Apple Quietly Telling the Media Why It's Not Doomed

[syrious1]

Apple will be accepted in the enterprise as Microsoft is today.

Bwhahahahahhaa...... this is really funny.

 

[ven1ger]

[citation][nom]AndrewMD[/nom]Let's make it clear for you. ... So yes, they did "change" the way people listened to music.[/citation]

They only changed it within the Apple ecosystem with ITunes. For me, nothing has changed, I still listen to music the same way I used to, over the radio, in my car or on CDs. So, how did they change the way I listen to music? The Apple ecosystem isn't the entire population.

 

[svdb]

The dilemma that irks a lot of hard core Apple users is that if the company is too successful it becomes too mainstream and they loose their elite status; but if Apple looses to the competition too much it also looses a lot of its appeal and risks to fade away (like Blackberry). Of course if Apple products became a niche market again, that would suit some of the older Mac users who recall the "good ol'days" when Apple was the underdog.

 

[ven1ger]

[citation][nom]blakbird24[/nom]It's very simple actually..Apple is Apple. They haven't changed a bit. What we are seeing is nothing new...they've been to the top and back down again twice before. We are simply witnessing the cycle repeating a third time...and it will probably happen again in another 10 years. ... However it's a product which will not compete over the long term.[/citation]

I concur with most of what you said, except I think Apple is going to be in serious trouble in the future with the loss of Steve Jobs. Apple was able to stave off bankruptcy the last time because of MS and Jobs, I doubt that MS will be looking to infuse Apple with any cash except maybe to buy off the patents but without Jobs, a lot of the vision for the company has gone. I don't like Steve Jobs, but I have to give him credit for being a real visionary and liken him to an artist that has to have things just perfect before he'll let others see it. Tim Cook doesn't have that kind of soul, he's a business executive that will eventually run the company to the ground unless they can find a truly visionary guy like Steve Jobs to be the creative genius to lead the company instead of a business executive.

 

[BigMack70]

lol crApple

It's OK... your iSheep will never leave you

 

[MarioJP]

[citation][nom]ven1ger[/nom]I concur with most of what you said, except I think Apple is going to be in serious trouble in the future with the loss of Steve Jobs. Apple was able to stave off bankruptcy the last time because of MS and Jobs, I doubt that MS will be looking to infuse Apple with any cash except maybe to buy off the patents but without Jobs, a lot of the vision for the company has gone. I don't like Steve Jobs, but I have to give him credit for being a real visionary and liken him to an artist that has to have things just perfect before he'll let others see it. Tim Cook doesn't have that kind of soul, he's a business executive that will eventually run the company to the ground unless they can find a truly visionary guy like Steve Jobs to be the creative genius to lead the company instead of a business executive.[/citation]

You sir Nailed it right on the head. I have been thinking the same thing. I believe that cycle is broken this time. If Apple does plummets I am not sure how Apple is going to get back up again. Tim Cook does not seem that type of CEO of innovation. I feel like he is following a playbook left by Steve Jobs. What happens when that playbook is done and over with. Now what??. As much as i am not a Apple fan i really hope that they do not crash and burn permanently. We need competition for the consumers.

 

[f-14]

lulz CRapple is going out with a whimper too greedy to even spend enough money to make it appear they aren't going down in flames like RIM.

 

[bllue]

[citation][nom]ven1ger[/nom]I concur with most of what you said, except I think Apple is going to be in serious trouble in the future with the loss of Steve Jobs. Apple was able to stave off bankruptcy the last time because of MS and Jobs, I doubt that MS will be looking to infuse Apple with any cash except maybe to buy off the patents but without Jobs, a lot of the vision for the company has gone. I don't like Steve Jobs, but I have to give him credit for being a real visionary and liken him to an artist that has to have things just perfect before he'll let others see it. Tim Cook doesn't have that kind of soul, he's a business executive that will eventually run the company to the ground unless they can find a truly visionary guy like Steve Jobs to be the creative genius to lead the company instead of a business executive.[/citation]
Even if such a person exists right now, he/she wouldn't (or shouldn't) go to Apple. A person that can bring as much vision as Stevie Jobs did will be better off starting a new company and watch Apple burn as his/her company thrives.

 

[fuzzion]

believing that less is more

Their shareholders disagree

 

[darkavenger123]

Apple will soon revolutioned the way human have sex. It's called iFucked.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]applegetsmelaid[/nom]Apple accepted in the enterprise? We have an iMac at our office that collects dust.[/citation]
Agreed, apple does not belong in the enterprise. The last thing you want in the enterprise world is to use servers that are inherantly closed. It is well enough if everything you own is Mac, but the minute you step outside in the real world then you have problems.

Say what you will about MS, but they are the only large corporation that I know that goes out of their way to make their stuff work with the apple, android, linux, and unix equipment out in the wild. Obviously the priority is Windows, but they do a good job as trying to make everything work.
[citation][nom]ven1ger[/nom]They only changed it within the Apple ecosystem with ITunes. For me, nothing has changed, I still listen to music the same way I used to, over the radio, in my car or on CDs. So, how did they change the way I listen to music? The Apple ecosystem isn't the entire population.[/citation]
I tried iTunes a loooong time ago, and it was terrible on the PC, so I didn't end up doing anything with it. Years later my wife was given an iPod, and while she enjoyed the iPod hardware, the only way to really get it to work was to run it via her old G4 MacBook as (again) iTunes never quite worked right on the PC (iTunes has major problems with large music collections).

At any rate, I have never owned an iPod. I mean, they were expensive! For years I had a CD player that could do MP3 CDs. It was not great, but it got the job done, and had some really good audio quality (something apple has only figured out in the last 3 years). Then I got my GPS for the car which took an SD card slot, and again had better audio quality, so I used that for another 5 years. Now I finally got a smart phone (lumia 920), and it is pretty good as well.

