Apple Says It Could Miss $9 Billion In iPhone Sales Due To Weak Demand (theverge.com) 332
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple CEO Tim Cook published a letter to investors today warning of weaker than expected first-quarter earnings, citing "fewer iPhone upgrades than we had anticipated." The weakened demand came primarily from China, although Cook notes that "in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be." In his letter, Cook offers several explanations for the lower earnings guidance: earlier launch timing of the iPhone XS and XS Max compared to the iPhone X, the strength of the US dollar, supply constraints due to the number of new products Apple released in the fall, and overall economic weakness in some markets. But the core issue remains simple: people just aren't buying as many new iPhones as Apple hoped. All in all, Apple's revised Q1 guidance forecast is dropping by up to $9 billion in revenue compared to its original estimate.
What is that, like 9 iPhones? (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess they should have realized they were pricing themselves out of the market earlier.
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More like keep the same horse galloping and it will eventually slow down and or collapse. Apple had become too stagnant with the iPhone and really did not work on the rest of their product range or develop new products. Eventually the iPhone was bound to hit a wall where people stopped upgrading and of course to keep revenue up, taking cheapy hardware shortcuts or not working on the software created problems. They can of course charge a premium if their product is the most reliable and the most repairable (
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Smart move would be for Apple to introduce a user replaceable battery.
That would take a lot of courage.
tougher phones instead of svelte unreliable product.
Making a tough-looking rugged phone is a cool idea but goes completely against Apple's philosophy. Every designer at Apple would have to be fired first.
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They will simply raise the prices to make up for the missing revenue.
Re:What is that, like 9 iPhones? (Score:5, Interesting)
My iPhone SE does all I need , and it fits comfortably in my pocket. These new monster arse things are of zero interest to me. I had upgraded every 2 years, but there was no upgrade path that interested me, so I will keep my SE until it dies and will probably have to go Android to get what I want.
But its NOT just the phones.
Apples financial issues are probably down to a loss of trust with the consumer.
Sure, I trust Apple more with my Data than Google, Facebook or Amazon, but I am talking about trust in their products.
Mac mini, languished for years
Mac Pro, languished for years, and still is languishing
Airport, DOA
Time Capsule DOA
OSX Server, so many bits deprecated my next “upgrade” will be an Intel NUC running Ubuntu
Wireless charger, MIA
Took how many years to make a wireless extended keyboard
Buy an overpriced USB-C power supply and Apple does not even supply the cable
Automator has languished for years
Apple script has languished for years
And for me personally
Siri for the ATV4 in New Zealand, the ONLY Siri compatible device in NZ that does not actually support Siri
HomePod, completely missing in action in NZ, made WORSE by the fact the NZ online store is the exactly same building as the Aus Online Store
All the iPhones are now too big, when my SE dies it will be Android as my only option
New Zealand did not get any iTunes bonus like the US, Australia, EU and others did, that’s Apple telling us to F**k Off, you are irrelevant , last time I saw iTunes cards discounted was about 4-5 years ago. We used to buy them as stocking fillers for the kids, we have not bought any for 4-5 years now.
Piss poor design decisions
Headphone sockets on the rear right side (of laptops that still have them)
Wireless mouse, you got to have it looking like a dead turtle to charge it, why not have it plugged into the front so you can use it and charge it.
Try turning text 90 in Numbers, so much for that font technology.
The USB-C cable supplied is power only, not USB-C data and not Thunderbolt 3, and USB-C cables are not thunderbolt 3 either, but they all look the same
Laptop keyboard, this generations Apple III
Laptops non upgradeable, RAM or SSD
Laptops with ZERO standard ports (USB-A, Ethernet, etc) forcing everyone to buy bloody dongles
Get off the bloody “Thin” bandwagon, how thin a computer/phone has been has NEVER been part of my buying decision, that’s pure marketing wank , reminiscent of the MHz wars
I know lots of people who have gone down the Hackintosh routine, if only so migrating to Windows can be done gradually
Me, I have free access for home to the Microsoft suite of software as well as the Adobe software.
