“The iPhone has not only changed the definition of success for Apple, but has altered the perception required to properly sense reality,” Neil Cybart writes for Above Avalon.
“Similar to the dynamic that exists between rivaling siblings, having the iPhone become the single-most successful consumer technology product in history has produced an environment in which every subsequent Apple product decision has failed to meet the expectations set by iPhone,” Cybart writes. “As a consequence, questions and doubts surrounding new Apple products and services have emerged even though there are tangible signs of success and progress being made. The iPhone has produced a new type of reality distortion field around Apple.”
Cybart writes, “We have three case studies for how the iPhone Reality Distortion Field has impacted perceptions of new Apple products: Apple Watch, Apple Music, and Apple accessories. ”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple. Damned by success.
SEE ALSO:
Apple trades ‘like a steel mill on its way out of business’ – February 8, 2016
Just remember …
Steve Ballmer: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidy”
Monkey Boy will never rest in peace…
Exactlly. Had any of the three come out before the iPhone’s stratospheric success, they would have all been considered wildly successful.
Until iPhone, iPod was considered Apple’s most successful product introduction. All the three mentioned in the article (Watch Music, accessories) had greater launch numbers than the iPod.
Thats what they mean when they say the techtarded don’t know shit from shinola.
Kind of true… But Yet in 2015 there were products released by apple that were half baked or even less , by any reputable company standards not just due to extraordinary expectations from apple.
To name a few: Apple music UI (horrible) , the Igor battery case.. And most disapointing of All the TVOS…. (and then those embarrassing disarrayed launches )
But thank god… APPLE TV’s issues are being addressed by Apple at lightning speed if the betas are any indication.
Never the less, as its clearly apparent, apple is more than capable if solving or better yet avoiding these screwups…
They are either rushing too much.. Or they have some incapable individuals in certain critical decision making positions !………..And no please dont start with the Tim Cook BS… He is doing a great job navigating apple through these growing pains.. .. he has my support for at least another year or so.. And we’ll see what happens then.
The maddenning pace of today’s always on and envelope pushing, and frequent upgrades can be infectuous, life is not a dress rehearsal and you don’t get to do the same thing again.
Apple’s always been on wall st’s shit list and under every imaginable pressure and delivered top notch leading edge eveything, anway, it should slow down cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ and do it right-once. Who cares if the restless consumer needs it now or not. Spend the extra Apple time and leave no doubt.
Too bad if they have to wait, one day they’ll learn to count and connect the dots these genius tech pundits.
@yojim.. Half baked??? Your comments make the case for the article. Apple reality distortion field. If it aint better than the iPhone today, it will be good!
As far as having problems with a new product at launch, there is a saying… “There comes a time in the life of a product when you need to shoot the engineer and get on with production!” cause you can always make things better, but never produce anything for sale.
Samsung just goes too far. They never make it great, they just make a 1000 items, each one slightly different than the last. LOL.
I read the article twice. Neil is spot on here. Spot on.
Reality gets further distorted when the great hardware presents such a stark contrast to buggy and annoying software. It’s not Windows-annoying, but it’s way off of Apple’s standards. Apple expects more of itself and customers have to make it known that they expect more too. Not miracles, just products that work as advertised.
The reality is services will gain traction. Apple has so many opportunities since the market has taken a dump. For example:
Time Warner – $48B
Viacom – $12.4B
Discovery – $14.3B
And these market caps continue to drop…
Including agreements with Disney, they could create a compelling and profitable service. They could charge something like $50 a month for on-demand and live content. The service could include content from ESPN, Disney, MTV, Turner, TNT, CNN, HBO, ABC, Discovery, etc. streamed via an Apple TV. They would control most of Paramount’s, Warner Brothers’s, and their subsidiaries vast libraries, which include television, motion picture, game and music content. The service could be global and generate 100 million subscribers within a couple of years.
They missed their chance to own PlayStation and Sony’s library a few years ago when Sony’s market cap was around $10B. Will they pass on this opportunity as well?
Buying entertainment companies or hiring production companies for content is a double-edged sword. It’s obvious that Apple wants to be a hardware delivery service, with software elegance making it an attractive service. Once they begin producing their own competitive content, however, how many other content producers will want augment Apple TV’s success?
I don’t think the others like Comcast/NBC Universal would have much of a choice. If Apple purchased the above companies then why would Apple include networks like Discovery, HBO, etc. on competing distribution platforms/cable? This would obviously hurt the cable operators because vast numbers of households would migrate to the Apple model, but the remaing content creators and networks could also offer their content on the Apple TV platform. It would be their decision to charge for their content or have it supported by advertisement. Also, the cable operators could try to compete by offering or creating their own content, like Comcast does.
Additionally, I’m sure Disney and some others would remain on cable for the short term, but Iger mentioned yesterday, among similar statements, that they are beginning to see an encouraging uptick with Sling TV. These statement signal to me that Disney is embracing alternative distribution.
Other companies like Netflix are not on cable, so their model wouldn’t change. In fact, they might pick up more subscribers if there were more streaming boxes in the wild.
Alternatively, as you suggest, Apple could try to create their own content, but that is probably a much harder nut to crack then it appears. Take Paramount for example. They have been making movies for a very long time and have made some classics, but lately they haven’t produced many compelling motion pictures. Netflix, on the other hand, has had success with shows like Narco, House of Cards, etc, but there are still a few flops in there. The point is, content creation is not as easy as it appears. Does Apple want to reinvent the wheel, or just buy most of Hollywood, including their vast libraries and hit the ground running.
Tech-heads are truly tech-tards. Most companies don’t come out with some world-changing product every couple of years so why should Apple. Totally unreal expectations. A company would have to be really lucky or have some designer or CEO with extraordinary vision. It’s amusing how the iPad went from iFlop to a high-selling, industry-changing device back to iFlop based on how some people think. Every product Apple makes is labeled as some failure and I’m not even sure the iPhone is going hold any respect in the future. Pundits are too fickle. Why is it that I have no problem with minor upgrades but others think that it’s so easy to revolutionize a product when it hardly ever happened that way in the past?
Look how many years Boeing got out of the 747 and consumers were happy. Were the aircraft tech pundits crying because Boeing never came out with some supersonic aircraft that was on the cutting edge of aircraft tech? Where’s all the Boeing aircraft that can go from California to Japan in only a couple of hours. Boeing’s Dreamliner is more fuel efficient and can carry more passengers. Is that really a big deal to a tech-head? No. But those minor improvements are definitely worthwhile. It’s nothing to simply yawn about from my point of view.
Apple makes slow but steady improvements with the iPhone. What’s so wrong with that? That’s usually how technology progresses. It suits me just fine.
Great article. It seems no one remembers the “Halo Effect” concept.
People forget the early years of the iPhone.
Hello, Wall Street Analysts? Anybody home?
Neil is actually new to the Apple camp. Having come from the stock market and wall street. I don’t always agree with everything he says, but he was really hitting on a cylinders with this article.
Between him and DE Dilger, these are two people who know how to dig for facts and make sense in words where none existed before.
Just saying.
Damned by the brain dead of idiocracy…Orwell would have loved this…