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"Apple no longer reports iPhone, iPad, and Mac unit sales numbers..." Probably because they only care about revenue and profits these days, not innovation and

by mikece 8y ago

"Apple no longer reports iPhone, iPad, and Mac unit sales numbers..." Probably because they only care about revenue and profits these days, not innovation and products. Apple didn't get to where they are by optimizing the supply chain but by coming up with incredible products that everyone HAD to have. I bought an iPhone last spring because it was the least-bad option in my opinion; if the Librem 5 is a flop I don't know what I'll get when my current phone dies because I will NOT buy a phone that unlocks by FaceID.

jjtheblunt 8y ago
You can turn FaceID off.
- r00fus 8y ago
  TouchID still has less lag - and I can auth/unlock from my pocket. FaceID is great for my aging parents who have calloused hands, but I still prefer TouchID.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Can ya still turn TouchID off? (haha)
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      You can not register any fingerprints, yes.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    I much prefer FaceID. It seems faster not slower for me than TouchID was, I like that it enables a full frontal screen, and I love not having a home button. I also really like when my kids steal my phone and try to get it to unlock by holding it up to me and I can make funny faces at it so it won’t. But maybe that’s just me. And to anticipate the follow-on to that, if a true adversary is holding my phone and it hasn’t been hard-locked through power-off of rapid click sequence, then I’ve already lost, whether it’s TouchID or FaceID.
    - mft_ 8y ago
      I find FaceID worse than TouchID, in a couple of ways: 1. It's very common both at work and at home that the iPhone is flat on a table and I want to quickly unlock it to check something. Previously, snaking a finger out was sufficient; now, I have to deliberately pick it up, look at it, and then swipe upwards. (It's also much more conspicuous in meetings.) 2. FaceID seems to struggle (i.e. fail to unlock, or delay the unlock) more often than TouchID - it seems quite sensitive to the angle it's held at as it scans my face.
      - bcatanzaro 8y ago
        Another problem is that you don't get to control the start of a FaceID scan. Many apps that I use (mostly for banking) have some non-deterministic loading procedure that can take from 1-20 seconds. At some point, the load completes and the app initiates a FaceID scan. If you're not holding the phone at the right angle at that moment, the scan fails. Then it falls back to a passcode. It's a terrible user experience. They should give me the chance to push a button after I've gotten the phone in the right position before initiating the scan. Or they should give me the chance to retry the scan if I wasn't ready. As it is, they expect me to hold my phone rigidly for a non-deterministic amount of time in order to use FaceID.
        macintux 8y ago
        Interesting point. Definitely worth noting that’s the apps’ fault: my primary banking app waits for me to trigger FaceID.
        1123581321 8y ago
        If your face is not recognized, it will prompt you with a system modal to either “Try Face ID Again,” which does what you want, or “Cancel,” which lets the app decide what to do (most of mine go to a button you can tap to try Face ID again.)
      - 1123581321 8y ago
        Have you tried either re-saving your face or saving a second face at the angle that gives you trouble?
  - jen20 8y ago
    Out of interest do you live somewhere which is never cold enough to require gloves?
oflannabhra 8y ago
They actually state why they don't report unit sales numbers: they aren't meaningful now that the iPhone is no longer opening in new markets, the mobile phone market has reached maturity, and the number that is meaningful for their business growth is active devices. I'm not going to defend Apple's reasons for crafting their message to Wall Street, but to say that they only care about revenue and profits, but not innovation or products, just doesn't follow from sales number reporting (or from their other actions, in my opinion).
baoha 8y ago
Can we just stop with the 'Apple stopped innovating' propaganda, the same thing can be said about any big corps, be it Google/FB/Netflix/... Innovation doesn't just mean creating new products (the Airpod is one of Apple's killer product by the way), improving current products used by millions of people while keeping them coming back to buy more and more is not easy, this is also counted as innovation in my book.
ancorevard 8y ago
Because the number is the wrong metric for measuring the health of their products and customers. Unfortunately, the financial analysts have been so intensely focused on unit metrics to the point that they can't seem to grasp the true reality and condition of the company. As a result, Apple had to go so far as to: 1) State that their goal is to make their devices last longer. 2) Stop giving unit numbers. Still, I anticipate it will take years before financial analysts to internalize the true nature of this beast. See: http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/ http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Any company that publicly claimed that their goal was to make devices that have a shorter lifetime would be raked over the coals, FWIW.
- eertami 8y ago
  >1) State that their goal is to make their devices last longer. Either a lie or they don't know what the word 'goal' means after shipping their devices with high failure rate keyboards?
scarface74 8y ago
Well, seeing that their Apple Watch business is the size of a F200 company. I think they are doing well. Also, if you compare their revenue mix and knowing Apple you know they are running each part profitably, they are doing much better than Google who after all of these years is still just an ad company. https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2019/financials-2019-4-3-1.png https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2019/financials-2019-4-...
rkho 8y ago
> Apple didn't get to where they are by optimizing the supply chain but by coming up with incredible products that everyone HAD to have Apple's supply chain used to have some really bad inventory turnover numbers. Unsold inventory would literally sit in warehouses depreciating in value, costing the company lots of money. You might be interested in reading this piece on Tim Cook's changes to the supply chain: https://money.cnn.com/2008/11/09/technology/cook_apple.fortune/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/2008/11/09/technology/cook_apple.fortu... It's either misguided or completely dishonest for you to assert that Apple's supply chain management plays second fiddle to its products when it comes to their success as a company.
georgespencer 8y ago
> Probably because they only care about revenue and profits these days, not innovation and products Apple seems, to me at least, to have more conviction that innovation and fantastic products lead to revenue and profits than any company operating in the consumer hardware space today. And there are plenty of comparatively awesome companies who innovate and invest in breakthrough products (Google, Tesla… Microsoft(!)). They likely no longer split out those product categories for several reasons: 1. Their financial results are news in the mainstream media, and their customers read the mainstream media. If the ASP of an iPhone rises to $1,000 and grows revenue whilst offsetting a contraction in unit sales, it's great news for Apple and its investors, and likely not a sign of anything other than a maturing market -- but it won't be reported as anything other than stagnation or doom and gloom by the mainstream media. 2. Apple's future, and maybe the future, is not in one-off transactions. We've seen most professional and a lot of consumer software move towards subscription pricing steadily over the last decade. Hardware is going to go the same way, and Apple is preparing for that. Persuading people to stay in their ecosystem (NB not "locking people in" -- it's pretty easy to "leave" the Apple ecosystem) is going to be a combination of hardware, software, and services, and customers will be paying some sort of blended subscription which includes hardware and software. It's predictable, steady revenue for them, and it obviates the need for stupid "how many units did you ship hurr durr" conversations.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by mikece 8y ago