Do I dump Final Cut 7 which has served me well for my home moves, and head to Adobe ?, because to be frank I have little faith that Apple is all in on its software for OSX anymore.
And to be brutal, its getting damned hard to justify Apples prices, combine that with the loss of trust that Apple is actually going to support any particular piece of hardware or software and you get a slump in sales.
Me, everything is working, so I will wait and see, but with what I have played with so far, Ubuntu is looking like a good option.
This year will tell if its a blip, or a slide.
But unless Apple realises that FUNCTION is actually more important than FORM, they they are screwed, and currently they have no one championing function.
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Mac Mini and Mac Pros are the worst selling Macs in the entire lineup. Th
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Mac Mini and Mac Pros are the worst selling Macs in the entire lineup. This has been true for years, even when they were new and refreshed - they were not machines that sold particularly well. In fact, if Steve Jobs was around, he'd have axed both of them for being really bad sellers.
The problem as I see it is that despite being bad sellers, they are the Macs that are *needed*. The mac mini gets developers a cheaper way into developing for the ecosystem and the mac pro lets professionals have a powerful workstation that is officially supported by apple. If you took those away and focused on the high selling iphones, imacs and macbooks you'll have a few great quarters but then the complaints about lack of software will start as software attrition sets in and people who once could use mac
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Neither the Mac Mini nor the Mac Pro exist to be good sellers. The Mini was introduced because Apple needed an entry-level device. The cheapest Mac was 3-4 times the price of the cheapest Windows machine and it's very hard to make people switch operating systems and buy an expensive computer at the same time. The Mini was intended to be the device that got customers hooked on OS X and encouraged them to then buy a second Mac.
The Pro was there to be the device that developers and content producers would
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Re:What is that, like 9 iPhones? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Guess they should have realized they were pricing themselves out of the market earlier.
They are selling them too cheap. Hipsters know that at that price they must be trash, taking quality as proportional to price cubed. Now if they charged $20k the Apple fans would be flocking to re-mortgage their houses for one.
Re: What is that, like 9 iPhones? (Score:5, Insightful)
... the iPhone 6s isn't obsolete...
This is the exact problem right here. There's no incentive to buy newer phones anymore since they're not adding dramatically new must-have features. Yet, that didn't stop Apple from dramatically increasing prices as if it were adding those features. Sorry, I'm not going to pay $1000+ for a phone that's just marginally better than the one I currently own.
Were Apple to spend a bunch of their cash on research and come up with new features that people wanted, they could jump start the market again. But, that's not happening.
Re: What is that, like 9 iPhones? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>... the iPhone 6s isn't obsolete...
> This is the exact problem right here.
Yup, I'll second that. I have a iPhone 7+ that is paid off. I was going to upgrade to the iPhone X but I asked myself "Do I _really_ NEED a new $1,000 phone? Is this a Want or Need?"
The answer was "While I like the OLED screen and better camera, nope, I don't need it. I'd rather spend the money on something else -- like a Digital Piano, VSTs, etc."
Phones are more then "good enough" compared to the previous generation. All I want is:
* A fucking 3.5 mm plug so I can listen AND charge the phone at the same time (not this bullshit slow wireless recharging shenanigans), and
* Longer battery life.
It's not better phones, it's the arrogance (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not necessarily all the new issues that have come along. And it's not that the current iPhones are so good people don't want to upgrade. It's the issues they have had from the beginning that are biting them in the ass:
* No replaceable battery
* No MicroSD card slot
* A texting app that won't actually send an SMS to a non-iPhone by default, and w
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There's no longer anything particularly innovative, that's the problem.
What? Wasn't having no audio jack innovative? And have you forgotten the ones that came bent? - brilliant that idea.
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There's no longer anything particularly innovative, that's the problem. You can't just jack up the price, add mediocre upgrades and expect people to pay for it.
