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Reports Persist of Apple Store Budget Cuts, Emphasis on Revenue

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Re: Reports Persist of Apple Store Budget Cuts, Emphasis on Revenue

#7
This second-guessing of the post-Jobs executive team has gotten really out of hand, though this was to be expected to some degree I suppose.

My personal experience with Apple Retail has still been nothing short of stellar, recently with two almost-no-questions-asked full replacements of a faulty iPad and Retina MBP. Sometimes strolling through Apple stores I have wondered if they were overstaffed, based on the simple fact that lots of people know how to use the popular devices and probably don't have as many questions as they did back when the store was mainly about selling Macs and digital cameras.

As for cost cutting, Apple has been doing it for years. Witness, for example, the radical reduction in pack-in goodies over the course of the development of the iPod. The second generation iPods came with a carrying case, remote, and charging brick [1]. The third left out the remote and carrying case [2]. The fourth left out the dock [3]. The fifth left out the brick [4].

Guaranteed if Cook had been in charge these would have been decried as evidence of Apple becoming a stingy, bean counting big corporation that lost its soul to save some money on pack-ins. In reality they were cutting fat and passed the savings on to us.

1) http://ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/ipod20gb/imag... 2) http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/ipod15gb/... 3) http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/4gpower/p... 4) http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images/reviews_apple/ipod5/5bo...

Re: Reports Persist of Apple Store Budget Cuts, Emphasis on Revenue

#8

This second-guessing of the post-Jobs executive team has gotten really out of hand, though this was to be expected to some degree I suppose. My personal experience with Apple Retail has still been nothing short of stellar, recently with two almost-no-questions-asked full replacements of a faulty iPad and Retina MBP. Sometimes strolling through Apple stores I have wondered if they were overstaffed, based on the simple…

Retail cost-cutting and pack-in goodies are different.

Re: Reports Persist of Apple Store Budget Cuts, Emphasis on Revenue

#9
post #8

This second-guessing of the post-Jobs executive team has gotten really out of hand, though this was to be expected to some degree I suppose. My personal experience with Apple Retail has still been nothing short of stellar, recently with two almost-no-questions-asked full replacements of a faulty iPad and Retina MBP. Sometimes strolling through Apple stores I have wondered if they were overstaffed, based on the simple…

Retail cost-cutting and pack-in goodies are different.

Isn't the experience diminished in both cases?

Re: Reports Persist of Apple Store Budget Cuts, Emphasis on Revenue

#10
There are two things coming that will cause Apple to be making changes now: First is the economy is cooling off globally. The second is that Apple has major new product opportunities and it makes changes well in advance so that these new product launches go well.

On the economy:

The economy is really slowing down globally right now. This is much like the summer of 2007... the hints are there but it took a year before all hell broke loose (saw it in the dotcom bust as well. Same hints.) No way to know how bad it will be or if it will be anything very startling, or just a couple years of lower growth.

But when this happens companies feel it early, and the good ones react, and this happens months if not a year before things start to show up in the popular press like they did in 2008.

On future products: One thing intrinsic to apple's DNA is evolution. This is a company that is not complacent.

It is also a company that doesn't broadcast its intentions or its moves or its plans.

This means that when it sees opportunity, it starts to make changes well in advance of when it will be able to capitalize on that opportunity.

The Apple Store itself is a good example of this: One of the reasons the retail operation was created was to be able to eventually sell the iPhone and iPad directly to the public in a way that couldn't happen before. Macs can be sold online, but the iPad and iPhone need to be seen to be understood.

Apple stores have always done very well on the metrics apple cares about, one of which is profit. I don't see any reason to believe they are going to sacrifice those metrics to try and boost profit.

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