“The question has haunted Apple for years,” Kevin Kelleher writes for TIME Magazine. “Is there life after the iPhone? The iPad’s introduction in 2010, three years after the iPhone, was supposed to be a robust second act. But iPad sales are softening. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch, introduced last year, has yet to find a killer app to drive sales beyond hardcore fans and early adopters.”
“So where does that leave Apple? In something of a twilight zone. By no means will it tumble the way it did in the 1980s,” Kelleher writes. “But there’s no guarantee it will see the surges it has in the past any time soon. Apple’s stock thrives after it has released a product that appeals to the mainstream.”
“Apple has a cyclical business. That is, its chief product — the iPhone — is released every two years. In the in-between years, Apple can only hope that incremental upgrades as well as sales in overseas markets like China will offset any cyclical lows,” Kelleher writes. “Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted there are new products coming. If Apple’s earnings disappoint today, the sooner those new devices come, the better. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Those who look at Apple as a hardware company and only as a hardware company do not understand the company.
Apple has a massive userbase many of whom participate in the Apple ecosystem – and their participation is growing.
SEE ALSO:
TheStreet.com’s Kevin Kelleher congratulates the wrong company for killing music DRM – September 26, 2007
MDN’s take on this is stupid. APPLE is a hardware company, period!
See a neurologist immediately.
Maybe a voodoo practioner would be of more help.
Moises, er…. have you ever noticed how Apple develops software too??? Maybe that has escaped you.
Its the eco system dude. Open your eyes.
That’s like saying Ford only makes the chassis and not the engine
They are more than a hardware company. And the huge user base that they have will be monetized going forward. Hopefully.
I’m tending to agree with him a wee bit. Under Jobs, when there was no hardware wow, there’d be software wows. I remember when iMovie and Garageband were introduced while FCP and Logic Pro garnered praise. Ok the iWork releases were not as wow-worthy but it still brought something new.
Now it seems there’s a dearth in novelty in all channels.
iMovie HD was way ahead of its time. Garageband, too. Both were truly revolutionary.
Later, Apple dumbed iMovie down. Was that to get people to buy FCP?
No it was dumbed down as all the software has been for the sake of the lowest common denominator. Apple has always thought users are stupid and that they know better.
What a bunch of crap, definitely someone who does not get Apple, oh wait what am I talking about it’s a jouranalist.
There’s a theme through the whole “Apple’s doom is imminent.” mantra. Here’s one statement that made me cringe.
“Apple has long been an underdog in tech, largely because of its insistence on manufacturing hardware, rather than being mainly software-driven like Facebook or Google.”
Newsflash Apple has long been the overlord of tech largely because of its insistence on both manufacturing hardware AND developing software.
This guy’s waiting for a new physical product to show up while ignoring the massive mountain of potential from the software services.
RW, the writer is just another person who thinks wall street is totally smart and instant profit is the only thing that matters. The stock value is critical, the company value is… who cares.
Wall Street….So sad, so many dumb people making such much money.
Well put eldernorm, fortunately a few smart people are making money off Apple as well.
You have a good day, thanks for the post, it’s spot on.
Yeah, just in the excerpt above there are a bunch of comments by the author that show he’s clueless:
“By no means will it tumble the way it did in the 1980s…”
In the 1980s? Really? Did he mean 1990s, because that’s what people who were paying attention or at least are literate would have said.
“its chief product — the iPhone — is released every two years”
And then he says the “in-between” years are incremental only. Bullshit. They usually add significant new features to the “S” models.
I mean, this is TIME magazine, world-renowned for their brilliant tech reporting, so this is such a shock.
There was a time when similar stories were always being written about how Apple would be doomed if the iPod bubble ever burst and before that, Apple was criticised for being solely reliant on computers which hardly anybody used.
Apple leadership has become smug and arrogant. They know Apple users are a captive audience. There is no great desire to improve, innovate, or excel at Apple. Apple is just unrelenting incremental change and a flood of repetitive adjectives.
I recognize your rhetoric: Apple-hater. Always.
joe, joe, joe… vacuous drivel, as always.
Apple:
– Doing better than any other computer maker
– Pocketing most of the profits of the WHOLE MOBILE INDUSTRY
– And recently, 40% (I think) of the profits of all the Silicon Valley.
Against all these facts, you simply throws a few knee-jerk, empty words… smug, arrogant, no desire. Why not throw in Hitler and socialist while you are at it?
What a pathetic creature you are. Back to your mommy’s basement with you, now. Shoo!
I see that the Apple fanboy circle jerk is in full operation. A collection of like-minded mindlessness self-congratulating each other for moronic insults and lame arguments. Predictable.
Well, when it comes to “moronic insults” ( see “Apple fanboy circle jerk”) and “lame arguments” ( see “no great desire to improve, innovate or excel”), you’re not exactly un-predictable. I don’t usually like to feed the trolls, but you’re obviously starving for attention, and possibly oxygen – “like-minded mindlessness”? Go outside, get some sun and some air, and for your own sake, think before you write.
Cheers!
dmz
eyeschool, I just call ’em like I see ’em.
Well, while you’re outside, visit an optometrist!