The one area I don't see Apple being innovative, and even Samsung drops the ball a bit, is creating more differentiated phones to meet the needs of more consumers. Why not have a thicker phone with a bigger battery and phone jack for those who care about that? Why not have a 7" screen for people who still want a larger screen, and why not have a 3.5" phone for those who like the original form factor? The innovation here would have more to do with how to manufacture and market more form factors at a smaller
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you can replace the battery on the Samsung. Replacement parts are available on-line and there are videos on how to do it. The original battery is glued in, but it's pretty easy to break the glue bonds. Then connecting the new battery is trivial.
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Companies think they always have to keep "innovating", *no matter what*, because otherwise they'd all be the same, and there would be no reason to not just buy the cheapest one.
Mod this up.
Most "innovation" is to add to the number of marketing tick boxes and is not needed or used by the buyers, even though the buyers think they do. Remember in video-recorder days the joke (but true) that many people had the clock display taped over because they could not be bothered to set the time and did not want the flashing. I have a camera with so many buttons, menus and modes that it's insane - yet camera review sites rate cameras by that number and it influences people, even though the bu
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Smartphones are small mobile generic personal computers. What they can and cannot have is exactly like with big PCs.
This argument makes as much sense as saying 'PCs are just small mainframes. What they can and cannot have is exactly like with big mainframes'. It's superficially true, in that they're both general-purpose computing devices, but form factor matters when defining sensible use cases. A camera on a phone is useful, because it's about the same size as a stand-alone camera and most people carry their phone everywhere. A camera on a desktop is much less useful - you can use it for video conferencing, but not
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So they'd make $1200 instead of $2000?
No, they'd make $1200 instead of $0.
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If the phones were $600 instead of $2000 they would sell twice as much.
So they'd make $1200 instead of $2000?
Someone get this man a position of CEO. By that, I mean someone beat some sense into him with a shitstained dildo.
$1200 x 2 = $2400
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Guidance change, but factors could change... (Score:2)
I wonder if the China tariff stuff gets resolved this month, if that would improve the outlook a lot since most o the miss is supposed to be from China.
It's going to be down even so though, as it seems like it's not just China...
The funny thing is Apple at the last keynote was talking about wanting users to have longer upgrade cycles. The wish came true, just a bit early. :-)
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I wonder if the China tariff stuff gets resolved this month
I'm not expecting that to happen. China's playing the long game and waiting it out. Trump will be president for another 6 years max, 2 if his trade dispute with China puts us in a recession. Xi Jinping is president for life.
China's willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.
Who has true longevity (Score:2)
I'm not expecting that to happen. China's playing the long game and waiting it out.
While that is traditionally China's strength, they do not have that luxury.
The Apple guidance in a way, is a small window to how tariffs are actually hurting the Chinese economy. They cannot afford to play the long game here; the U.S. can, and Trump would. Do you seriously think there will not be major unrest within a year if things carry on as they are?
China's willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.
Yes but not b
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They cannot afford to play the long game here; the U.S. can
You are delusional. America is the brokest it's ever been since the second world war. [wikipedia.org] China will expand by more than 7% in 2019.
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The Apple guidance in a way, is a small window to how tariffs are actually hurting the Chinese economy.
Apple and Tesla are manufacturing in China for export to the Chinese and European market.
China is buying soy from Brazil, and I see no reason they should switch back to America ever. Brazilian soy production increases and market price equilibrium with United States farmers has displaced the American export market. China could go to Venezuela next for oil.
People don't realize that shirts are made in China with cotton grown in Egypt or America. Those northern Sud states can produce cotton just as well
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The CPC rules "uncontested" only in a symbolic way. There's over a billion people in China and a lot more than just Uncle Xi's agenda in play, both in the party, the economy and in regional areas. It's part of why China is so control-oriented because they know that any kind of national control in China is extremely tenuous.
There's has long been a lot of questions about China's economic numbers generally. Every few months there's some new initiative to reel in bad loans, stop over-production, etc. It's l
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2 if his trade dispute with China puts us in a recession.
This administration inherited a strong recovery economy and went on a two-year cocaine binge. It's been a house of cards for a while now, and it's coming down. Of course we're going into recession.
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administration inherited a strong recovery economy and went on a two-year cocaine binge. It's been a house of cards for a while now, and it's coming down. Of course we're going into recession.
