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Apple’s Errors

stratechery.com

71–80 of 136 posts

Re: Apple’s Errors

#71
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The X2 is two years older than the iPhone SE and the successor (Z3) is 45% larger. I'm not sure how anyone can reasonably conclude it's a replacement.

The XZ2 compact was released in April 2018 so it’s newer than the SE. I think you might be confusing it with the non-Compact edition?

Ah, totally missed that. Thank you

Re: Apple’s Errors

#72

Ben, in his article: > Secondly, thanks in part to the lack of information, this miss is catnip for confirmation bias: everyone has their pet theory about what Apple is doing wrong or how they will ultimately fail, and it has been striking the degree to which this revenue warning has been breezily adapted to show that said critics were right all along (never mind that many of those critics trotted out the exact same…

Very good comment. All we know is that Apple underperformed in China and their strategy to expand asia needs revision. I agree with Ben's points that product substitution and third parrty software providing the integrations are the main drivers for deceleration of sales.

Re: Apple’s Errors

#73
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My belief is that Tim Cook's has been running Apple based mostly on inertia from Steve Jobs. As long as things worked mostly the same way, then not much needed to be changed to the formula. It's "easy" to increase revenues, when you benefit from the previous popularity of iPhones, a lot of previous revenue, and most of what you need to do involves launching the iPhone in new countries . Actually, BlackBerry benefited…

This was probably a good time for Apple to broaden their mac range, and expand their computer market share. Under the Steve Jobs era, the Mac was always a premium product, and focused on capturing industry profits rather than market share. I think switching to focusing on market share would have been a very good change for them to make. As a high end product, the mac is likely not gonna make them much more profits th…

> I think switching to focusing on market share would have been a very good change for them to make

This would kill Apple. It's a profit share company. It's a profit share culture. Customer and culture are tightly knit; you don't change one without altering the other.

Re: Apple’s Errors

#74
post #42
post #15

It's amazing that how everyone but Apple knows how to run their business.

My belief is that Tim Cook's has been running Apple based mostly on inertia from Steve Jobs. As long as things worked mostly the same way, then not much needed to be changed to the formula. It's "easy" to increase revenues, when you benefit from the previous popularity of iPhones, a lot of previous revenue, and most of what you need to do involves launching the iPhone in new countries . Actually, BlackBerry benefited…

Between AirPods & Watch Tim Cook has overseen the creation of a Fortune 300 company within Apple in the wearable space. Not sure why people give Tim Cook shit. The fact of the matter is that all of tech is struggling at the moment with China tensions & overall economic volatility.

Re: Apple’s Errors

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know two people who said they won’t buy another phone until the day their SE won’t turn on. I agree, SE form factor solves a great problem for some people. Not everyone wants a big screen! Apple either isn’t making enough money on the SE, not listening to their survey group, or an executive doesn’t care. They need to fix this.

Does anyone really think Apple hasn’t done market research to determine which size phone would be best for them to sell? As mentioned in one of the other comments, SE was using the production lines of the 5/5s. It probably isn’t worth it to keep those going for an older phone and the R&D for a new smaller phone is a huge cost. I’m sure it’s been proven that most people want larger screens at this point. I mean, even…

I went from a 6S to an 8 Plus last year. I dind't go with the X because it was a first-generation product.

The 6S feels comically small now. But, the Plus is too big. I think taking the bezels off the top and bottom would be the perfect size phone. Maybe a little smaller.

I upgrade in the fall, so I'm interested to see what comes out. I'm looking forward to going back to a smaller phone, but the SE and 6S are too small IMO.

Re: Apple’s Errors

#76

This is a really great analysis of the situation but I think Ben, and Tim Cook in his public statements, are missing one important point: iOS 12 made the older devices (iPhone 5s, 6) run _much_ better than they were running on iOS 11 [1, 2, 3]. They improved the software so much on this iteration of iOS that they probably relieved a lot of the hardware upgrade pressure users were beginning to feel in the first half o…

> This is a really great analysis of the situation but I think Ben, and Tim Cook in his public statements, are missing one important point: iOS 12 made the older devices (iPhone 5s, 6) run _much_ better than they were running on iOS 11. They improved the software so much on this iteration of iOS that they probably relieved a lot of the hardware upgrade pressure users were beginning to feel in the first half of 2018.

Meh, I don't know about that. Sure, iOS 12 is great and all, but the iPhone 5S and 6 have just 1GB of RAM. With essentially all mobile devices not using swap at all (due to the highly dubious endurance of the low-grade, Chinese-installed eMMC storage), that's just barely enough for the modern Web these days - and newer iOS apps can't be that much lighter, either! So, I fear that the iPhone 5S and 6 are practically on borrowed time, no matter what Apple does. The Nexus 5 is in far better shape, seeing as it came out with 2GB and will be able to run pmOS (on a mainline kernel, no less)...

Re: Apple’s Errors

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

users will eventually upgrade to the latest flagship iOS device I know I fall into that group of users. I own a 7 currently, it's a few years old, but works well enough. I see no reason to upgrade to an XS today. If the 7 fails tomorrow, I'll buy an XS.

> If the 7 fails tomorrow, I'll buy an XS. Ditto. Loved my 7. Walked into a pool with it in my pocket. Now have an XS. Typing this on a 2015 MacBook Air I only have because I traded my 2013 Air $500 to a neighbor for it. Plan on keeping it another 2 to 3 years; same, at the very least, for the iPhone. They're well-built products that tend to work, and have warranties that show for it.

> Loved my 7. Walked into a pool with it in my pocket.

I'm surprised your phone died, given that iPhone 7 is relatively water resistant.

Re: Apple’s Errors

#78
post #15

It's amazing that how everyone but Apple knows how to run their business.

Pretty much. The corrolary is more interesting though: everyone, including Apple, thinks this is a "business" problem. It's not, it's technical.

The bottom line is that phones are commoditized at this point. There's nothing (statistically nothing, that is -- obviously everyone has preferences) that people want them to do that they don't, and there's nothing that a premium product can offer that the cheap ones don't have too.

That's not something Apple or Stratechery or posters here can fix. It's just the way technology works. It's the same thing (almost exactly the same thing) that happened to Apple in the early 90's. Sure, macs were still better. But they were better and more expensive and for 95% of what the median purchaser (which at the time meant "desk worker at a US business") wanted to do a PC clone running windows was perfectly fine. So Apple got trapped in a slowly shrinking prestige niche.

Now, eventually they broke out with exciting new products and new markets that drive new success. But that's not a "business decision".

Re: Apple’s Errors

#79
post #13

The price is a big factor. Yes , people will buy the luxury phone , because there is a demand for that but it’s limited. Governments of so many counties spending so much money to financially educate people. They are not that stupid. I was going to do an upgrade , when XS and XS Max price was announced I was thinking that’s too much I’ll just buy the 1 y.o. iPhone X and that’s it. Instead they pushed “budget” $800 pho…

> outdated XR

Sorry, what?

Re: Apple’s Errors

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last month, a Redditor explained why the SE form factor likely won't be returning. https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/a68a1v/we_get_it_you...

It's also much better for the platform that there isn't such a wide range between screen sizes. It's incredibly hard to make UIs scale from the SE to the XS Max and both be as functional and good looking on both.

> It's also much better for the platform that there isn't such a wide range between screen sizes.

Not a wide range? What about the iPad and iPad Pro? iOS apps need a responsive interface anyway.

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