Iphone X

This is jumping the shark, right?


I looked at a few reviews etc and this near £1,000 does almost exactly what every other iphone does, with a wider screen and the same software. Even the whole facial recognition thing is not really new or innovative.


Why would anyone want such a thing, excepting those for whom money is unlimited and showing off is the be all and end all.


More importantly, is this the end of Apple as the dominant consumer electronics company?


I recall Nokia, kings of all they surveyed, near 50% global market share. They really knew how to make phones, but when it came to smart phones, it was over.


With Apple, now that smart phones are ubiquitous, perhaps they are topping out on their competitive advantage. This is not to say they will follow the same path downwards, but perhaps this Iphone X launch is the top of the market signal from them?

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?

Apple love-in a bit tired?

Quite surprised to see the total Apple love-in going on at the moment, driving its shares to new high sand getting it good coverage on all the business pages. Apple is an odd company, which is the secret of its success and its own challenge too.

I like my ipad for example, its a neat bit of kit that is perfect for casual web surfing and games for the kids. it is useless for much else, but so what? As a brilliantly simple machine to work, it is genius. the iphone is the same, revolutionary when it came out, moving phones to a new level and rightly taking huge market share.

But today the competition is closing, just as it always does. Apple's insistence on its own software universe, high prices and aggressive approach to content pricing create room for other vendors. Apple's mac's were always better than PC's but that did not mean Apple won that war in the 1980's and 1990's.

Now today Samsumg, Google and others with developing technology and more open access to software and programming are taking serious market share. Apple's response is to try and sue them for patent abuse. in the UK and Korea this did not work, in hometown California this has worked so far.

The response of sentiment and share prices shows what a great job Apple has done in managing its media profile. Perhaps its new products will take on new areas of the media like TV and make yet another huge step forward for the business. Certainly it has billions of profits to spend on whatever the company needs.

But suing the competition for being there, especially on old patents, is an aggressive strategy and a very defensive one. Perhaps in a few days the media and markets will see what taking a defensive approach like this is signalling.

Anything that makes lawyers happy generally has a bad ending for everyone else...