainly more than Windows, not because it has a touchbar. Similarly I primarily own an iPhone because I much prefer iOS to Android. I also prefer iCloud services and iMessage to all their similar options. In fact my biggest grief with the iPhone isn’t the missing headphone jack or the ludicrous price tag, it’s that Siri is so much worse than the other voice assistants.
Maybe that’s just me, but I suspect I’m not alone, and that’s why I think their core problem is software rather than hardware.
I do not get this comment. Why would a "pro" user try to use the Pro as a Laptop replacement?
Rather think of a regular consumer, of which there are a lot more. Just doing a bit of browsing on the sofa, writing a few emails, reading news, watching Netflix in bed or playing some game.
Personally, I read a lot of papers and ebooks I get via university on it. It's great for that. Not once did I want to use SSH on it, with or without an external keyboard. I use a proper laptop or computer for stuff like that.
It's very expensive, it has a ton of horsepower, and it's literally named "Pro". If it's purpose it just light browsing and watching netflix then it feels like a bit of a waste.
So? These days a lot of coding is less resource intensive than browsing.
And like another commenter said, not every "Pro" user is a developer. I for one just take the Pro as meaning, better/faster.
And if someone wants to Shell out 800+ for such a device that's fine with me. But just because it costs a lot doesn't mean I can do anything with it. I also don't expect a good SSH experience from a Garmin 5X Plus.
The problem isn't, that the iPad is badly suited as a laptop replacement based on its hardware capabilities. The problem is, that Apple enforces arbitrary software limitations, preventing the laptop usage.
What is the justification, that the iPad files app cannot browse an attached USB-stick? Why is the iPad prohibited from running Termux?
The target is more the creatives pro, than the developers. IT folks are not the only one kind of pro out there.
Many artists praise the Apple pencil and we musn’t Forget that creative industry is probably what kept Apple afloat during it’s dark age of the 1990’s so I’d say fair enought!
I have literally no use of an Apple Watch or an iPad. But does it bother me than Apple sell them and make big margin on them? Why on earth?
I’m an artist and I have the new iPad Pro. It’s the best piece of hardware I’ve ever owned, and the drawing experience the best I’ve had (better than a Wacom Cintiq).
But I do have to agree with the sentiment that it’s software is a major problem. I think a lot of creative pros make things using several files, and organise their work by projects. iOS’s app-based organisation philosophy is consistently painful. So annoying, in fact, that I would probably never try to do anything remotely complicated on this iPad, even though it’s the fasted computer I’ve ever owned.
On the hardware front, a 13” screen is no where near big enough for most creative work. I really think Apple needs to be way faster in scaling this thing up to 20+ inches.
The hardware will come, but I worry that the whole philosophy of iOS is simply wrong for complex work, and it would take a lot of vision and courage from Apple to fix that.
Did you ever use the hockey puck as mouse? Yes that's from the Steve area...
Steve made Apple great but it's an illusion to think a company will grow forever.
Steve was also lucky to have Apple in a time where a lot new stuff was developed. He didn't develop it, he applied it the right way. Things like touch screen and tablets were really new back then.
But today there is not a lot that is new. VR is from the eighties, so is AI.
So I think even today Steve would have troubles to keep Apple growing.
Or he would have likely kept applying new technology. New technology is still being invented. There are just less steve jobs to actually apply it. I see it like the current movie industry. Lots of reboots and old franchises as they are "safe bets" for the share holders. No one wants to be the guy to make a huge flop and get fired.
AstroPad is a great app that allows people to use the iPad Pro like a Wacom Cintiq, especially when paired with their Luna Display. The dumbed-down Adobe drawing products are a joy to use. I will never quite understand why fully-featured apps don't learn a lesson from those --- gesture-based undoing is great when you're drawing! But they're really weak, compared to their desktop variants. With Photoshop on the horizon that might change but I fear that by trying to implement every other feature, they'll just ruin that great workflow the dumber versions of their apps have, unfortunately.
A portable second display is also a great use for it. I tried to use it for coding, but I really hate the material the smart keyboard's made of (I own the first gen one so this might've changed since then), I just can't type on it because touching it freaks me out. I hate that the chose that material to cover the keys with.
So with coding out of the way, recreational drawing, reading ebooks and watching movies is mostly what I use mine for. Unfortunately that's not anything close to the original promise of its capabilities.
I love it and I use it daily but the problem is when I bought it, I expected to see some support for professional use for it, too. The strength of the Apple ecosystem used to be their app support by external developers --- so, let's say for example, when you bought a Samsung (or even Surface) device with a bunch of new features compared to vanilla Android (or a touch/pen-based Windows), you could be sure that nobody will ever enable you to use those efficiently so they were a waste of time even to consider as a reason to get the device, on the other hand, going with Apple meant the opposite.
Frankly, it doesn't feel exactly true nowadays. Tim Cook's leadership gives me terrible flashbacks to the Microsoft Steve Ballmer-era.
>But they're really weak, compared to their desktop variants.
As far as I can see they are meant to compliment not replace. She does the majority of the work in Adobe Draw on the iPad Pro and then sends it to her Adobe Cloud account to finish in Illustrator. Before the iPad Pro she essentially couldn't do digital work. She is a trained fine artist with deep knowledge of oil and lately water painting. Most of her paid originals work was doing murals or selling oil paintings previously. The iPad Pro opened up a whole new market for her.
That's really cool to hear, I had a similar experience as far as the iPad Pro was involved. The Pencil is wonderful and it's a blast to use! I just really don't like switching contexts when I'm working on something, but that's a personal thing.
Imagine a set of tools that rival Illustrator but with an interface that's inspired by Draw.
That would be my dream come true!
I used to have a Surface Pro 2 and ended up selling it because the native version of Photoshop is so unoptimised for a tablet screen that it ended up being even more of a hassle than using a regular computer.
iPad Pros are amazing at video editing and audio production.
And I love it for doing architecture diagrams and also making changes to building plans for my home renovation. The 11inch model is also a great portable diary/productivity machine. I also have teachers in my family who use it for drawing and projecting mathematical formulas on a screen for their kids which they then email straight after the class.
They are selling well for a reason because people use them for different things.
Most of what you mentioned there is drawing and using the pencil, which I concur works great.
I completely disagree about video editing and audio production. Sure it's doable for small family videos, but absolutely not for anything remotely pro.
I'd like to jump on this bandwagon. IMO a decline of a company can come in various forms and here we're seeing an empire built on mobile market growth starting to feel the reality of 1% yearly growth in a mature market.
Apple is slowly declining (a percent per year) their market share (they are no longer number two - oppo/oneplus has that position now), next year they won't be number three (Huawei). What happens when they go below 10%? Will developer still deliver applications for OSX? Is there a possibility for the same scenario as it was in the Mac vs PC?
Reality is that modern Android mobile phones are good enough for most. Unless you're really into the status symbol part of the Apple, they really don't have something special. Plus there is no need to upgrade a phone anymore. I bought my Galaxy S8+ a year after lunch (much cheaper) and would replace it only because of consumerism - to get a new phone. Arguably there is nothing that really warrants an upgrade today.
Headphones, while a great move, won't help them in a long run - not enough margins and good competition. The silver lining with Apple is the that they have a growing services business. Too bad Netflix is kicking their ass in video content wars. Siri is also mostly mediocre. Homekit - who knows, what happens if your market share is falling.
Reality is that Android won 3 years back. We'll see if Apple can turn around thanks to their endless coffers of cash. It's not over yet, but they need to do something and not just upgrade what they have.
To some extent Android has won on mobile the same way Windows won on the desktop.
It's true but kind of irrelevant because this is not what Apple was ever after (otherwise they would have pursued a very different strategy, with 3rd party licensing, etc.).
Does it really matter if Apple's market share is declining as long as they keep capturing >80% of all profits from said market?
As long as they keep their target demography on board (both on the consumer and developper side) they'll do just fine.
The overall mobile market is growing. And it's growing into emerging markets like India and China which are very price sensitive i.e. less margins for OEMs. So quite likely that Apple will see declining market share but growth in revenue and profits.
Your article counts shipments. That’s the most of market metrics. Better: revenues. Even better: profits. This is what Apple historically focussed on, to the detriment of its competition.
