7 ms·

Apple Under Siege

47 points by co_pl_te 13y ago

beloch 13y ago
Apple has experienced periods of decline before. In the mid to late nineties, before Jobs returned, Apple stuck to polishing OS9, which was simply too archaic to compete with Windows 95, NT, and subsequent MS OS's of the nineties. They flip flopped on clones and ultimately maintained a losing status quo. This era also brought such blunders as the puck mouse, but towards the end Apple got a bit of a lift from the candy colored iMac. Still, had Apple not started branching out as they did, the dire predictions were probably true. Is Apple in decline today? Their profits don't appear to be. Today's Apple also has a truly gargantuan nest-egg that could see the company through a protracted period of difficulty. It's too soon to tell if the company has become less innovative, but they are in a far superior position now than at any point in the past. The Apple brand isn't going anywhere for decades.
- DavidSJ 13y ago
  In the mid to late nineties, before Jobs returned, Apple stuck to polishing OS9 Correction: Apple didn't release OS 9 -- or even OS 8 -- until after Jobs returned. Perhaps you mean System 7? Actually, Apple barely made any progress on System 7 because nearly all their OS engineers were working on the ill-fated Copland. This era also brought such blunders as the puck mouse, but towards the end Apple got a bit of a lift from the candy colored iMac The hockey puck mouse was also a Jobsism -- part of the iMac release.
  - zeckalpha 13y ago
    I heard someone the other day saying that now that Jobs is gone they're bringing back the hokey colors to the product lines. I told them that it wasn't until Jobs was back that the colors were introduced and they didn't believe me.
  - beloch 13y ago
    You're right. OS8 and 9 were basically lipstick on the System 7 pig. I worked on a helpdesk part-time in University and had to support OS8 and OS9. Horrible, horrible operating systems. To make matters even more annoying, Apple hardware had a funny habit of hiding the power switch on the back of the box at the time too, so it was always fun explaining to professors how to reboot their hard-locked machines over the phone. The puck-mice were indeed post-Jobs, as were the iMacs. Despite those terrible mice, the iMacs were a big hit with people who liked pretty colors and didn't actually want to use their computers much. I suppose Jobs needed time to get into the swing of things. It wasn't until the iPod that Apple (and Jobs) really shifted into overdrive.
gibwell 13y ago
The arguments for Apple's failure seem to focus on what Apple isn't doing, rather than what it is doing. E.g. - they aren't establishing or milking a monopoly - they aren't making commodity hardware - they aren't engaging in predatory pricing What these things have in common is that they are easy to understand. The general negative commentary seems to be of the form "We can understand what everyone else is doing, but we don't understand what Apple is doing, therefore Apple must be doing nothing." There's nothing new about this. The only difference when Steve Jobs was alive was that they could say 'We don't understand what Apple is doing, but Steve Jobs is a genius so that explains their success."
- lake99 13y ago
  > - they aren't establishing or milking a monopoly - they aren't making commodity hardware - they aren't engaging in predatory pricing Huh? Yes, they are! A patent is a monopoly [1]. They did not invent this rotten system, but they sure are milking it for all it's worth. Not engaging in predatory pricing? Do you know how much Microsoft and Apple demand of Android manufacturers to let them keep their features? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly
  - huxley 13y ago
    Predatory pricing occurs when you sell a product at such low prices that it deters other companies from entering the market. Apple has many flaws but that isn't one of them. You are correct that patents are considered a form of monopoly, but that is a different sense of the word than what the OP refers to, that is, holding a monopoly over a particular good or market. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any of the markets it participates in and there are plenty of substitute goods and competitive corporations within the same markets.
    - lake99 13y ago
      > Predatory pricing occurs when you sell a product at such low prices ... Thanks for correcting me on that. I was mistaken. > but that is a different sense of the word than what the OP refers to ... I am aware of that. > Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any of the markets it participates in ... The market is broader than just the end-users of phones. Share markets, patents, deals with collaborators (such as network operators, music companies), and bribes (mostly in less developed countries) are just as much a part of the market as end-users.
Nerdfest 13y ago
Apple had a few 'first' moments and make some decent hardware. The problem is that they're much too hung up on making their stuff only work with other Apple products. They cripple their protocols by tying exclusively to Apple products. Things like iMessage and FaceTime would be decent products if they opened the protocols and let others complete. We've come as far as we have because of open protocols and competition and Apple seems to be afraid to compete on a level playing field. Most 'geeks' I know recommend that people not buy Apple because of the lock-in.
- aaronem 13y ago
  > Things like iMessage and FaceTime would be decent products if they opened the protocols and let others complete [sic] And because they do not, they are excellent products. I met a fellow once who thought I was a fool for using a Macbook Pro. He had an excellent list of reasons why, complete with multiple hyperlinked references for each. But I never got to see it; when he woke up his Thinkpad to show me, all it said was kernel panic - not syncing: for safety and by the time he got it all sorted out, I'd had to leave for a client meeting. I'm sure he was right, though.
