10 ms·

iPhone, iPad and Mac sales are down, but Apple only cares about services now

92 points by zhuxuefeng1994 10y ago

throwaway1979 10y ago
As a single, insignificant data point: I just bought my first Windows laptop after 2008. I kept waiting for Apple to release Skylake professional machines. Just gave up waiting for them. Ended up getting a Windows Signature machine, which came with a free tablet. Guess I don't need to wait for the iPad Air refresh anymore as well. I think Apple has lost its way. It has forgotten about its power users. I think they are trying to be a luxury brand now ... limited function devices that overpriced (but look really nice). I'm a bit bitter as I say this since I was a huge Apple fan.
- paulcole 10y ago
  > It has forgotten about its power users. Oh, they haven't forgotten. Since the introduction of the multicolor iMac, Apple has been moving steadily towards a line of luxury-ish mass market products. Updates and refreshes in Apple's lines of high-performance "computers" will only continue to become fewer and further between. Edit: Why down vote this?
  - niels_olson 10y ago
    Ya just don't buy a Mac every two years. It's been so effective for so long, that it's too painful to replace, even if it's far easier to replace than a Windows box.
  - salgernon 10y ago
    >> Since the introduction of the multicolor iMac, Apple has >> been moving steadily towards a line of luxury-ish mass market products. That would've been twenty years ago. The only "interesting" boxes that appeared before then were the Mac II NuBus machines, and even then because there was no alternative. History at that time moved very slowly - it allowed for an Apple II class machine to be sold into the 1990s; after that, the benefit of a tightly designed custom motherboard and software combination trailed dramatically against the cost of supporting software. Sure, a DayStar 40MHz accelerator card was the bees knees at only only like $1,040, but it didn't do anything even remotely like moving the software forward like the (2004) intel transition. (And compatibility was severely lacking from third parties for third party pro options.) (Please do note though, I <3 m68k. I wish the world had taken another track - but I don't think i'd have been significantly better off.)
- allsystemsgo 10y ago
  > I think Apple has lost its way. It has forgotten about its power users. I think they are trying to be a luxury brand now How is that losing their way? They're targeting a way more profitable and way larger market.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    Judging by many of the comments I see here, especially in threads about products that do target power users, power users are so difficult to please that targeting them is probably a waste of time and money.
    - dilemma 10y ago
      That's the quarter capitalist point of view. The brand adoption cycle goes from Professional -> Prosumer -> Consumer. If you lose the pro market you lose brand equity that makes you a premium brand. Then, you eventually lose the consumer market and start cutting costs and prices to keep up.
      - twblalock 10y ago
        I don't believe that for a second. There are many successful companies that only target only one or two of those market segments. Besides, Apple's products have traditionally attracted consumers and prosumers before professionals, e.g. the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone... You've got the cycle wrong anyway. From Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations, it is traditionally: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards. These are categories of people who have varying enthusiasm about trying new technology. They are not segmented into professionals and non-professionals. The first category includes all kinds of people, including consumers who want the latest and greatest iPhone for media consumption and playing Pokemon.
      - astrodust 10y ago
        That's how it works for markets but not individual products. Cellular phones started with professionals, then prosumer, then consumer. The iPhone followed that track only because the market was significant in all areas, but it's worth noting they don't really have a "pro" phone. Likewise, a lot of their pro gear is really expensive to engineer and the sales are thin. They'd rather make prosumer and consumer gear that they can crank out in volume. Can't blame them, really. The entire PC market is imploding, so it's a lost cause to try and carve out new market share when everything's going to hell.
- hyperbovine 10y ago
  You did not write anything about the actual user experience, which is telling. Is the mere fact that there exist machines which will boot into a non Apple OS supposed to spell doom for them or something? I just used my first Windows machine in almost ten years as well and... guess what it still sucks. Particularly if you are trying to develop software.
  - matwood 10y ago
    Yeah, every time I boot to Windows to test something on IE I'm reminded why I left Windows. It's a shame because the Surface tablets look nice.
    - freehunter 10y ago
      I usually roll my eyes at all the hate people always find for Microsoft in nearly every decision they make and every thing they release into the market. I upgraded my gaming desktop to Windows 8 the day it came out, and I upgraded to Windows 10 when it came out. I've never really had too many problems. But everything new they release and everything I use from them makes me thankful I mostly use Apple products. I don't have to worry about the new version of Windows destroying my computer or forcing itself upon me, and I especially love knowing that my computer will not reboot itself unexpectedly at night due to security updates. I'm glad I have products made by a company that knows what it is and what it does, that focuses on stability and polish. A company that doesn't flap back and forth between consumer and enterprise computing, discontinuing devices and services as fast as they can create them. Maybe I'm still sore from the loss of my Zune, or my Windows Phone, or my TechNet subscription. I didn't start using Macs with the Lisa, or System 7, or even when OS X was released; I'm fairly new. This is only my second Mac. But I used Windows for years, and every time I hear someone say "I'm leaving Apple for Microsoft because Apple has lost their way", what I actually hear is "I'm making a symbolic statement and I don't actually care what the repercussions are." Because if anyone thinks Windows is more stable, more polished, more developer friendly, or has machines with a better build quality, I have to say... you're gonna be surprised. Maybe Apple isn't what it used to be. But it still seems a damn sight better than Windows, in almost every regard.
- nextos 10y ago
  Exactly. They don't realise loosing power users has the potential to harm you in the long run. Power users include many groups you need to target, like early adopters and indie application developers just to name a few. Back in time, when Apple switched to Intel and there was no iPhone yet, it was pretty clear to me they would become huge. There was a great ecosystem around the Mac with fantastic applications developed by Panic, Omni Group and lots of individuals. Loosing these will make your stuff enterprisey and boring, in a bad way.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    IMO this is what Microsoft is trying to fix with their recent open source efforts. Developers (outside of enterprise) aren't on their platform and even tend to hate the company. It turns out that's not great for their consumer software market. I can name exactly one company known for making well polished Windows utilities (Stardock), and everything else tends to look like it was developed on Windows 95. Compare to Mac where you have those companies like Panic, The Omni Group, Rogue Amoeba, Delicious Monster, Ambrosia SW, The Icon Factory, and others. I know a lot of stuff has moved online and desktop software isn't as critical as it was a decade ago, but native developers still power a big chunk of the ecosystem. Apple is clearly uninterested in supporting their professional userbase, and MS would love to have them. Personally I'm holding out for new MBPs to replace a 2011 Macbook Air (no audio, but it still runs), but I can't blame those who aren't. It'll be a bottom-of-the-line model and I can do my serious work on a Windows machine that costs half of a Mac Pro and has 3 years newer hardware.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      I should add to this, it's not that I like Windows 10 particularly much. It's got an annoying habit of repeatedly uninstalling working graphics drivers and replacing them with versions that are "updates" but known to be broken. And the user experience in general just isn't where OS X is. But for hobbyist sorts of work in photography, 3d modeling, and texturing, Apple's product lineup is kind of a joke. I've been using Macs since System 7 and I'd like to have one to do these things on, but Apple doesn't want to make it. For me, this is just a question of higher price and lower speed for hobbies where I could deal with that if I really wanted to. But looking at entertainment industry professionals, Apple isn't even in the market. VR and 360° video (like the Surround 360 post from earlier today[1]) just aren't going to happen on Macs. Nobody's going to spend $6000 on a machine with 3 year old GPUs that can't handle a modern workload. Historically that was a market that kept Apple afloat. Now I guess it's too small for them to care? If Substance Designer ever gets released on Linux, I'm jumping ship to elementaryOS. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12167056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12167056