Betterer: device + platform (*e.g. App Store fees, Apple Music, iCloud) revenues. Even betterer: device + platform profits. This is what Cook is now focusing on, in light of the world’s most profitable consumers buying phones less often but still religiously spending on them.
Note 3 was like a century ago in 'smartphone years'. A lot has changed since then (Samsung handled the precise duplicate apps problem you're talking about on the most part). Also, even then Google had its own phones (e.g. Nexus) and the only fair comparison to iOS would be stock Android. Now, the new line of Samsung flagships are really smooth, hugely less clutter than before - however, it remains the case that the only fair comparison to iPhones would be with the Google Pixel line.
>Yes, it's given that iPhones have a longer update cycle. My comment was not related to that though.
But that aside from duplicate apps, my 2nd more important point was SECURITY. An iphone user w/ phone from 2013 can still feel confident that his phone is secure , an android user from 2013 is laughably insecure.
If you use your phone for any work related sensitive data , and android phone is a huge gamble.
Actually it does. An iPhone 5s user would not be getting a different user experience than an iPhone 8 user. The Note 3 user would have to buy a new phone to get a better experience.
Well, definitely the iPhone 5s users are not getting the same experience as the iPhone 8 user. There are hardware changes that just can't be done via a software update - so that point is moot. My point, again, was that Samsung's out of box experience has changed a lot since then, and that at present, the experience from Note 3 (from old times) shouldn't be a deciding factor of whether "Android won" or iOS (/Apple).
I purposefully chose the iPhone 8 because it is the latest phone that has Touch ID instead of Face ID. The hardware changes are it’s of course faster and has a better camera but that’s about it. The software experience would be about the same.
I am not sure. If you agree with Steve Jobs, you shouldn't be separating Hardware from Software. Can you do hands free 'Hey Siri' on the iPhone 5S? That's a critical 'Software' functionality for me that's been working since the original Moto X (2013), or Nexus 6 (2014).
The only time thst I need to be able to activate Siri hands free is when I am driving. Even my cheap car has Bluetooth with a button on the steering wheel that activates it. It’s much more reliable than Hey Siri for me.
That's the point, most of the day you're not plugged in. I know it works when plugged in, but the Android phones that I named and later ones in their series) work without being plugged in.
And yes, you use Siri hands free so rarely because it doesn't work (as you acknowledged). That's not the case with Google Assistant which works really great for most people - and I use it extensively (almost all day) - both with my phone and Google Home.
- In most industrialized countries, iOS has between 30% and 60% market share - nothing with that type of market share can be seen as a “status symbol”
- the Galaxy S8 plus was $785 new in 2017 (https://www.cnet.com/news/heres-how-much-the-galaxy-s8-and-s...). The iPhone about the same price as the iPhone 7 Plus when it was introduced, it wasn’t “much cheaper”. If you bought the iPhone 7 Plus a year after launch, it would have also been cheaper. How long will your S8 be supported with updates by Samsung? The 5s from 2013 is still getting updates.
- Android “won” by what measure? Android phone makers are barely profitable besides Samsung and Samsung makes most of its money from selling parts for other phones. It came out in the Oracle lawsuit that even Google only made $31 billion from Android over the first 8 years total - half of what Apple is projected to make this quarter.
Androids market share is meaningless if it doesn’t lead to profits and is seen to be made up of poor people who don’t spend money.
1) it is seen as a status symbol, almost everywhere outside of western Europe and US/Canada. I have been to about 80 countries. The way it works is everyone who is anyone always uses the latest iphone, thought they cannot afford a toilet seat. And everyone wants to think they're someone.
2) I can put any of the hundreds of versions of Android on the S8, and it'll be supported for over a decade. Hell, I don't even have google's android version on my pixel2. How's that 5s running on the latest updates? Does the answer button draw itself in time to pick up the phone? My Galaxy S (original) still runs fine, with the latest security updates.
2) "Services Business" - he is not comparing the entire apple to the entire netflix. He is talking about apple's failed venture into streaming shows and movies. You are being purposely dense here, not sure why. By your logic Windows Phone is a success because MS makes a lot of money from Azure.
3) Android won by the measure of what wins. Almost all phones are Android. Things that don't lead to profits are meaningless in terms of who won? To us, consumers, who most all use Android, it has won. Who cares what money the producers make? Now I'll leave this to your for a though exercise. Take all the slim profits from all the Android phones, tablets, cash register terminals, cameras, light switches, conference booking pads on the walls, etc. Add all those, for every device running Android. It won by your fake measure too.
2. Yes most users are going to put one of a “hundreds” (exaggerate much?) of versions of Android on their phone and not be able to run apps that requires Google Play services.
3. Apple made two shows - Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke. No one expected those two shows to be a hit. Apple’s Services Business is still 5 times larger than Netflix.
4. Yes for profit seeking businesses, a success is by definition what makes money. As far as users winning they have a privacy invasive operating system on a phone that doesn’t see updates more than 18 months - if they are lucky.
You have good points. It is hard for people to understand numbers when they get really large. How many phones Apple sells, the amount of money they make, or something like how many searches/day Google handles are just so big that it's hard to comprehend. To your point above, I wish Apple broke out more numbers because the Apple Watch probably made more in profit than Netflix. And that was a product that was buried as a complete failure by tech pundits, geeks, and the press.
2) How come the original Galaxy S "runs fine"?
That was a pos! The gps didn't work, the performance was laughable compared to the iphone 4 at the time. How can you say this???
GPS didn't work? Was this one of those crippled AT&T or Verizon version (which I only hazily remembers)?
I had the international Galaxy S for 2 years (2012-2014) and it was really great...
Then again, I was into flashing ROMs every week or so, so perhaps the original TouchWiz performance was that bad?
I had the internation Galaxy S as well and never my GPS worked, I say again __NEVER__ even after the Samsung promised fix.
Lots and lots of lag when doing anything, the screen was awful with blue tint (it was marketed that amoled was much better than lcd at the time, a f*ing lie), battery was mediocre. Maybe you are talking about Galaxy S 2? I had mine in 2010.
> The silver lining with Apple is the that they have a growing services business. Too bad Netflix is kicking their ass in video content wars. Siri is also mostly mediocre.
As a counter-point I’ve completely quit Netflix because 1. The selection is trash and we never find the movie we’re looking for and 2. I can’t get any movies my kids would want to see dubbed to my (and my kids’) native language.
As a result I buy all the films for my kids on iTunes, because 1. It has better selection, and most importantly 2. it has an audio-track my kids will actually understand.
Of all the online video streaming-services/stores, I’ve only found iTunes which is good enough on these 2 points.
We keep netflix because family and friends use it (they can't afford it) but as soon as netflix tells us : family and /or friends can't use it anymore. We will ditch it..
Interesting. We’ve recently found we weren’t doing anything but endless scrolling on Netflix and then going over to actually watch something on Hulu. So we cancelled our subscription.
I started writing a reply to the GP in this vein, but the examples I came up with didn't quite fit.
Yes, the iPhone shipped without copy and paste, but that was never meant to be a computer; it was merely "an iPod, a phone, and an internet communication device" rolled into one. The original iPad shipped without multi-tasking (pseudo or otherwise), but it was primarily competing with netbooks, which couldn't competently multitask anyway.
I cannot recall any Apple products in the "modern Jobs era" that were quite as much of a solution in search of a problem as the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro is a $1,000+ product aimed at professional artists and content creators who by definition spend their days working on various assets aka files. But the iPad Pro doesn't have a file manager, just a bunch of kludgey workarounds.
I can quite easily take files from cloud storage like Dropbox or S3, copy them to my local device, make changes and push it back to cloud. Or I can edit directly from cloud storage.
And if the iPad was such a hopeless device for content creators you wouldn't see Adobe bringing their full Photoshop product to it would you ?
Possible poor choice of words on my part. There is technically a file manager, but it's gimped. For instance, plugging in USB storage devices flat out doesn't work. If you plug in a camera or SD card, you can only copy photos to the built in Photos app, and nothing else. Lots and lots of reviews mentioned this.
Apple's official solution for software like Photoshop? There's a Siri shortcut that will import a photo into Photoshop and delete it from the Photos library. This is what I consider a kludgy workaround.