As for purchasing music goes I always found the iTunes store rather expensive. You could almost always get the physical CD for less money and higher quality and rip it yourself. Then came Amazon MP3's, which were expensive on their own, but then they would have their crazy $3 and $5 MP3 CD deals where you could get some great CDs for ~20-30 cents per track. Now there is all the wonderful stuff like Pandora, iHeartRadio, and other streaming services where you may not be able to own or select the exact song, but if you just want bulk good music then you can get unlimited amounts of it for extremely cheap, and across any device. Even MS's new Music deal is better than iTunes where you get unlimited streaming AND get a few 'free' tracks to keep each month (though I don't use it).
Any way you slice it, iTunes is just really expensive these days.

 

[frombehind]

lol apple is feeling the fire under their shiny round-corner asses!

 

[Draven35]

The irony here is, to me, that part of the money Samsung is swimming in, is Apple's.

And the thing about Apple having a report saying they are going to be as accepted in the enterprise by 2014 is about the same thing apple was waving around reports saying that the iMac was going to get them as accepted for home use by XX year...

 

[cirdecus]

But perhaps this is one of the reasons why Apple seemingly looks a little stale – it hasn't produced anything new in a while.

"A while" is 3 years... How many companies do you know can push out a revolutionary, industry changing product every 3 years? The iPad did to the PC industry what the iPhone did to the smartphone industry. Regardless of which devices you use today, thank apple for being the change agent. People are getting spoiled and need to relax. Besides, They're still on target to release a new product this year within the same time-frame between the iPhone and iPad, so why expect anything sooner?

Throw in the fact that rivals are producing smartphones with larger screens and high-performance tablets at a lesser price, and it's easy to see why stockholders are a little antsy, thus wanting a little extra PR push so that we can see that Apple is far from doomed.

Larger screens isn't what Apple believes consumers want in their hands and pockets on a smartphone, so I wouldn't consider it a competitive edge to have a bigger screen. The screen sizes have been increasing, not because people want huge screens in their pockets that they can barely operate with one hand, its because these "rivals" are so focused on marketing big number specs that they've foced themselves into a battery size that requires a phone as large as the ones on the market today. They've just cleverly marketed this problem by selling it as "yes the phone is too large, but hey! You get a huge screen too!"

I would also argue that higher performance at a lower price also means cheaper construction in many cases and a less fluid software\hardware marriage. Many people may not care of their 800 dollar phone or tablet is made of cheap plastic, but there's something to be said for the quality of craftsmanship that comes with an Apple product.

 

[cirdecus]

[citation][nom]Draven35[/nom]The irony here is, to me, that part of the money Samsung is swimming in, is Apple's.And the thing about Apple having a report saying they are going to be as accepted in the enterprise by 2014 is about the same thing apple was waving around reports saying that the iMac was going to get them as accepted for home use by XX year...[/citation]

Unless they're talking about Enterprise using their iPhones, then I can't believe the claim is true. Business is far too slow to jump into a new product and the software\hardware involved in enterprise is extremely complicated compared to an iPod lol. Apple needs to stick to consumer stuff.

 

[Draven35]

[citation][nom]cirdecus[/nom]Unless they're talking about Enterprise using their iPhones, then I can't believe the claim is true. Business is far too slow to jump into a new product and the software\hardware involved in enterprise is extremely complicated compared to an iPod lol. Apple needs to stick to consumer stuff.[/citation]

My point was, their prediction that iPads and iPhones will get them into enterprise is going to work about as well as the iMac got them into general home use (which is what they said when it came out)

 

[blakbird24]

[citation][nom]cirdecus[/nom]"A while" is 3 years... How many companies do you know can push out a revolutionary, industry changing product every 3 years? The iPad did to the PC industry what the iPhone did to the smartphone industry. Regardless of which devices you use today, thank apple for being the change agent. People are getting spoiled and need to relax. Besides, They're still on target to release a new product this year within the same time-frame between the iPhone and iPad, so why expect anything sooner?[/citation]

What product are they on target to release? As an investor, that's exactly what i'm on the edge of my seat to hear. The rumored iTV is dead in the water, as Apple has been repeatedly shot down while trying to secure content for it. Meanwhile Samsung is sailing away at the helm of the Smart TV ship. Other than that, there are rumblings about a watch, which is an idea that certainly has potential, but is too far off in the pipeline to be seen this year, and shoes. Yeah, that's right, I said shoes. I'm sure most here will join the collective of AAPL investors in saying WTF?!

[citation][nom]cirdecus[/nom]Larger screens isn't what Apple believes consumers want in their hands and pockets on a smartphone, so I wouldn't consider it a competitive edge to have a bigger screen. The screen sizes have been increasing, not because people want huge screens in their pockets that they can barely operate with one hand, its because these "rivals" are so focused on marketing big number specs that they've foced themselves into a battery size that requires a phone as large as the ones on the market today. They've just cleverly marketed this problem by selling it as "yes the phone is too large, but hey! You get a huge screen too!"I would also argue that higher performance at a lower price also means cheaper construction in many cases and a less fluid software\hardware marriage. Many people may not care of their 800 dollar phone or tablet is made of cheap plastic, but there's something to be said for the quality of craftsmanship that comes with an Apple product.[/citation]

Interesting comment since Apple will be releasing a larger screen phone this spring. They will also be releasing a smaller PLASTIC phone this year. OMG there's that word. Say what you will about huge plastic phones, but they are eating Apple's lunch right now and shareholders are running scared.