You are mostly correct but here let me help you. What you meant to say is.
This administration created a strong recovery economy by removing barriers set up by the previous that was on a 8 year cocaine binge. This remains in place despite left wing attempt to sabotage or the previous administrations attempts to falsely clam it. Since they can't do ether they are now running around in circles with their hands over their heads screaming "recession" even despite evidence to the contrary.
There we go. A
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...snip....
I believe what you mean to say is, "Thank you."
To which I reply, "You're welcome." Here let us let The Rock demonstrate in song
https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM [youtu.be].
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"You're Welcome."
Re: Guidance change, but factors could change... (Score:5, Insightful)
People are rejecting Apple products because of Apple's insistence on not allowing users of tbeir products to fix their own stuff after they have bought and own it.
Louis Rossman exposes this regularly. A high school kid saves up enough money to by an Apple laptop as their first one, believing it to be the best option for them at the time with its ease of jse for newbies. Fast forward to where a solder joint breaks and the laptop no longer boots and the kid takes it in to a Genius Bar to get jt fixed. Apple will charge the kid for an entire new motherboard and refuse to allow its store staff to fix the old. Kid is out $1200 dollars (on purpose, Apple's goal is to get the kid to just buy a new laptop and throw tbe old in their trash) instead of $35 parts plus labor combined at a competent laptop repair shop.
People who use Apple products are increasingly seeing the light. That type of behavior is profit driven and in no way consumer positive. It's a shame as Apple do seem to see the light with regards to protecting privacy of its consumers, when other companies flat out don't care.
But therin lies the rub. Apple makes bank based on their no repair policy whereas everyone else subsidises their stuff through collecting and selling user metrics and serving them ads. The entire culture is a racket and people getting rich off it don't give a flying fig if it all comes crashing down when justice finally catches up with them (Google is a hack away from being sued into oblivion for the amount of interconnected data it has managed to collect and actively store. Once the data gets released to the light of day, practically no one will be able to prove they are who they say they are in legal settings, and any criminal can electronically become any other person they want as many times as they want).
Re: Guidance change, but factors could change... (Score:5, Interesting)
EVERY Mac I have owned (except for the 512KE) I upgraded the RAM and the storage.
I can buy a 2TB SSD for about the cost to upgrade from 256GB to 512GB at Apple prices, I do NOT want to pay Apples extra 400% markup.
Apples biggest issue is that they can no longer be trusted to make choices that are consumer friendly.
I would have bought the bottom end 15" MBP and upgraded it like I did the last time, but I can't.
I wold have upgraded my iPhone SE, but they don't make a phone the size of the SE anymore
I would upgrade my Final Cut Pro software, but I don't think Apple is in it for the long haul, better to jump ship before it gets harder to do
Apple does not sell the HomePod in New Zealand, I am moving away from iTunes.
I get a free 1TB cloud storage from MS and from Adobe, there is no way I am paying Apple anything.
OSX server is so deprecated that I need to move to Linux now
Apple has become all glitz, and no function.
Steve is NOT coming back this time to Save Apple from its self.
Re: Guidance change, but factors could change... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Nobody gives a shit about repair. That is a made up issue from the geek crowd.
Nobody would give a shit if it didn't break all the fucking time and instead replacing the cheapo component for a reasonable price they want you to pay almost as much as a flat out new computer that you might as well just buy a new one, which will be just as shitty and fragile.
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I wonder if the China tariff stuff gets resolved this month, if that would improve the outlook a lot
You can hope. But obvious fact is, Huawei and Xiaomi phones just deliver a whole lot more value to Chinese customers, that is the problem. We all know how to fix that, don't we? Cut prices.
Peak Smartphone (Score:3)
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They could add :
DVB2 Digital Radio.
3D Camera - like VR180 stuff, home made 3d porn
FUCKING ADD MICROSD you fucking retards - even if its 100% for PHOTOS/VIDEOS only stupid fuckers - you think we all live in a infinite 4G world, cant transfer 512GB in 10 seconds it takes to replace the SD card.
Add more fancy LEDs on the back for notifications.