It is absolutely possible to make the iPad Pro functional for these workflows. But iOS is going to fight you where it should be trying to help.
The funny thing is I have seen screenshots of a internal storage file manager in the Files app. Not sure where I saw them, but it seems it had the capability at least once, but the feature was pulled. Not sure if it is still accessible or not.
You can install any third party file storage app like Dropbox, Google Drive etc and they are all accessible from the Files app as well as any program that needs o save and store files. There are file storage apps that store files only on the local file system and expose an ssh server and/or web server that allow you to upload/download files directly from your phone.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, as it is often in Apple’s case, the real market were well-off ordinary people who like premium, shiny products. I know one such person, with top of the line ipad pro, how just uses it for emails and web browsing.
I disagree. Jobs gave us iTunes, iPod, iPhone. These were revolutionary devices IMO. Sure MP3 players existed before, but the customer experience made me feel, “wow I need this!”
I haven’t felt that way in a while. There’s nothing really new that apple is doing at the moment. Thinner devices that’s im going to wrap in a case are great. A higher resolution is nice. Deeper blacks and face recognition instead of passwords? Okay cool. Certainly not worth $1000 to me.
Don’t get me started about the MacBook Pro. Some how apple managed to take a very fine machine and in 2016 decided, “You know what? Let’s just take a massive dump on this thing and add a Touch Bar.”
All these things are cool but that’s about it. Sure you can call this innovation, but Apple raised the bar high enough where Apple Pay or Apple Maps isn’t something that would make me go out and drop $1000 on a device.
HomePod isn’t a great device, at least the last generation that we bought. I use Samsung Pay and have no need for Apple Pay. I don’t wear a watch because I have a phone that tells me the time among other things.
Again, I’m not crapping on the engineers who worked these things, but these tiny products are nothing compared to the paradigm shifts of iTunes, the iPhone, etc.
shitty headphones that are "truly" wireless don't mean a thing to me. have you heard the bass on those things? awful. i'm a basshead, we exist. apple wants us to buy something else. siri is crap and doesn't recognize my accent so fuck everything about even trying to use siri through the airpods to control my device. meanwhile my rha ma 750 connects just fine to assistant on my pixel
Face ID? i like the idea of my hands controlling something. Face ID with Touch ID should have been a no brainer. different usecases! Face ID doesn't work when the phone is on my desk and i just want to quickly fire off an action like changing music- i HAVE to show the phone my face - which quickly changes the dynamics of how i feel about my device(goes from boss-employee to the other way around)
sorry but i guess i'm in the small percentage of people that apple designers just flat out ignore coz they can
Expecting the AirPods to be made for "bassheads" is like expecting the Toyota Camry to be a manual transmission two door hot hatch with 400 hp. If you want specialty headphones you need to buy specialty headphones.
Face ID is really good. From the way you describe it, I don't think you've actually used it, because the issues you cite don't really exist.
That's true but I could imagine that Jobs would have seen these flaws and fixed them after a decade. Just because he uses himself the stuff.
Look, Jobs called Goolge's Vic to tell him that the color of Google's second 'o' in the logo was wrong and hence looked bad on the iPhone. Do you think Cook would ever do this, do you think Cook uses any of his products seriously? When did Cook write the last contract himself? Does he code? This guy just write emails, something a Blackberry could do better than an iPad or iPhone, 15 years ago.
> Look, Jobs called Goolge's Vic to tell him that the CSS color of Google's second 'o' in the logo was wrong and hence looked bad on the iPhone.
I’d argue that Apple’s focus on thinness, lightness, the look and feel at the expense of shipping usable products has been its undoing in recent years. No one would argue the iPad Pro is bad to look at, its problem is that it’s fundamentally unsuited to the use case of its target audience.
He hired the guy who created Objective-C, and understood why Objective-C was better than [alternativeLangs].
The world is full of people who can code. Very few of them think strategically or understand that code is irrelevant unless it has some really, really good reasons to exist and do what it does.
Tim Cook was COO. Steve Jobs had the vision, and Tim Cook know how to execute it.
Now Steve Jobs is gone, Tim Cook still knew how to make products into real stuff that can be shipped to customers but there is noone to give him a vision.
He does. In a technical way and re to what he is doing with a computer. He uses emails to delegate and thus does more but this is not what this discussion is about.
I'd even argue that as a CEO, he probably doesn't even interact with a laptop all that much at work as I imagine he relies heavily on a team of personal assistants.
In that context, he might be an avid user of the iPad. As the result, the iPad might be the perfect device for all sorts of high ranking tech executives.
Turns out you and I are just not the target market :)
This is quite an assertion. I am not privy to jobs vision for the iPad because I haven’t seen much written specifically and it’s evolution is pure speculation as he’s dead now. But you can’t extrapolate from the iPhone and call it a day. And the iPad and the Watch as well are not practically products that have matured under the jobs umbrella. Critical consensus has been pretty positive about the progression of MacOS under Jobs (it was quite a rocky road but look by 2008).
Or maybe he’s just cleverly adapting to slower cycles in which customers pay more attention to durability of products pushed by a raising ecological awareness?
You're thinking as a programmer. I've accepted for programming I will always need a proper computer. But, as a very amateur photographer, the iPad Pro is amazing. I prefer using LR on the iPad Pro now. I also haven't had any cloud sync issues, speed or otherwise.
With that said, there are plenty of improvements needed. File handling is certainly one of them. How to get my RAWs into LR for example is a pain.
> Steve thought all features to the end.
This is simply not true. If you were lucky enough to have your use case match Steves exactly, then maybe.
All of the problems OP mentioned are software problems. Software on iOS is kneecapped by the 30% cut that Apple takes.
Reduce this down to as low as possible, and you will see a huge renaissance. 12% (like Epic) seems reasonable. Apps should cost $500 to launch and $100 yearly to maintain on the store, to ensure quality.
I'm not sure why you're praising the performance, then slamming it for the os. A big part of the reason the performance is great is because it's not running a real desktop/laptop os. If it ran osx and had the same performance, that would be something
Very well stated. I have an older iPad, which I think is a fantastic device, that I use for general browsing, managing my portfolio, and personal email. There’s no reason for me to upgrade other than maybe as a status symbol.
Honestly, none of my friends care how latest is my iPad, and neither do I. There’s no use case the newer version has that makes me think, “Wow, I need this in my life.” Speaking of which, combine all this with the ridiculous pricing of the new iPads, it just doesn’t make financial sense to throw away money.
Referring to the Pro iPads of course, the consumer (6th generation?) ones are reasonably priced. You get basically an iPhone 7 processor inside with a decent screen and tablet form factor.
The iPad Pros seem to have been an attempt to shift a certain content creation niche away from Macbooks towards the iPad range.
They're nice devices for visual creatives and for music, albeit in a rather limited way. (Kraftwerk play live with iPads now.)
But they're not a substitute for the full desktop experience. So you get a clash between Cook's smaller-lighter-thinner aesthetic and the real-world demands of professional content creation.
The result is a very expensive toy you can do serious work on sometimes, but definitely not all the time.
I think we all have a very short memory in regard to the major changes Apple made to iOS on the iPad for iOS 11.
I would expect that the iPad will become more macOS-like over time, especially with the addition of USB-C. I think that means waiting and seeing what iOS 13 brings to it.
They're not for everyone and every use case, but the app story is improving a lot. For example your comment about Word is out of date. Word for iOS is full features and has complete support for track changes and comments.
Your point on sharing files via the cloud would also apply to laptops on Wifi as much as to iPads. Yes you can tether with a Cat-5 on a laptop, but most people don't bother and do pro work just fine.
I was worried the iPad would get neglected since Android for tablets is practically abandonware at this point so it has no credible competition at the high end, but instead they're doubling down on the hardware and the software. iOS 12 for iPad was a huge upgrade and the larger screen sizes make running multiple apps side by side a lot easier. sales may have flattened, but they're consistently selling twice as many iPads as laptops.
> This is what I mean, Tim Cook does not have this obsession with details like Jobs had.
Jobs didn't want the iPhone to have apps at all. The original vision was for all third party software to run inside Safari. This is the same man who didn't want slots in the Macintosh, and killed the floppy drive as soon as he returned to Apple.