- matwood 10y ago
  It is clear that Apple does consider the desktop dead. As far as the MBPs go, I'm not sure what the hold up is. If they just kept changing out the internals with the latest Intel had to offer people would still complain, but at least be buying recent stuff. The other option would be to lower prices as the hardware got older, but that is not Apple's way. My 2014 MBP runs fine, I just would not want to pay the new 2016 computer price.
  - spronkey 10y ago
    They're probably still trying to shave another 5mm off the thing.
- DoodleBuggy 10y ago
  Of course the terribly irony is that Apple needs the power users because they are the ones who actually create things for their platforms and anything experienced by average users while on a Mac, iPad or iPhone. But no, the put a "Pro" on the end of the iPad and now we are supposed to believe that is the answer. Sorry, but an iPad will never be a usable workstation without ergonomics, a precision cursor and file system. Hey, maybe they will release Xcode for Windows or Linux?
- sinatra 10y ago
  Part of the problem is that many power users have no other option. Many of us can't use Windows because we need our primary machine to be _nix for various reasons (because our servers are Linux based, because we're used to the commands/tools from the _nix ecosystem, because configurations etc are easier to to understand and work with in the _nix ecosystem, etc). And many of us can't use Linux because there's no laptop that comes close to the power, portability, ease-of-use (think wifi, power options), screen, etc of Macbook Pro et al. Add to that the fact that many apps we need to use (Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch, etc) don't run on Linux natively. So, even if you ignore the fact that the non-power-user is a much bigger market, there's no reason for Apple to focus heavily on power-users because we aren't going to go anywhere else.
  - giancarlostoro 10y ago
    Dell sells an XPS laptop with Ubuntu Linux installed out of the box, then you have System 76 and other companies that focus on selling you Linux-only devices. I guess your main issue after that is application compatibility. I use a VM to run Visual Studio, which is the only non-Linux application I need, but I make due with Mono Develop to some extent.
    - sinatra 10y ago
      Running a VM means I get the best of both Linux and Windows. I also get the worst of both Linux and Windows. I don't think OSX has gotten bad enough for me to go that route and be forced to manage two operating systems.
  - alyx 10y ago
    Luckily for you, Windows 10 will support Ubuntu Bash natively (as part of the anniversary update). https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/about https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/about
  - hellcow 10y ago
    I've been using Macs for years and recently switched to Windows 10 as my primary dev device. Bash on Windows is almost as good as running on a Linux kernel, and it's not finished yet. Truly the only thing I miss is Sketch. Recent changes have made Windows very approachable/usable for a Linux and Mac power user.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >As a single, insignificant data point: I just bought my first Windows laptop after 2008. I kept waiting for Apple to release Skylake professional machines. Just gave up waiting for them. The Skylake processors meant for the MacBook Pros have not yet made available by Intel. They were announced last year but are still either not available at all (TBD) or available at small quantities. The PC competitors rushed to put out PCs with whatever Skylake models Intels put out, models that have marginal gais (or sometimes even worse performance) compared to earlier Haswell. The worst one can say about Apple is not about them not rushing to adopt the BS early Skylake models that are unfit for the MBP, but that they held the prices of MBPr with older processors high while people are waiting for the refresh. That said, Apple has already put out Skylake Macbook and Skylake iMacs.
  - beamso 10y ago
    >The Skylake processors meant for the MacBook Pros have not yet made available by Intel. They were announced last year but are still either not available at all (TBD) or available at small quantities. >The worst one can say about Apple is not about them not rushing to adopt the BS early Skylake models that are unfit for the MBP, but that they held the prices of MBPr with older processors high while people are waiting for the refresh. The 15" models still use Haswell processors, not Broadwell like the 13".
    - sjwright 10y ago
      Haswell vs Broadwell is a very incremental change. Pick any metric you like and it'll be better by at most 10 percent. In most practical metrics it's a lot less than that.
      - beamso 10y ago
        It's not about it being an incremental change. Come this Friday, the same CPUs have been shipping in the 15" retina MacBook Pros for 2 years. Last spec bump was May 2015, but the change to Haswell processors was in late July 2014.
  - jwatte 10y ago
- erichmond 10y ago
  Sounds more like you don't use computers the way you used to. I use my computer for software development and music creation. Both experiences are orders of magnitude better on OS X then on Windows 10. On the rare chances I get to play games, I play on Win 10.
- mark_l_watson 10y ago
  Getting a signature machine is the way to go. Not having all that crapware installed is good. I am tired of Verizon installing crapware on my android phones so I am going for a Google device with the Fi service when I need a new phone. One thing Apple does well is not loading crapware.
- newman314 10y ago
  Different data point. I occasionally think I want a new MBP but I just got Sierra PB2 working just fine on my Mid-2009 MBP which isn't even supported. Given that I've upgraded it over the years with a SSD and maxed out the RAM, it still surprisingly feels like a pretty usable machine despite its bulk. So for me, at least for now, it's good enough and I still do not have a sufficiently compelling reason to upgrade. Hence the lack of new machines really does not bother me that much.
- jsz0 10y ago
  > It has forgotten about its power users. Features like HiDPI displays and NVMe are very much power user features. Apple was among the first in the industry to adopt those features so they've had a period of time over the last year or so without much in the pipeline for power users. Minor CPU upgrades that offer barely any performance improvement are not enough to buck the historic decline in PC sales.
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  I think Apple just has a different view of who is important to it as far as customers go. For them it's always been about graphics/media first, education second, and everyone else is an afterthought. The OSX acquisition brought in a number of people who care about developers, but the further the OS gets from that, the closer it gets to their roots. The only major change recently being their desire to integrate as much of their work with iOS into OSX as they can. Which is helpful to their bottom line. As far as Windows vs. OSX. I've had to switch to Windows for work and I still get very frustrated with it at times. As long as I can stick to my core tools, which is text editor + shell + Firefox, I'm fine. But it's a PITA to even make simple changes to settings as they bury it behind all kinds of stupid menus. And IE is still garbage, though it's less on fire than it was. And my stupid laptop will still spin up and slow the entire system down at random times of day just to run whatever flavor of malware scanner, auto updater, or copy protection scanner it feels is suddenly more important than the work of the actual user. And then there's Office itself, which is garbage as well, as far as I'm concerned, but is pretty much the only reason why Windows exists as a platform. So I like Macs because they mostly have everything I need and stay out of my way. And also because of BBEdit which is still the best. Windows works okay, and is still better for gaming in terms of Price vs. availability, which is why I'm actually considering purchasing one at all.
niftich 10y ago
