Is Apple Dying? A Timeline

Apple General
#1

G’day,

No, I don’t think it is - not by a long shot… but there seems to be plenty reporting that Apple is now officially in decline. It got me thinking about Apple’s products over the past 20 years or so…

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Nafija55.jpg/220px-Nafija55.jpg
1998 - iMac
This was an “industry altering success” for Apple, simplifying the Apple product line up, and condensing archaic input/output options.


2001 - iPod
Steve delighted in introducing this little clunker, which ultimately kicked off the transition from Apple providing hardware, to Apple providing content. Ultimately, iPods are now dead following the success of its successor, the iPhone…


2003 - iTunes Music Store
Unbelievably, it took Apple a few years to catch on to the idea of providing music to go on their iPods. 5 years later, iTunes was the top content seller in the USA, and soon thereafter, the world.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/IPhone_2G_PSD_Mock.png/180px-IPhone_2G_PSD_Mock.png
2007 - iPhone
How wrong can Telstra be… Apple didn’t stick to its knitting, moving from iMac to iPod to the phone market with what was simply the best smart phone on the market, hands down, with the release of the original iPhone. Year on year iPhone sales have increased since inception, and whilst the latest quarter may have upset Apple’s cart, in all likelihood this isn’t the end…


2007 - AppleTV
At the same time as the iPhone was released, Apple also announced the AppleTV, a cute little box that allowed playback of digital content on your tv screen. It wasn’t until almost 9 years later in late 2015 that the AppleTV finally became a serious product for Apple, with attempts to turn it into a competitor for the XBox/Playstation.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/IPad_1_PSD_Mockup.png/220px-IPad_1_PSD_Mockup.png
2010 - iPad
Like the iPhone, the iPad was released and immediately became the standard for PDAs.

And… that was 6 years ago… oh wait - they released a watch… apparently it’s gonna be the next big thing… maybe in another 9 years?

Maybe I am missing some major things, but certainly looking at that little timeline of products, even with the watch, things have been light on recently, yes? I presume the idea of an actual television set wearing the Apple logo will never see fruition - because - just why?! And an Apple Car? Can anyone actually picture themselves buying a car from Apple? It may have the most amazing electronics, but what do they know about mechanics? Hydraulics? Liquid Cooling systems? (G5 tower, I’m looking at you!). Apple should really just stick to their knitting.

cheers

cosmic

#2

I would add in the 2005/6 switch over to intel as a major point in that timeline,
followed by the introduction of the MacBook
and then Bootcamp
These I think made the Mac more mainstream and brought people to the brand.

#3

Its not in a decline yet, but I am predicting it will be. I’m probably beating the well known dead horse, but without Steve Jobs, the master marketer, at the helm, it will go the same way it did after they gave him the boot the first time, and now, he just is not there to bring it back. The others do not have the vision that he had.

#4

I meant to mark Steve’s death on the timeline… (2011) which marks the last item on the timeline… I know “they” say that Steve left a roadmap for Apple… but other than updates to existing line up, what has come out of Apple since his death?

Yes, I’d admit that the Intel switch should probably go on there… It allowed Apple to basically offer switchers from PC a safety net, and in so doing, I imagine, grew the brand. Not sure about the Macbook… I see it’s apparently the best selling laptop ever, but I don’t really see anything amazing about it over the iBooks and PowerBooks…?

#5

The MacBooks were much closer to affordable for the average joe.

#6

I think it’s plateaued rather than in decline. I think the smartphone market is saturated and even Samsung has seen a decline.

Even laptops have stagnated to some degree and there is nothing ground breaking changing. The machines can’t get any thinner than they are, screens are retina and about as pixel rich as you would want, tablets are saturated and have a longer life span than a typical phone.

I think its a reality of the current market saturation of technology. I don’t think smart watches took off as heavily as people expected so it’s essentially waiting for the next great thing to occur. If Apple is part of that, we will probably see an increase again. I guess we don’t know what that is, if we did we would be billionaires who were first to bring it to market.

2 Likes
#7

It’s true for the whole sector, R&D needs to bring technology up to a place where it’s adequate for the average persons needs and generally speaking, computers got fast enough for most people after the Core2Duo CPU’s.
4GB RAM is sort of enough
SSD’s made things fast.
Retina made it pretty.

Couple that with the thin/light @MissionMan talked about and what compelling reason is there for normal people to upgrade other than physical damage??

When it comes to phones people are largely conditioned to a two year cycle thanks to carriers, but that’s the once place where there have been significant improvements year on year with CPU power and battery life. But even that feels like that’s starting to plateau a little in terms of user requirements.

#8

I think barring some drastic change (microchip imbedded phones, experimental batteries technologies that last a week etc), I don’t think much is going to happen. Micro drones seem to be the latest craze but it’s a small market.

#9

The smart phone market is finally achieving market maturity and the massive growth of companies and brands will plateau. That doesn’t mean Apple will die but I do expect their growth curve to flatten out (which will mean their share price will start to drop to more realistic levels).

And there are a few signs that Apple are starting to move away from their ‘make it easy for the customer’ approach, for example Apple Musics being slammed by people at the moment for erasing people’s own local music storage and replacing it with streamed music from the cloud if Apple Music finds a match between what’s available in the cloud and what’s stored locally.