Hmm, I felt the same way about the iphone vs android when they were first competing. iOS felt very limited and still does to this day. I don't think this is a new problem inside Apple. Tim is no better or worse than Steve I think. Posted from my macbook :P
Agreed. As some other posters have pointed out Apple has some amazing tech in FaceID, AirPods, an ECG on your wrist. But where they fall down is the assume pros don’t want ports in their laptops, think people don’t want customizable desktops and underserve their best devices with software.
Not to mention charging money for mediocre services.
Exactly, I’ll buy a new iPhone when they release one in a form factor like the SE. I’d also love to see a high-privacy, compact, phone-first flip phone from Apple, but I understand that I might as well pray for rain in hell.
I am in total agreement here. I never got the hang of doing "real stuff" on a phone, and prefer a laptop whenever possible. Phones should be small and portable, rather than trying to replace tablets (which are in turn trying to replace laptops, in turn desktops). The last phone I really liked was the droid razr mini. I also liked the galaxy s3.
Please, phone manufacturers: if you hear this, listen. I do not care about large phones. I couldn't care less about "screen-to-body ratio". I don't want a notch or a stupid sliding mechanism. I want a simple, small phone. It should have excellent battery life (don't care about thickness), be sturdy. Calls, texts, pictures, and emails are about all that's necessary, along with occasional web browsing and music playback. Maybe a reader app. That's it.
But I guess you can't charge $1,500 for that.
Edit: Oh yeah, and leave my headphone jack alone. Seriously.
I just downgraded from a flagship android phone to a refurb iPhone SE from eBay. New battery, no visible signs of wear; $120 for everything on your list. If I have to do it every year, I'll still be ahead after 5 years.
> Who decided that we all want to carry around mini-tablets now?
The market. Small phones don't sell well unless they're at a significant discount. Or else Sony would have owned the Android market with their Xperia Compact series.
For a majority of users, their phones are their #1 computing platform. For many, it's also their ONLY computing platform. They need all the screen real-estate they can get.
Considering the average adult male thumb length is ~70mm and female is ~63mm[0], that would be 7-8% of thumb length increased in height and 4-5% in width.
That's not even including the very different screen interactions on XS vs the iPhone 8, where the screen itself was significantly smaller.
But the iPhone 8 is already 15mm taller and 9mm wider than the iPhone 5/5S/SE which is probably the most comfortable size for a phone. Plus, the fact that the screen itself is much larger makes it more difficult to reach everything with one hand.
I previously had a Note 8 for work and have just gone back to my Galaxy S7 which, while still big, is much nicer to use - even though I thought I liked the Note while I had it.
That is with 4.0mm Bezel on every sides. So If Apple shrink the Bezel by 1.5mm, It would have the same width. Assuming you don't do Curved around edges like Samsung, Huawei has managed to make the left right Bezel shrink to 2.1mm.
The major difference between X/XS and 8 is the weight. And this make the whole phone felt very different.
Slightly. You can feel and see the difference in size, but only if you hold them both side by side (as opposed to the weight, which is quite obviously different).
I noticed the size difference immediately when I got my iPhone X, and I still notice it every day, even if I'm not comparing it side by side with an iPhone 8. Maybe you got used to it, but I haven't, and likely won't.
I'm not you, so I can't confirm what you are experiencing, but have you considered that the screen is throwing off your perception of the phone's size? For me, the biggest difference has been in interacting with the phone, which means that my fingers have to actually cross the entire height of the device rather than just the area that used to be the screen.
Next to not really providing anything revolutionarily new the last few years, I think their biggest problem is the $1k premium price tag, which not nearly as many are willing to pay. The product simply isn't worth the price tag for what it actually does compared to a model a few years older. People just aren't willing to fork over a few hundred extra bucks above and beyond to have the Apple brand when it's really just a status symbol, that is losing its status, and there are many various competitors that do more than great job (in some cases, arguably better). The price going from 3 figures to 4 figures, for a freaking phone, is a large mental/psychological barrier to a lot of people. A phone is not worth one thousand dollars to most people. Prices have literally doubled since the first iPhone ($499).
That's also the number one thing I hear people say when they say they won't upgrade to a new iPhone - they are getting too expensive and their current phone does more than enough. Upgrade so you can make animated poop emojis? C'mon. No thanks, I'll just pay $50 and get a new battery for my old phone and go another couple of years. At the bottom of the article, there is a link to another article, "China turns sour for Apple, leaving Asian suppliers exposed" [1]. I don't think the attitude in the following quote is unique to the Chinese consumers.
> Apple, with its high-priced lineup, probably suffered more than most from the slowing economy. The iPhone XR variant with 128 gigabytes of storage retails for 6,999 yuan ($1,018), while the latest devices from domestic competitors like Huawei Technologies can be had for around 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan. [1]
This basically sums up where I am at. I have a 6s plus, and while the new phones are unambiguously better, I’m just not going to spend $1k for incremental improvement.
I played with the phones yesterday at an apple store, and they were lovely. I really liked everything about them, aside from some odd phony bezels in safari.
But not for $1k. It’s not that I think they aren’t worth it. I think they are. Just like a nice bmw is worth $80k. But not to me.
I just upgraded from a 6s last week to an Xs. I mostly did it for the camera to take family pictures. Otherwise, it still worked pretty well.
The battery is lasts significantly longer. I kept and eye on my old phone and it was still at 90% capacity. With the 6s, I'd /usually/ make it through the day, but doing anything hefty and I might not. I purposefully stopped charging the Xs during the day today because I was curious and my phone is slightly under 50% charged in the late evening.
I bought a few wireless chargers my wife never used so I tried those. I really like it, especially at night. I think I was using an underpowered power adapter, which is why my wife had problems and gave up on it. My 6s would get pocket lint stuck in the lightning port and a few times a year I'd have to dig it out with something. I think recently the port itself on the 6s was probably getting worn out because more and more of my chargers were finicky.
I really like face id. I liked touch id, but often my hands would be wet or I'd be wearing a glove. It would be kind of annoying to move your thumb over to open your password manager or bank app. Face id is noticeably more convenient even after a day or two.
The camera is great, the speaker is noticeably louder, it's nice to get the shortcut for the flashlight on the lock screen.
I'm still getting used to the OS changes on the new phone. I had to look up how to power it off. Using swipe for Home and the other gestures were pretty easy to get used to. I'm not a fan of using the top-right for control center because I can't use one hand for it anymore. It feels slightly bigger and heavier than the 6s, but I miss having something the size of the 5. I also think it's silly that it comes with a 5w charger.
I got my 6S's battery replaced on New Year's Eve to take advantage of the discounted price. I wasn't actually expecting much improvement, because the phone was only a year old and the battery supposedly had 85% of its original capacity.
To my surprise, the new battery has in fact made a huge difference. It used to be that when I left work, my phone had somewhere between 15%-25% remaining, if that. Now, it always has a comfortable 50%-60%
It was the original battery and iOS was saying 90% capacity. I had been watching the capacity since it was added to iOS and originally intended to swap it out with Apple for the $30 (or just replace it myself, like I have for previous iPhones). I really think if that's the only concern, replacing the battery has always been a huge cost/benefit most people don't seem to think about.
The 6s has a 1715 mA·h battery versus the Xs' 2658 mA·h. This is why still including the 5w charger is silly. Charging with this was already slow on the 6s. It's really hard to quantify usage, especially when the chips are so different. I really noticed the battery life start dipping when I switched to Bluetooth headphones when using the 6s. I'm hoping on the Xs either that Bluetooth is more optimized, but even if it isn't the same draw will drain a smaller percentage of the battery.
The main thing I was hoping to capture in my reply was the little, less concrete things about the update. I usually skip a few generations and a lot of the game changers are small, personal things that don't always jump out in reviews. As an old example, I don't often use AirDrop, but when I finally updated all of my devices to support it, it's way easier than messing with Dropbox, using some app with a web server, connecting a cable, or using a usb or memory stick. Other times it's better radios that power on more quickly, are faster, or more reliable.
A lot of people really care about the quality of the camera and the overall speed of the experience since they spend 10 hours a day on it. Don't forget that many millennials have a phone but no TV or computer. But equally a lot of people don't care about those things. And probably most of these are like yourself happy to stay on the 6s.