Well, they're not really wrong; while it's true they were selling high-margin hardware and making a handsome profit, they've been a vertical for many, many years, and all that hardware install base is just to get their services into people's hands. While earnings calls always try to put a positive spin on the facts, I don't think their calling attention to their services is a distraction; it's simply pointing out what several people already knew: that selling 'services' on an ongoing basis is better in the end than selling actual tangible objects, which you can only sell once.
- fredgrott 10y ago
  but it does have a limitation in that some Apple services are not on other platforms and some are. And some of the Apple Services are up against some very competitive Services..
- niels_olson 10y ago
  There's also the issue that you can only sell great hardware so often. I ordered my retina MacBook the first day they were available in 2011. It's out of AppleCare and works better now than the day I got it. I have an essentially infinite supply of laptops and tablets available but any effort replacing this machine couldn't possibly be worth it.
- mmanfrin 10y ago
  I think in general that selling ongoing services is a good business model, but Apple's bread and butter and golden goose has been hardware. Their enormous cash reserves were built by hardware, not software. Certainly software was a bit part of making that happen, but the margins and money came from hardware.
cyberferret 10y ago
I am always puzzled when analysts are seemingly baffled that a company cannot keep selling more and more product each year to a finite audience and never reach saturation point...
- tfinniga 10y ago
  I really liked this small article about exponential growth. Exponentials don't really exist in nature, there are pretty much always limits. http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/11/its-not-exponential-its-sigmoi.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/11/its-not-exponential-its-sig...
  - Fomite 10y ago
    Pretty much this. Growth to carrying capacity looks a lot like exponential growth for a bit and then stops. Assuming it is exponential is a recipe for sadness and disappointing earnings reports.
- adventured 10y ago
  Most people - including analysts - bought into the hype that nearly every person on earth would have a smartphone soon. Instead, smartphone sales growth has fallen down to practically nothing globally. Apple is already missing the last growth wave, which is mostly made up of very cheap Android phones in India and China. Those people also bought into the notion that Apple was going to dominate China, because of their early success there. It was talked up non-stop by Tim Cook. Instead, China will become an epic disaster for Apple, as they melt market share endlessly to nationalism and protectionism. The Chinese will only get more aggressive with Apple as the iPhone gets weaker as a product inside of China.
  - jaegerpicker 10y ago
    40 million for the iPhone alone is practically nothing!?!? Sure it's down but people on HN are a little crazy acting like Apple is going to go under because of this.
a_small_island 10y ago
>"12.9-inch iPad Pro" I had to look this up. It's real. A 13" iPad. Are these still labeled as tablets? Same size as my laptop screen.
- vessenes 10y ago
  I have one. It's excellent.
  - DoodleBuggy 10y ago
    For what is it excellent? What do you use it for? To me it has weirdly uncomfortable ergonomics, and it's still nothing more than a jumbo iPhone. I have long tried to like iPad but I find no use for it.
    - drunkenazi 10y ago
      I got one for work use, and it slowly turned in to my at home laptop replacement. Definitely shines at casual consumption, the only time I use it productively is when it acts as a second display (meaning my laptop is productive). Regular uses: - Streaming video, cool and quiet, unlike my laptop (especially if it is sitting on fabric, like a lap or bed) - Dual monitors on the go using duet - Quickly looking things up with someone else (instead of sharing a phone screen, or starting a computer) - Playing games in places where a laptop would be uncomfortable (heat and noise) or overkill: human resource machine, worm.is, hearthstone - Skype (including conference calls) Less commonly: - Insanely long battery life for replaying downloaded videos on flights (last flight was ~15 hours, ~8 hours watching iPad video, <10% battery used)
    - mixmastamyk 10y ago
      Great for Movies and TV, and a lot easier to handle at moving time.
    - perotin 10y ago
      It's great for sheet music, my main use case. The screen is large enough to display music from IMSLP without making me squint. A 9.7" iPad is a bit too small for comfortable reading at the piano. An iPhone is unusable.
Danieru 10y ago
$42.4 billion of revenue in total. $6 billion of which is services. That is not the profile of a services company. That is the profile of a company who's PR department is running distraction on the press. You cannot replace the revenue of a once every two years $800 purchase with some music sales. Consummers only even spend that $800 because the cost is hidden in a larger monthly bill. This should be a big deal. Apple is no longer taking market share from Android. Apple is no longer convincing consumers to replace their old iPhones. This is a trend which should scare investors. Let Apple is still priced assuming 11 more years of current profits.
- dottrap 10y ago
  From the conference call: Maestri: Services now account for 11% of Apple's overall revenue, up from 8% in the year-ago period. Cook: Switchers from Android and other platforms accounted for the highest percentage of iPhone buyers than ever before.
  - adventured 10y ago
    That'd be an interesting data point, if iPhone sales hadn't collapsed by 15% in the quarter. As such it sounds like nothing but spin and entirely hollow.
    - threeseed 10y ago
      iPhone sales are supposed to collapse though. The new iPhone is coming out in a few weeks.
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- rtpg 10y ago
  I think Apple has it's issues, but isn't this textbook Innovator's Dilemma? Newer vertical looks small compared to established vertical, thus dismissed. $400 every two years (assuming 50% profit per phone!) is just $17/month. If Apple can convince you to pay for 2 or 3 of its services, then they're gold. Where does the "11 years" comment come from though? How do you figure that?
mrgreenfur 10y ago
I wonder how much of this downturn is due to not much exciting hardware being release by manufacturers? Intel hasn't released anything much in the last few years, video cards are already overpowered for 99%, phones are pretty much all the same, etc. Seems like there is no need to upgrade pc hardware or phones these days and VR/IoT hasn't really taken off in any way.
- sahaskatta 10y ago
  I wouldn't agree. Innovation for portable laptop/tablet form factors had been slow for quite some time, but I think there's a small uptick again. Everything from the Razer Blade which supports a external dGPU to devices like Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book are pretty exciting. On other fronts, $99 "laptop containers" which utilize your smartphone's computing power are popping up: SuperBook: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andromium/the-superbook-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-laptop-f https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andromium/the-superbook... NexDock: http://nexdock.com/ http://nexdock.com/ And finally: $250 Chromebooks have started to get so good that it's actually viable replacement for a large portion of people who do most of their work in a browser anyways!
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  Yes, iPhone is also down because of incredible demand last year for the larger handsets. So this year, it is back down slightly below normal, but should even out next year.
bsaul 10y ago
I don't want to be pessimistic, but making money by milking profits out of existing products while loosing market shares and not opening successful busines lines is exactly the sign of failing big companies. Blackberry was making profit until very late. I see signs of decline on everything apple does, from failing products ( watch ), to failing software ( xcode, macos having the same network connectivity issues for years and not releasing anything new for years, ios still relying on decade old software stack and an aging cocoa framework). The only true technological success i've seen from apple recently is what they're doing with swift, and it's maybe not a coincidence that it was aimed at being a cross platform, community driven technology.
rebelidealist 10y ago
This is a significant feat. Apple's $6b in revenue from services beats Facebook's last reported quarter for the entire company.
- ejcx 10y ago
  A lot of people in this thread are seeing $6 in revenue next to Apple's huge worth and dismissing it. That's a lot of money, and it is growing. In my opinion, Apple is undervalued right now (I'm biased, I own a trivial amount of Apple stock). There is no real competitor that I've seen in the phone and tablet space, and their services business is growing.
  - dpark 10y ago
    >There is no real competitor that I've seen in the phone and tablet space If you haven't seen them, you haven't looked. Google, Samsung, Huawei, etc. Android is dominating Apple in market share at this point. Apple is making great margins still, but they are not without legit competitors and have not been for years.
