“I have been troubled lately by Wall Street analysts’ claims that Apple must invent some new product or product category if it wants to get more support from investors,” Tim Bajarin writes for PC Magazine. “I am confused where this is coming from because if the analysts did their homework, they would know that Apple does not invent new products; rather it reinvents them, as it has done since the Apple II.”
“It should be clear to those on Wall Street that Apple’s strategy is to look at a product, identify its flaws and potential, and then reinvent it by making it smarter, sleeker, and more user-friendly,” Bajarin writes. “More importantly, when Apple adds a little marketing muscle it can drive its products deep into international markets.”
Bajarin writes, “The idea on Wall Street that Apple has peaked is quite presumptuous. It assumes that Apple does not have the genius to continue to create products, even if they are reinventions of current products on the market. Could Apple design something totally new? Sure, but history shows that the company is more likely to watch which products take off and then reconceptualize them.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last December:
People already had or had access to computers, portable music players, smartphones, and tablet PCs. It took Apple to revolutionize each and make consumers aspire to own them… Apple isn’t the first mover. In the markets in which it chooses to play, Apple is often the first one to get it right and quickly the one all others then attempt to copy.
Apple employees look at existing markets, services, and products and ask themselves, “How can we improve this, so that we would want to buy and use it?” Television is actually the perfect candidate for an Apple revolution. Stodgy and not very intuitive, the TV set calls out to Apple for help.
…We can almost hear Tim Cook thinking, “Hmm, mediocre products. Not very user-friendly. People don’t really know what they want or how to buy – another perfect market for us to transform!”
So much common sense in this article. Arguably, brand new products like the Newton are a huge risk. But BETTER products, like Apple’s music players phones tablets etc are world beaters.
Oh… yay, first.
Arrgh. 94 days without someone doing this. Back to zero we go.
If Apple is doomed without a new product in the pipeline, what does that make Google, Microsoft, Samsung and Facebook?
Google is a one trick pony relying on AdSense and Page Rank to sell advertising space on the Internet. In fact 98% of their revenue (excluding Motorola) is derived from advertising.
MS is a tired old horse ready for the glue factory, relying on Windows and Office, products that are in excess of 20 years old, as its profit generator.
Samsung’s innovation is basically copied off Apple. What will they do if Apple isn’t around to copy? Copy MS? Give me a break.
And Facebook, well what exactly does Facebook do except mine your personal information.
If Apple is doomed, don’t you think you should be hammering the final nail in Samsung, MS, Google & FB’s coffin first?
1. Home entertainment systems
2. Home automation systems
3. Auto entertainment/electronics
4. e-book publishing
5. educational publishing-curriculum-evaluation
6. VOIP systems
7. Personal exercise, heart rate, distance, motion, blood pressure, blood sugar monitoring
But forget all that for a second–if Apple simply continues to aggressively refine and push current products into new markets (India-China-medical-education-business) they could easily experience spectacular growth for another decade. No new earth-shattering products necessary.
The grifters on Wall Street are usually wrong about Apple. I will go further and say that any business taking the advice of these grifters is doomed to fail.
Lets try: GM or Ford is doomed if they don’t reinvent the car. If the next car can’t float, fly, run all night on it’s day time solar charge, hover, sell for less than $1,000, … then people will never buy another car. THEY ARE DOOMED!!!
This sounds just as stupid as the crap thrown at Apple’s development teams.
I don’t see what the big deal is.
Now that SJ is gone everyone seems to be saying “Where is the new stuff?”
If memory serves me correctly the iPod came around 2001 and we didn’t see the iPhone until 2007. IPad came in mid 2010.
Its barely 3 years since the release of the iPad. My god what do these people expect from Apple? Are they expecting Apple to re-invent industries every 18 months?
Give them time to work they have proven their stuff is worth the wait!
Apple won’t be doomed from lack of revolutionary products, but without them, I’m sure Apple’s share price will continue to fall along with the P/E. There’s almost nothing holding up Apple’s share price especially as iPhone market share continues to fall. What else is there to attract investors? We’ve already seen Apple have a profitable quarter and the share price collapse, so it isn’t profits investors are after.
All investors are seeing is the commoditization of Apple products and they reason that without some completely new product, Apple can’t possibly maintain any edge in consumer mind-share. Higher-quality products and customer service have no value to Wall Street or Apple’s share price. This is merely an observation I’m making.
Wall Street seems to like whiz-bang products and market share and without either of those two things, Apple’s share price will continue its decline. I don’t think the conclusion of Apple needing radical new products to be valuable to investors is wrong.
It would seem Apple needs to grow away from hardware and get more into services for the stock to stay over $400 a share. There seems to be too much competition for Apple to make any headway. Wall Street’s expectations of Apple constantly disrupting the tech industry is extremely unreasonable, but that’s what they do expect and it’s going to kill Apple shareholders unless Apple looks elsewhere for increased revenue streams.
In a world where electronics keep changing and improving, one company stood above all other’s. The people were clamouring for something new and ready to pull down the giant if it didn’t produce something soon.
This epic drama will be coming to you soon on another blog or theatre near you. Don’t miss: “Apple is Doomed or Something.”
If Apple comes out with a new product it will not be because some manager said “We must invent a new product by xxx quarterly report” (like other companies)
It will be because someone came up with a great idea, then spend the last couple of years working on it.
Any company is doomed if it doesn’t develop a new product once in a while. What Apple needs is a significant product release that is well-executed and worth the wait. It’s been a long time since we could say that…
If a company is truly profitable, like Apple, does it really need the stock market? Seems a bit like casting pearls before swine.
See the history of Silicon Valley.
From Fairchild Semiconductor and on. It doesn’t take much. From one darling to the next. When you are finished you are finished. It’s not even fair, it’s ridiculous. In order to get back in the game, you have to invent something new.
I like Apple products, but let’s face it, Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. This guy has the demeanor of a mortician and all the creativity of a fastfood worker.
Apple needs to innovate. The only thing Tim Cook has brought us thus far is a $45 iOS device adapter.
Yippee!
Yes, Apple is doomed. My iMac is almost three years old and still hasn’t replaced itself with the latest model. What kind of service is that?