Tuesday 11 June 2013

End of the Apple Bubble?


Of the few technology concerns that I have, one is the competing issues in the household between apple products and android products. Apple's insistence on no interoperability has made it a fortune, but it is very annoying to be a consumer of devices and equipment that make you waste money; buying the same app twice for similar devices etc.

For all its irritation though, the fact that Apple managed to re-invent both the Music and Phone industries after having been so mediocre at computers is quite something and a piece of history that cannot be undone. Then the Ipad too has done a huge amount to define the tablet industry too.

The future is less certain, it is said to be working on TV but has been saying that for a long time without much success. Plenty of people wonder if the well of creativity is a bit drier. The latest release of the Ios7 is one such example. it's just an upgrade, and a free one at that, to an already successful system. Microsoft even manages to get people to pay for software upgrades!

Anyhow, the Apple shareprice has tailed off from its once great momentum...I wonder if it will ever quite get back its previous allure if this is all there is to offer?



24 comments:

roym said...

yes i suspect TV content originators will be wary of how Apple has mugged book/magazine publishers and to a certain extent the music industry.

perhaps apple TV is too late? there are already a whole range of other services and platforms. What about the iWatch?

Bill Quango MP said...

I saw a program that had google inventing isunglasses.
Looked like the nerdiest thing in existence.

But my track record in what's cool / what's fool is notoriously bad. I thought white earbuds looked naff.

JS said...

The real music innovation was the new smaller hard disk format that revolutionized mp3 players. Apple did it well, but definitely a case of right place, right time.

What with their questionable tax payment policies, and lack of interoperability Ive always looked elsewhere for my products. Thankfully these days the Android alternatives are very decent.

Devil's Kitchen said...

D,

" it's just an upgrade, and a free one at that..."

*sigh*

Apple makes its profits from hardware, not software. All of the software efforts (other than high-end music and video editing (where Apple is de facto)) are in support of hardware sales.

Unless you grasp that fact, you will never understand Apple as a company or as a stock.

I know that everyone is being down on Apple right now, but they all seem to ignore the fact that the company is still posting record sales.

"Apple's insistence on no interoperability has made it a fortune, but it is very annoying to be a consumer of devices and equipment that make you waste money; buying the same app twice for similar devices etc."

Why not criticise Windows for not being compatible with Apple? Or Google's Android for not being compatible with Apple?

Apple makes the best products that it can: if that means not churning out the kind of bollocks that is Windows, then that's all to the good, I say.

"... so mediocre at computers..."

Macs are so much better than Windows, it's not funny. Unless, of course, you are a Mac user watching someone trying to use the crippled piece of malware that is Windows—which is hilarious.

DK

BrianSJ said...

As DK says, apple is selling well just now. As regards the top end users he mentions, Apple has done nothing for them in nearly a decade.

Steve isn't coming back, and neither will Apple. He was tho only person who aligned technical success with commercial success. Throughout the whole rest of computing, those two are in opposition.

Timbo614 said...

@ Devil's Kitchen.

Too evangelical!

Apple should have made some concessions to interaction with windows because windows was the de facto standard and indeed it did.

Windows actually is no slouch or piece of shite - yes it has some problems but mostly caused by trying to please all the people all the time. Look what happens when Microsoft try to move away from 20 years of backward compatibility... Windows 8... and the associated backlash.

I run/maintain Windows & Linux, Servers and PCs, both have plus/minus points.

I also run an Android phone and tablet. Again +/-. But the Tablet is for a specific business purpose for me but for every purpose for the wife. I suspect she would be just as happy with an iPad. As a concession to your point of view I spent years trying to educate my wife on how to do things on a PC and basically failed miserable, but she took to the tablet like a duck to water (it still takes her an agonisingly long time to type anything if needed).

For me in the PC business her take up of the tablet was both a revelation and and worrying incident. The writing is now written boldly & clearly on the wall for PCs & laptops (including iBooks/Macs) for general public consumption. These smaller easier to use devices will win out. The battles will be between Androids and iPads and their derivatives.

Bill Quango MP said...

