Hang on to your Apple Watches on this ride because some time travel may occur.
Writing for Computing, Stuart Sumner projects “Apple and Amazon, the first casualties of 2016.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Kevin Davidson.)
Wait, what year is it? Did the Macalope sleep through Christmas? Is this some sort of Rip Van Winkle situation?
By the way, The Rip Van Winkle Situation would not be the worst name for a band. The worst name for a band is Nickelback.
Nnnnnickelback.
Apple’s death knell has been sounded pretty much monthly ever since its visionary co-founder Steve Jobs was first announced as terminally ill…
Spoken like someone who’s only followed the Apple death knell since Steve Jobs was first announced as terminally ill. The Apple death knell was actually first sounded on a cuneiform tablet written during the reign of Xerxes. The bottom of the tablet was sponsored by Taboola and included ads for other content like “How To Get Your Toga Bod” and “100 Sick Burns On Spartans”.
…but the reasoning is more compelling now than ever.
As compelling as eating paint chips. They’re so colorful and crisp! Bet you can’t eat just one!
Whilst the firm has released an array of stellar new product lines in the recent past, it has noticeably failed to innovate since the release of the iPad, instead preferring to iterate.
It did not release a watch, a payment system, an open-source programming language or a Mac Pro. Fact.
This year’s new products – Apple Music, the Apple Watch and Apple News – have largely failed to capture the imagination on anything like the level of the original iPhone or iPad…
The iPhone was a once-in-a-generation kind of product. So amazing, in fact, its larger versions are probably one of the things really hurting the iPad.
This, coupled with the fact that the firm is overly reliant on a single product line, puts it on shaky territory going forward.
Because people are just going to stop buying iPhones. That seems possible. Assuming all laws of quantum dynamics in this universe suddenly stop applying for some reason. Could happen!
Uhhh, no, the Macalope is being told that can’t happen. Based on the laws of quantum dynamics. Well, isn’t that causally convenient?
(full disclosure – I’m an iPhone user myself. I think it’s a decent product, but no better than its rivals)
Then why do you own one? They are famously more expensive so why would you pay more if one of its cheaper competitors is just as good?
Crickets. Stupid, smelly crickets.
This risk is exacerbated by the fact that smartphone sales growth is slowing globally – with the biggest market, China, actually seeing reduced demand in some quarters in 2015 compared with the previous year.
And yet somehow Apple was able to double revenue in China in its fiscal 4th quarter. In other words, doom is a little more complicated than it seems on the surface. Just like it’s always been.
You might think you’re clever in having waited until just the right time to write that Apple’s doomed. You might think that.