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

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

#491

Post by zepto »

studentrob wrote: post #338
zepto wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google hasn't moved past anything - almost all of its money comes from search still. Everything else is just 'bets' none of which have paid off. Apple makes bets too - they just aren't public.

> Google hasn't moved past anything Yeah. This doesn't seem so bad to me. Search has improved tremendously over the years. Things are easier to find. Google is making more content discoverable. Advertising is arguably the biggest revenue generator for internet tools. Everyone can use things that are free, and companies want to reach everyone. So long as Google is the most frequently visited site in the world, they re…

It seems to me that this idea of portability is relevant to almost nobody

Most regular people I know enjoy Facebook, and are accustomed to how it works.

I'm curious about where you see the demand?

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

#492

Post by chippy »

jdhawk wrote: post #476
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…

Dont worry, Apple will force the upgrade the same way they always have. Make the next version of iOS so freaking slow on older devices that its unbearable to use. People that stay on iOS[789] will eventually be forced to upgrade in order to get their necessary app updates. My poor iPad 2 is so slow on iOS9 that its unbearable to use for any length of time. A5's are unbearable, A6's are not far behind.

It's not just Apple - it's the developers who release updates to their apps which, because they have the latest gear, are optimised for the latest hardware. I have an iPad2 and only recently upgraded it to iOS9 after 6? (I think, the one where they introduced the wobbly effect) - it got slow before I upgraded it because I updated all the software on it incrementally. It started lagging before I upgraded, indeed it was the reason why I upgraded the operating system. It didn't make any difference.

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

#493

Post by jdhawk »

chippy wrote: post #492
jdhawk wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont worry, Apple will force the upgrade the same way they always have. Make the next version of iOS so freaking slow on older devices that its unbearable to use. People that stay on iOS[789] will eventually be forced to upgrade in order to get their necessary app updates. My poor iPad 2 is so slow on iOS9 that its unbearable to use for any length of time. A5's are unbearable, A6's are not far behind.

It's not just Apple - it's the developers who release updates to their apps which, because they have the latest gear, are optimised for the latest hardware. I have an iPad2 and only recently upgraded it to iOS9 after 6? (I think, the one where they introduced the wobbly effect) - it got slow before I upgraded it because I updated all the software on it incrementally. It started lagging before I upgraded, indeed it wa…

Interesting, I'd love to have that datapoint, but I was an idiot and pushed to iOS7 on my iPad2

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

#494

Post by rsync »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #153

Well, they had a good run. I wonder what's next. I don't think anyone was surprised though, around 2014 we saw the writing on the wall. I mean take the Nexus 5, I have plenty of friends who have one and it's basically like they bought a microwave. It just works, it's fine, and they're expressing 0, and I really mean 0 interest in upgrading their microwave. They'll keep it for as long as the battery lasts and they don…

"Like the CEO of sony, who spoke about the end of innovation in smartphones a few months ago."

The only innovation was the original iphone. There has been zero innovation in the smartphone space since then.

Every single smartphone is just a touchscreen slab. They are, in terms of design, indistinguishable from the original iphone.

Sure - thinner, a curved edge, a different button ... but those are just trivial details.

The original iphone was a different thing than, say, a moto razr or a candybar phone or a treo. That was innovation.

I haven't seen any since...

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

#495

Post by lg »

darkclarity wrote: post #174
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.

That's a big reason why private businesses are better than public ones. There's no need to push for unsustainable growth at the behest of busybody investors.

that pressure comes from shareholders who want to make money on their ownership stake, whether the company is traded on public markets or not. it's not carl icahn pushing 5-year exit strategies on startups.

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

#496

Post by beezle »

smitherfield wrote: post #107
mbrubeck wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No typo. A year ago they had authorized $140 billion, and had already repurchased more than $80 billion. https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/04/27Apple-Expands-Cap... ($175 million would be less than three hundredths of one percent of Apple's market cap.)

Ah, thanks. Kind of a hard to parse sentence; I read it as buying back $175bn this quarter. Which would be 30% of their market cap and represent all their cash on hand.