jjtheblunt 8y ago

You can turn FaceID off.

r00fus 8y ago
TouchID still has less lag - and I can auth/unlock from my pocket. FaceID is great for my aging parents who have calloused hands, but I still prefer TouchID.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Can ya still turn TouchID off? (haha)
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    You can not register any fingerprints, yes.
- zaroth 8y ago
  I much prefer FaceID. It seems faster not slower for me than TouchID was, I like that it enables a full frontal screen, and I love not having a home button. I also really like when my kids steal my phone and try to get it to unlock by holding it up to me and I can make funny faces at it so it won’t. But maybe that’s just me. And to anticipate the follow-on to that, if a true adversary is holding my phone and it hasn’t been hard-locked through power-off of rapid click sequence, then I’ve already lost, whether it’s TouchID or FaceID.
  - mft_ 8y ago
    I find FaceID worse than TouchID, in a couple of ways: 1. It's very common both at work and at home that the iPhone is flat on a table and I want to quickly unlock it to check something. Previously, snaking a finger out was sufficient; now, I have to deliberately pick it up, look at it, and then swipe upwards. (It's also much more conspicuous in meetings.) 2. FaceID seems to struggle (i.e. fail to unlock, or delay the unlock) more often than TouchID - it seems quite sensitive to the angle it's held at as it scans my face.
    - bcatanzaro 8y ago
      Another problem is that you don't get to control the start of a FaceID scan. Many apps that I use (mostly for banking) have some non-deterministic loading procedure that can take from 1-20 seconds. At some point, the load completes and the app initiates a FaceID scan. If you're not holding the phone at the right angle at that moment, the scan fails. Then it falls back to a passcode. It's a terrible user experience. They should give me the chance to push a button after I've gotten the phone in the right position before initiating the scan. Or they should give me the chance to retry the scan if I wasn't ready. As it is, they expect me to hold my phone rigidly for a non-deterministic amount of time in order to use FaceID.
      - macintux 8y ago
        Interesting point. Definitely worth noting that’s the apps’ fault: my primary banking app waits for me to trigger FaceID.
      - 1123581321 8y ago
        If your face is not recognized, it will prompt you with a system modal to either “Try Face ID Again,” which does what you want, or “Cancel,” which lets the app decide what to do (most of mine go to a button you can tap to try Face ID again.)
    - 1123581321 8y ago
      Have you tried either re-saving your face or saving a second face at the angle that gives you trouble?
- jen20 8y ago
  Out of interest do you live somewhere which is never cold enough to require gloves?