If so, why are you here, little troll boy. There are many phones, tablets and computers to choose from. Please go away, buy something else and be happy with it.
Greed and satisfying stockholders are the only reason now that anything is being built. Steve and Steve did it because they were revolutionaries.
The question has haunted Daimler-Benz since 1893: is there life after the automobile? What is the follow-up when the craze for horseless carriages fades?
Ok. Prepare to hit the first star. I needed a Windows – cover the weekend and my 3 year old cheap-o went kaput. So I ventured into BestBuy and spent $850 for a higher end HP running Windows 10. I have to admit I was wowed by Windows 10. I haven’t really given Microsoft a second look since I bought my first iphone – the 3GS. The Windows Store was sparse though. But with time on my hands over the weekend and a good feeling about Windows 10, I dropped into the AT&T store and picked up a Lumia 950. It’s a cheap phone but it does wonders. And Microsoft seems to have spent some time on their ecosystem. It still doesn’t compare to Apple’s but it’s close with a different flavor. Now the real downer of the weekend was my first visit to the new Apple Store in Germantown, TN. I don’t know about all you folks but I’m a plain old IT guy. This store is PRETENTIOUS! I thought I’d check out the new watch bands. They had none in stock for the 42mm which I have and the price is $50! Proud a little? I paid that for my black leather band and I had just seen a knockoff brand at Best Buy for $30.
Now in no way am I saying I’m leaving Apple. But I am saying I have to sit back and gather my thoughts – restrategize as it were. There hasn’t been an Apple product that I haven’t bought – except the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini – in the past few years. I’m somewhat invested in the services as well – 100-200 movies and all my digital music from iTunes. I’m not liking that all my eggs are in one basket. I don’t like the opulence and I don’t like the social wars that the CEO seems more drawn to than actually using his own products. The lack of quality argued about on this site and others and addressed directly in public letters to the CEO have taken me back. In short, I don’t have the feel-good feeling for Apple that I did as recently as a year ago. My gut right now is to buy digital media from Amazon so it will run on whatever hardware I have and use the hardware of the day. I won’t be buying any new hardware for a while now so I’ll sit back and watch them fight it out. However, I’m no longer discounting Microsoft’s ability to fight from underdog status.
Have a good time with the single stars. I’ve never written for ratings and always given the most honest comments I can whether others like them or not. Peace.
You’re absolutely entitled to your opinion.
Apple fan from the dark days of beige here, and sickened by the current state of the company under Cook.
Like M$ under Ballmer, Apple is being managed by a numbers guy.
If TC put half the effort into Apple that he does in his leftist social ‘justice’ campaigning the competition would be left in the dust.
There is not a single Apple product I’m even considering buying right now – first time in 30 years.
The last keynote was a sad joke.
Steve should have left a man in charge.
Cook deserves one star.
Cook is a great numbers guy – the phenomenal success of iPhone is a consequence of both design and execution: Cook is the execution guy.
But Jobs played a different role: he upheld standards and he was ruthless. I doubt he would have allowed the Watch to be released: no killer apps; too slow; too thick; no independence from iPhone.
Ive is too focused on style and the silly gold watches suggest his ego is out of control. That would be because Jobs is not there to rein him in.
Apple needs Cook. But Apple also needs a product supremo with Jobs’ ruthless view of the standard Apple must live up to.
Also, Jobs understands that the most loyal Apple fans are Mac users and he never would have allowed the Mac to wither on the vine the way it has, or the OS to have been both neglected and poorly executed – or the shambles that iCloud has become.
Don’t blame Cook for everything. But encourage him to find a product champion.
Apple needs to deploy a non invasive glucose monitor in the iWatch ASAP. This would bring millions of new sales almost immediately.
When I was still working for a reason and not retired, I used to be on the Apple train on a routine basis. I have had Apple products since 1979. I have three MBA’s, two iPhone 6, two second generation iPads. Since being retired, my Apple purchases have all but stopped. I would like a new iPhone, but those coming out don’t interest me and I really don’t want to spend nearly $1000 for a 128g iPhone 7,8 or whatever.
The other thing I have noticed is that schools are not buying Apple like they used to. They purchased the iPad mini in some areas, but their laptops have switched to Google since they are so much cheaper and easy to keep track of by the schools and almost never wear out. Software is fairly available, at least for the grade school set. In high schools, the trend seems to be going back to Windows mostly because of cost and not quality. Even college kids are looking at the Windows devices again.
Another thing that I have noticed for college kids is their use of the Windows notebook usually with the keyboard. Since I live near a major university, one that has a very large IP school, I rarely see Apple at the coffee shops much, but I see a lot of Windows pads. Kids nowadays are so well versed on computers that they can go from Apple to Windows to Pads to notebooks without a drop in time so the idea of Apple being the “easiest” or the “best” is just not true any longer, kids will always go for the cheapest and not the one that has the most bells and whistles.
In other words, Apple’s problem today is what it always has been and that is cost, but I think it is more relevant today than ever since the US economy is NOT what the administration say’s that it is and that is robust. It is neither robust or affordable, thus Chromebook and Windows are taking the younger markets.