2x larger battery.
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2x larger battery.
WHAT! That would add over a millimetre of thinness. Apple will never trade convenience for looks.
Next you'll be wanting to go back to a Nokia-style plastic face, that gets bothersome scuff-marks occasionally, just because it never shatters.
(I do miss the days when you could accidentally drop your phone from a moving car, find the battery and cover, reassemble, and it still just worked.)
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Relevant Scottish tweet:
Member the days when you used to drop your phone n the battery would fall out. Now if you drop your phone your heart falls out ur arsehole
Megan Macleod
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(I do miss the days when you could accidentally drop your phone from a moving car, find the battery and cover, reassemble, and it still just worked.)
Those where they days. I liked how I could go to disney world for a week, forget my charger at home, and still have a half full battery when I got home.
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DVB2 digital radio: LOL what? That's not even niche.
3D Camera: nobody wants this. Remember how popular 3D TVs or 3D P&S cameras were?
MicroSD: Yeah if I go back to 2004 this will be a great place to store my Napster collection. In modern times people just stream, grandpa.
LED notifications: I remember my Galaxy 5 had that! Never fucking used it, which I guess is why they got rid of it.
2x more battery: I dunnow. Wouldn't complain, but unless if goes a week like an old Nokia, who really gives a fuck.
Re: Peak Smartphone (Score:2)
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MicroSD: Yeah if I go back to 2004 this will be a great place to store my Napster collection. In modern times people just stream, grandpa.
HAHAHA what a fucking knob! Good luck to you when you have no signal or when you have to start paying for your own data. Or when your price doubles (times your ten different subs), or shuts down or any other number of things and your left holding nothing but an empty wallet with nothing to do but shove it up your ass.
Peak high-end smartphone (Score:2)
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Make more water resistant. Deeper depths like with old watch ads.
I used to swim with my watch on, so being water proof to a few metres deep was a valuable feature. How many people want to swim with their phones?
Better screen with HDR and a faster GPU. Support all the HDR standards and make new smartphone HDR standards.
Increasing picture quality rapidly hits diminishing returns. How many people can actually tell the difference and how much is it worth to them?
The 5G upgrade will start sales again.
Why? GPRS was slow and painful to use. UMTS was about a minimum to be basically okay for web browsing and email. HSPA was fairly painless for most things. LTE is enough for streaming. What does 5G enable users to do?
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Think of the new HDR branding on the side of the box.
Re " What does 5G enable users to do?"
Wanting to buy a new smartphone is the idea. Speed is the selling point.
Re "GPU math to set it apart from all other types of games."
The battery ability and what the cpu/gpu can support is not going to make porting easy. So sell the user on a different type of math that makes games better on the smartphone.
Better frame rate
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Just add this crazy new feature everyone demands (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet if they added headphone jacks again, the new phones would sell like hotcakes. Who wants to upgrade when there's a huge decrease in functionality?
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I didnâ(TM)t upgrade because of two factors:
1. They no longer offer a current phone model with the form factor I want.
2. There were no deals which would have avoided me paying a monthly fee on top of my mobile service costs.
â"-
I refuse to pay full price for a phone. Period. Especially if theyâ(TM)re not going to see me a phone in the size I prefer.
So, normally I would have upgraded my phone and they would have had some sort of sale to someone. This is the first time since 2008 when it was
Re:Just add this crazy new feature everyone demand (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet if they added headphone jacks again, the new phones would sell like hotcakes. Who wants to upgrade when there's a huge decrease in functionality?
@yorgasor nailed it.
The iPhone was an iPod that could make phone calls first and foremost. Somehow that was forgotten and those Audiophiles among us have slowly become increasingly annoyed with Apple as they have:
- Taken away the Headphone jack
- Destroyed the usability of iTunes as a Jukebox (I mean seriously it turned into an App Store Device management system)
- Caused Massive AppleID Identity Crisis As Apple tried to conflate iCloud with Me.com/Mac.com and iTunes DRM Log ins
- Arbitrarily and without my authorization erased all my local music from my iPhone in a Vain attempt to get me to Stream from the Cloud Driving my Data Rates into the Sky while simultaneously putting all my music into buffer-hell
- Artificially Kept Storage capacity behind the curve of progress, We should have Terrabytes of local storage by now, But NOOOOOOO That goes against their motivation for a cloud ($Subscription)
Sigh..... Stallman was right..... I should just chunk my iPhone 6s and just go back to a moto Razr.....