mrfusion 10y ago
Why is the stock up? I'm confused.
- Infinitesimus 10y ago
  Stock prices tend to fly when reality exceeds Wall Street expectations - even if those expectations were poor to begin with (the opposite is also true)
fleshweasel 10y ago
The wait for the new MacBook Pro is agonizing but I am convinced it will sell like hotcakes when it finally comes out.
- KurtMueller 10y ago
  What do you think is taking so long? I'm waiting too - it's hard :).
  - dijit 10y ago
    Firmware weirdness with skylake. Something about how it handles suspend, I remember the linux kernel having massive problems too, and they don't employ the same level of power saving optimisations as Apple do.
    - commandar 10y ago
      The Surface Book had power management-related firmware weirdness for its first couple of months as well. That said, Microsoft had it fixed by ~January-February as I recall it.
- locusm 10y ago
  Just sold my 2013 15" MBP in anticipation!
- bdrool 10y ago
  I'm wondering how many ports they are going to remove. Fingers crossed they will keep plain HDMI and not make us go back to Thunderbolt / MiniDisplayPort. (Oh, and it'd be nice if they did something about the potential for Thunderbolt viruses...)
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panic 10y ago
This focus on services seems like a bad sign for Apple's product quality. Apple's goal of making their products a great, cohesive experience aligned well with their profit incentive to sell hardware. Trying to get customers to use services they may not really want could have a negative effect on the overall product. We've already seen some of this with ads in the App Store.
Animats 10y ago
Is Apple Pay even a thing any more? The near-field readers in stores seem to have disappeared when the chip card readers went in.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Huh? Most of the chip readers I've seen are NFC enabled.
- unfamiliar 10y ago
  In the UK it works basically everywhere. We've had contactless cards for a while.
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- commandar 10y ago
  Most places that I've seen have installed NFC readers at the same time they upgraded to chip readers. That said, I've yet to see anyone actually use contactless in the wild. I did, once. Because Discover was offering 10% cashback when they launched Apple Pay support, so I loaded up my card on my buddy's iPhone and went to Best Buy to buy a Surface Book. I've had zero other incentive to use contactless otherwise.
  - pdpi 10y ago
    Contactless is a perfectly mundane and unremarkable thing in the uk. Just about everywhere you go accepts All of Visa, MasterCard or Apple Pay, including the underground. There is currently no other way to pay for London busses other than Oyster or contactless.
    - commandar 10y ago
      It's honestly mundane in it's availability in the US as well; I just haven't seen anyone actually using it.
jbandela1 10y ago
Anecdotal, but for me, I feel my iPhone is now good enough for my use and feel no compelling urge to upgrade. My guess is that many people feel the same way about the iPad.
- bitL 10y ago
  Don't worry, new iOS release will show you what a clunker you actually have! ;-)
cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
Honestly at this point the only thing that's keeping me from switching to Windows is XCode because I need to build iOS apps. I will immediately switch to Windows if someone figures out a way to seamlessly build true native iOS apps on Windows. I've waited enough for their laptops--not because I love mac but because that's the only option I have for the reason above--and getting tired of it. As I am typing this on my macbook air, I have to take my hands off the keyboard time to time because it gets too hot. Also the battery has swollen up to a point where I can't even close the laptop. I've been waiting for a legitimate new laptop from them for TWO years. All they released was some minor upgrades and a "macbook" which I didn't buy because I know better than to act as Apple's guinea pig and buy their first iteration of anything--I learned it the hard way with my iPhones and iPads. Anyway, all this to me feels like it's because Apple is no more an innovator company, instead they follow the stock market. I used to be a Windows user but switched when Vista came out and I really couldn't stand it. I feel very reminiscent of those times when I think about what's going on with Apple nowadays.
- apocalyptic0n3 10y ago
  You could check out JetBrains AppCode[1], depending on how you're building. It still uses Xcode for the Interface Builder and Storyboard tools but you might be able to offload much of the process to AppCode. We've experimented with doing it, but I don't believe anyone has actually made the switch full time yet. [1] https://www.jetbrains.com/objc/ https://www.jetbrains.com/objc/
  - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
    My point was I would like to switch to Windows if I had the choice. This doesn't look like it's solving my problem. You still need to use mac.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  > Also the battery has swollen up to a point where I can't even close the laptop. You can get a replacement battery from Apple for pretty reasonable pricing (https://support.apple.com/mac-notebooks/repair/service/pricing https://support.apple.com/mac-notebooks/repair/service/prici...). You really don't want a bulging Macbook battery lying around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJXqy6bWow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJXqy6bWow
unfamiliar 10y ago
>But it looks like the company is investing a lot on services as we can see with the Apple Music redesign happening just a year after the launch This is a bit of a stretch. The "redesign" is basically a new skin on the original, fixing confusion that should have never existed in the first place. I don't think it constitutes a major development from such a large company and a year's worth of work. Meanwhile the Mac product line sits gathering dust and Siri either makes incremental improvements or goes backwards. It saddens me to say but Apple seems to have become one of these lumbering giants that is too slow to change course and adapt to the changing surroundings. Are they just too scared to move fast in case they lose what they have? Or is there some systemic problem that is dragging the pace down? I'm sure any one of the engineers working there has 100 ideas and the enthusiasm to move them forward.
egypturnash 10y ago
I've been sitting around for the past year or so wanting to give them more money for a new Air. Last month I tried a Surface and that came damn close to replacing my Air for its primary job of "going out to cafes and parks with me to draw stuff in Illustrator". I only brought it back because it had some major issues with Illustrator dropping the first half second of stylus strokes. Despite really hating the Windows experience. If Apple comes out with a laptop/tablet hybrid like that, they will have my money in a hot second.
jwatte 10y ago
If Apple services were best of class, eco system leading stars, this approach would make sense. When we get iTunes and iCloud, well, their Kool Aid is probably spiked...
- ricksplat 10y ago
  You're the first person I've seen make this point. All the way down here, and it's by far the most glaring issue with this picture. Apple's services are kind of a bit flimsy. They're at best an expensive value added service for their devices. The only reason I use Apple Music/iTunes under Windows is because I have an iPhone. Otherwise I'd probably be using Spotify. Apple is a devices company first and foremost. The services augment these devices. To say that services are some kind of a way forward for growth neglects the fact that these devices are a gating factor for these services. Services are an enticing revenue model because they guarantee a steady income, while developing a good device experience is "hard". But it's a hard way to make money, with your revenue constantly consumed by labour costs. Only "products" can provide the kind growth a devices company needs. Leo Apotheker got caught up in this with HP - thankfully wiser minds prevailed and they backed out before it was too late.
Jayakumark 10y ago
I waited for my macbook upgrade to have 5th Gen Intel processor , became 6th gen and now 7th Gen. Guess they will never catch up to latest generation
xHopen 10y ago
Windows? come on, come on.
bogomipz 10y ago
I will ignore the sensational nonsense headline from TC. So revenue from services up 19% and App Store growth is up 27% which are quite impressive numbers yet all the media seems to be talking about is "is the Apple Goldrush over?" The market for smartphone is fairly well saturated in the majority of first world countries. And they are using that success to sell services that run on those devices which seems to be working. How is this a back drop against which to paint a picture of decline and impending demise?

