What this guy said:
The phone bigotry/snobbishness of some random dude has absolutely zero to do with what the large majority think. As I posted above, iPhones already have second class status in China, the biggest growth market and in fact one that Apple needs for growth. China is a big reason why the quarter was so miserable, and with phone like Huawei providing more functionality in a similar looking package, what sane person who isn't a weird phone snob would buy Apple, which provides less for far more money? With Apple sucking at innovation and stuck in an absurdly high margins trap to keep their profit alive and stock price up, this will only get worse for them.

Microsoft is not moving back into the mass consumer space... it just isn’t profitable enough for them. They’re going to stick to commercial products and only integrate to mass consumers as cheaply as they can. Worst case for apple they license/integrate their operating system to another phone developer or multiple ones but google doesn’t really need them and they probably won’t spend the time/money on something that competes with their tables/hardware.

That image is global and ultimately misleading. The only users that matters for my argument is high income population as they spend more on apps so US numbers are most representative. I just look at App Store revenue which apple still holds 2:1 lead over google and looks to have stabilized. Or you can discuss the issue with developers. It used to be pretty universal that you’d make significantly more releasing on App Store vs google play but I haven’t talked to app developers about the issue in a couple years so maybe it’s become easier to release cross platform and then maintain working updated versions on multiple platforms.

I agree their strategy could be better and what you are suggesting is beneficial but cannabalizing their own market share only hurts them in the short term with people switching to typically less expensive alternatives. Long term they create a competitive advantage in their field. They have a much stronger position in tablets and digital watches then they do in laptops and phones.

As AI and AR/VR come of age, the ability to control more and more of the stack in house - like apple and unlike any of their competitors - seems like a pretty good moat to me.

5k package idea is clearly wrong. Apples sells a LOT more iPhones than Macs/iPads. I am not 100% but I’d be very surprised if even a majority of iPhone owners today also own a MacBook or an iPad.

HomePod has been a disaster and Siri has somehow fallen behind everyone else’s voice assistant. The Touch Bar and butterfly keyboard is utter trash. My wife got one from her jobs tech budget and she returned it after a few days.

I have been viewing Apple as a luxury electronics maker for years. What bothers me about Apple isn’t lack of unit sales growth. I expected that.

What bothers me is Apple’s execution has gotten worse over the last 4 or 5 years.

Another that bothers me about Apple is actually the vaunted ecosystem itself.

Although current iPhone users, myself included, are quite happy to pay a premium for even a marginally better experience and significantly more brand cachet, first time phone buyers would struggle to see the difference and that means, in emerging markets especially, Apple could just become irrelevant.

This isn’t a problem in traditional luxury retailing environment. For example, upgrading from Coach to LV or Calvin Klein to Hermès is a straight status upgrade with no switching costs beyond the price tags. Upgrading from One+ to iPhone, as of now, isn’t as seamless in large part because Apple wants to isolate the ecosystem and hasn’t done well in making the transition painless.

XR idea is dumb for the same reasons LV/Gucci doesn’t have “entry” level models that compete with Coach directly. There isn’t enough of a difference in functionality (in auto industry there are visible differences between, for example, the 3s and 5s). This means selling downstream dilutes the brand and just hurts your real profit makers. Samsung learned this the hard way and has focused almost exclusively on high end models in the last few product cycles.

But if you cannot offer a viable “entry” product for the first time buyers, you have to make it easy for new buyers to switch to you. This is just a truth in luxury retailing since before any of us was born.

I think some corners of Apple understand this and that the future of Apple is something like 10% of overall smartphone market but almost 100% of market of the most expensive (1000+?) phones and over 80% of entire market’s profit share.

The 5K package is a bit hyperbolic obviously but it s still real, alot of apple features require to have multiple products and many family will go 100% apple (I know a ton of them from work)
apple watch require an iphone
airpods are much better with an iphone + other apple products.
the ipad is much better to share stuff with another apple product and i m not even talking about apps from the store that you share between devices
Imessage and facetime to my knowledge are better if you have some ipad or macbook/IMAC aswell.

Now they have a big problem, when they release a phone for 1200$ and chinese good brand start bragging that for the same price they offer a phone that is on par with that the iphone + a decent laptop + whatever gadget for the price of the iphone like here. Even if you have enough disposable income the price difference is becoming relevant for a lot of people.

The bundling effect is real on the margins but it’s not, at this point, the main driver of Apple’s value.

Like I said, most iPhone owners don’t own any other Apple products. This is almost certainly true because iPhone unit sales have been ~ten times as high as MacBooks and is ~twice as high as MacBook, Watch, and iPad combined for years. Considering the substantial overlap between people who own Watch, MacBook, and iPads, this means it’s all but certain most iPhone owners own no other Apple products.