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I have an iPhone 7 and never really missed the headphone jack. I've been using portable music devices for decades and those ports always seem to eventually develop shorts or had poor insulation or shielding problems which made a big annoying startling static POP in the headphones when you plugged them in or just wiggled the cable a little. It's time for that port to go. I don't get any static noises that with the lightning port.
Also, if I'm spending $500 on a something, well another $9.99 for a dongle i
Re:Just add this crazy new feature everyone demand (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet if they added headphone jacks again
The iPhone has been jack-less since the 7. The iPhone jumped the shark with the X - when Apple decided to go fucking nuts with the "flagship" model starting at $1k, and they haven't looked back.
Dare I say it, the other problem with the X and later models, is that the iPhone has ceased to be intuitive to operate. You have to just know where/how you're supposed to swipe to make stuff happen, and Steve Jobs is probably spinning in his grave. I'm sure this has put off a lot of the older generations from upgrading.
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and Steve Jobs is probably spinning in his grave
If you apple people where smart, a few of you would take some shovels out there and dig up that piano crate Jobs was buried in. Thus release Zombie Jobs to go forth and clean some shit up.
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Apple is dying (Score:5, Insightful)
They have lost their momentum. They used to make great products that just worked. Perfectly. They have been living on that reputation and it's about over.
Re:Apple is dying (Score:5, Insightful)
They have lost their momentum. They used to make great products that just worked. Perfectly.
Now you can buy the latest MacBook and the latest iPhone and the cable they supply won't even connect the two together.
Apple is eating it's own tail (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple should be very concerned about who is making negative statements about Apple products today.
In the past it was mostly hate-anything-Apple-trolls, but today many of the 'Apple has lost it's way',"Apple is crap', ' Apple is way overpriced' complaints are now coming from past Apple customers who do not see any valid reason to spend $2000+ to upgrade their old 2010 iMac or 2012 Macbook Pro to an inferior product that has no function keys, a mouse that has a charging port on the bottom, fewer ports, and keyboards that feel like you are typing on jello. For that much money you expect something that stands out from the rest, but their repeat customers just don't see Apple as having those products or the perception of having those stand-out products anymore.
Look at their greed: they release looooong overdue Macbook Air and macMinis with mediocre upgraded specs and less ports in late 2018, then jack up those prices by $300. Pure blatant greed.
Re:Apple is eating it's own tail (Score:5, Informative)
If I max out the specs (bigger GPU, 4TB SSD on top of what I listed above), it's £6,254. That's a silly amount of money for what you actually get.
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In the past it was mostly hate-anything-Apple-trolls, but today many of the 'Apple has lost it's way',"Apple is crap', ' Apple is way overpriced' complaints are now coming from past Apple customers
I came to hate-anything-Apple because I was a past Apple customer. As in, since the Apple 2 days. My second computer was a ][+. (My first was a C= 16.) They lost their way the first time in the Centris/Performa era, and they've lost it again now.
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They have lost their momentum. They used to make great products that just worked. Perfectly.
When was that? I was a Mac user almost from the beginning, so I know that has literally never been true. (I skipped straight from Apple // to the Mac Plus.)
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headphones needed - because i want to use my expensive headset with it not the cheap ones.
Blutooth sucks, because of too many people using blutooth around you makes it fail.
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That only happens if you are using old protocols. Using a modern bluetooth, 4+, and you won't have this issue. If you value sound quality you won't use a iphone with bluetooth ether. Iphones only have the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). Which is fine for podcasts and crappy j/pop. For good quality over bluetooth you need a phone that supports aptX, like the Samsung Galaxy lines. Your headphones must also support aptX.
