So, is Apple doomed? Of course not. As John Gruber says, “Any conversation that uses that word is in silly la-la land.” With Macs, iPads, and software applications and services, Apple isn’t a one-trick pony like BlackBerry, to use an example cited by those most freaked out about the recent iPhone slowdown. It recorded $50.6 billion in sales during that “disappointing” quarter, more than the combined revenue of Google parent Alphabet ($20.3 billion) and Amazon ($29.1 billion) over the same period. Its $10.5 billion in profits outpaced not just the combination of Alphabet ($4.2 billion) and Amazon ($513 million) but also Facebook ($1.5 billion) and Microsoft ($3.8 billion).
“I don’t read all the coverage on Apple that there is,” Cook tells me a few days after my lunch with Cue and Federighi. “The way that I look at that is, I really know the truth.” And he’s ready to talk about it.
Mac Pro and OS X have suffered in Jobs’ absence. Everything else has been pretty much business as usual. However I do think they dropped the ball with whatever plans they had for AppleTV and there may never be a good reason for wanting one going forward.
All things considered, I think Apple has to be happy with where they sit today. I mean we’re talking Jobs here. Cook can’t fill those shoes, but he hasn’t sunk the ship.
Agreed on the first part. The Mac and its associated operating system has suffered severely, and the Sierra betas aren’t giving me much hope on that score at all. iOS hasn’t quite been business as usual though, and it’s obvious that they do at least want to attempt to make it more friendly to professional users. They have added items to it that I’d have never expected under Jobs like Safari extensions, inter-app file sharing (stilted, but it does exist), Bluetooth keyboard shortcuts and an API for developers to actually use the keyboard. I really do feel like Apple is gradually positioning iOS for the long-term, slowly (too slowly perhaps) ramping up the functionality until it’s just got everything most people need without even thinking about it. I know I use my iDevices a lot more than I did even two years ago; my iPad, in particular, gets used far more than any other machine I have. If you’d told me two years ago that I’d say that, I’d have laughed in your face and asked for some of the substance you were smoking. Now…
Edited 2016-08-08 19:22 UTC
Not just Mac Pro, but literally all Macs other than the Mac Book have been left to wither on the vine; check out the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide, so many “DON’T BUY” machines:
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac
In particular, check out the “Days since last release” for MacBook Pro. Frustrating.
as a businessman and turned Apple into a grown up company. Apple is the new IBM.
Jobs was crazy and unpredictable… and Apple was just as crazy and unpredictable as him. That’s what made Apple so great.
But here We are now, most “innovative” Apple product this year will be the iPhone 7… SEVEN!! you can’t be more predictable and boring (and profitable).
Every year is the same and that’s great for a business… but it’s not great to me. Apple is BORING. Please Tim, stop with stupid iPhones and do something great again!!
IBM wins Nobel Prizes for extraordinarily brilliant pure research.
Apple is a consumer electronics company that sells endless iterations of a single product (iPhone/iPad).
Apple really aren’t much different to Dyson.
Edited 2016-08-09 10:55 UTC
Nah, Dyson innovated once at least.
Apple built a reputation on building user-friendly iterations of existing technologies, not on innovation.
Making complex technology appealing and easy to use for the masses IS innovation too.
Sure, I was talking about market position.
Apple is not the disruptive and “different” company it was in the past. Apple is a boring, predictable and very profitable company. Just like any other Fortune 500 company.
Well they were pretty clear of how they see the future of computing: iPad pro, iPhone Pro (maybee), Apple TV, Apple watch, Apple car are very much their vision of moving forward.
It’s not perfect and for some it’s a bit careless but it is what it is, like it or not.
As for professionals, there are many that still use 6 years old hardware to do their encoding om (maybe just exchange the GPU to something better when the time comes).
It values more having full compatibility with your devices rather than being on the edge of technology.
Form factor aside just think why you may need nowadays a full blown computer to do your stuff on and what matters more: upgradability and raw power or extended battery life and ease of use.
…Should be taken in a mystical sense, in a biblical way of thought. Dear Harvest.
That’s the long game Tim is playing with.
True, that Apple has a ton of revenue and profit and is not doing bad at all.
False that its not a one trick pony. Of course it is. How much of that revenue really came from “services” unrelated to the iphone or Hardware other than iphones?
It still might have a ton of revenue and profits from those other divisions, but in comparison to the iphone it might be a rather small portion. If the iphone dies, the company might suddenly become a much smaller company. In the way that nokia has.
I doubt it. Unlike Nokia, which really was a one-trick pony (mobile phones), Apple does have other divisions to fall back on. They’d almost certainly shrink, but it would take colossal mismanagement to actually pull a Nokia. Still, depending on who is managing the helm at that time, anything is possible.
Nokia had networks and maps, which is what Nokia is today. Even while the smartphones were dying a terrible death, those two divisions were modestly profitable. No analogy is perfect, but thats pretty close. Especially when you consider Nokia’s company history of selling everything from tires to shoes to eventually selling phones. It was a multi trick pony.
To pull a Nokia Apple would absolute need an Elop. I doubt there are much of them and that Apple would ever be that stupid. Its more likely that they end like IBM and Microsoft. Still there but blur blast from the glory past.
Maybe. I’m not saying ELOP was anything other than an idiot. But Nokia had serious problems. I would have chosen different solutions to those problems, but they were there. The status quo would have been dangerous as well of slow Meego dev with significant resources sunk into the festering pile of dog poo that was symbian was a bad idea.
Symbian was certainly a festering sespool by the end, but it had one thing that I still miss to this day: a fully integrated–and I mean 100%–SIP dialer. I would really, really, really love to have that again seeing as how my work’s phone system is SIP-based. As it is, the clunky SIP clients on both iOS and Android can’t even come close to the ease of use I got with my E72. I miss that phone! It really is too bad that Symbian degenerated the way it did. It was one hell of an operating system in its prime!
It’s basically an image problem. Apple used to be known for being the cool underdog, which I think few think of it today. I think the nay-sayers are longing for the “good old days” when Apple gave people stuff they didn’t knew they wanted and every record year was seen as a success for humanity of sorts.
The Apple today is just another company doing what most companies do: sell stuff. Which is not as exciting as when they sold “the revolution”.
But they are not stupid so they still sell stuff people are prepared to pay for. It’s gonna take a huge amount of flops for Apple to go under. Or there has to be another company out there with their own Steve Jobs to rally people behind, making consumption hungry people with a soft spot for nailing “The Man” to gather them in hordes in order to make the Apple empire crumble.
And then the cycle would start over again as these are still just companies we are talking about; adding fruit symbols to bits of chips and software.