As Tim Cook said as long as you're happy that's all that matters because at some point you will upgrade and you will likely stay with Apple. Just not every year like maybe you used to.
Well, you'd get a super nice OLED screen with much more real-estate, but with small enough bezels to not significantly increase the size of the phone. The camera would be better, the speakers would be stereo, and web pages would load slightly faster.
You'd give up a headphone jack, which is the big dealbreaker for me, but for a price of free... eh, I could see why you might upgrade.
Better Camera. 6s is good for day but potato at night. At my job I take lot pictures of signed documents, I find the camera on XR to focus faster and take sharp photo's.
I said the same, happily using my perfect sized 5S. I got an iPhone X as a gift, but it took me over a week and literally cracking my 5S screen to bother with the update.
Battery life (5S was failing though). OLED screen is amazing. Screen real estate is great. It's a bit to big for my small hands, but it rarely gets in the way (I use assistive touch quite heavily though). Camera is good but nothing I care too much about. Swipe gestures (in lieu of buttons) is great (quick switching between apps). Tap screen to wake up (maybe existed before?) is nice.
I'd say do the update. I can't see myself using anything else going forward (until I'm forced to update in a few years I guess).
I feel like since 6s (mine is the plus) the iPhones are running just fine with all the iOS updates and it has probabaly impacted the purchase of newer iPhones.
You can get it for free, but in my case I don’t see the reason to spend over a thousand dollars for minimal gain (for what I care) over what my current iPhone already does.
The lineup. They have 13(!) iPhone models(not configs!) in production. SJ would be furious. The first thing he did when he came back in the late 90s is to cut the line to 3 models. Economies of scale and concentration of innovation at a single point.
Isn't this the natural plateau all product categories eventually reach? 1 billion phones sold by Apple alone since 2007, but of course Wall St needs more.
I'd wager that consumers have reached the point where phones are 'boring' and increasingly expensive utility purchases, like a new laptop. We're way past the point of "there's an app for that" style ads. Beyond the basic social network apps, messaging apps and games, people don't even bother downloading apps anymore.
Like laptops, a phone you buy today will easily last you 2-4 years (laptops last longer of course). A marginally better camera isn't going to convince people to cough up $1000+ each year when they know the pictures are going to end up in a highly compressed form on Snap/FB/IG anyway.
Despite replacing my iPhone SE with a newer iPhone, I have to say that the iPhone SE really hit a sweet spot - small and thin, but no less capable than the iPhone 7. My only gripe was that the fingerprint sensor was often finicky.
Some of us like small cellphones. This trend towards bigger and bigger screens has only made one-handed usage harder for me.
Of course, Apple stopped selling 4" phones a couple of months before the dip we're seeing. You can't really tell the difference if you try to include more than a decade of data, though.
That is one of the most egregious abuses of statistics I've ever seen on HN. Pretty funny. Stock price correlates with a whole raft of macroeconomic factors e.g. economy, taxation not just the specific performance of Apple. And even ignoring that Apple's performance as a stock is dependent on their overall revenue and profit mix for which they are extremely diversified. It's not just about iPhones.
What we do know is that iPhones are important to Apple and if they genuinely thought that there was a significant market for tiny phones then they would release one. They still sell the iPad mini and the smaller Apple Watch for example so it's not just they they are afraid of small things.
While the SE has great specs and the form factor is nice, the screen and hence, the keyboard is a tad too small to type fast and comfortable. I think the sweet spot size-wise is the 6/7/8. They make it harder to reach top corners though (but still ok). That's a trade-off I am willing to take for a better typing experience.
Let's set aside China. iPhones have increased drastically in price over the past two years. Even if their revenue would still be the same, doesn't this mean people are buying less iPhones and more people are leaving the Apple ecosystem? Leaving the ecosystem is a bigger threat for them, because they also rely on the sales of the accessories. People are more likely to buy a mac or an iPad if they also have an iPhone.
Many people, perhaps Apple themselves, are ignoring something very fundamental. What happened to PCs? It's not that they became obsolete. In fact that is precisely the problem. They stopped becoming obsolete. In the early 2000s you'd buy a PC and then 6 months later it was outdated. 2 years later it was obsolete. Now you can buy a PC and it will last you more or less indefinitely for everything you might use it for. Even less common tasks like extremely high end gaming are possible by just buying a new relatively cheap video card - not a new PC.
The point is that the same thing is, and will continue, to happen to tablets, phones, and various other forms of consumer electronics. There is an asymptotic decline in value gained between iterations. And that asymptote, thanks to the speed of technological development, approaches 0 pretty rapidly. This inherently means that no computing product is going to be a long term sustainable golden goose.
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The thing I don't understand here is that I think the above is so plainly clear as to be practically self evident. Yet then you have people who are certainly much more well informed on business than myself, such as Warren Buffet, declaring that a $1000 iPhone X is "enormously underpriced" and is clearly going long on Apple as his organization continues to accumulate Apple Stock. I don't understand the dissonance.
I think people are aware of this. The idea is as the upgrade cycle takes longer, people will still upgrade to the latest and greatest when they do upgrade. The other assumption is that the phone upgrade cycle will still be faster than laptops at steady state.
Apple really have an enviable position like few hardware companies before them: when there’s a demand anomaly they can just ask their suppliers to turn the dials. Apple in this regard doesn’t have to worry so much about keeping factories running.
Separately, while Tim C may have pointed the finger st the Chinese economy, there remains a growing concern that the global economy is also slowing. China may just be going through an isolated economic change or it may be a signal that other parts of the world are to follow.
Is this really unique to Apple? This is what Lean is all about. They might have some risk with regard to contract quotas, but otherwise this should be normal in a "just-in-time manufacturing" world.
With my iPad Air 2, I notice the slowness, and a new one with faster processor will definitely make a difference.
With my iPhone 6s, everything I need runs more than fast enough, and with a replaced battery, runs long enough on a charge where I don't worry about it. I don't need a larger nor faster phone. I'm fine with the Touch ID. So yeah, why should I upgrade to even a 7?
I will be upgrading my Series 0 Watch, so Apple's still making money from me: new iPad and new Watch, just no new iPhone.
iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6s have similar processors that differ by less than a generation. I'm surprised you find that their performances are so different.
This is basically old news as it is in line with Apple's reduced earning guidance announcement. iPhone is about 60% of Apple's revenue, and they reduced their guidance from 89-93 billion in Q4 to 84 billion. So a 10% reduction in iPhone production is right in line with an overall ~6% reduction in revenue, which is what Apple announced.
Understood, but if Apple knew their guidance was going down substantially for Q4, obviously they would lower their inventory for the next quarter. No one thinks the Chinese economy is magically going to rebound in the next 90 days.
Apple’s latest annual report [0] for fiscal year ending Sep 29, 2017 shows a slight sales increase for China compared to 2017. Is the recent Apple memo re. iPhone sales reflected in this annual report, or are Apple sales in China more recent than Sep-Oct last year? Would be interesting to get more data, or insight into what the 10-k might be telling that I’m missing.
True, but it makes it significantly more likely that they are, given that Apple has officially said that iPhone sales were less than they had expected.
Possibly in the sense that a stopped clock is right twice a day, rather than this being backed by a credible source. I think the likelihood that this is backed by a credible source is still probably about the same, but maybe this is the year that it is?
The point is that they're cutting 10% from planned production, rather than previous quarter production. This implies less than projected demand, which means they may miss their sales forecasts.
Considering Apple just released a letter to stockholders noting that their projections were too high and directly pointing to poor iPhone sales as the reason I'm not sure what your comment is trying to say.
My comment is trying to say that this is still likely just another of the essentialy fake supply chain doom stories that happens to coincide with a genuine reduction in sales in the weakening Chinese economy.