Ms Quango is getting an Ipad mini for her 10th birthday.
She has an old{ish} Blackberry playbook which suffers from all the problems CU says and more of its own making.

from my Ipad I cant buy the same books for her, from accounts where the money lies. Mrs Quango cant gift her itunes. She cant use the games that Master Quango {Angry Bird Star Wars world champion - Age 4 and under division} uses on the Ipad.

Apple refuse to share. But they have developed the best purchasing methods and allowed the easiest use.

So Blackberry is heading for the bin and this formerly PC only household will have its 3rd Ipad and Apple TV coming soon {I have no idea why..but its being gifted so won't complain}

Which is quite shocking because even 2 years ago we didn't have a single apple product.

Timbo614 said...

@BQ. I have Motorola (now Google :() products.

I had a Defy. really good phone, crap battery life, like most smart phones.

For my latest free upgrade I located a Motorola Maxx - best battery life of the whole bunch (7-ish days at my level of use).

I also have Zoom 2 tablet.

When I got my new Motorola, signed in with my Moto account it downloaded and installed all my apps, phone numbers and shortcuts. even the stuff that was only installed on the tablet! excellent!

Can't argue with that aspect. But it does(did?) mean sticking to one manufacturer/system.

No repeat purchase, no repeat license signing!

So Apple has competition from Google that's for sure.


Anonymous said...

I don't really know what interoperability people would want between Apple and everything else?

What the iDevices do need is better separation of the billing account and the user account. You can have different iTunes and Games Center accounts setup at the same time and thus share games, but that's about it. Even that wouldn't play well with cloud sync.

I'm looking forward to iOS7. Not entirely sold on the colours (Game Center looks like a Three SIM pack) but it definitely has the Metro thing going (Metro from apps like MSVC, not the start menu) and I like the translucency showing your wallpaper. Letting the wallpaper colours through really helps to make Vista/7/8 more vibrant and when you switch back to something like OSX or Mint it's just grey grey grey.

I can't wait to see the parallax effect in real life.

Interesting that the new SDK seems to call out Made For iOS (MFi) controllers more prominently. Signs of a concrete plan against next gen consoles?

Of course, what a lot of people want is bigger screens and more features like eye tracking and so on. But for me it's all about the software library and Apple is still winning at that. Some would say it's only a matter of time until Android overtakes, but looking at my own stats iDevices still make up 70+% of "mobile" traffic and 85+% of mobile spending despite being <30% of the market share in the UK.

I will stop buying iDevices when the majority of developers stop targeting it as their primary platform, but the numbers suggest that will be a long time in the future.

andrew said...

"For all its irritation though, the fact that Apple managed to re-invent both the Music and Phone industries after having been so mediocre at computers is quite something and a piece of history that cannot be undone. Then the Ipad too has done a huge amount to define the tablet industry too."

... I think you might have misunderstood what a computer is.
I grew up with space 1999 where they were enormous and had big tape drives whirring and .talked.like.that.
Nowadays they are jewellery, fridges, pens, shoes.

Apple realised that computers are not big beige boxes.

Bill Quango MP said...

The computer on star trek isn't a big UFO style reel to reel magnetic tape machine.
it isn't anything. just a voice that they talk to.
That was genius.

A more modern sci-fi show like Red Dwarf has big, thick, pre-widescreen computer monitors. Makes the show look very 1980's.

Thud said...

It would be foolish to write off Apple considering what they plan to unveil in the next 18 months. Much of the noise surrounding apple is media driven as Apple refuse to reveal/speed up plans to suit said media.

CityUnslicker said...

DK - so easy to amuse!

Others - dont care about niceties, hate Apple for not being interoperable. So they have higher standards, great.

All I care about is cost and ease of use. Apple is top for ease of use and bottom for cost. I can;t see how it wins.

As for it being all about the hardware, well OK DK that is a decent point - so why are they promoting software updates and not new kit.

Happy to eb proved wrong, but Apple will have a hard time from here unless they pull something out of the magic hat - which of course they have shown they are more than capable of in the past.

Bill Quango MP said...

On a related note Microsoft seem to have taken a real pounding from Sony today at the games console wars.

Xbox one has gotten off to a poor start and is going to need some superb pr spinning to gain back the ground it lost today.

