One of the reason why Steve never initiated Stock buy back and were sitting on big pile of cash were simple, he could bet on products that might or might not make money. ( He was never really sure ) They will have enough resources to weather the storm. He knew technology moves so fast that one single misstep will means 2 - 3 years behind.
As bad as Apple might seems today ( they aren't bad... we just thought it could be better ), it is still far better than it was in the 90s.
Today, Apple earns 70b/year profit, is growing at 10% per year and is incredibly diversified. They could survive on any one of their businesses and in recent years grew two from nothing i.e. Services and Wearables into 1B+ businesses. And they still have their 1B/year content play starting in 2019 and they have AR glasses rumored for 2020.
And you think Apple is doing bad as a company ?
And those points are precisely, numbers. In terms of Products, Three years after the introduction of MacBook Pro Touch Bar, I still think the previous gen MacBook Pro is much better. Four Years after introduction of Homekit, Nearly 7 years since they kicked out Scott forstall because of Apple Maps, and it is still pieces of crap outside US, UK and China. How Many years after App Stores? Think MacBook Air was long in the work? It was because of huge amount of criticism from MBP they decided to make a Retina MacBook Air just to shut us up. ( For the time being )
It is not that their numbers aren't doing good, but their product and services quality are declining. Most of their Product Line seems like a mess. And we are paying a premium for it, we are not iSheep, but that value proposition is declining everyday.
Oh, Did I mention All MacBook Pro TouchBar had a design flaw with Thunderbolt that increase the MacBook failure rate? Yes these things happen under Steve as well, but once these were known a new iteration of design would have been make a year later, instead we are sitting on the same shit for years.
You are still part of there marketing machine.
Compare that to for example how Microsoft have split their dependence on Windows, and now have xbox, azure, office as truly diverse business lines. Or Amazon and their AWS division (their content still relies too much on Prime subscriptions coming from the store).
"Doing bad" is not a good description, but in terms of trajectory, they are far from a safe strategic bet right now.
That said, I think Apple is sitting on top of another blockbuster, similar to the iPhone in terms of impact, if they know how to play it well. I'm referring to the Apple Watch equipped with a non-invasive glucose sensor.
I realize that they have a bit of a regulatory battle to fight before releasing it. But the potential is immense. It will change how people eat, not just diabetics. It's pretty well established science now that if we reduce the area under the glucose curve (read minimize glucose spikes), we will age more slowly and we will reduce metabolic disease enormously.
I recall at one of his last keynotes Jobs pointed out that compared to what the iPhone and iPad were bringing in the Mac/macOS division was small by comparison but compared to computer companies like HP or Dell that Apple was shipping more units of higher quality products to fiercely loyal users/fans (this observation preceded announcements of new/upgraded computers iirc). I realize Apple has an obsession with Ferrari-like cool, slick looks to their laptops but I think a blue-collar, enterprise-aimed laptop that says "I'm a serious developer/business person, I will lug an 8 pound laptop if it gives me lots of RAM, lots of processing power, and an all day batter, even if it's not sexy but gets the job done more reliably than anything else in existence" would be a wildly popular product. In short: something like a Lenovo P series (with 8 cores, up to 128GB RAM and a full, QUALITY keyboard without the BS touchbar) but running macOS. Hell, steal the advertising memes that Ford and Chevy use for selling their trucks: an industrial-grade laptop workstation for the knowledge workers who make the knowledge economy work.
I would buy two right away.
As someone who has dated someone that is diabetic and now works with someone who is diabetic--someone who likes to sit at the cutting edge of technology and is even using hacked equipment to improve his experience--I don't think we have that technology yet.
There's also an alternative using radiofrequency: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641327/
That product doesn't exist yet, the video on the home page is 18 months old so it's probably not feasible / accurate.
Also, love your username, I grew up there!
http://173.239.45.5/~joshmitt/data-beta/Horvath-NatureRev201...
Bagsvaerd is great. I was living in the Lyngby-Naerum-Birkeroed-Farum area for many years, working in formal methods. I hope to be back soon! Are you still in the area?
I moved to Copenhagen, but I guess that qualifies as the area :P
Not that I necessarily believe the quote, but I've seen no sign yet that it's likely to happen any time soon.
Tim Cook & Apple's board have an absolutely stellar team of VP's, from customer service to engineering, but I think they've given themselves too much freedom in terms of "throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks". They're so comfortable with their brand, cash piles and whatnot, that they can release so many variants of so many products and not even worry about the wasted man-hours and resources spent on it.
I get the feeling there hasn't been anyone there taking a step back and going "Y'kno, we can totally do this, but we shouldn't".
Butterfly keyboard? I love how slim their laptops are now, but did they really have to go and re-engineer how a keyboard works? Even in its 3rd iteration, I have a space bar on an almost new Macbook Pro that just won't stop sticking.
iPhone XR? We've priced out the XS for most folks, but let's make a cheaper one too! Oh wait, we have the 8!
Watch Hermes? Or ceramic? Around the $3k mark you're in Rolex, Omega territory; and those watches will be worth more in a few years than anything Apple release.
Etc etc.
I don't know what motivates a lot of folks to buy Apple, but for me it boils down to:
- Stellar customer support
- Reliability & durability
I don't particularly care too much about having the latest / greatest hardware inside my products; but so far Apple are still lightyears ahead of the competition on those two fronts.
I can be pretty much anywhere in the world that has an apple store, walk in and get my keyboard issue sorted, and my many other iDevices have easily lasted a few years and are still going strong.
Also under Tim Cook’s reign Apple has dominated the wearables market with a product that everybody dismissed in the beginning.
And right now they are being more number centric rather than innovation centric as in the past years.
“Ive began dreaming about an Apple watch just after CEO Steve Jobs’ death in October 2011. He soon brought the idea to Dye and a small group of others in the design studio.”
And plenty of innovations for me: A12X/T2/W1 SOCs, FaceID, Apple Watch ECG, HomePod spatial detection, Beats1 Radio, Handoff/Continuity, Apple Pay.
I remember pretty clearly how we all thought Apple would be doomed while they were still struggling to bring Copland out.
The first few years of Steve 2.0 were largely about REDUCING the number of products, and improving the MARKETING. As for the products:
* There was the iMac, which was notable for having FEWER features. Sure there was USB, but everybody was complaining about their ADB and serial peripherals no longer working without dongles, and about the omission of a floppy drive (sound familiar?).
* There was the iBook, which certainly had an iconic look (especially the handle), but not one that had a lasting impact.
* The PowerBooks were nice designs.
* The Power Mac G3/G4 towers with the opening latch and handles were a really good product with a lasting form factor, in my opinion.
* The Power Mac G4 cube was a commercial disaster, doomed, among other things, by bad pricing positioning in a weakening economy (sound familiar?).
* And don't get me started about the hockey puck mouse — the kind of product design that tends to get forgotten in Steve Jobs nostalgia threads.
I will say though, the current jumble of iPhone models reminds me a lot of all the various power macs available when Jobs returned to Apple, got rid of them all, and established the 4-quadrant product line of personal/professional, desktop/portable.
Formerly loyal customers are giving Apple TONS of great product ideas but they aren't listening.
Just like many former buyers of iPhone will not be coming back. Apple can "innovate" all they want, but customers aren't going to blindly buy it.