I jumped all-in into Apple's ecosystem in late 2013. Got myself MacBook Air (11", i7, 8GB, 512GB) and iPhone 5S (64GB), so all maxxed out, for about $2.5k. So. Awesome. I felt like road warrior, popping 5S with unlimited 4G in front jeans pocket, and having 12+ hours on (barely noticeable) MBA in my backpack. Looked cool to pop 5S single-handedly from pocket while unlocking it with fingerprint in a single motion, cowboy style. It fell down the toilette on more ocassions than I care to admit. Works fine. It runs a Personal Hotspot 24/7 too. Continuity is awesome, I don't even need to touch phone to use phone! MBA I can balance on my thigh while smashing keys without looking at them (touch typist over here). Tried it on 13", it was too big for that. When the waitress comes to take my order, I look her straight in the eye - "Oh, hi. I'd like an espresso and a fizzy, thanks!" - while touch-typing some JS crap. She's first confused, then smiling, then awed. I can see the progression on her face. I smile back, while still smashing the keys without looking. Sometimes I whip it up at POS to transfer funds to credit card. "Oh, no, he's gonna delay the lin..." "Done! Please try card again!" Magsafe is lovely, I have my USBs, headphone jacks, the works. Siri is a gimmick, but I let it slide. There's future in voice interaction, they need the data, and it's not like I'm forced to use it.
I know, mostly I'm just pro-signalling. But I am a pro, and my hardware, software and its usage should reflect that.
===
Cut to 2019...
Apparently, they want you to really dig into your phone now. Like, literally dig in. With two hands and a face. It's harder to let go of it if you already hold it in both hands. I guess engagement with Instagram app is higher like that. I don't use Instagram. And my right thumb doesn't reach upper left corner on more than 4".
Cameras on phones are ridiculously powerful. What's good that for me when 90% of my photos are just document archival. It's just gonna eat up my storage. I don't use front camera at all. I don't even own a mirror at home!
FaceID is useless to me. My phone is mostly a hotspot and a notification hub at arms length, on desk. Static. For most interactions, I never face it. Fingerprint works really well.
There's special thingamayings to do with AR and it's another gimmick. I did AR decade ago in consumer-space. It's bullshit. I can see it quite well in industrial environment though. I guess they just needed to fill up keynotes with something.
Notch is a lot of dead pixels in my book. Screen margin space for handling the device is reduced.
Touchbar discourages touch-typing and steals my treasured media/sound/brightness keys. I listen to a lot of music and have pretty good idea how bright my monitor should be at any time.
Butterfly keyboard is supposedly thwarted by some dust. I sometimes use my old MBA even with a drizzle. Plenty of smoke particles around it too.
I get less hours of battery life mostly due to pushing pixels I don't need.
If I wasn't in-the-know, on paper, new MBA would look worse and more expensive. CPU is crap. Storage is way too expensive.
===
Apologies for a longer, what it amounts to, rant. Wanted to get a lay of the land for myself, as my batteries are showing age - almost 3000 cycles on MBA!
I think I've concluded that hardware I got in 2013 was kind of a miracle, not design. A coincidence that happened to align with my use-cases, due to various hardware and economic constraints of the time.
Right now, I'm gonna just go and order replacement batteries for current hardware, and go look elsewhere. But where? For 4" phone, I'm looking at Caterpillar Android stuff, made for people who get shit done. For laptop? I don't think I'll ever find anything that's not significantly worse experience than MBA with macOS. Desktop seems to be healthy in interesting options these days.
Or maybe just wait. I can push this 2013 hardware to 2020, I think. Pretty damn good!
I handled a modern iPod Touch recently. What a wonderful form factor - small, light, but feels durable and well-built. I'd love to get that but with a cellular modem and OLED screen. The rest of the modern Apple features (telephoto lens, Face ID, force touch, 3D touch, etc.) I can live without. Wireless charging is very nice, but not worth making the phone bigger, more brittle (glass back), and more expensive.
Two years of camera improvement are the biggest thing for me, low light and the 2x lens specifically are two big improvements from the 7 to the XS, letting me capture moments I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.
In addition the OLED screen is night and day: you won’t want to go back if you switch, but I’d say that isn’t a reason to upgrade on its own unless you aren’t happy with the current one.
All that being said, like others here I too would prefer an iPhone SE form factor with similar specs. Maybe they will get back there but I imagine it will take a long time for the battery and screen and performance to all fit back into the smaller size.
If you find your camera to be adequate, then keep it. The screen is better both on XS and XR. I would still keep iPhone 7 for at least 1 more year before upgrading. The new XS and XR have the best camera on an iPhone but still doesn't match up to Pixel 2 or 3. I am certain in 1 or 2 generations apple will catchup.
This is a much better explanation to slowing iPhone sales than people complaining about the missing head phone jack, the lack of TouchID, the notch or sizes. I don't think any of those design decisions have made any significant number of users pick Android phones when upgrading.
For most of us, there's simply no reason to upgrade from the iPhone 6 or 7, they're absolutely fine, and I'm not sure that the improvement in the camera quality is something that many will notice.
I'm not sure if this is the case in the US, but most carriers here don't have a 2 year upgrade plan, you don't get "free" phones anymore. You can get a payment plan, where you pay of your phone over two or three years, but they aren't getting you a new one, not even at a reduced price.
For me the full-front OLED screen, FaceID, wireless charging, better wide camera, additional tele/2x camera, portrait mode and FeliCa support all made the iPhone X a very enticing upgrade from my 6s.
If you don't care about any of those things then save your cash and don't upgrade.
None. Right now iPhone 7 is actually the most durable iPhone. It has no Glass Back panels, which replacement on iPhone 8 / X / Xs are insanely expensive. And its battery or well as other repair are the cheapest among the current line up as well.
I've found that increased LTE speeds on paper haven't really translated into real world speed increases for me -- my phone can do 1Gbps LTE on paper according to the manufacturer, but I've never actually seen higher than 50Mbps or so, even when within 100m or so of the base station with line of sight.
The Current iPhone XS implementation of 4x4 Antenna with Intel Modem doesn't work really well, I am hoping they will improved it in the 2019 model along with new Intel Modem.
Anecdotal datapoint. My wife is Chinese and, due to things like being president of the parent/teacher association at our kid's school, she's involved in quite a few large wechat groups in China. They were outraged about this Huawei CFO arrest. Many of them swore off Apple phones and said they were only going to buy Huawei from now on. Over my last 10 years in China, I've never seen it like this. I expect Apple's growth in China has peaked.
Apple is American. They think American / the West is trying to humiliate China again. So they say they will stop buying Apple ( for now ). Relation to Apple being Huawei is a phone company ( Well to most consumer they are, when in fact they are more like a Telecom Infrastructure Giant ).
You forgot those Apple listed prices are US only and never included any Sales Tax. In reality everywhere on the planet are paying $100 to $200 more on top of those prices. In the case of China has both Import, and Sales Tax. ( It works more like VAT though ), it adds up to around $300 on top of $999, closer to $1299.
Edit: Yes in case Apple is ridiculously expensive in many part of the world.
First of all, you're quoting prices in China, which means that iPhone has significant taxes tacked on to it. Second, iPhone seems to be $1269, while the Huawei phone is $977.
iPhone is 256GB version vs Huawei's 128GB version. Huawei P20 comes with only one storage tier which is 128GB. So I chooses the middle tier to represent iPhone.
I am surprised you haven't seen anything like it. It happened against Korea, Japan, and Taiwan although the magnitude of scale wasn't anywhere as large as Huawei.
And it is not like this is the first time Apple has been under attack anyway. If you are carrying out Business in China with any sort of Government involvement ( which is pretty much 90%+ ) you need to use a phone from Chinese brand to prove your loyalty.
Does the OnePlus have the same tech as iPhone? Are you comparing it fairly? The Galaxy Note 9 is $1000 in the US. The 6T gets crushed by the A12 chip in the XR. The XR is about $150 more than the 6T, comparing it with the Max is disingenuous. The XR also has one hour longer battery life. The XR also has FaceID. So the 6T has a worse camera, dramatically slower processor, and lower-life battery. You are free to make a comparison, but it’s comparing a Hyundai with an Audi. The XR costs more because you are getting more. Whether or not you want that “more” is a personal choice, but let’s not pretend that the XR is overpriced. Apple could make a shittier phone and end up priced like the 6T. OnePlus is also operating at barely any profit. So if you took out Apple’s average 38% margin, that puts the XR at $464; so Apple is making a much better phone at a lower price than OnePlus — which makes OnePlus’s tech all the more disappointing: they spend more than Apple and ship a worse phone.