  - vacri 13y ago
    It's a pity you didn't ask him to email you a copy once he did get it working. You know, email - the open protocol that works across different systems? Your story is basically FUD because you're describing a kernel panic, which is most likely because the guy was intentionally running unstable bleeding edge stuff. If he was running consumer-level linux stuff, it's very unlikely that would have happened.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      I'll tell you a secret: that fellow was me, every one of several times over the last half-dozen years that I tried running Ubuntu or Debian, in the latest stable version then available, on various commodity laptops not more than a year or two old. Oh, I suppose my mistake was in not choosing my hardware according to the recommendations of the assembled gurus at linux-laptop.net, or just not being awesome enough to know what incantation I needed to mumble where, or the precise angle at which to incise the throat of the sacrificial chicken, or some damned thing to which those who haven't yet got bored of sysadmin drudgery are welcome. Of course, the Linux community being as it is the apotheosis of "blame the user", I'm sure I'll hear all sorts of detailed explanations of what I obviously must have done wrong, none of which does anything to make my Macbook any less preferable as an Emacs substrate.
mpyne 13y ago
This may hurt my popularity here but our family actually just bought a Win8 touchscreen for my wife to replace her Win7 laptop. She had kind of wanted Apple kit, but the Price was Wrong, and the Metro^W "Windows 8 Modern U/I" interface was actually more appealing to her than the checkerboard-of-apps approach. Although I think the thing that drove her decision in the end was the educational and other Windows-only apps, which is kind of ironic... educational apps are the reason we have an iPad in the first place.
- gibwell 13y ago
  Was she considering an Apple laptop, or an iPad? Are the educational apps ones for her to use herself, or ones she'll use for teaching kids? Also, are they apps she already has and wants to keep running, or ones she will buy now that she has the new machine? Finally are they Metro Apps, or traditional windows apps?
  - mpyne 13y ago
    She was considering a "real" computer, yes. Ones she'll use for her own kids, but not for teaching per se. Yes, Maybe, None Yet, Yes.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
w1ntermute 13y ago
> Scan Philip Ellmer-DeWitt’s Apple 2.0 or John Gruber’s Daring Fireball and treat yourself to intelligent repudiations The minute that I saw "Gruber" and "intelligent" in the same sentence was the minute I knew that this post was full of shit. If someone is so blinded by the reality distortion field that they can't see that Gruber is nothing more than a 3rd party PR person who trades insider info on Apple for pushing out propaganda on a regular basis, then I just can't take them seriously.
- gibwell 13y ago
  Do you know anything about the author?
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    Nope, just looked him up. Apparently he was an Apple exec in the 80s. Your point is?
    - gibwell 13y ago
      He also later founded and ran an Apple competitor that built highly respected computers and a highly respected OS. Dismissing this person's opinion simply because they don't agree with an unsubstantiated attack on Gruber makes no sense.
  - coldcode 13y ago
    Jean-Louis was a long time Apple exec who started a company to build an OS called BE which briefly was in vogue at Apple before they decided NeXT was a better choice. He's pretty much still an Apple guy at heart despite losing out.
- ghshephard 13y ago
  If you've been listening to his podcasts or actually reading his blog, you would know that gruber has no better information (and, in fact, usually less advance knowledge) than the random rumors on macrumors/apple insider. He usually trails both loopinsight and allthingsd in terms of scoops and confirmations. He is anything but an "insider." For the last several years about the only "inside information" he's received is a week's advance use of loaner laptops/iphones so that he can write a review column. (Same thing that Pogue, Mossberg, and other prominent columnists get, and he's subject to the same embargo as they are.) All gruber really has beyond his extensive network of colleagues in the industry are his presentation skills, his writing skills, his love of Apple, and his appreciation of things well made. And, to refer to Jean-Louis Gassée as "someone ..so blinded.." would suggest that you have little understanding of the history of the industry, and who Gassée is. Take 5 minutes to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e - you'll come away more informed. He's one of the major figures in the history of computing. Gruber is partisan, obviously, but it doesn't detract from the intellectual rigor of his repudiations. His latest one was spot on - the NYT columnist that Jean-Louis was referring to had stated that in the Jobs era, stock prices would routinely go up after a product announcement, and in the Cook era, things are not so bright. Gruber took the 20-30 minutes to go check that fact (something the NYT clearly didn't bother to do) - and discovered that, in fact, it was a mixed bag - and the stock dropped as often as it went up. Not sure what "propaganda" you see in that.
rdl 13y ago
This amuses me to no end: http://www.cringely.com/2012/01/02/prediction-1-a-new-ceo-for-apple/ http://www.cringely.com/2012/01/02/prediction-1-a-new-ceo-fo... That guy (who is pretty consistently wrong on ~everything) predicted Apple, Facebook, etc. would lose their CEOs in 2012; instead, Tim Cook has done an amazing job. Steve Jobs even called Cringely to tell him he was wrong on Tim Cook.