Writnig on the wall (Score:2)
The weakened demand came primarily from China, although Cook notes that "in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be."
The writing was on the wall when, for the 1st time, Apple increased iPhone trade-in credit in late November by up to $100 [9to5mac.com] to get lure people in to buy the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max, and then extending the offer to other countries like China, Japan, and Australia, and throughout Europe [macrumors.com] a month later.
Apple cultists.... (Score:2, Funny)
bring out your strawmen; warm up your hyperbole; put a fresh set of batteries in your whataboutisms and start your ipologies!!
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But you'll have to take it to an Apple Store to have that fresh battery installed.
Prices, Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
In his letter, Cook offers several explanations for the lower earnings guidance
And he never once mentioned the jacked up prices of the new Apple offerings nor the lack of innovation that has led to Apple's quality being par with competitors'.
Cook has neither the vision nor the control that Jobs had. The latest phones have Lightning ports instead of the industry-standard USB-C, dropping the headphone jack, but the Mac lines all offer USB-C. A competent CEO with control over his various divisions, as Jobs was, would have standardized on USB-C for all products. Cook simply does not wield enough power within his own house to make that happen. Jobs moved Apple to eschew the PS/2, serial, and parallel ports in favor of a single standard, USB, and that took vision and control: Cook has neither.
Cook wastes Apple's time and resources on content creation, bogus iTunes adventures like music streaming, and so forth. Apple needs to recenter itself around its core competencies: hardware and software. Forget "thinner" and remember what "pro" used to mean. Revive the 2012 MacBook Pro design with its thick but accessible, repairable, tough-as-a-tank system.
My 2012 MBP has a massive dent in one corner from being dropped onto Frankfurt Airport's hard, stone floor: the aluminum deformed, but neither the screen nor any other component was harmed. I've spilled an embarrassing amount of beer, water, and champagne onto the keyboard and drained each out the optical drive; it still keeps on ticking. Why would I buy a Cook-era MBP whose useless touch-bar will fail due to heat issues? How would I deal with all the dongles?
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Why would I buy a Cook-era MBP whose useless touch-bar will fail due to heat issues? How would I deal with all the dongles?
You pay for them, Wilde. You pay for them.
Another Example of Missing the Boat (Score:4, Informative)
People are Content with their current phones.
After all, they paid Through the Nose for their current iPhone, and are not willing to drop even more their hard-earned cash for yet another upgrade that isn't really a substantial improvement over what they have. Sure, it's a status symbol and all that, but people don't all have the same level of disposable income as they used to.
Didn't the PC market go through this a while back?
Isn't Microsoft going through this yet again over Windows 7 vs Windows 10, and won't they be feeling same "loss of profits" bite when it comes to the next iteration of Windows?
You can certainly tell that Microsoft holds a substantial share of Apple by the way they make the same mistakes.
Spend more on Tech. (Score:2)
not surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
since users found that apple was secretly throttling their phones causing problems on purpose it was bound to happened. getting the battery replace is just so much cheaper for a perfectly good phone. besides iphones are just too expensive to replace yearly now.
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I can partially see your point, but it's pretty obvious battery degradation is, and has been the main reason for a phone upgrade, ever since real smartphones started hitting the market. Sealing batteries is now common practice even on lower-end phones and smartwatches. Just for reference, I have reently upgraded my Garmin Vivoactive HR to a Vivoactive 3, and despite being basically the same device with slightly better CPU and a rounded display, I have noted that they have purposely made firmare updates from
Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
At $1,100 and $1,200 USD for an iPhone X (what ever), I just kept my iPhone 7. Still working. I guess for their next trick, Apple will start bricking phone 3 versions or older. At which point, Android, here I come.
Still a healthy profit (Score:2)
- Revenue of approximately $84 billion
- Gross margin of approximately 38 percent
That is still good profit for a quarter by any metric.
Many people prefer to use their phones longer, the price to swap is high nowadays, and I don't find most improvements that noticeable except for the cameras in the latest top smartphones which now yield pretty good results.