The 2018 MacBook Air isn’t 2x the price of a 2017 Air in the United States. First of all, the 2017 MacBook Air was actually a 2015 MacBook Air with a tiny bump in clock speed. Retail price in 2017 was $999. Retail price in 2018? $1199. The 2018 has Touch ID and retina which the 2017 version didn’t. That’s not even close to “2x the price.)” The tariffs pre-2018 were 15% on computers, now they are over 17%. Then there is an 18% sales tax on top of that! So 35% of the MacBook Air cost in India is just taxes. That means the government of India makes as much “profit” on a laptop as Apple does for making the damned things. Perhaps have a chat with your government about those high tariffs? Apple didn’t double the price, your taxes went up.
Here in India, the 2018 Macbook Air is about $1550. The 2017 version is $920.
I've been using a OnePlus 5T and honestly can't fathom any reason why I would want a faster processor any time soon. And the OnePlus 6T is even faster.
I'm just saying that charging people $1500 for a phone and then wondering why they're not buying any is a dumb strategy.
doesn't feel or look different enough to matter - and that's what matters to most consumers. apple used to have a monopoly on looks and speed. now android flagships have gotten 90percent of the way there for 50 percent of the price
It is not how it is played out elsewhere in the world. First there is additional tax Apple is putting on upon the US retail price tag. Second, almost all foreign currency had deprecated against dollars in 2018. 2x might be dramatic, but 150% is what I see with my own eyes.
That doesn't change the fact Apple chooses to have the customers pay for it to maintain its own margin. It is not wrong, but it does make it expensive.
Sorry if this sounds accusatory, but do you have Face ID on any of your devices? It seems like you might not, since you're "not upgrading". I'm asking this because I have found Face ID to be generally better than Touch ID, but I had to use it a couple of times to "get" it.
It's all biometric facial recognition and comes with the same problems. Quite frankly the face unlock on the Surface makes more sense than on a phone due to nature of the device. It's larger, more likely to be used at a desk while sitting that type of thing.
With my phone I want to unlock it without taking my eyes off the road so I can use voice recognition to map my destination or make a voice call. The absolute last thing I want to screw around with while driving is looking at my phone.
> It's all biometric facial recognition and comes with the same problems.
This isn't remotely close to being true. Face ID and Window Hello (I think that's what it's called?) are quite different, technically.
> Quite frankly the face unlock on the Surface makes more sense than on a phone due to nature of the device. It's larger, more likely to be used at a desk while sitting that type of thing.
Again, I urge you to actually use the thing rather than trying to come up with a mental model of why it's horrible because of your experience with the Surface.
> With my phone I want to unlock it without taking my eyes off the road so I can use voice recognition to map my destination or make a voice call.
1. You don't need to unlock your phone to do this.
2. You can disable the setting to require looking at your phone to unlock it.
1. In my case, yes I do. I run Amazon Music in my car with Apple CarPlay pretty much all the time. Amazon Music has some kind of bug when connected to CarPlay where it will often take over audio input and you cannot get around it without first unlocking the phone.
2. Not looking at the phone does not change that my face has to be within view of the phone. Honestly, this comment makes me wonder if you have used the Surface face recognition. You never have to look at it; it's actually pretty good, but it is still my personal preference to use a pin. Touch ID is more convenient than facial recognition IMHO.
To be clear, I never said it was horrible, I was stating that it is not an improvement FOR ME. I love the fingerprint reader. This whole topic is about Apple's sales declining. Quite frankly, I wouldn't have upgraded from the 7 to 8 series if my iPhone 7 hadn't broken. The 7 was "good enough". At this stage the "improvements" to the iPhone are incremental and not enough of an improvement to be worth the cost of upgrading; clearly, others agree with me or iPhone sales wouldn't be on the decline.
RE #2 IME disabling the “require attention” setting just reduces the degree to which you have to obstruct your vision. You’re still obstructing your vision much more and for longer than with fingerprint unlock.
“Hey Siri, directions to the nearest Trader Joe’s.” Done. How are you mapping destinations without looking at the phone? If you are using voice, you don’t need touchId. If you aren’t using voice, then you are obviously looking at the phone. I doubt you are one handed touch typing on a phone in a moving car.
I'm gonna notice that you left "remove headphone jack" alone. Because everybody, universally, understands that removing the headphone jack is a terrible idea.
> Because everybody, universally, understands that removing the headphone jack is a terrible idea.
I've argued this point before, and wasn't particularly in the mood to discuss it again. There are multiple reasons I didn't bring it up:
1. I use an iPhone SE, so I'm not really qualified discuss this. I do exclusively use AirPods now, though, so I have the feeling that I wouldn't mind the lack of a headphone jack now.
2. The removal of the headphone jack was not done in a vacuum; it's pretty obvious that if there was no drawbacks, it would be great to have a headphone jack in my iPhone. But we live in a world where tradeoffs exist–otherwise, my phone would have every port that ever existed in the last thirty years.
I’m in the camp that firmly believes that AirPods or an AirPod-equivalent completes the general audio experience on an iPhone. Being able to trivially link them to my laptop is also very nice, but what really makes it is being able to invoke and use Siri reliably when my phone is in my pocket so long as the network conditions aren’t crap.
That said, removing or not including certain features does make it less of a general purpose device that is less useful to more people. Apple has been ragged on from day one for not including some form of SD card support, an FM tuner and a removable battery. To this day there are people that will refuse to buy a phone without those features.
They might not be strictly necessary features, but they still sell phones, or at least make them viable to the kind of person that demands them, but Apple still sold hundreds of millions of iOS devices without those features.
Then they removed the headphone jack too. To a group of people that were never concerned about the lack of removable media, a radio tuner, and a removable battery and bought iPhones for years, they suddenly lost one feature they actually used and were told to buy a single instead.
I mean if your car’s Bluetooth radio sucks, or you have a very nice pair of wired headphones you like using, or you simply want to be able to plug your phone into a random audio source at some party, being told to buy a dongle instead sucks. It’s just one more tiny little $10 widget which will get lost or worn out or rendered useless in a laundry mishap.
Apple made a trade off, but in this instance, it does not seem like a worthwhile trade off and it does hurt their image when they make some seemingly anti-customer choice like this. Even people that weren’t personally affected and didn’t mind shelling out for a set of AirPods or W1 Beats might change their perception when enough shit hits the fan and is flung in the face of those around them.
> what really makes it is being able to invoke and use Siri reliably when my phone is in my pocket
Interestingly, my AirPods seem to be defective and this is something that mine won't do ;)
> Apple made a trade off, but in this instance, it does not seem like a worthwhile trade off and it does hurt their image when they make some seemingly anti-customer choice like this.
Every Apple device is a tradeoff. It just so happens that the removal of the headphone jack was a trade off that a larger-than-usual number seem to have taken issue with, though it's not clear that this is a perspective shared by the majority of iPhone users.
> Interestingly, my AirPods seem to be defective and this is something that mine won't do ;)
Ah! Of course! Sadly there is no warranty replacement for your problem. ;(
Kidding aside, Siri required some work to understand and shape into a useful tool, but it was worth it to me to make sure I never pulled out my phone without the intention of doing the specific task I pulled it out to do, and only those tasks that require me to look at the screen. Phone calls, playing podcasts, audiobooks and music, and setting alarms, timers and reminders basically work. Haven’t found a way to do Calendar appointments in the level of detail and granularity I prefer though, so I just continued doing that mostly on my laptop.
Not for everyone, but once I figured out how to make Siri useful after years of not using it at all, it was the killer app for AirPods. Still won’t tick nearly all the boxes on anyone’s Butler-in-a-Box wishlist though.
> Every Apple device is a tradeoff. It just so happens that the removal of the headphone jack was a trade off that a larger-than-usual number seem to have taken issue with, though it's not clear that this is a perspective shared by the majority of iPhone users.
I’m not at all disagreeing that every Apple device is a tradeoff. I don’t think I even implied that it wasn’t, what I’m getting at is that on top of the other trade offs they have already made, that this additional trade off, for the reasons they did it, may not have actually been a good one, and I don’t think it has to affect a majority of users to still be a bad tradeoff.
If, and I’m pulling this number from my ass, but if 20% of your existing install base is unhappy with a decision you made on a model they would otherwise have no problem purchasing, but 80% are at worse indifferent, then you’ve still pissed off 20% of your customers.