marze 13y ago
There is significant press attention given to the appearance of the Apple's products and market share stats, but Apple's real focus is on the software inside the devices, and on the developer base and applications available. The most important weapon in the battle for the approaching mobile device world will be to get the best quality applications on your platform. Apple is winning this battle, application quantity and quality, and the press does not seem to give much attention to this most critical aspect. Something like three of every four dollars spent on mobile applications now goes to iOS apps, and head to head comparisons of the most popular mobile applications show the iOS versions are clearly of higher quality. Apple has a monopoly on selling devices that run the huge iOS base of applications, and this should continue to allow them to sell their hardware at nice margins. They've stayed focused on building the developer community and APIs, with the goal of building a library of applications of the highest quality, and raining cash on their developer community. Apple goes for the win while most everyone is distracted by insignificant stats like market share.
tytso 13y ago
There will always be pundits on both sides of these sorts of arguments. In the early 90's, there were lots of people predicting IBM's imminent break-up. In 2011, Tomi Ahonen was claiming that despite everyone claiming that Nokia was under siege, it was still the world's largest seller of Smartphones (since he considered Symbian a Smartphone OS), while others were claiming that Nokia was doomed. Time is the only way we can tell which of the pundits were right, and which (in retrospect) sounded like idiots.
- gibwell 13y ago
  Well IBM did end up divesting itself of the businesses people expected them to. They just did so in an orderly manner while simultaneously executing a new and very successful strategy. As for Tomi Ahonen, by the time of that 2011 statement, Nokia's smartphone sales were visibly in precipitous decline. Not their share, but their sales. So Ahonen's statement can only be seen as a statement of faith rather than of confidence. In these two cases, there were facts to support the predictions, where as in Apple's case all we have are just so stories.
- blinkingled 13y ago
  I think this is exactly the right way to put the whole debate to rest! Who knows what Apple has up its sleeves - they still got Jony Ive, they still got a ton of money to just keep going at things. That may result in greater products, or they may become like Microsoft - perpetually trying. Really, only time will tell, but I just don't think they'll fail spectacularly in the near future. BTW, good to see you posting somewhat frequently on HN Ted!
joshlegs 13y ago
>I consider him the greatest creator and editor of products this industry has ever known, are you effing serious? Greatest creator my ass. He took already built products and refined the hell out of them. Shit, he practically built the company on top of Wozniak's back.
- vvhn 13y ago
  could you give examples of the claimed existing products and how the apple products are "just refinements" of those ?
- gibwell 13y ago
  You don't think refinement of failed products into wildly successful ones is a creative activity?
lmarinho 13y ago
I've recently watched this documentary called 'Jiro Dreams of Sushi'. It is about this legendary 85-year-old sushi master in Japan and his two sons who will succeed him in the business. At some point there was an interesting quote that went along the lines: when Jiro dies, his son will need to be twice as good as him, if he is "only" just as good, people will think he is worse. I think this is quite true in the Apple case, there was a "genius" aura around the Steve Jobs personality that helped inflate the perception of his already impressive achievements. Without that aura, Apple might be doing just as good a job as he would do, but people will think worse of them. Personally, I think that as long as they keep putting out the excellent quality products they've been releasing lately, pushing into new areas now and then, they will be just fine for quite some time.
exo_duz 13y ago
According to the people after Jobs' death was that Apple will ride the wave, then decline. just like Dell after Michael Dell left. Larry Ellison said the same thing the other day in an interview (but not sure whether to believe him or not, Ellison being Ellison and all). Although Apple was never perfect even with Jobs (remember Antenna gate) and other issues but he was a visionary, he saw things which a lot of people didn't. But although people always thought of him as the brains you also have to see that he has a great team behind him. Apple might be in decline now from the $800 per share at their peak but is this how a company is measured? I believe that even though they have not produced anything revolutionary in the past few years does not mean they are in decline. One cannot simply create revolutionary ideas every year. It's all incremental. iPod touch was the testing platform for the iPhone and in turn it was the platform for the iPad. What's next? I think I'll sit here and wait for it. I still think that they are still capable of something great based on the current team of executives at the head of Apple. They aren't sitting on their laurels with a sales person as their CEO. When the day comes that Apple does that I might change my tune, but for now I will still be as excited for an Apple event as I used to be.
Oletros 13y ago
Using Philip Elmer-DeWitt and Daniel Eran Dilger as source of arguments say a lot of the author, not worth reading.
- gibwell 13y ago
  Founding and running a company that made highly respected computers and a highly respected OS is an extremely rare achievement that makes him highly qualified to comment on the industry. Perhaps his opinion of these reporters should be taken as an indication that they should be listened to.

