I keep having this fantasy that Jobs would never have stood for the erosion of the pro level products into thin clients, like the new MBP, the lack of updates to the Mac Pro line, retrograde motion on the Mini, etc.
But seeing this, and the 4-5 perfunctory lines devoted at the end to the entire Mac line, makes me realize that's probably just a fantasy after all. This is where Apple has been going for awhile apparently.
That the Macs are not given as much attention doesn't surprise me. It seems 'fitting' that they would gravitate toward the current MacBook end of the spectrum considering that a huge amount of users don't really need much more than that. Cutting out the middle-ground (MacBook Air) makes a certain amount of sense.
But I expected that they'd keep a high-performance developer-focused MacBook (the Pro) for all those guys who are actually making the iOS/MacOS apps. And part of me hoped they'd show some love for that target audience.
On the other hand, who am I kidding. As I'm getting more and more into 'native' development and as my laptop is showing its age when I use Xcode, I'll probably eventually cave and get a MacBook Pro because I can't do my work without it.
It's just not nice, I guess. But then Apple isn't particularly known for being nice, so it makes business-sense. iOS/MacOS devs will still get their new machines, even if they end up feeling fleeced.
– Post PC products now 66% of our revenues
– iPad outsold Mac within 6 months
– Post PC era = more mobile (smaller, thinner, lighter) + communications + apps + cloud services
– PC now just another client alongside iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, …
Did you miss all the "be better than Google"? He seemed intensely scared of them, to the point where he wanted Apple to focus 100% on beating them. Google doesn't do laptop/desktop computers (until this year with the pixel). We are seeing this version of Apple come to fruition; all-in on mobile and consumer software services.
You could look at it in another way though. This is not a will, it's a meeting agenda; Mac didn't need to be discussed at Top100 because Jobs knew the dynamics of that market inside out, there was nothing to discuss.
The overall direction of travel and the emphasis on i-devices were pretty clear, yes, but it was uncharted territory so that's what had to be assessed. The view of the PC as home hub was still there, for example - that's now been ditched in the Apple world, considering Apple TV is an also-ran and iMac / MacMini are effectively dead. Steve might not have done that, not like this anyway.
I guess Apple is skating to where the puck is going to be. I have a MBP and any serious computation is done on either EC2 or the cluster downstairs (a fairly sizable cluster).
I do think that they optimized for thinness to much in the new MBPs. If I were buying I'd buy an older MBP for the other other ports (SD card is going away but I don't know about the rest).
Just today I was at a Apple Store to get my iPhone replaced under warranty and I saw a customer asking about the delivery time for a Mac Pro. The genius said to him point blank that they couldn't order one for him. That means two things, it's getting updated soon or it's getting axed.
> tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem
I know they've done this, and i know they've done this on purpose; but to read it bare like that is a bit too much for me, especially as I think more and more about the benefits of leaving their ecosystem, and weighing against the downsides.
Everybody tries to do this, but few companies have such a comprehensive ecosystem as Apple. Do note that what you've quoted is not in any way malicious. It's just saying "make all of our products work really great together, so that way someone who uses one of them is much more likely to buy into the rest of the ecosystem". This is a bit different than saying "make it difficult for customers to leave our ecosystem", which would be the malicious approach.
Customer lock-in is Apple's entire value proposition. Buy in to the ecosystem and we'll provide the best experience that gets better the deeper you go. But yes leaving it is starting to look good to customers as software quality has declined and now hardware options are misaligned and industry is reaching parity in UI and features
Personally, I think this was an insightful comment
> – Google and Microsoft are further along on the technology, but haven’t quite figured it out yet
Basically, he accepts that Apple lags behind in technology but Apple can "make things work". Technology alone is not enough - you need a healthy marriage of technology and humanities.
But now it looks like Microsoft is figuring it out. Azure is doing great, the Surface Pro got more love than the MBPro, and Microsoft is actually courting developers with VS.
Google? They prob have the best AI, but I'm sorta skeptical that the Pixel is gonna work for them. They've never been able to brand and command like Apple has in this regard. For cloud though, they destroy Apple still.
Nothing new with Apple, the last time they were a early adopter was with the original Mac. Since then they have been latecomer to existing markets, but made a big splash about their entry via their inside track with MSM (a track that exist as a legacy of that Mac).
> tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem
Their failure to execute on this is what is wrong with the current Apple. While it may sound nefarious, it was never a secret agenda, but it was successful because of trust. There was an inherent trust that buying into the Apple walled garden of products was superior to the outside world. Like it or not, Apple delivered on that promise to an almost frustrating capacity.
