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Agree they have a huge taste problem, but even besides that Apple has a huge incumbent problem now really. Smartphones ate the world, and they ate the majority

Agree they have a huge taste problem, but even besides that Apple has a huge incumbent problem now really. Smartphones ate the world, and they ate the majority of profit in the space. We are now 20 years on and the software is no longer driving the urgency of the hardware upgrade cycle it used to. Apple gets the majority of its revenue from iPhones and related services. Note that services category includes all sorts of App Store extortion payment stuff that they are slowly losing court cases over. iPhones are so big for them, no other product category created since is even in the same order of magnitude. Partially I think thats on Apple, but I look across the consumer electronics space and don't really see anything new categories they aren't already dominating anyway (tablet, smart watches, etc). One "moat" they probably do have is that in the US at least, theres not a lot of other physical retailers to go try out consumer electronics. 20+ years ago Apple Store were filled with 3rd party products, now its all Apple everything.

wat10000 1y ago
Apple’s MO, at least in recent decades, is to let others blaze the trail into a new space, then do their own version that gets it right. Smartphones were a big deal before the iPhone. People would talk about how they were addicted to checking email on their “crackberries.” But they were niche. You could see that they were going to be big, but they weren’t there yet. Then the iPhone catapulted smartphones from a popular niche to a ubiquitous product. Before the iPhone, they did the same thing with portable music players. Afterwards, it was the same story for tables and smart watches, although not with the same degree of ubiquity. Arguably it was the same for PCs (“personal computers,” not IBM-compatible machines, of course) and GUIs, way back when. What big upcoming thing would they do this with now? As you say, there really isn’t anything. Maybe VR/AR, but that isn’t even in the “popular niche” stage yet, the technology isn’t there yet, and it’s far from certain that it will ever be more than a tiny niche. Otherwise, what? Self-driving cars? That’s not a new market, that’s a product feature in an existing large, mature market. AI? That’s also looking like a feature rather than a new product category.
- steveBK123 1y ago
  You're 100% right, Apple as a fast-follower "getting it right" tech company, and there's nothing to fast follow right now. IoT/smarthome has been a niche/fad going nowhere since day 1. Smart speakers are commodities. They dabbled in an EV project, canned it. They've dabbled in AR with the VisionPro but really it's too early, if it will ever work. AI is software not hardware. Apple smartphones/tablets/watches have essentially killed 10x more hardware categories than have come into existence since. They sell a lot of headphones I guess. The only consumer electronics I buy now outside Apple are basically higher end niche hobbyist stuff in for example music or photography. Nothing that would ever sell at the price levels ($200-1000) or volumes (billions) to move the needle for Apple.
  - SlowTao 1y ago
    This is something I have said for a while. A lot of the fields they are in now are largely 'solved'. Not saying there cannot be improvements but we are well into the diminishing returns phase. There is absolutely no risk of Apple going under any time in the next few decades but the era of rapid progress is over.
  - ghostpepper 1y ago
    >> They sell a lot of headphones I guess. If you are still using bluetooth headphones as they existed 10+ years ago, and haven't tried using apple headphones with an apple computer/phone, you are missing a massive quality of life upgrade in terms of basically never having to do the pairing dance again after your initial purchase.
    - seec 1y ago
      There is such a mythology around that it's basically religious fervor at this point. Apple stuff isn't any better or more convenient than any other brand. The gold standard is multi-point Bluetooth which Apple doesn't do because they would rather have you locked in their "ecosystem". Joke's on them because even if you are a customer, you can very much get a good experience by avoiding the Apple stuff.
    - 1y ago

wat10000 1y ago

Apple’s MO, at least in recent decades, is to let others blaze the trail into a new space, then do their own version that gets it right. Smartphones were a big deal before the iPhone. People would talk about how they were addicted to checking email on their “crackberries.” But they were niche. You could see that they were going to be big, but they weren’t there yet. Then the iPhone catapulted smartphones from a popular niche to a ubiquitous product. Before the iPhone, they did the same thing with portable music players. Afterwards, it was the same story for tables and smart watches, although not with the same degree of ubiquity. Arguably it was the same for PCs (“personal computers,” not IBM-compatible machines, of course) and GUIs, way back when. What big upcoming thing would they do this with now? As you say, there really isn’t anything. Maybe VR/AR, but that isn’t even in the “popular niche” stage yet, the technology isn’t there yet, and it’s far from certain that it will ever be more than a tiny niche. Otherwise, what? Self-driving cars? That’s not a new market, that’s a product feature in an existing large, mature market. AI? That’s also looking like a feature rather than a new product category.

steveBK123 1y ago
You're 100% right, Apple as a fast-follower "getting it right" tech company, and there's nothing to fast follow right now. IoT/smarthome has been a niche/fad going nowhere since day 1. Smart speakers are commodities. They dabbled in an EV project, canned it. They've dabbled in AR with the VisionPro but really it's too early, if it will ever work. AI is software not hardware. Apple smartphones/tablets/watches have essentially killed 10x more hardware categories than have come into existence since. They sell a lot of headphones I guess. The only consumer electronics I buy now outside Apple are basically higher end niche hobbyist stuff in for example music or photography. Nothing that would ever sell at the price levels ($200-1000) or volumes (billions) to move the needle for Apple.
- SlowTao 1y ago
  This is something I have said for a while. A lot of the fields they are in now are largely 'solved'. Not saying there cannot be improvements but we are well into the diminishing returns phase. There is absolutely no risk of Apple going under any time in the next few decades but the era of rapid progress is over.
- ghostpepper 1y ago
  >> They sell a lot of headphones I guess. If you are still using bluetooth headphones as they existed 10+ years ago, and haven't tried using apple headphones with an apple computer/phone, you are missing a massive quality of life upgrade in terms of basically never having to do the pairing dance again after your initial purchase.
  - seec 1y ago
    There is such a mythology around that it's basically religious fervor at this point. Apple stuff isn't any better or more convenient than any other brand. The gold standard is multi-point Bluetooth which Apple doesn't do because they would rather have you locked in their "ecosystem". Joke's on them because even if you are a customer, you can very much get a good experience by avoiding the Apple stuff.
  - 1y ago