47 points by co_pl_te 13y ago

Apple has experienced periods of decline before. In the mid to late nineties, before Jobs returned, Apple stuck to polishing OS9, which was simply too archaic to compete with Windows 95, NT, and subsequent MS OS's of the nineties. They flip flopped on clones and ultimately maintained a losing status quo. This era also brought such blunders as the puck mouse, but towards the end Apple got a bit of a lift from the candy colored iMac. Still, had Apple not started branching out as they did, the dire predictions were probably true. Is Apple in decline today? Their profits don't appear to be. Today's Apple also has a truly gargantuan nest-egg that could see the company through a protracted period of difficulty. It's too soon to tell if the company has become less innovative, but they are in a far superior position now than at any point in the past. The Apple brand isn't going anywhere for decades.

DavidSJ 13y ago
In the mid to late nineties, before Jobs returned, Apple stuck to polishing OS9 Correction: Apple didn't release OS 9 -- or even OS 8 -- until after Jobs returned. Perhaps you mean System 7? Actually, Apple barely made any progress on System 7 because nearly all their OS engineers were working on the ill-fated Copland. This era also brought such blunders as the puck mouse, but towards the end Apple got a bit of a lift from the candy colored iMac The hockey puck mouse was also a Jobsism -- part of the iMac release.
- zeckalpha 13y ago
  I heard someone the other day saying that now that Jobs is gone they're bringing back the hokey colors to the product lines. I told them that it wasn't until Jobs was back that the colors were introduced and they didn't believe me.
- beloch 13y ago
  You're right. OS8 and 9 were basically lipstick on the System 7 pig. I worked on a helpdesk part-time in University and had to support OS8 and OS9. Horrible, horrible operating systems. To make matters even more annoying, Apple hardware had a funny habit of hiding the power switch on the back of the box at the time too, so it was always fun explaining to professors how to reboot their hard-locked machines over the phone. The puck-mice were indeed post-Jobs, as were the iMacs. Despite those terrible mice, the iMacs were a big hit with people who liked pretty colors and didn't actually want to use their computers much. I suppose Jobs needed time to get into the swing of things. It wasn't until the iPod that Apple (and Jobs) really shifted into overdrive.