throwaway1979 10y ago

As a single, insignificant data point: I just bought my first Windows laptop after 2008. I kept waiting for Apple to release Skylake professional machines. Just gave up waiting for them. Ended up getting a Windows Signature machine, which came with a free tablet. Guess I don't need to wait for the iPad Air refresh anymore as well. I think Apple has lost its way. It has forgotten about its power users. I think they are trying to be a luxury brand now ... limited function devices that overpriced (but look really nice). I'm a bit bitter as I say this since I was a huge Apple fan.

paulcole 10y ago
> It has forgotten about its power users. Oh, they haven't forgotten. Since the introduction of the multicolor iMac, Apple has been moving steadily towards a line of luxury-ish mass market products. Updates and refreshes in Apple's lines of high-performance "computers" will only continue to become fewer and further between. Edit: Why down vote this?
- niels_olson 10y ago
  Ya just don't buy a Mac every two years. It's been so effective for so long, that it's too painful to replace, even if it's far easier to replace than a Windows box.
- salgernon 10y ago
  >> Since the introduction of the multicolor iMac, Apple has >> been moving steadily towards a line of luxury-ish mass market products. That would've been twenty years ago. The only "interesting" boxes that appeared before then were the Mac II NuBus machines, and even then because there was no alternative. History at that time moved very slowly - it allowed for an Apple II class machine to be sold into the 1990s; after that, the benefit of a tightly designed custom motherboard and software combination trailed dramatically against the cost of supporting software. Sure, a DayStar 40MHz accelerator card was the bees knees at only only like $1,040, but it didn't do anything even remotely like moving the software forward like the (2004) intel transition. (And compatibility was severely lacking from third parties for third party pro options.) (Please do note though, I <3 m68k. I wish the world had taken another track - but I don't think i'd have been significantly better off.)
allsystemsgo 10y ago
> I think Apple has lost its way. It has forgotten about its power users. I think they are trying to be a luxury brand now How is that losing their way? They're targeting a way more profitable and way larger market.
- twblalock 10y ago
  Judging by many of the comments I see here, especially in threads about products that do target power users, power users are so difficult to please that targeting them is probably a waste of time and money.
  - dilemma 10y ago
    That's the quarter capitalist point of view. The brand adoption cycle goes from Professional -> Prosumer -> Consumer. If you lose the pro market you lose brand equity that makes you a premium brand. Then, you eventually lose the consumer market and start cutting costs and prices to keep up.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      I don't believe that for a second. There are many successful companies that only target only one or two of those market segments. Besides, Apple's products have traditionally attracted consumers and prosumers before professionals, e.g. the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone... You've got the cycle wrong anyway. From Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations, it is traditionally: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards. These are categories of people who have varying enthusiasm about trying new technology. They are not segmented into professionals and non-professionals. The first category includes all kinds of people, including consumers who want the latest and greatest iPhone for media consumption and playing Pokemon.
    - astrodust 10y ago
      That's how it works for markets but not individual products. Cellular phones started with professionals, then prosumer, then consumer. The iPhone followed that track only because the market was significant in all areas, but it's worth noting they don't really have a "pro" phone. Likewise, a lot of their pro gear is really expensive to engineer and the sales are thin. They'd rather make prosumer and consumer gear that they can crank out in volume. Can't blame them, really. The entire PC market is imploding, so it's a lost cause to try and carve out new market share when everything's going to hell.
hyperbovine 10y ago
You did not write anything about the actual user experience, which is telling. Is the mere fact that there exist machines which will boot into a non Apple OS supposed to spell doom for them or something? I just used my first Windows machine in almost ten years as well and... guess what it still sucks. Particularly if you are trying to develop software.
- matwood 10y ago
  Yeah, every time I boot to Windows to test something on IE I'm reminded why I left Windows. It's a shame because the Surface tablets look nice.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    I usually roll my eyes at all the hate people always find for Microsoft in nearly every decision they make and every thing they release into the market. I upgraded my gaming desktop to Windows 8 the day it came out, and I upgraded to Windows 10 when it came out. I've never really had too many problems. But everything new they release and everything I use from them makes me thankful I mostly use Apple products. I don't have to worry about the new version of Windows destroying my computer or forcing itself upon me, and I especially love knowing that my computer will not reboot itself unexpectedly at night due to security updates. I'm glad I have products made by a company that knows what it is and what it does, that focuses on stability and polish. A company that doesn't flap back and forth between consumer and enterprise computing, discontinuing devices and services as fast as they can create them. Maybe I'm still sore from the loss of my Zune, or my Windows Phone, or my TechNet subscription. I didn't start using Macs with the Lisa, or System 7, or even when OS X was released; I'm fairly new. This is only my second Mac. But I used Windows for years, and every time I hear someone say "I'm leaving Apple for Microsoft because Apple has lost their way", what I actually hear is "I'm making a symbolic statement and I don't actually care what the repercussions are." Because if anyone thinks Windows is more stable, more polished, more developer friendly, or has machines with a better build quality, I have to say... you're gonna be surprised. Maybe Apple isn't what it used to be. But it still seems a damn sight better than Windows, in almost every regard.
nextos 10y ago
Exactly. They don't realise loosing power users has the potential to harm you in the long run. Power users include many groups you need to target, like early adopters and indie application developers just to name a few. Back in time, when Apple switched to Intel and there was no iPhone yet, it was pretty clear to me they would become huge. There was a great ecosystem around the Mac with fantastic applications developed by Panic, Omni Group and lots of individuals. Loosing these will make your stuff enterprisey and boring, in a bad way.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  IMO this is what Microsoft is trying to fix with their recent open source efforts. Developers (outside of enterprise) aren't on their platform and even tend to hate the company. It turns out that's not great for their consumer software market. I can name exactly one company known for making well polished Windows utilities (Stardock), and everything else tends to look like it was developed on Windows 95. Compare to Mac where you have those companies like Panic, The Omni Group, Rogue Amoeba, Delicious Monster, Ambrosia SW, The Icon Factory, and others. I know a lot of stuff has moved online and desktop software isn't as critical as it was a decade ago, but native developers still power a big chunk of the ecosystem. Apple is clearly uninterested in supporting their professional userbase, and MS would love to have them. Personally I'm holding out for new MBPs to replace a 2011 Macbook Air (no audio, but it still runs), but I can't blame those who aren't. It'll be a bottom-of-the-line model and I can do my serious work on a Windows machine that costs half of a Mac Pro and has 3 years newer hardware.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    I should add to this, it's not that I like Windows 10 particularly much. It's got an annoying habit of repeatedly uninstalling working graphics drivers and replacing them with versions that are "updates" but known to be broken. And the user experience in general just isn't where OS X is. But for hobbyist sorts of work in photography, 3d modeling, and texturing, Apple's product lineup is kind of a joke. I've been using Macs since System 7 and I'd like to have one to do these things on, but Apple doesn't want to make it. For me, this is just a question of higher price and lower speed for hobbies where I could deal with that if I really wanted to. But looking at entertainment industry professionals, Apple isn't even in the market. VR and 360° video (like the Surround 360 post from earlier today[1]) just aren't going to happen on Macs. Nobody's going to spend $6000 on a machine with 3 year old GPUs that can't handle a modern workload. Historically that was a market that kept Apple afloat. Now I guess it's too small for them to care? If Substance Designer ever gets released on Linux, I'm jumping ship to elementaryOS. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12167056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12167056