There’s a whole lot of things that’s just wrong with that approach.

For a start, people don’t have unlimited celular data to stream and some have already run into the problem of songs with the same name but different versions being over written.

In what world is it ok that Apple think it’s ok to erase people’s OWNED songs that are locally stored? And then if your subscription is cancelled you lose access not only to your local version but also their cloud version.

#10

Every time I see comments like this I think of the comments from Nokia, Motorola and all the “experts” before the iPhone came out. They all said Apple didn’t understand the phone market and couldn’t deal with the networks. Apple transformed the market, they didn’t want to work with how it was.

While I think they’ll have a harder time of it with cars, I wouldn’t put it past them to shake things up.

1 Like
#11

You should probably read Benny’s news post from this morning - it doesn’t delete your music unless you tell it to.

#12

What about on your secondary mac or your tertiary mac or on your tablet or on your phone?

#13

It’s definitely a market saturation issue and not Apple as such. The release of larger, and then smaller iPhones to fill market desires simply delayed the inevitable. The whole issue of “Apple is dying” or whatever comes from news services that consider if there isn’t any news about something, then it must be faltering. Really, to them, this is just an excuse for more news.

#14

Will Samsung stop at nothing in their mission to copy Apple? :joy:

#15

I was going to say - But, what about other areas such as iTunes Store, which for some reason I had thought generated a high portion of the company’s revenue… Silly me - it only accounts for about 4% of their total revenue… :astonished:

I think we still need to a see a hybrid between the iPad and Macbook Air… Maybe that’ll be their next piece of bacon… Do what the Surface is meant to do, but better…

#16

I’d buy that!

I’ve got a surface pro 4 at work and the device has so much promise but it lacks the ease of use that the iPad interface gives.

The question is whether you could maintain that ease of use if you used Mac OS on a tablet.

#17

I’m quite looking forward to WWDC this year, I can help wondering if Mac OS/iOS10 might be far more similar to each other than they already are.

#18

People only think Apple is in decline now because they had such a good 2014- early/mid 2015 on the back of the iPhone 6 - there was such a huge iPhone 6 adoption by (IMHO) Android users who couldn’t deal with smaller screens but wanted an iPhone, and also iPhone users. The 6S didn’t have quite the same upgrade push that the 6 had. Though combined the 6S and the SE might be successful.

I think people are nervous because of the iPad - Apple has failed until recently to push it hard post about 2012, and even now, especially in Australia for example, they’ve become so overpriced. I think there is a move back to laptops by people who got sick of waiting for Apple to improve the iPad. iOS 9 was the first time Apple really made advances in usability. Also there is the fact that people hang onto their iPads more than their iPhones. 19 percent of iPads installed are iPad 2’s and a further 14 percent are the iPad 2 derived Mini 1. Combined with the iPad 3, you have nearly 45 percent of iPad users on A5 devices.

Then there are the corners over the Apple watch. I don’t think its had the same impact the iPad or the iPhone have had - and I don’t think it will, despite selling more than the iPhone did historically. However, I think that the Apple Wach will follow the iPad in that the second version will really kickstart things. It was the iPad 2 that in my view really kicked off the iPad.

Apple is dying for its traditional base, in terms of the Mac offering pro level flexiablitly and choices, and for the prosumer. I’d describe myself as a ‘prosumer’ and my 2012 Macbook Pro (which I expect another 4-5 years out of) will probably be my last Mac Laptop (will probably move to a desktop machine) as nothing after it has remotely interested as providing the same experience I get on my current machine (ethernet, firewire, huge SSD, optical drive) makes a newer mac laptop prohibitively expensive and carrying around external drives + adaptors etc voids the point of having a laptop.

#19

Yes, I’ve considered buying a new iPad several times, and each time totally stopped dead in my tracks because of the price. I paid I think $440 for a base model iPad 4… and maybe $100 less for the first iPad Mini… Now I’m looking at $599 and… … am I going crazy? $569 for a base Mini? Either way - it’s a HUGE increase in price - 36% at least…

By comparison… the base iPad in the USA started at $499… Next model was $499… Next model was $499… Seeing a pattern?

I get that exchange rates affect sales in foreign lands… I work for a company that exports around the world… But it doesn’t make the pill any less bitter to swallow…

#20

I paid $670 for my top of the line (64GB 3G) iPad 2 (on special)… Even now if I was looking at a superseded model (iPad Air 2) which is more than half a year older than the iPad 2 was when I bought it is $889!

The base price for the latest iPad (which is the Pro 9.7) is $889 !! It used to be $500 but frequently less back int he iPad 2,3,4 and possibly Air 1 days…

Ideally I’d like to upgrade to a new iPad at some stage, but in addition to the subpar (in terms of the longevity I want) 2GB of ram in the 9.7 inch pro and the fact that an equivalent model to my iPad 2 will cost $1350, its prohibitive. Thats more than I paid for my Macbook Pro in 2012.

So I will remain with my humble iPad 2 until mid next year i think… kind of makes sense that my (Bought for education) iPad 2 got me through Year 11 and 12, then through to 3.5 years of uni! If Apple is extra kind (to the teary 45 percent of iPad users who have A5 iPads) I’ll see a stripped down version of iOS 10 (or iOS 9.4 for A5 devices) which will help get me through.