Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 551 posts

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#231

Post by robryan »

refurb wrote: post #197
mjfern wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our system that "growth" is used as the main metric for assessing business success. It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better.

It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better. Not sure I understand. How do you grow revenue unless you're producing something that someone wants, presumably because it solves a problem and makes the world better? If I were a company I'd pay a lot of money to find other ways to grow!

Hard problems though might involve making a 5 or more year bet and investing billions with no guarantee of a return.

Much more of a risk than bumping the iPhone specs.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#233

Post by yourapostasy »

grandalf wrote: post #27

I love my iPhone 6+ but while overall the ecosystem is getting better, the device is more laggy and glitchy than previous models. Apple Pay always gets triggered by accident when I try to unlock using the fingerprint, and once in a while random apps seem to heat up the phone and drain the battery before I realize what is going on. I think small things like the minor points of perceived quality that I'm describing can…

Absolutely on point. There are numerous points where the polish is missing. For smartphones at Apple's preferred high-end price point, if the user experience doesn't feel like the designers anticipated user needs, then an Android will look "good enough". The gap between "good enough" and "just works" is gigantic, and is only breached by psychotic amounts of attention to detail:

1. Create an appointment, set the geographic destination, start setting alarms and about half the time Calendar crashes.

2. No gesture to make a copy of an appointment in Calendar.

3. No API for Siri.

4. Dial into a conference call with a passcode. Start a second call, and try to dial into another phone number with a passcode from Contacts or Calendar. It dials the number but not the passcode (iOS ignores everything after the phone number for the second call).

5. Come back into cell range from a long absence and receive a barrage of voicemail notifications about voicemails you've previously been notified about.

6. Add a field in Contacts, and the cursor and focus stay in the "add field" area of the record, while the actual field is above that area. You have to scroll up, find the field as the keyboard appears, then key in the field. Older versions of iOS had the behavior correct: adding a field moves the focus to the field in the record.

These and more warts arguably should not exist in a high-end, premium smartphone.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#234

Post by Retra »

refurb wrote: post #197
mjfern wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our system that "growth" is used as the main metric for assessing business success. It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better.

It's growth for the sake of growth (and more $), and not deploying business to solve hard customer problems and to make the world a little bit better. Not sure I understand. How do you grow revenue unless you're producing something that someone wants, presumably because it solves a problem and makes the world better? If I were a company I'd pay a lot of money to find other ways to grow!

Yes, if you presume growth results from problem solving, then it's trivial to argue that it must. But it's also fairly trivial to show growth that results from causing problems, too. Like certain kinds of monopolistic behavior.

For example, if my ISP charges my $10 more a month, they aren't necessarily solving any problems, but it's still growth for them.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#235

Post by bduerst »

noir-york wrote: post #190
nathancahill wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know how buybacks work do you?

Buybacks decrease outstanding shares, and increase earnings per share, which drives up share price. But its not a great way to increase EPS, as opposed to increasing EPS via operational means.

If you know EPS is a terrible price inflation tactic, why did you automatically assume it's Apple's motive and gripe about it?

If the market price is lower than intrinsic value, then the buyback is a good idea.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#236

Post by stouset »

_nullandnull_ wrote: post #127

I'm not surprised. I think Apple underestimated the demand for the iphone SE 64 GB. Its been out of stock in most stores since it was released. Apple's shareholders should be asking why can't anyone buy it in a store? Also many people don't want wait two weeks to receive their phone when they buy it online.

People can't buy it in a store, because like pretty much every model that came before it, they're massively supply constrained.

They've gotten better about it, but there's only so much you can do when you're producing a high-tech item being purchased tens of millions of times per week globally.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#237

Post by kibwen »

nightski wrote: post #146
yoodenvranx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think iPhone performance has hit a point where one doesn't really feel the need to upgrade right away I have a cheap 2014 Motorola Moto G and I have the same "problem". Yes, there are hundreds of modern phones out there which are several times faster and have way better hardware but the Moto G is fast enough for me. I usually just browse the web, type a few messages in Whatsapp, take a few pictures, ... and the p…

Agreed, this is the exact reason I went with a Moto G. It was under $200 and I tend to be very clumsy. It runs the latest nearly stock Andriod and is a very smooth experience. The only fault I can find is it's camera. So for someone who finds that very important this may not be an option.

Fellow Moto G user, and I completely agree with this sentiment (along with the camera being meh). Remarkably the battery has held up very well with two years of use, part of me wonders if that's due to performance improvements in Android offsetting the natural wear (though every update seems to make the stock apps slower, with Maps being a particularly noticeable example).

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#238

Post by alphonsegaston »

cowpewter wrote: post #74
toyg wrote: post #61

Apple is not doomed, but I think they've taken their eyes off the ball a bit. Watch and iPad Pro are me-too products, and the switch to flat interfaces cost them a lot of differentiation IMHO. They've cheapened their brand and they don't seem to know what market they should really disrupt.

The iPad Pro is actually really awesome for artists. Pro + Pencil is a better experience than a Wacom Cintiq display, and it's a whole tablet for about the same price point, not just a display.

Yes and no (am an artist and have both). The hardware profile is exactly what you would want, but the software isn't there. You'd need something like the equivalent of the brush engine in Photoshop in order for it to be viable for most artists, but Adobe seems all in on their paired down and unintuitive mobile apps. Procreate comes close, but their brush system is kludgy.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#239

Post by kenjackson »

ericabiz wrote: post #4

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…

3D Force Touch has one really useful use, which is to go back to the previous app on the backstack. I use that constantly. But I use almost nothing each with 3D Touch.

Re: iPhone Sales Drop, and Apple’s 13-Year Surge Ebbs

#240

Post by bduerst »

allisthemoist wrote: post #188
noir-york wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. Isn't google still not a search company, but its moved past its 'search' era and now its focus on other things. Apple will always sell hardware, but it needs to orient to its next phase of growth, and that ain't hardware.

As a company that has a huge grip on higher end hardware sales, I definitely think they will stay in the space. That being said, product innovation certainly needs to happen for them to retain their dominance.

Depends. They're the quality leader of the hardware market, but that means they'll need to be present in new hardware markets.

This includes VR/AR, less someone else gets to the the brand reputation throne first (like HTC or Microsoft).

Post reply on HN