matwood 10y ago
It is clear that Apple does consider the desktop dead. As far as the MBPs go, I'm not sure what the hold up is. If they just kept changing out the internals with the latest Intel had to offer people would still complain, but at least be buying recent stuff. The other option would be to lower prices as the hardware got older, but that is not Apple's way. My 2014 MBP runs fine, I just would not want to pay the new 2016 computer price.
- spronkey 10y ago
  They're probably still trying to shave another 5mm off the thing.
DoodleBuggy 10y ago
Of course the terribly irony is that Apple needs the power users because they are the ones who actually create things for their platforms and anything experienced by average users while on a Mac, iPad or iPhone. But no, the put a "Pro" on the end of the iPad and now we are supposed to believe that is the answer. Sorry, but an iPad will never be a usable workstation without ergonomics, a precision cursor and file system. Hey, maybe they will release Xcode for Windows or Linux?
sinatra 10y ago
Part of the problem is that many power users have no other option. Many of us can't use Windows because we need our primary machine to be _nix for various reasons (because our servers are Linux based, because we're used to the commands/tools from the _nix ecosystem, because configurations etc are easier to to understand and work with in the _nix ecosystem, etc). And many of us can't use Linux because there's no laptop that comes close to the power, portability, ease-of-use (think wifi, power options), screen, etc of Macbook Pro et al. Add to that the fact that many apps we need to use (Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch, etc) don't run on Linux natively. So, even if you ignore the fact that the non-power-user is a much bigger market, there's no reason for Apple to focus heavily on power-users because we aren't going to go anywhere else.
- giancarlostoro 10y ago
  Dell sells an XPS laptop with Ubuntu Linux installed out of the box, then you have System 76 and other companies that focus on selling you Linux-only devices. I guess your main issue after that is application compatibility. I use a VM to run Visual Studio, which is the only non-Linux application I need, but I make due with Mono Develop to some extent.
  - sinatra 10y ago
    Running a VM means I get the best of both Linux and Windows. I also get the worst of both Linux and Windows. I don't think OSX has gotten bad enough for me to go that route and be forced to manage two operating systems.
- alyx 10y ago
  Luckily for you, Windows 10 will support Ubuntu Bash natively (as part of the anniversary update). https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/about https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/about
- hellcow 10y ago
  I've been using Macs for years and recently switched to Windows 10 as my primary dev device. Bash on Windows is almost as good as running on a Linux kernel, and it's not finished yet. Truly the only thing I miss is Sketch. Recent changes have made Windows very approachable/usable for a Linux and Mac power user.
coldtea 10y ago
>As a single, insignificant data point: I just bought my first Windows laptop after 2008. I kept waiting for Apple to release Skylake professional machines. Just gave up waiting for them. The Skylake processors meant for the MacBook Pros have not yet made available by Intel. They were announced last year but are still either not available at all (TBD) or available at small quantities. The PC competitors rushed to put out PCs with whatever Skylake models Intels put out, models that have marginal gais (or sometimes even worse performance) compared to earlier Haswell. The worst one can say about Apple is not about them not rushing to adopt the BS early Skylake models that are unfit for the MBP, but that they held the prices of MBPr with older processors high while people are waiting for the refresh. That said, Apple has already put out Skylake Macbook and Skylake iMacs.
- beamso 10y ago
  >The Skylake processors meant for the MacBook Pros have not yet made available by Intel. They were announced last year but are still either not available at all (TBD) or available at small quantities. >The worst one can say about Apple is not about them not rushing to adopt the BS early Skylake models that are unfit for the MBP, but that they held the prices of MBPr with older processors high while people are waiting for the refresh. The 15" models still use Haswell processors, not Broadwell like the 13".
  - sjwright 10y ago
    Haswell vs Broadwell is a very incremental change. Pick any metric you like and it'll be better by at most 10 percent. In most practical metrics it's a lot less than that.
    - beamso 10y ago
      It's not about it being an incremental change. Come this Friday, the same CPUs have been shipping in the 15" retina MacBook Pros for 2 years. Last spec bump was May 2015, but the change to Haswell processors was in late July 2014.
- jwatte 10y ago
erichmond 10y ago
Sounds more like you don't use computers the way you used to. I use my computer for software development and music creation. Both experiences are orders of magnitude better on OS X then on Windows 10. On the rare chances I get to play games, I play on Win 10.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
Getting a signature machine is the way to go. Not having all that crapware installed is good. I am tired of Verizon installing crapware on my android phones so I am going for a Google device with the Fi service when I need a new phone. One thing Apple does well is not loading crapware.
newman314 10y ago
Different data point. I occasionally think I want a new MBP but I just got Sierra PB2 working just fine on my Mid-2009 MBP which isn't even supported. Given that I've upgraded it over the years with a SSD and maxed out the RAM, it still surprisingly feels like a pretty usable machine despite its bulk. So for me, at least for now, it's good enough and I still do not have a sufficiently compelling reason to upgrade. Hence the lack of new machines really does not bother me that much.
jsz0 10y ago
> It has forgotten about its power users. Features like HiDPI displays and NVMe are very much power user features. Apple was among the first in the industry to adopt those features so they've had a period of time over the last year or so without much in the pipeline for power users. Minor CPU upgrades that offer barely any performance improvement are not enough to buck the historic decline in PC sales.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
I think Apple just has a different view of who is important to it as far as customers go. For them it's always been about graphics/media first, education second, and everyone else is an afterthought. The OSX acquisition brought in a number of people who care about developers, but the further the OS gets from that, the closer it gets to their roots. The only major change recently being their desire to integrate as much of their work with iOS into OSX as they can. Which is helpful to their bottom line. As far as Windows vs. OSX. I've had to switch to Windows for work and I still get very frustrated with it at times. As long as I can stick to my core tools, which is text editor + shell + Firefox, I'm fine. But it's a PITA to even make simple changes to settings as they bury it behind all kinds of stupid menus. And IE is still garbage, though it's less on fire than it was. And my stupid laptop will still spin up and slow the entire system down at random times of day just to run whatever flavor of malware scanner, auto updater, or copy protection scanner it feels is suddenly more important than the work of the actual user. And then there's Office itself, which is garbage as well, as far as I'm concerned, but is pretty much the only reason why Windows exists as a platform. So I like Macs because they mostly have everything I need and stay out of my way. And also because of BBEdit which is still the best. Windows works okay, and is still better for gaming in terms of Price vs. availability, which is why I'm actually considering purchasing one at all.