Fast-forward to the present, that trust has been broken. The flailing we see from the Apple community (of which i am one) is because so many of us feel that trust has been broken. I can't plug my headphones into an iPhone 7 without a dongle. If i bought a new MacBook Pro, i can't plug an iPhone 7 into it, either. The total lack of answers on the desktop side has exceeded concerning. Those of us in the walled garden are seeing the flowers wilt and the maintainers turn a blind eye. But because many of us have built our professional careers on Apple hardware and OS, there is fear of change. What if Ubuntu isn't as good? How will i ship my iOS app, etc.
Trust is an important but delicate idea. Once broken, it can takes years to earn back.
Yup, their end goal. You cant even close your account with apple, there is no facility or function to do so (removing a device and changing the email is NOT closing the account).
> – 2011 Strategy: ship iPad 2 with amazing hardware and software before our competitors even catch up with our current model
Typical Apple process here: Ship a base model (MVP?) to test the market, then ship the full featured one on next iteration.
Also, this is why you should always wait at least for revision 2 before buy every new Apple product. The new Macbook touchbar thing could fall under this, too.
The post-PC era sure was looking like a big deal in 2009-2010 but now its clear that mobile has over-saturated the market and old fashioned laptops and desktops weren't actually being replaced, people just stopped buying replacements as frequently. Are we post-PC? If so, I'm not seeing it.
In fact, Q2 2016 PC sales are slightly up and ipad sales down in a bizarre turnaround. The year-over-year decline is still there, but mostly because a 5-6 year old desktop or laptop is perfectly usable still, while a 2-3 year old phone or tablet is ready for the garbage heap.
Can someone elaborate on the "Holy War with Google"? I think of Google as encroaching on Apple's standard turf, not the other way around, and Apple hasn't been expanding towards the places Google wants to go. What was Jobs's plan, beyond just "do better than them?" The phrasing implies something grand and specific.
EDIT: I forgot that Siri hadn't come out yet; I suppose they did jump ahead of Google, but not with a product good enough to corner the market.
> I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.
The primary strategy appears to have been to use IP courts to make Android undistributable rather than competing directly, as Apple have no interest in capturing the bottom 90% of the mobile market. The Oracle v Google case is probably part of the same campaign.
If they really wanted holy war, they should release a cheap phone that could be easily bought worldwide. They could even take a loss (using their $40bill as Jobs said he was willing to do), and try to earn back the loss in the app store.
Nowhere is Apple's rudderlessness more apparent than their cloud "strategy."
>– Strategy: catch up to Google cloud services and leapfrog them (Photo Stream, cloud storage)
iCloud is an embarrassment. I can't tell you how many people I have met who dont understand why their phone stops backing up, and that they need to pay $1/m for more space. To absolutely ruin someones ios mobile experience over $12 is inexcusable. iCloud and iTunes backups are completely incompatible. If you attempt to use both you end up with forked independent backups. To check all of your available iCloud restore points, you either need to call Apple Support and confirm the times or wipe a device and get back to the restore screen. Let me repeat that: you need to ERASE YOUR PHONE TO CHECK __IF__ A BACKUP EXISTS. Then there is iCloud Drive, iCloud Backup, yet I cant browse through backups in the cloud, I can only do a full restore to a device.
Photos has "iCloud Photo Library" "My Photo Stream" "iCloud Photo Sharing" etc. And iCloud has Photo backup in the iCloud section of settings. How many different ways is Apple going to reinvent localstore, sync, cloudbackup, sharing of photos? It's almost starting to feel like its too late for them to catch up to Google Photos. It is a telltale sign of rottenness in Denmark that Google Photos is coming to the rescue to save Apple users FROM a lack of unified iPhoto/iCloud backup+share.
My Passbook/Wallet needs to be recreated every time I set up a device?
Apple needs three things
1) a visionary. a leader who makes arbitrary design decisions and cuts through committee banality and risk aversion. Someone a tiny bit reckless, ready to make bold decisions that dont have statistics to back them up. A person actually forging a unique strategy path through the untamed cloud wilderness. The current level of cohesiveness and interoperability IS NOT GOOD for a company trying to compete in the 2016 cloud space. Microsoft Teams is Microsoft merging Exchange/Sharepoint/Skype into one interface. Apple should be scared by how independent they have left their software silos. There has been no movement whatsoever.
