201–210 of 551 posts
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"Apple may be reaching the saturation point (of the products it currently sells) among potential customers in some countries"
Apologies in advance if this is a dumb question. What is Apple's next move once it saturates the market? Or, more generally, what is the next move once you've saturated a market?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Apple may be reaching the saturation point (of the products it currently sells) among potential customers in some countries"
Apologies in advance if this is a dumb question. What is Apple's next move once it saturates the market? Or, more generally, what is the next move once you've saturated a market?
I can't be that unusual a customer. I think a lot of people are just done upgrading. For a while there in 2009/11/13 (or was it 10/12/14?) every time you upgraded it really did make a difference... a "quantum leap" in technology. Now, I feel like upgrading just changed the style (and unfortunately accessories) of my phone. Rumor is the 7 is going to do away with standard headsets. That would be a deal breaker for me. I am fatigued of not only replacing the phone, but the $300 in accessories it takes to power/add accessories/run the phone every 2 years.
This whole subject around quarterly earnings at Apple always makes me think about this larger trend here called peak stuff. Material consumption is falling in Western countries. Steve Howard did that great interview on the subject on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2016/01/22/464013718/ikea-executive-on-wh...
Apple's products were the pinnacle of aspirations besides a car or home in much of the world, and now... well... they're less so. Still popular, still great products, but maybe there is starting to be some fatigue. It's probably good. Anyone who things unlimited growth as a model on a planet with finite resources is still living in the 20th century anyways.
Maybe that's contributing.
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Can Apple become a bank?
They can buy any +/- any bank
But why would they. It's a lot of trouble, and being a bank gives you the right to lend in money from the public.
It's still possible to provide payment services without being a bank.
I think they could more or less buy VISA and pay in cash, and that makes more sense if you want to make money on retail payments.
Apple is doing just fine. But there's been no Next Big Thing since Jobs. Apple's watch is a dud. Nest's products don't work well. It's like Sony after Akio Moreta died; the company plugs on, but the light has gone out.
A faster CPU, a thinner device (the first gen Apple Watch is huge), and more useful software are clear areas of potential improvement. I think there's a hypothetical wrist-mounted computer which could be really great, but the Watch obviously isn't there yet.
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Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save the $30 a month than upgrade their phone. Wasn't this why Apple was quietly introducting the "iPhone Upgrade Program"? http://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program Seems like Apple realized the future will be a place where every…
In Australia you always had to disclose the phone cost in a contract. People still keep upgrading phones.
Here in QC/Canada it's basically "90$/month for the 2 year upgrade" or "65$/month for BYOD".
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Personally, I wonder who though Apple's growth would never end. This happens to every company sooner or later.
I was at a NASA workshop in Mountain View. An informational placard outside had two plots of growth, one with an unchecked exponential curve, and one with a curve that comes up to a peak and goes down. It asked which made more sense as a growth curve. My idealized mathematical self thought, naturally, the exponential growth curve, because it expresses what happens when y-dot equals alpha y. But I asked a passing Calt…
I run a repair shop. We've repaired over 3,000 Apple devices for customers. We are always chatting with our customers, so we get a ton of feedback from them about what they're doing with their phones. We hear a few things consistently: 1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save…
That's been the only "killer" for phones for me. With a decent case I feel like they otherwise last forever.
My personal upgrade cycle usually involves someone else's (ex: spouse or parent) phone breaking, giving them mine, and buying a new one. Otherwise I'd probably still be on an iPhone 4.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was at a NASA workshop in Mountain View. An informational placard outside had two plots of growth, one with an unchecked exponential curve, and one with a curve that comes up to a peak and goes down. It asked which made more sense as a growth curve. My idealized mathematical self thought, naturally, the exponential growth curve, because it expresses what happens when y-dot equals alpha y. But I asked a passing Calt…
> Physical limits on some aspect of the system must intervene and impose a new law. Just because Apple didn't become the first trillion dollar public company by marketcap (lets assume that chinese bank ipo for a brief second didn't count), doesn't mean that it would have broken a physical limit on the system. There was a time not long ago when 100 billion companies didn't exist and there was a time when private ventu…