niftich 10y ago

Well, they're not really wrong; while it's true they were selling high-margin hardware and making a handsome profit, they've been a vertical for many, many years, and all that hardware install base is just to get their services into people's hands. While earnings calls always try to put a positive spin on the facts, I don't think their calling attention to their services is a distraction; it's simply pointing out what several people already knew: that selling 'services' on an ongoing basis is better in the end than selling actual tangible objects, which you can only sell once.

fredgrott 10y ago
but it does have a limitation in that some Apple services are not on other platforms and some are. And some of the Apple Services are up against some very competitive Services..
niels_olson 10y ago
There's also the issue that you can only sell great hardware so often. I ordered my retina MacBook the first day they were available in 2011. It's out of AppleCare and works better now than the day I got it. I have an essentially infinite supply of laptops and tablets available but any effort replacing this machine couldn't possibly be worth it.
mmanfrin 10y ago
I think in general that selling ongoing services is a good business model, but Apple's bread and butter and golden goose has been hardware. Their enormous cash reserves were built by hardware, not software. Certainly software was a bit part of making that happen, but the margins and money came from hardware.

cyberferret 10y ago

I am always puzzled when analysts are seemingly baffled that a company cannot keep selling more and more product each year to a finite audience and never reach saturation point...

tfinniga 10y ago
I really liked this small article about exponential growth. Exponentials don't really exist in nature, there are pretty much always limits. http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/11/its-not-exponential-its-sigmoi.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/11/its-not-exponential-its-sig...
- Fomite 10y ago
  Pretty much this. Growth to carrying capacity looks a lot like exponential growth for a bit and then stops. Assuming it is exponential is a recipe for sadness and disappointing earnings reports.
adventured 10y ago
Most people - including analysts - bought into the hype that nearly every person on earth would have a smartphone soon. Instead, smartphone sales growth has fallen down to practically nothing globally. Apple is already missing the last growth wave, which is mostly made up of very cheap Android phones in India and China. Those people also bought into the notion that Apple was going to dominate China, because of their early success there. It was talked up non-stop by Tim Cook. Instead, China will become an epic disaster for Apple, as they melt market share endlessly to nationalism and protectionism. The Chinese will only get more aggressive with Apple as the iPhone gets weaker as a product inside of China.
- jaegerpicker 10y ago
  40 million for the iPhone alone is practically nothing!?!? Sure it's down but people on HN are a little crazy acting like Apple is going to go under because of this.

a_small_island 10y ago

>"12.9-inch iPad Pro" I had to look this up. It's real. A 13" iPad. Are these still labeled as tablets? Same size as my laptop screen.

vessenes 10y ago
I have one. It's excellent.
- DoodleBuggy 10y ago
  For what is it excellent? What do you use it for? To me it has weirdly uncomfortable ergonomics, and it's still nothing more than a jumbo iPhone. I have long tried to like iPad but I find no use for it.
  - drunkenazi 10y ago
    I got one for work use, and it slowly turned in to my at home laptop replacement. Definitely shines at casual consumption, the only time I use it productively is when it acts as a second display (meaning my laptop is productive). Regular uses: - Streaming video, cool and quiet, unlike my laptop (especially if it is sitting on fabric, like a lap or bed) - Dual monitors on the go using duet - Quickly looking things up with someone else (instead of sharing a phone screen, or starting a computer) - Playing games in places where a laptop would be uncomfortable (heat and noise) or overkill: human resource machine, worm.is, hearthstone - Skype (including conference calls) Less commonly: - Insanely long battery life for replaying downloaded videos on flights (last flight was ~15 hours, ~8 hours watching iPad video, <10% battery used)
  - mixmastamyk 10y ago
    Great for Movies and TV, and a lot easier to handle at moving time.
  - perotin 10y ago
    It's great for sheet music, my main use case. The screen is large enough to display music from IMSLP without making me squint. A 9.7" iPad is a bit too small for comfortable reading at the piano. An iPhone is unusable.

Danieru 10y ago

$42.4 billion of revenue in total. $6 billion of which is services. That is not the profile of a services company. That is the profile of a company who's PR department is running distraction on the press. You cannot replace the revenue of a once every two years $800 purchase with some music sales. Consummers only even spend that $800 because the cost is hidden in a larger monthly bill. This should be a big deal. Apple is no longer taking market share from Android. Apple is no longer convincing consumers to replace their old iPhones. This is a trend which should scare investors. Let Apple is still priced assuming 11 more years of current profits.

dottrap 10y ago
From the conference call: Maestri: Services now account for 11% of Apple's overall revenue, up from 8% in the year-ago period. Cook: Switchers from Android and other platforms accounted for the highest percentage of iPhone buyers than ever before.
- adventured 10y ago
  That'd be an interesting data point, if iPhone sales hadn't collapsed by 15% in the quarter. As such it sounds like nothing but spin and entirely hollow.
  - threeseed 10y ago
    iPhone sales are supposed to collapse though. The new iPhone is coming out in a few weeks.
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rtpg 10y ago
I think Apple has it's issues, but isn't this textbook Innovator's Dilemma? Newer vertical looks small compared to established vertical, thus dismissed. $400 every two years (assuming 50% profit per phone!) is just $17/month. If Apple can convince you to pay for 2 or 3 of its services, then they're gold. Where does the "11 years" comment come from though? How do you figure that?

mrgreenfur 10y ago

I wonder how much of this downturn is due to not much exciting hardware being release by manufacturers? Intel hasn't released anything much in the last few years, video cards are already overpowered for 99%, phones are pretty much all the same, etc. Seems like there is no need to upgrade pc hardware or phones these days and VR/IoT hasn't really taken off in any way.

sahaskatta 10y ago
I wouldn't agree. Innovation for portable laptop/tablet form factors had been slow for quite some time, but I think there's a small uptick again. Everything from the Razer Blade which supports a external dGPU to devices like Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book are pretty exciting. On other fronts, $99 "laptop containers" which utilize your smartphone's computing power are popping up: SuperBook: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andromium/the-superbook-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-laptop-f https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andromium/the-superbook... NexDock: http://nexdock.com/ http://nexdock.com/ And finally: $250 Chromebooks have started to get so good that it's actually viable replacement for a large portion of people who do most of their work in a browser anyways!
mixmastamyk 10y ago
Yes, iPhone is also down because of incredible demand last year for the larger handsets. So this year, it is back down slightly below normal, but should even out next year.

bsaul 10y ago

I don't want to be pessimistic, but making money by milking profits out of existing products while loosing market shares and not opening successful busines lines is exactly the sign of failing big companies. Blackberry was making profit until very late. I see signs of decline on everything apple does, from failing products ( watch ), to failing software ( xcode, macos having the same network connectivity issues for years and not releasing anything new for years, ios still relying on decade old software stack and an aging cocoa framework). The only true technological success i've seen from apple recently is what they're doing with swift, and it's maybe not a coincidence that it was aimed at being a cross platform, community driven technology.

rebelidealist 10y ago

This is a significant feat. Apple's $6b in revenue from services beats Facebook's last reported quarter for the entire company.

ejcx 10y ago
A lot of people in this thread are seeing $6 in revenue next to Apple's huge worth and dismissing it. That's a lot of money, and it is growing. In my opinion, Apple is undervalued right now (I'm biased, I own a trivial amount of Apple stock). There is no real competitor that I've seen in the phone and tablet space, and their services business is growing.
- dpark 10y ago
  >There is no real competitor that I've seen in the phone and tablet space If you haven't seen them, you haven't looked. Google, Samsung, Huawei, etc. Android is dominating Apple in market share at this point. Apple is making great margins still, but they are not without legit competitors and have not been for years.

mrfusion 10y ago

Why is the stock up? I'm confused.