2) to start spending its cash reserves on acquiring fully fleshed out software companies. Microsoft needed a mobile Mail app? They acquire the team and software and rename it Outlook. Apple needs to seriously evaluate every piece of Office/Productivity software that Google and Microsoft (and Adobe and Facebook) make, and acquire a competitor. And not roll the team into their existing product, but SCRAP their existing product and migrate the data over cleanly. They should look at the best apps in the apps store, that dont have Microsoft and Google competitors, and buy those too, thus making their Office and Productivity suite unique. Buying Adobe might be a good start. Adobe's Marketing Cloud would position Apple in a new market against Salesforce and Microsoft. Buying Hubspot could do similar. Apple could buy THOUSANDS of the companies represented in its app store, and have first party titles like Nintendo. First party development studios are a great way to attract people to your platform, while letting your other services become cross platform. They should be throwing cash at the wall of potential, nurturing unprofitable but useful/addictive products, and hoping they stumble bassackwards into the next Minecraft or Dropbox before it costs billions. Yet the Valve model of make just a platform, no games, seems to be winning out.
3) recognizing that cross platform software is a gateway drug. A lot of people got into Apple stuff because iPods worked with Windows computers. Apple is where it is because iTunes released for windows and was easier and safer than Napster/Kazaa. They need to recognize that they wont convert everyone from Android and offer Android and Windows versions of their cloud software. If they sow and nurture seeds, iOS wont feel foreign in the event a person decides to finally leave Google or Microsoft. Obviously its important that it work Better on iOS/macOS, but people need to get a taste before they convert to a new ecosystem. Gmail works good on every platform, but it works BETTER with Google Assistant. Apple has 18% mobile marketshare, if they want iMessage to become WhatsApp or Messenger, they need to release it elsewhere, otherwise it will always be second best.
and a bonus fourth thinking a bit outside the box.
4) recognize Yahoo's place in the cloud world is collapsing and offer refugees an alternative. Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Fantasy Football. Maybe buy and save Flickr, and turn Flickr into an iCloud Photos Social network for professional photographers. If only they had a good word they could use to name their nonexistant social cloud product instead of the current word salad they are serving up (hint it's iPhoto.) Apple is very poorly positioned against Instagram, Google Photos, and Adobe Cloud. They should put the effort into Photos that they have into Music and Streaming. Pinterest could be another option. Buy OpenFolio and Robinhood, merge them, and create something better than Yahoo Finance ever was. A finance driven social network could be Apple's way of finally becoming social, without being a "meetoo" like Google+ or a flop like Ping. The state of Fantasy Sports is atrocious, ESPN, NFL, and Yahoo all spend time and effort making their apps worse. CBS is a pay platform minimizing its visibility so most people dont know how good it can be. Can you imagine the cash Apple could print if it was loosely affiliated with sports betting? Apple obviously wants to get into content distribution, and after saying they dont want to acquire ATT, maybe they could look at Medium or The Atavist.
4b) There is a HUGE gap in the world in the Banking/Payment industry. Venmo and Facebook are making payment social. SplitWise could be a great foot in that door. Mint Bills (Check) and the defunct manilla were great cloud bill backups and calendars. Mint and Personal Capital are meta-bank managers that let you see across all your accounts. OpenFolio lets me see all my investments with different companies. Intuit (TurboTax and Mint) have a market cap of 4 billion, buy them.
tldr: Flickr+OpenFolio+Medium+Adobe, and suddenly Apple could be giving Facebook and Google some fair competition, albeit with a lot less AI. Probably let Adobe run the "cloud strategy" part of the company tho.
> Maybe buy and save Flickr, and turn Flickr into an iCloud Photos Social network for professional photographers. If only they had a good word they could use to name their nonexistant social cloud product product instead of the current word salad they are serving up (hint it's iPhoto.)
This is pretty spot on. I'm a heavy Flickr user who also uses Adobe CC, but I don't upload my media to CC. I'd be much more trusting of Apple running Flickr than I am of Adobe CC for storing and sharing my work. I think I'm not the only one in this boat either. Apple still has strong mind-share with creatives, but they're working on throwing it away instead of using it to accelerate themselves into the next wave.
All very valid criticisms. I especially agree with the idea that Apple should start producing/publishing top tier quality game/video content (via strategic acquisitions). I would add that they need to get in on AR/VR technology and make a more elegant solution than what is currently available ASAP.
I agree with you in many ways. I want to add this: Apple has certain features locally bound that I'd like to see more often. I.e. I'd like my desktop to be capable of taking over tasks that I don't want to hand off to a cloud. Local backups are obvious. Also I'd like to see more tasks (potentially privacy related) kept local ala face recognition. They could do more of that without cutting into iCloud.
It is true that iCloud has a large number of issues.
> Let me repeat that: you need to ERASE YOUR PHONE TO CHECK __IF__ A BACKUP EXISTS.
