As sure as hammers fall into a bag of stupidity, you knew that some member of the collection of animatronic clown shoes that Forbes calls its contributor network would be coming along to tell us how disappointing the new iPhones are.
Yes, last Friday the exclamation-point-loving Adam Hartung banged on his keyboard to tell us “Why Apple Investors Should Worry” (no link, but tip o’ the antlers to Tay Bass).
Apple announced the new iPhones recently. And mostly, nobody cared.
Except for 9 million people. But those were probably all members of the “Apple faithful.”
Remember when users waited anxiously for new products from Apple?
Uh, yeah, it was just last weekend. You probably should have waited a couple of days to post this.
But the new iPhones, and the underlying new iPhone software called iOS7, has almost nobody excited.
Well, 9 million people. But with a global population of about 7 billion people that’s practically nobody. Most people in the world didn’t buy an iPhone! This past weekend.
Instead of the product launches speaking for themselves …
Wait, did this product launch not speak for itself? In a weekend Apple sold a quarter of the number of Galaxy Notes Samsung has sold ever, and we all keep hearing how dag-burn popular big phones are. But, please, continue releasing this swarm of nonsensical bees from your mouth.
… the CEO (Tim Cook) and his top product development lieutenants (Jony Ive and Craig Federighi) have been making the media rounds at BloombergBusinessWeek and USAToday telling us that Apple is still a really innovative place.
Hey, the Macalope called it last week, when he predicted the headlines:
“DESPERATE TIM COOK MEETS WITH MEDIA.”
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t, damned if they sit entirely still, damned if they release a groundbreaking product that reinvents an entire market and earns the company billions of dollars.
Unfortunately, their words aren’t that convincing. Not nearly as convincing as former product launches.
How about sales? Are those convincing? Because, you know, there were a lot of sales.
Unfortunately, Apple profits come from unit sales (and app sales) rather than minutes used. So the chronic share loss is quite concerning.
You do know that sales can go up while market share goes down, right? Also, define “chronic.”
Is Apple on the verge of a growth stall?
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, no.
Apple’s previous value was built on being a Disruptive Game Changer
And Apple will never release an entirely new product ever again.
So, what do we want?!
We want something Game Changing!
When do we want it?!
We’ve waited 2 years, which is an eternity in tech and financial markets.
On a ridiculously shortened timescale, one which Apple never kept under Steve Jobs!
Two years is an eternity? Really? How long has it been since Samsung released a game-changing hardware product? Or Microsoft? Or Google?
No, it only seems long to people like Hartung, who hold Apple to a standard they never apply to anyone else.