gibwell 13y ago

The arguments for Apple's failure seem to focus on what Apple isn't doing, rather than what it is doing. E.g. - they aren't establishing or milking a monopoly - they aren't making commodity hardware - they aren't engaging in predatory pricing What these things have in common is that they are easy to understand. The general negative commentary seems to be of the form "We can understand what everyone else is doing, but we don't understand what Apple is doing, therefore Apple must be doing nothing." There's nothing new about this. The only difference when Steve Jobs was alive was that they could say 'We don't understand what Apple is doing, but Steve Jobs is a genius so that explains their success."

lake99 13y ago
> - they aren't establishing or milking a monopoly - they aren't making commodity hardware - they aren't engaging in predatory pricing Huh? Yes, they are! A patent is a monopoly [1]. They did not invent this rotten system, but they sure are milking it for all it's worth. Not engaging in predatory pricing? Do you know how much Microsoft and Apple demand of Android manufacturers to let them keep their features? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly
- huxley 13y ago
  Predatory pricing occurs when you sell a product at such low prices that it deters other companies from entering the market. Apple has many flaws but that isn't one of them. You are correct that patents are considered a form of monopoly, but that is a different sense of the word than what the OP refers to, that is, holding a monopoly over a particular good or market. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any of the markets it participates in and there are plenty of substitute goods and competitive corporations within the same markets.
  - lake99 13y ago
    > Predatory pricing occurs when you sell a product at such low prices ... Thanks for correcting me on that. I was mistaken. > but that is a different sense of the word than what the OP refers to ... I am aware of that. > Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any of the markets it participates in ... The market is broader than just the end-users of phones. Share markets, patents, deals with collaborators (such as network operators, music companies), and bribes (mostly in less developed countries) are just as much a part of the market as end-users.

Nerdfest 13y ago

Apple had a few 'first' moments and make some decent hardware. The problem is that they're much too hung up on making their stuff only work with other Apple products. They cripple their protocols by tying exclusively to Apple products. Things like iMessage and FaceTime would be decent products if they opened the protocols and let others complete. We've come as far as we have because of open protocols and competition and Apple seems to be afraid to compete on a level playing field. Most 'geeks' I know recommend that people not buy Apple because of the lock-in.

aaronem 13y ago
> Things like iMessage and FaceTime would be decent products if they opened the protocols and let others complete [sic] And because they do not, they are excellent products. I met a fellow once who thought I was a fool for using a Macbook Pro. He had an excellent list of reasons why, complete with multiple hyperlinked references for each. But I never got to see it; when he woke up his Thinkpad to show me, all it said was kernel panic - not syncing: for safety and by the time he got it all sorted out, I'd had to leave for a client meeting. I'm sure he was right, though.
- vacri 13y ago
  It's a pity you didn't ask him to email you a copy once he did get it working. You know, email - the open protocol that works across different systems? Your story is basically FUD because you're describing a kernel panic, which is most likely because the guy was intentionally running unstable bleeding edge stuff. If he was running consumer-level linux stuff, it's very unlikely that would have happened.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    I'll tell you a secret: that fellow was me, every one of several times over the last half-dozen years that I tried running Ubuntu or Debian, in the latest stable version then available, on various commodity laptops not more than a year or two old. Oh, I suppose my mistake was in not choosing my hardware according to the recommendations of the assembled gurus at linux-laptop.net, or just not being awesome enough to know what incantation I needed to mumble where, or the precise angle at which to incise the throat of the sacrificial chicken, or some damned thing to which those who haven't yet got bored of sysadmin drudgery are welcome. Of course, the Linux community being as it is the apotheosis of "blame the user", I'm sure I'll hear all sorts of detailed explanations of what I obviously must have done wrong, none of which does anything to make my Macbook any less preferable as an Emacs substrate.