About 30 years I asked why Thatcher government wasn't supporting our nascent video games industry. The home computer was being born and alongside it the video games consol. Atari were leading the world and had developed a product that would eventually sell in numbers of units usually reserved for televisions.
Government did nothing to assist decidding the future was in aerospace or car manufacturing or nuclear power plants.

And billions and billions of consumer $\£ spending later ... .?

Anonymous said...

CU; what kind of interoperability do you want from Apple? I'm mostly a Windows guy but I never have a problem getting any kind of device to work together.

The Xbox One vs PS4 stuff so far is just the usual fanboys having a pissing contest. It's really hard to tell what will happen until a year or two after release. Whoever builds up the best software library first will win regardless of the hardware.

When you're buying expensive pieces of hardware it's all about the software.

DK's comments about Apple making their profits from hardware are true, but as a consumer you should be looking at the software. If all you do is browse the net and make phone calls then the cheapest Android stuff will do, but if you're into mobile gaming then iOS is the only choice even with the weaker hardware (and by gaming I don't mean the crap games that are always in the top 100).

Anonymous said...

Apple never worked well without Jobs at the helm, and they've been standing still for the last few years. I'm generally an Apple hardware guy - iMac, iPad, appleTV - my iPhone has been replaced with a far superior S3 though, Dell is catching up on the build quality of the iMac leaving just tablet and TV box. And miracast tech may see those being replaced. I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years all my Apple gear was replaced.

IOS 7 looks awful, getting rid of the more skeuomorphic elements is great, but the icon changes leave a lot to be desired. And the Mac Pro... Looks nice, but external upgrades? Are we back to age of the Sinclair Microdrive?

Apple have always been the masters of low market share/high margins, and they're facing the same competitor as Microsoft, albeit on different terms.

They screwed up with their OS licence model in the 80's, leaving Microsoft to win that battle. Google will win this one. Apple seriously need to look into buying companies they can expand iOS into, and/or offer a licenced version with a branded skin on top. Microsoft would kill for a ready made app market, and would likely swallow a lot of pride for market share.

Of course there is Firefox OS in the backdrop, which has a lot of potential. Just depends if it gets realised.

Anonymous said...

As for the Xbox one, Microsoft handed Sony an easy head start there. The 24 hour phone home requirement means a lot of military types will be buying Sony, and the second hand games restrictions will put off a lot of students...

I expect an incipient price cut and some u-turns, after the Win8 fuck-up they can't afford another image issue.

CityUnslicker said...

In simple terms I just want to buy apps once and be able to transfer them and not have to by the smae app for different platforms.

Apple don't want this to happen; everyone else does which I think is why over time Apple will lose.

Anonymous said...

Got Interioerability?

Sure. 93% of the username is on iOS 6.

Got fragmentation?

Sure. 33% of the username is on Android 2010.

People will say anything.

assurance auto said...

great topic .... so what i have to say is just to re read this article is very interesting "" Of the few technology concerns that I have, one is the competing issues in the household between apple products and android products. Apple's insistence on no interoperability has made it a fortune, but it is very annoying to be a consumer of devices and equipment that make you waste money; buying the same app twice for similar devices etc.
""

web maroc said...

well said to hear like this ideas .....really they are very interesting in the case that it can informed us to what is perfect and wonderful.....really this is one of the great and very interesting articles that can adds more to me .... in this respect thanks so much for sharing with us this interesting ideas...

cours informatique said...

Of the few technology concerns that I have, one is the competing issues in the household between apple products and android products. Apple's insistence on no interoperability has made it a fortune, but it is very annoying to be a consumer of devices and equipment that make you waste money; buying the same app twice for similar devices etc.

creation site web said...

this is one of the great and very interesting articles that i read .......... i find it useful and perfect because it can solve so many issues that happen to us...... when i read it i get the message and i know the key way that will provide me with good solution ..... so thanks so much for this article is very great ...... and very interesting ..... to share it with us is like a honor from you ........thanks a lot ...

Agence communication said...

""For all its irritation though, the fact that Apple managed to re-invent both the Music and Phone industries after having been so mediocre at computers is quite something and a piece of history that cannot be undone. Then the Ipad too has done a huge amount to define the tablet industry too.""