Infinitesimus 10y ago
Stock prices tend to fly when reality exceeds Wall Street expectations - even if those expectations were poor to begin with (the opposite is also true)

fleshweasel 10y ago

The wait for the new MacBook Pro is agonizing but I am convinced it will sell like hotcakes when it finally comes out.

KurtMueller 10y ago
What do you think is taking so long? I'm waiting too - it's hard :).
- dijit 10y ago
  Firmware weirdness with skylake. Something about how it handles suspend, I remember the linux kernel having massive problems too, and they don't employ the same level of power saving optimisations as Apple do.
  - commandar 10y ago
    The Surface Book had power management-related firmware weirdness for its first couple of months as well. That said, Microsoft had it fixed by ~January-February as I recall it.
locusm 10y ago
Just sold my 2013 15" MBP in anticipation!
bdrool 10y ago
I'm wondering how many ports they are going to remove. Fingers crossed they will keep plain HDMI and not make us go back to Thunderbolt / MiniDisplayPort. (Oh, and it'd be nice if they did something about the potential for Thunderbolt viruses...)

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panic 10y ago

This focus on services seems like a bad sign for Apple's product quality. Apple's goal of making their products a great, cohesive experience aligned well with their profit incentive to sell hardware. Trying to get customers to use services they may not really want could have a negative effect on the overall product. We've already seen some of this with ads in the App Store.

Animats 10y ago

Is Apple Pay even a thing any more? The near-field readers in stores seem to have disappeared when the chip card readers went in.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Huh? Most of the chip readers I've seen are NFC enabled.
unfamiliar 10y ago
In the UK it works basically everywhere. We've had contactless cards for a while.
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commandar 10y ago
Most places that I've seen have installed NFC readers at the same time they upgraded to chip readers. That said, I've yet to see anyone actually use contactless in the wild. I did, once. Because Discover was offering 10% cashback when they launched Apple Pay support, so I loaded up my card on my buddy's iPhone and went to Best Buy to buy a Surface Book. I've had zero other incentive to use contactless otherwise.
- pdpi 10y ago
  Contactless is a perfectly mundane and unremarkable thing in the uk. Just about everywhere you go accepts All of Visa, MasterCard or Apple Pay, including the underground. There is currently no other way to pay for London busses other than Oyster or contactless.
  - commandar 10y ago
    It's honestly mundane in it's availability in the US as well; I just haven't seen anyone actually using it.

jbandela1 10y ago

Anecdotal, but for me, I feel my iPhone is now good enough for my use and feel no compelling urge to upgrade. My guess is that many people feel the same way about the iPad.

bitL 10y ago
Don't worry, new iOS release will show you what a clunker you actually have! ;-)

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago

Honestly at this point the only thing that's keeping me from switching to Windows is XCode because I need to build iOS apps. I will immediately switch to Windows if someone figures out a way to seamlessly build true native iOS apps on Windows. I've waited enough for their laptops--not because I love mac but because that's the only option I have for the reason above--and getting tired of it. As I am typing this on my macbook air, I have to take my hands off the keyboard time to time because it gets too hot. Also the battery has swollen up to a point where I can't even close the laptop. I've been waiting for a legitimate new laptop from them for TWO years. All they released was some minor upgrades and a "macbook" which I didn't buy because I know better than to act as Apple's guinea pig and buy their first iteration of anything--I learned it the hard way with my iPhones and iPads. Anyway, all this to me feels like it's because Apple is no more an innovator company, instead they follow the stock market. I used to be a Windows user but switched when Vista came out and I really couldn't stand it. I feel very reminiscent of those times when I think about what's going on with Apple nowadays.

apocalyptic0n3 10y ago
You could check out JetBrains AppCode[1], depending on how you're building. It still uses Xcode for the Interface Builder and Storyboard tools but you might be able to offload much of the process to AppCode. We've experimented with doing it, but I don't believe anyone has actually made the switch full time yet. [1] https://www.jetbrains.com/objc/ https://www.jetbrains.com/objc/
- cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
  My point was I would like to switch to Windows if I had the choice. This doesn't look like it's solving my problem. You still need to use mac.
ceejayoz 10y ago
> Also the battery has swollen up to a point where I can't even close the laptop. You can get a replacement battery from Apple for pretty reasonable pricing (https://support.apple.com/mac-notebooks/repair/service/pricing https://support.apple.com/mac-notebooks/repair/service/prici...). You really don't want a bulging Macbook battery lying around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJXqy6bWow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJXqy6bWow

unfamiliar 10y ago

>But it looks like the company is investing a lot on services as we can see with the Apple Music redesign happening just a year after the launch This is a bit of a stretch. The "redesign" is basically a new skin on the original, fixing confusion that should have never existed in the first place. I don't think it constitutes a major development from such a large company and a year's worth of work. Meanwhile the Mac product line sits gathering dust and Siri either makes incremental improvements or goes backwards. It saddens me to say but Apple seems to have become one of these lumbering giants that is too slow to change course and adapt to the changing surroundings. Are they just too scared to move fast in case they lose what they have? Or is there some systemic problem that is dragging the pace down? I'm sure any one of the engineers working there has 100 ideas and the enthusiasm to move them forward.

egypturnash 10y ago

I've been sitting around for the past year or so wanting to give them more money for a new Air. Last month I tried a Surface and that came damn close to replacing my Air for its primary job of "going out to cafes and parks with me to draw stuff in Illustrator". I only brought it back because it had some major issues with Illustrator dropping the first half second of stylus strokes. Despite really hating the Windows experience. If Apple comes out with a laptop/tablet hybrid like that, they will have my money in a hot second.

jwatte 10y ago

If Apple services were best of class, eco system leading stars, this approach would make sense. When we get iTunes and iCloud, well, their Kool Aid is probably spiked...

ricksplat 10y ago
You're the first person I've seen make this point. All the way down here, and it's by far the most glaring issue with this picture. Apple's services are kind of a bit flimsy. They're at best an expensive value added service for their devices. The only reason I use Apple Music/iTunes under Windows is because I have an iPhone. Otherwise I'd probably be using Spotify. Apple is a devices company first and foremost. The services augment these devices. To say that services are some kind of a way forward for growth neglects the fact that these devices are a gating factor for these services. Services are an enticing revenue model because they guarantee a steady income, while developing a good device experience is "hard". But it's a hard way to make money, with your revenue constantly consumed by labour costs. Only "products" can provide the kind growth a devices company needs. Leo Apotheker got caught up in this with HP - thankfully wiser minds prevailed and they backed out before it was too late.

Jayakumark 10y ago

I waited for my macbook upgrade to have 5th Gen Intel processor , became 6th gen and now 7th Gen. Guess they will never catch up to latest generation

xHopen 10y ago

Windows? come on, come on.

bogomipz 10y ago

I will ignore the sensational nonsense headline from TC. So revenue from services up 19% and App Store growth is up 27% which are quite impressive numbers yet all the media seems to be talking about is "is the Apple Goldrush over?" The market for smartphone is fairly well saturated in the majority of first world countries. And they are using that success to sell services that run on those devices which seems to be working. How is this a back drop against which to paint a picture of decline and impending demise?