mpyne 13y ago

This may hurt my popularity here but our family actually just bought a Win8 touchscreen for my wife to replace her Win7 laptop. She had kind of wanted Apple kit, but the Price was Wrong, and the Metro^W "Windows 8 Modern U/I" interface was actually more appealing to her than the checkerboard-of-apps approach. Although I think the thing that drove her decision in the end was the educational and other Windows-only apps, which is kind of ironic... educational apps are the reason we have an iPad in the first place.

gibwell 13y ago
Was she considering an Apple laptop, or an iPad? Are the educational apps ones for her to use herself, or ones she'll use for teaching kids? Also, are they apps she already has and wants to keep running, or ones she will buy now that she has the new machine? Finally are they Metro Apps, or traditional windows apps?
- mpyne 13y ago
  She was considering a "real" computer, yes. Ones she'll use for her own kids, but not for teaching per se. Yes, Maybe, None Yet, Yes.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

w1ntermute 13y ago

> Scan Philip Ellmer-DeWitt’s Apple 2.0 or John Gruber’s Daring Fireball and treat yourself to intelligent repudiations The minute that I saw "Gruber" and "intelligent" in the same sentence was the minute I knew that this post was full of shit. If someone is so blinded by the reality distortion field that they can't see that Gruber is nothing more than a 3rd party PR person who trades insider info on Apple for pushing out propaganda on a regular basis, then I just can't take them seriously.

gibwell 13y ago
Do you know anything about the author?
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  Nope, just looked him up. Apparently he was an Apple exec in the 80s. Your point is?
  - gibwell 13y ago
    He also later founded and ran an Apple competitor that built highly respected computers and a highly respected OS. Dismissing this person's opinion simply because they don't agree with an unsubstantiated attack on Gruber makes no sense.
- coldcode 13y ago
  Jean-Louis was a long time Apple exec who started a company to build an OS called BE which briefly was in vogue at Apple before they decided NeXT was a better choice. He's pretty much still an Apple guy at heart despite losing out.
ghshephard 13y ago
If you've been listening to his podcasts or actually reading his blog, you would know that gruber has no better information (and, in fact, usually less advance knowledge) than the random rumors on macrumors/apple insider. He usually trails both loopinsight and allthingsd in terms of scoops and confirmations. He is anything but an "insider." For the last several years about the only "inside information" he's received is a week's advance use of loaner laptops/iphones so that he can write a review column. (Same thing that Pogue, Mossberg, and other prominent columnists get, and he's subject to the same embargo as they are.) All gruber really has beyond his extensive network of colleagues in the industry are his presentation skills, his writing skills, his love of Apple, and his appreciation of things well made. And, to refer to Jean-Louis Gassée as "someone ..so blinded.." would suggest that you have little understanding of the history of the industry, and who Gassée is. Take 5 minutes to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Louis_Gass%C3%A9e - you'll come away more informed. He's one of the major figures in the history of computing. Gruber is partisan, obviously, but it doesn't detract from the intellectual rigor of his repudiations. His latest one was spot on - the NYT columnist that Jean-Louis was referring to had stated that in the Jobs era, stock prices would routinely go up after a product announcement, and in the Cook era, things are not so bright. Gruber took the 20-30 minutes to go check that fact (something the NYT clearly didn't bother to do) - and discovered that, in fact, it was a mixed bag - and the stock dropped as often as it went up. Not sure what "propaganda" you see in that.

rdl 13y ago

This amuses me to no end: http://www.cringely.com/2012/01/02/prediction-1-a-new-ceo-for-apple/ http://www.cringely.com/2012/01/02/prediction-1-a-new-ceo-fo... That guy (who is pretty consistently wrong on ~everything) predicted Apple, Facebook, etc. would lose their CEOs in 2012; instead, Tim Cook has done an amazing job. Steve Jobs even called Cringely to tell him he was wrong on Tim Cook.

marze 13y ago

There is significant press attention given to the appearance of the Apple's products and market share stats, but Apple's real focus is on the software inside the devices, and on the developer base and applications available. The most important weapon in the battle for the approaching mobile device world will be to get the best quality applications on your platform. Apple is winning this battle, application quantity and quality, and the press does not seem to give much attention to this most critical aspect. Something like three of every four dollars spent on mobile applications now goes to iOS apps, and head to head comparisons of the most popular mobile applications show the iOS versions are clearly of higher quality. Apple has a monopoly on selling devices that run the huge iOS base of applications, and this should continue to allow them to sell their hardware at nice margins. They've stayed focused on building the developer community and APIs, with the goal of building a library of applications of the highest quality, and raining cash on their developer community. Apple goes for the win while most everyone is distracted by insignificant stats like market share.