I changed the battery of my 5 year old 6 Plus and together with the "efficient" I
Trump (Score:2)
Thanks to trump Chinese companies like hauwei will corner the market now that apple is cut off. By the time heâ(TM)s reversed his stupid policy the damage will be done and American business will be permanently disadvantaged.
Sue somebody for it. (Score:2)
Same everywhere (Score:2)
My Samsung S5 is wearing out (accelerometer stopped working in November). Here's what I want to replace it: an S5 with more memory.
I don't want a faster processor (unless it gets more flops per watt). I don't want a higher res screen. I don't want a screen that goes to the edge so that I have to hold it up with just my telepathic powers. I don't want a better camera. I JUST WANT MY FUCKING PHONE that I've been using for years without any issues.
The current S9 is £600 while a boxed S5 is available for
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That last part will happen sooner, rather than later.
I know. That's why I'm reluctant to actually buy a new S5.
You do not "miss" sales (Score:2)
You simply do not make them. A sale is something you have to win, not something you can take for granted.
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More Positive Spin on Yesterday's Scandal (Score:2)
Yesterday, theverge highlighted this as "Apple says cheap battery replacements hurt iPhone sales - The easier it is to replace a battery, the less willing people are to buy a new iPhone" [theverge.com], which was a scandalous way to finally admit they knew and intended to fucking with batteries on purpose.
Today, I find it nice they downgraded that article and replaced exactly the same news to a stock market insight - "yeah nah the largest company in the world won't make as much sales as it expected, likely will still prof
Good thing they have a diversified product list (Score:2)
With pro level machines, machines priced for education and the general public to mitigate and ups and downs in sales.
Looks like the sheep aren't blind after all (Score:2)
I have been asking myself for a few years now how people can be so blind to the {add any high tech market} industry. With cell phones there is a yearly release of the new 'flagship' model, that is always just marginally better than the previous generation. Then literally within a month of the release we are seeing 'leaked' images of the next 'new and improved' model. Each years new model is more expensive than the last too.
This is not an apple problem alone, although they could fix their problem by dippi
The law of line-extension. (Score:2)
The 22 immutable laws of marketing.
Tim Cook and crew should read it once again. I never owned an iPhone and never considered buying one. Yet until this years lineup I always knew what the newest and best iphone was.
Now I don't anymore.
It's a total disaster in brand and lineup bloat. If they carry on, the iPhone will lose it's brand value in 2 years or less.
Apples value proposition has been degrading sharply in the last few years and now they've reached a tipping point. If I were in charge I'd weed 2 thirds
Let me fix that for you (Score:2)
So, $9bn huh? What's that, like 36 new iPhones or something?
People figured out it's not an "upgrade"... (Score:2)
...it's a "replacement".
The IBM playbook (Score:2)
We're seeing APple follow the same failed playbook with the Iphone assuming market share alone would drive future sales.
Nope, nobody in their right mind is going to pay a grand for an small tablet with a cell antenna and a phone app - cause really, "phone" is just an app. It fails as a tablet, it fails as phone - no new features worthy of the price gouging
Hysterical investors (Score:2)
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But courage so much courage!
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Stop making 1000kg donuts.
It's the profit trap (Score:2)
Their problem was the profit trap. They were making so much profit off a single device that innovating into other products, even though they could easily afford it, was basically too risky because there's a good chance those products wouldn't have been as profitable as the phones. If you spend a billion in profits investing in a new device that only brings in 500 million in profits, you've basically lost 500 million dollars.
This holds back companies from innovating into new products or even substantially
Re: (Score:3)
If you got the damn thing in a Otterbox case then good luck on breaking it. Damn nuclear war there would only be 3 things left on earth. Cockroaches, lawyers, and damn iphones in otterboxes.
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Most people here seem to be commenting that the last few generations of iPhones were 'good enough', and nobody is willing to shell out $1000 dollars for a new one. I'll posit another issue. There are a ton of really great phones available in China that are not available in the U.S. Some of them are arguably better than iPhones outright - and all of them are significantly (if not drastically) cheaper.
All Apple has going for it these days is
1. Better software update track record.
2. U.S. carrier (lack of) s