One more thing, I think it's a strategic mistake Apple is refusing to make an Android app to sync with Apple Watch. It's like they forgot iPod didn't take off until they made iTunes for PC.

That's Apple biggest flaw:denying their customers from obvious easy features until they lose a ton of market share.
The IPad pro would be so much more useful if you could plug some hdd/ssd to work but being greedy and shortsighted they will let chrome OS catch up and will react too late.

Do you think Apple will ever move their game catalog behind a paywall and roll out a subscription service similar to xbox live in an effort to boost growth? Multiplayer ad-free requires Apple game pass for $9.99/month...?

Who wins the cloud gaming race between Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Sony, EA, NVIDIA, the field...? Which cloud gaming compatible device and app are currently owned by the greatest % of gamers?

Google working on gaming on the chromecast is promising.

We finally have hard numbers on how bad Apple's situation is, since Cook stopped reporting them:

IDC reports 20% decline in iPhone sales QoQ in China:
Bad India numbers too. Without these markets iPhone growth is dead and probably in decline, especially at 40% margins. There's not enough differentiation any more to justify the absurd premium.

The market share drops are pretty extreme. If you're a Chinese language developer, do you develop for the 70% Android market or the 11% (and dropping) iPhone market? While giving 30% of the profit to the cucks at Apple, no less...

https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/16/ap...-half-of-2018/

Seems like developing for the cucks is more profitable still by a huge margin and google cut is the same as apple

WTF does this have to do with China and India? And what does Google Play margins have to do with Android apps generally?

It's all your US arguments in reverse applying in China. You'd see that if emotional Apple lover wasn't emotional.

Wake up and smell the coffee. It's not like Tim Cook didn't give you an enormous hint that sales were ****ed when he said he'd no longer be breaking out numbers for iPhone, something proudly touted for years.

Baggage fee moment is rapidly approaching when Apple starts billing for access to games.

It's amazing the gaming industry isn't doing an antitrust filing.

Imagine Microsoft in 2005 charging developers 30% of their revenue for the "privilege" of installing their software on Windows...the justice department broke them up for 1/10th of what Apple are doing.

I considered switching to Apple products recently, for the first time in my life. I took a look at their latest lineup of products and noped outta there.

My point was that if you are a chinese developer you develop for IOS first still because you ll get more money than developing for android.

As a factual matter, developers prioritize iOS in Chinese and OECD markets. Depending on who data you use, despite having a lot fewer users, the typical app makes 3-8x as much in Apple App store as its Android equivalent.

That's the biggest driving force... the other is just the iOS environment is easier to develop for.

If Apple's rumored 16" MacBook Pro brings back function keys and still has decent support for Bootcamp, I'll grudgingly spend $3k.

If it brings back function keys AND a better keyboard, I'll happily spend $3k.

If it doesn't bring back function keys and insists on the stupid touch bar, I'll buy it and then return it after confirming once again touch bar is a piece of ****.

apple is brutal. we have a history of thinking they are the peoples champ vs microsft but in reality their policies a yearning for a hedonistic monopoly. microsoft was not that bad ..well they were but ok now , and google doesnt even try to exploit thier advantages. amazon gives stuff away. the only company still trying to screw people is apple/

not predicting stock price btw..i dont trade it

I agree with this video completely.

The main reason I want a MacBook 15/16 still is taller aspect ratio with great build quality. If Lenovo ever comes up with an X1 Extreme with 16:10 aspect ratio, I'll never look at another MacBook. Alternatively, Microsoft can stop with the removable tablet and dumb IOs and give me a classic clamshell Surface with 15" screen with 4:3 aspect ratio, HQ CPU, and without that dumb suede thing under the keyboard.

There is definitely a market out there for laptops with higher aspect ratios. A lot of professionals I know want them.

Yeah I wonder why Apple is allowed to block people from installing software on their devices that don't go through the App Store. Also why Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo can do the same for their consoles.

2018 was horrible for windows users 2019 doesn't start great. Unless Microsoft stop releasing terrible updates I bet Lewis go back to Mac OS. They started testing January 2020 update which to me is a bad omen for 2019's since they will be under tested.
Apple is doing better software wise but hardware is laughable : bad keyboards, overheating cpu left and right and terrible IOs for pros.
The surface line with Mac os would be so much better than what they both respectively provide.
If Microsoft release the surface screen as rumored that would be a dream for ios users if compatible Mac OS or even ios for the iPad pro