tytso 13y ago

There will always be pundits on both sides of these sorts of arguments. In the early 90's, there were lots of people predicting IBM's imminent break-up. In 2011, Tomi Ahonen was claiming that despite everyone claiming that Nokia was under siege, it was still the world's largest seller of Smartphones (since he considered Symbian a Smartphone OS), while others were claiming that Nokia was doomed. Time is the only way we can tell which of the pundits were right, and which (in retrospect) sounded like idiots.

gibwell 13y ago
Well IBM did end up divesting itself of the businesses people expected them to. They just did so in an orderly manner while simultaneously executing a new and very successful strategy. As for Tomi Ahonen, by the time of that 2011 statement, Nokia's smartphone sales were visibly in precipitous decline. Not their share, but their sales. So Ahonen's statement can only be seen as a statement of faith rather than of confidence. In these two cases, there were facts to support the predictions, where as in Apple's case all we have are just so stories.
blinkingled 13y ago
I think this is exactly the right way to put the whole debate to rest! Who knows what Apple has up its sleeves - they still got Jony Ive, they still got a ton of money to just keep going at things. That may result in greater products, or they may become like Microsoft - perpetually trying. Really, only time will tell, but I just don't think they'll fail spectacularly in the near future. BTW, good to see you posting somewhat frequently on HN Ted!

joshlegs 13y ago

>I consider him the greatest creator and editor of products this industry has ever known, are you effing serious? Greatest creator my ass. He took already built products and refined the hell out of them. Shit, he practically built the company on top of Wozniak's back.

vvhn 13y ago
could you give examples of the claimed existing products and how the apple products are "just refinements" of those ?
gibwell 13y ago
You don't think refinement of failed products into wildly successful ones is a creative activity?

lmarinho 13y ago

I've recently watched this documentary called 'Jiro Dreams of Sushi'. It is about this legendary 85-year-old sushi master in Japan and his two sons who will succeed him in the business. At some point there was an interesting quote that went along the lines: when Jiro dies, his son will need to be twice as good as him, if he is "only" just as good, people will think he is worse. I think this is quite true in the Apple case, there was a "genius" aura around the Steve Jobs personality that helped inflate the perception of his already impressive achievements. Without that aura, Apple might be doing just as good a job as he would do, but people will think worse of them. Personally, I think that as long as they keep putting out the excellent quality products they've been releasing lately, pushing into new areas now and then, they will be just fine for quite some time.

exo_duz 13y ago

According to the people after Jobs' death was that Apple will ride the wave, then decline. just like Dell after Michael Dell left. Larry Ellison said the same thing the other day in an interview (but not sure whether to believe him or not, Ellison being Ellison and all). Although Apple was never perfect even with Jobs (remember Antenna gate) and other issues but he was a visionary, he saw things which a lot of people didn't. But although people always thought of him as the brains you also have to see that he has a great team behind him. Apple might be in decline now from the $800 per share at their peak but is this how a company is measured? I believe that even though they have not produced anything revolutionary in the past few years does not mean they are in decline. One cannot simply create revolutionary ideas every year. It's all incremental. iPod touch was the testing platform for the iPhone and in turn it was the platform for the iPad. What's next? I think I'll sit here and wait for it. I still think that they are still capable of something great based on the current team of executives at the head of Apple. They aren't sitting on their laurels with a sales person as their CEO. When the day comes that Apple does that I might change my tune, but for now I will still be as excited for an Apple event as I used to be.

Oletros 13y ago

Using Philip Elmer-DeWitt and Daniel Eran Dilger as source of arguments say a lot of the author, not worth reading.

gibwell 13y ago
Founding and running a company that made highly respected computers and a highly respected OS is an extremely rare achievement that makes him highly qualified to comment on the industry. Perhaps his opinion of these reporters should be taken as an indication that they should be listened to.