Something is rotten in the state of Denmark! Assuming that “Denmark” is what we’re calling the space between Henry Blodget’s ears, and not Cupertino. And why not? Both have seasonal variations of daylight and require frequent land reclamation.
“Something Clearly Went Wrong At Apple” (no link, but tip o’ the antlers to the Jony Ive parody account on Twitter).
Clearly. Because …
Uh …
Well, let’s just go to Blodget’s list of “evidence,” because heck if the Macalope knows:
A gradual loss of supremacy in the smartphone market (relatively slow innovation and new product rollouts that allowed competitors to catch up)
Because Apple, whose market share has hovered around 20 percent for four years, was dominant in the smartphone market at some magical, nonexistent point in the past that serial jerks like Blodget like to pretend existed.
Also, “innovation.” There’s that word again. Last fall, Apple introduced a larger phone with new software features. This spring, Samsung, the new innovation king according to many a silly pundit, introduced … a larger phone with new software features.
When pundits say “innovation” in regards to Apple, it means something different than when they use it in regards to Samsung.
A decision not to launch a lower-price iPhone that is affordable in emerging markets
Do we know Apple’s decided not to do that? Do we know that such a product would sell in sufficient volume to warrant this business decision? No! But don’t bother with pesky details when you’re armchair-quarterbacking! It only slows things down! Life’s too short and there are a lot of ridiculous opinions to post on the Internet!
A decision to protect profit margins at the expense of market share, pricing, and aggressive investment in future products
Ugh, profit’s so lame. Besides, everyone knows all the big money is in market share.
In the tablet market, the abandonment of the “best price AND best product” combination that made the iPad the only viable tablet choice in the first couple of years (now, other excellent tablets are cheaper)
Define “excellent.” Because your definition and the Macalope’s are probably different.
Apple just had a fabulous quarter for iPad sales, so if Blodget is saying that the company’s iPad strategy is somehow flawed, well, reality would like to take exception to that argument.
Relatively weak offerings in apps and services
Agreed. You’re one for five million.
Taking too big a cut of app and content revenue, which has prompted some developers to try to find ways to avoid the iOS ecosystem
You know why Apple can afford such a generous cut? Because iOS users pay for and use more apps.
As BI’s Jay Yarow observed earlier this year, by the time Apple’s developer conference, WWDC, rolls around in a couple of weeks, Apple will have gone a staggering 230 days between new product announcements.
Yes! Except no. The day after Business Insider posted this, Apple announced a new low-end iPod touch. Yay, the company is saved! From dumb arguments.
Just kidding, of course.
Blodget also seems to have a little trouble with math.
Given Apple’s secrecy, we may never know for sure why the company has effectively gone at least nine months without launching a significant new product.
Apple’s iPad mini event was held on October 23. Nine months later would be June 23, more than a week after WWDC, let alone last month’s iPod touch refresh.
You might argue that the touch is not “a significant new product,” but there again Blodget is playing fast and loose with a number of facts. The chart he refers to shows any number of updates to existing product lines, in order for him to create a bogus statistic. For starters he includes iBooks Author (which he calls “iBooks for textbooks” because looking up the name is so hard). For secondsies, Apple updated its entire product lineup in the fall of 2012.
As Tim Cook noted himself, Apple probably should have waited on the iMac so it could ship in volume, but everyone outside the Business Insider brain trust would rather have had a chance at being able to get one earlier rather than later.
Well, if you didn’t like this piece by Blodget, maybe you’d like something else he recently wrote like, say, his 42-page slide show about his stay at the Ritz Carlton.
And, no, the Macalope isn’t making that up.