oflannabhra 8y ago

They actually state why they don't report unit sales numbers: they aren't meaningful now that the iPhone is no longer opening in new markets, the mobile phone market has reached maturity, and the number that is meaningful for their business growth is active devices. I'm not going to defend Apple's reasons for crafting their message to Wall Street, but to say that they only care about revenue and profits, but not innovation or products, just doesn't follow from sales number reporting (or from their other actions, in my opinion).

baoha 8y ago

Can we just stop with the 'Apple stopped innovating' propaganda, the same thing can be said about any big corps, be it Google/FB/Netflix/... Innovation doesn't just mean creating new products (the Airpod is one of Apple's killer product by the way), improving current products used by millions of people while keeping them coming back to buy more and more is not easy, this is also counted as innovation in my book.

ancorevard 8y ago

Because the number is the wrong metric for measuring the health of their products and customers. Unfortunately, the financial analysts have been so intensely focused on unit metrics to the point that they can't seem to grasp the true reality and condition of the company. As a result, Apple had to go so far as to: 1) State that their goal is to make their devices last longer. 2) Stop giving unit numbers. Still, I anticipate it will take years before financial analysts to internalize the true nature of this beast. See: http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/ http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/

saagarjha 8y ago
Any company that publicly claimed that their goal was to make devices that have a shorter lifetime would be raked over the coals, FWIW.
eertami 8y ago
>1) State that their goal is to make their devices last longer. Either a lie or they don't know what the word 'goal' means after shipping their devices with high failure rate keyboards?

scarface74 8y ago

Well, seeing that their Apple Watch business is the size of a F200 company. I think they are doing well. Also, if you compare their revenue mix and knowing Apple you know they are running each part profitably, they are doing much better than Google who after all of these years is still just an ad company. https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2019/financials-2019-4-3-1.png https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2019/financials-2019-4-...

rkho 8y ago

> Apple didn't get to where they are by optimizing the supply chain but by coming up with incredible products that everyone HAD to have Apple's supply chain used to have some really bad inventory turnover numbers. Unsold inventory would literally sit in warehouses depreciating in value, costing the company lots of money. You might be interested in reading this piece on Tim Cook's changes to the supply chain: https://money.cnn.com/2008/11/09/technology/cook_apple.fortune/index.htm https://money.cnn.com/2008/11/09/technology/cook_apple.fortu... It's either misguided or completely dishonest for you to assert that Apple's supply chain management plays second fiddle to its products when it comes to their success as a company.

georgespencer 8y ago

> Probably because they only care about revenue and profits these days, not innovation and products Apple seems, to me at least, to have more conviction that innovation and fantastic products lead to revenue and profits than any company operating in the consumer hardware space today. And there are plenty of comparatively awesome companies who innovate and invest in breakthrough products (Google, Tesla… Microsoft(!)). They likely no longer split out those product categories for several reasons: 1. Their financial results are news in the mainstream media, and their customers read the mainstream media. If the ASP of an iPhone rises to $1,000 and grows revenue whilst offsetting a contraction in unit sales, it's great news for Apple and its investors, and likely not a sign of anything other than a maturing market -- but it won't be reported as anything other than stagnation or doom and gloom by the mainstream media. 2. Apple's future, and maybe the future, is not in one-off transactions. We've seen most professional and a lot of consumer software move towards subscription pricing steadily over the last decade. Hardware is going to go the same way, and Apple is preparing for that. Persuading people to stay in their ecosystem (NB not "locking people in" -- it's pretty easy to "leave" the Apple ecosystem) is going to be a combination of hardware, software, and services, and customers will be paying some sort of blended subscription which includes hardware and software. It's predictable, steady revenue for them, and it obviates the need for stupid "how many units did you ship hurr durr" conversations.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]