Calm Down, Apple and the iPhone Are Fine (for Now)

As an apparent Apple basher and critic for the last 30 years, I believe my take on the upcoming sales and revenue shortfalls predicted to slam Apple over the next few quarters is in order. So here it is.

First of all, did anyone expect that the pricey iPhone was going to light up the tech world forever? Its competition, mainly Samsung, is beating the company in the features arena and the Samsung Galaxy phones are cheaper and seem to last longer. Yet Samsung is always moaning that it barely ekes out a living on the phones.

The components of all of these phones are mostly subject to Moore's law and should be getting cheaper by the minute, giving Apple the opportunity to pull back and lower prices substantially, thus rebooting sales and halting any reversal in sales numbers.

As much as I'd like to see a massive fizzle—so I can finally say, "I was right, Apple should have stayed with computers!"—this is not the fizzle. This will prove to be a hiccup, because the iPhone is still the mindshare winner and remains the cool phone to have if you are under 40.

I was told a couple of years ago (and it may be fading) that millennials in particular cannot mate unless they both have iPhones. The quote was: "If a female millennial meets you—a  male—in  a bar and you pull out anything but an iPhone, she will simply walk away."

It could be nonsense, but...celebrities all use new iPhones. People love this device, despite the weird cables it uses, the permanent battery, and its overall fragility. The iPhone has got "it." There is a magical aspect and everyone wants one.

However, it has saturated the market and now is a replacement product. That makes it subject to competition. The iPhone 7 will pick up the users of the iPhone 5 as it grows long in the tooth.

So what else can Apple do that is new and exciting?

The presentation of the new iPhone will occur in one of those cornball public announcements that have become so cliché they are hard to watch and are commonly mocked by TV commercials and comic sketches. These presentations are on the big stage usually draped in black as if there has been a funeral. The CEO comes out wearing all black. He makes a few comments interspersing the words "exciting" or "amazing" whenever he can. Whatever the key buzzword is, he will use it a lot. He then rolls out one disheveled executive after another to extol the virtues of a new feature as if this will change the world as we know it. The audience is stocked with supposedly stunned and astonished employees looking for a moment to give a standing O to show their approval of a new "more readable" font or some never-before seen magical color. One day soon, Apple will announce a removable battery as if the idea is a great invention. "Hooray," the crowd will all scream madly, resembling the animated animal audience of a Betty Boop cartoon.

This sort of presentation, largely invented and popularized by the late Steve Jobs, is over 30 years old. It is now expected each time Apple rolls out a product. It has become ceremonial, like the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. What's the purpose of the changing of the guards anyway? Can't some guy just come up to another guy and say he is being relieved?

No, this ossified tradition must continue, with Apple presentations that accomplish nothing. Like any sort of tradition, it has to be killed off sooner or later lest the observers begin to ask questions and get suspicious. Why are they changing things? Are they in trouble?

For now, we are stuck with these ludicrous Apple rollouts. Stuck with an ossified Apple, stuck in a rut of its own making. But there is no reason to panic over any decline. The company growth has hit a speed bump, but it is making tons of money and the product is solid. Stay calm. At least for now. But know what you are witnessing.