They do not have that much cash on hand. Apple already has over $100B in common and exotic debt that has been used to pay for both dividends and this buy back program. So that pile of cash sitting overseas? On its way to being mostly spent. And if the Congress critters start pressing companies to repatriate, a big tax bill looms too.

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

#497

Post by galistoca »

Natanael_L wrote: post #451
galistoca wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you downvoted me because you disagree with my point of view. I'll just tell you this: I have been thinking a lot about the stuff you talk about here and even prototyped a hardware device to try out the idea. I had the same point of view (It would be nice to have an input device I can use without even looking) but after experimenting I realized this isn't the case. Also this "vibration" thing you're talki…

The Steam gamepad and the Macbook's new touchpads can simulate tactile borders and shapes on the surface with controlled vibration. Combine with pressure detection and you can make Swype / SwiftKey provide a sense of where you're dragging your finger when swipe typing, plus that you can put emphasis on the right letters easily when swiping across groups of letters that would make for different words, making for bette…

What you say doesn't change anything significantly, which means it doesn't change the way we type on mobile phones--you still need to look at the screen. Also it's a bit of a stretch thinking because it works on a game controller with limited number of inputs, it will work on a keyboard with way more keys, isn't it?

As I mentioned above, I explored into building a mobile device that you can type into without looking, and my first hypothesis was "tactile feedback is key". And turns out there are many many other factors at play. Even if Apple built something like you say, that won't make more people buy iPhones, it's just an incremental innovation that doesn't significantly change any user behavior for the better.

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

#498

Post by beezle »

ThomPete wrote: post #264

Apple still have $233,000,000,000 in the bank. More than the federal reserve, more than Google, Microsoft, and Facebook combined. They could buy their way out of this I am pretty sure.

False. There is enough press about this - Apple has already spent a large chunk of that by issuing debt to pay for current buybacks and dividends (and avoid US taxes).

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

#499

Post by tjl »

ericabiz wrote: post #345
tjl wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents only replaced their iPhone 5 when the battery wasn't holding a charge as well as they'd liked. So, they replaced it with a 5S (this was before the SE, but it was free with a contract anyway). They use it for calls and directions, but not much else so the 5S is more than adequate.

If they still have that 5, it's pretty cheap and quick to do a battery replacement (we charge $49 -- many shops charge similarly.) Should bring it back to life just like new. if nothing else, I think it would be worth doing just to have it as a backup phone.

I have the iPhone 5 now. Until getting this phone, I've never had a cell phone (I don't really get that many phone calls so I haven't bothered). To be honest, the battery life isn't great, but I just bought a small external battery to charge it when necessary. It was cheaper than a replacement and I didn't want to risk making a mistake in the swap. I have more than enough technical skill to do it, but since it's now my only phone I decided not to take the chance. I might do it if the battery life gets too bad.

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

#500

Post by studentrob »

zepto wrote: post #491
studentrob wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google hasn't moved past anything Yeah. This doesn't seem so bad to me. Search has improved tremendously over the years. Things are easier to find. Google is making more content discoverable. Advertising is arguably the biggest revenue generator for internet tools. Everyone can use things that are free, and companies want to reach everyone. So long as Google is the most frequently visited site in the world, they re…

It seems to me that this idea of portability is relevant to almost nobody Most regular people I know enjoy Facebook, and are accustomed to how it works. I'm curious about where you see the demand?

> Most regular people I know enjoy Facebook

I enjoy Facebook. I just see opportunity for something next-generation. Also, I disagree with the notion that Facebook will be fine forever as the dominant player in social networking. They are better off with more competition. Gates and Jobs are quoted saying that Microsoft and Apple's existence helped each other become better companies [1] [2], and helped get more useful computers into people's homes and businesses faster.

Gmail offers an export feature of its emails and contacts in formats that are importable by other tools.

Facebook could do this for your friends list. They don't because they've never had competition that provides such a feature.

When internet explorer became free for everyone, Netscape was forced to become free for everyone.

> I'm curious about where you see the demand?

Demand doesn't make or break a new product. There wasn't demand for cars or iPods before they came out.

That's the best I can explain it. If you don't agree that's fine.

[1] https://youtu.be/wvhW8cp15tk?t=23m42s

[2] https://youtu.be/wvhW8cp15tk?t=1h8m25s

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