It might be 15%, or 10%, or 5% or something even lower, but with a customer base as large as Apple’s, that is still a lot of people that may not be buying iPhones the next time they do, or might but will be dissatisfied, and express this dissatisfaction to their social groups. It still tarnishes the brand. If this were the only thing that tarnished Apple’s brand in recent years it might be fine, but it’s not and the removal of the headphone jack didn’t happen in a vacuum.
An FM tuner? Who the hell still listens to FM by choice? AM at least has news and traffic, but FM? I guess we could complain that iPhone doesn’t have a TV tuner either like circa 2002 Samsung phones.
Apple is trying to sell in more countries than just the US, Canada and the Western European nations. Certainly having an AM radio tuner would be even more compelling, but if you’re trying to appeal in a market you’ve mostly priced yourself out of, lacking features considered standard to that market isn’t a great starting point.
I’m not saying it isn’t an acceptable loss, but it doesn’t look great when you’re removing additional features on top of the ones you just never had.
Or to put it another way, just because you and I don’t care about something in our corner of the world doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole world out there that Apple is, theoretically at least, trying to sell phones to.
Im curious: can you give me example of how you would use a vacuum tube port on your iphone?
Here is my story: i left my cruise cabin in the middle of the night and went to the bow. In shock I discovered it was almost as bright as a daylight - oh my the full moon looks beautiful. I was alone and played the titanic scene for a monent. Imagine me alone, warm summer night, carribeans, full moon and cruise ship gliding through quiet ocean. Perfect moment hard to repeat with all these circumstances. I immediately reach out to my pocket to put headsets on just to listen to some Leonard Cohen’s songs. Imagine my shock when I realized I forgot the iphone’s jack adapter ;(
Nah, the headphone jack can move to the history books already. They oughta replace it with something standard, though, like USB-C. Bluetooth isn't an acceptable total replacement as long as batteries add bulk and need to be recharged. When that's fixed, Bluetooth everywhere will be fine also.
Bluetooth has lag, which makes it useless for playing instruments (say guitar).
Analog jacks are a nice feature, moving the DAC through another interface doesn't solve much.
I don’t use it. I use AirPods or Beats. I’m not doing studio mixing or mastering on my iPhone, so being able to use $1000 wired reference headphones isn’t a use case I care about. Even on my laptop, I use an Apogee interface when I need perfect wired audio. I realize that some people do care about the headphone jack, but that’s quixkly going the way of the floppy drive for most users.
Not a single person I’ve talked to that has gone from Touch ID to Face ID says it is a downgrade. Quite the opposite — they are completey enamored by this feature.
Almost every other company has followed Apple’s move and removed the headphone jack. This really isn’t much of an issue, especially as wireless becomes more ubiquitous.
Do you actually think the average Apple consumer gives any thought into the type of screws? Really?
FaceID is a downgrade for my usage primarily because it requires you to be looking fairly directly at the phone to unlock(even with that “require attention” setting turned off). There are countless times when I want to casually unlock and check or adjust something from the corner of my eye, rather than devoting my full attention to my phone(even an Apple Watch giving me many notifications instead of the phone). It’s especially bad in the car where you can’t unlock your phone without obstructing your vision.
Also when laying on the couch your face is often squished making it not recognize you. I also like to use my devices in landscape orientation meaning that the camera used for FaceID is obstructed. Landscape orientation with TouchID put your thumb right where it needed to be to unlock the device!
With TouchID I basically never reverted to using a passcode, and now with FaceID I’d estimate it’s 20% of the time I use a passcode and another 20% of the time I have to reposition my face or my hands after it fails in order to get it to work.
The only benefit of the new mechanism for me is eliminating bezel space require for the fingerprint sensor. That’s a big benefit, but it comes with very annoying first world problems, which are especially annoying since prices for these devices have gone up so much recently.
As someone with two pairs of AirPods, the lack of a headphone jack also annoys me. Most commonly when in a car with and aux jack and no Bluetooth. Bluetooth devices also require charging one more battery. High end earbuds and IEMs also require a 3.5mm jack and IIRC it might not even be possible to do high end audio via BT due to how it works for audio(something about the audio getting recompressed).
Why is no one mentioning the heavy competition that Apple is facing as the main reason?
Xiaomi Mi 8
Huawei
Honor
Pocophone [1]
OnePlus
etc.
They have amazing flagship specs and cost around 300$.
I noticed that in germany many people can't imagine spending 1100Euro+ on an iPhone once they saw the cheap competition from the Chinese brands.
This will only get worser in the coming years as more people get used to Android.
Young users also can't afford an Apple product in Europe and they watch the youtubers that always talk about those cheap brands. So they will grow up with android and will get used to it, which will make it very hard for apple to get them to switch.
There is a noticeble change among the Youtube stars (influencers) that switched to windows machines to edit their videos. They just didn't have any comparable options in the Apple lineup. This "free" advertisement will also lead more young people to not desire Macbooks as much.
Americans should look up the market-shares of iOS internationally, it's very low.
Therefore there is much less lockin (iMassage) or stigma towards using Android.
Android is also getting only better over time.
Android has the best camera software and Hardware with the Pixel 3.
-Best AI, Google assistant is miles ahead of Siri, Siri is an embarrassment
-Best Maps
-Best integration of its complete software suite of Drive, Docs, etc...
Then the is the whole textbook innovators dilemma.
-Apple keeps iMassage iOS exclusive and passend on the opportunity to have the most popular communication App on the planet just in the hopes to get a few more iPhone sales.
-They don't open the Siri API and stiffle integration in other home devices just to get a few more HomePod sales.
-They don't allow for Spotify with its 70m paying costumers to connect to HomePod to get a few more subscriptions for Apple Music.
-They don't want to build a Macbook Air 15" to not lose sales of the 15 Pro line.
-They don't include a fastcharger to get a few more $on their seperate fastcharging adapter, most people that are even aware of that will buy a second market adapter anyway, and the people that are not aware of the existance of fastcharging for iPhones are just blow away when they see an 300$ Android being charged with 18w
-They refuse to admit the big mistake their ultra thin keyboard was/is in their macbook lineup. I heard from multiple people already that had the money to spend 4000$+ on a new macbook pro 15 that instead held of or bought a used 2015 Macbook instead.
They are so afraid on cannibalising their own business that they stifle them to death and pass on the longterm opportunities.
It is hilarious to me that people here still try to justify Apple's miscalculated pricing strategy.
To much of the world outside of US, iPhone no longer offers the comparable value that lives up to its price tag. Not even being a status symbol could save it.
Time to wake up. Slashing the price with more competitive medium tier devices, or being phased out, pick one.
To me the latest iPhone (xs) doesn’t have any feature that warrants such a price bump. I got an iPhone 7+ 128gb for AUD 1429 when it launched. The XS 256gb is $1879. I got one for my wife only because I had a gift card for a few hundred bucks. It’s a great phone, but not worth the $450 price bump for me.
If Apple bumps the storage on the base model to 128gb and drops the price by a hundred bucks, I’ll pick up this years phone on launch day. But I don’t see that happening.
iPhones have yearly release cycles. Just buy the XS in around 12 months for a major discount. It'll still be a top-notch phone with one of the most efficient processors out there.
Eh, not really surprised.
I've had iPhones since the very first one in 2007, tried switching to Android, but just never stuck with it.
Now it's Apple itself who are forcing me to switch because for whatever reason they decided that nobody needs 4" phones anymore, instead, everybody is supposed to use massive devices which are defacto phablets.
If there was a new 4" option from Apple, I would have gotten a new iPhone this year, but due to a lack of those, I'll instead either be forced to get a new SE as a future replacement, while they are still available, or switch to Android for good where plenty of smaller form factor options exist.
That's business Apple lost based on their own shortsighted decisions, nobody to blame except for themselves.
At this point, it feels a little bit like the "Apple just making iPhone bigger" meme, back from the first iPad release, has actually become reality. [0]
Look, the reason iPhone sales are slipping is because of China's recent poor economic performance. Apple said EXACTLY that in their last earnings guidance:
> While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.
( https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-... )
Samsung's earnings have also been hit by similar factors: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-07/samsung-m...
A slowdown in China this big is actually huge news so I'm surprised so many people are missing the forest for the trees. It means less foreign investment capital will be coming to the West and might potentially signal another global recession.