Maybe I don't understand what you're getting at here, but you can see if there is a backup of your device. Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage – Lists all the devices w/a backup, the last time they were backed up, the size of the backup, an estimate of the size of the next backup, etc.
> My Passbook/Wallet needs to be recreated every time I set up a device?
Banking is a spot-on recommendation. Especially Mint + Monzo + OpenFolio + Intuit could be crazy (you mean I have a bank that files my taxes for me, with nothing more needed than a quick review and Touch ID signature, as long as I keep all my assets tracked by Apple? whaaaaat?!) and a massive game-changer.
Apple, doesn't want to enter into Freeimum Cloud competition. Hence They dont want to store 1 Billion Active iOS Devices's Photo for free.
But I think Apple should have packaged a better deal. Or Heck they should have worked with Carrier to allow people to sign up to iCloud Storage as option on their iPhone monthly contract.
Or the current iPhone upgrade program where you get a new iPhone every year, should be an Apple as a Services packaged with Apple music, Apple Care, iPhone etc.
And by the way, even 500M users with free 50GB storage is
25 EB. That is roughly 100 BlackBlaze.
It strikes me that this is a very feature oriented list. These are the main product themes and these are the features to be driven forward.
What I really would like to see the equivalent process for coming up with the themes and the discussion around customers and where they were going. Maybe such a thing exists in Apple and that would be great for them. Maybe too much relied on Steve intuiting and translating it to executable battle plans.
The proof will be in the pudding (code name for iPhone 10).
Talking about the "Digital Hub concept", I heard that from a Microsoft guy in 2005(?) introducing the concept of Microsoft Home Server. We were considering anything to cooperate (actually, it is only in marketing way). However, I was afraid that web 2.0 was the true future. Home user didn't need a home server product.
I love Mac, no doubt. But I do think Microsoft create a lot of great concepts and do test it on market. Apple is not the first eveb on consumer market (remember the WinCE products and XP Tablet Edition?)
In my opinion, Microsoft is pioneer of electronic products. Although they often made their final products "unusable", I would hear about what they "are going to do". It is worth to project the future.
I wonder how much phablets have caused this. When I got my iPhone 6 Plus, I very quickly saw no need for my iPad Mini anymore. Fast forward a few years and I decided to pick up an iPad Air 2 (along with a keyboard) because I find it to be a superior around the office and on the airplane note taking device than my 15" MacBook Pro.
[+] [-] CPLX|9 years ago|reply
But seeing this, and the 4-5 perfunctory lines devoted at the end to the entire Mac line, makes me realize that's probably just a fantasy after all. This is where Apple has been going for awhile apparently.
[+] [-] mercer|9 years ago|reply
But I expected that they'd keep a high-performance developer-focused MacBook (the Pro) for all those guys who are actually making the iOS/MacOS apps. And part of me hoped they'd show some love for that target audience.
On the other hand, who am I kidding. As I'm getting more and more into 'native' development and as my laptop is showing its age when I use Xcode, I'll probably eventually cave and get a MacBook Pro because I can't do my work without it.
It's just not nice, I guess. But then Apple isn't particularly known for being nice, so it makes business-sense. iOS/MacOS devs will still get their new machines, even if they end up feeling fleeced.
[+] [-] dictum|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbob2000|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|9 years ago|reply
The overall direction of travel and the emphasis on i-devices were pretty clear, yes, but it was uncharted territory so that's what had to be assessed. The view of the PC as home hub was still there, for example - that's now been ditched in the Apple world, considering Apple TV is an also-ran and iMac / MacMini are effectively dead. Steve might not have done that, not like this anyway.
[+] [-] ghostly_s|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skierscott|9 years ago|reply
I guess Apple is skating to where the puck is going to be. I have a MBP and any serious computation is done on either EC2 or the cluster downstairs (a fairly sizable cluster).
I do think that they optimized for thinness to much in the new MBPs. If I were buying I'd buy an older MBP for the other other ports (SD card is going away but I don't know about the rest).
[+] [-] mmariani|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcatalfamo|9 years ago|reply
To make iOS apps you still need (and you always probably will) a mac.
[+] [-] meesterdude|9 years ago|reply
I know they've done this, and i know they've done this on purpose; but to read it bare like that is a bit too much for me, especially as I think more and more about the benefits of leaving their ecosystem, and weighing against the downsides.
[+] [-] eridius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamio|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] denzil_correa|9 years ago|reply
> – Google and Microsoft are further along on the technology, but haven’t quite figured it out yet
Basically, he accepts that Apple lags behind in technology but Apple can "make things work". Technology alone is not enough - you need a healthy marriage of technology and humanities.
[+] [-] equalarrow|9 years ago|reply
Google? They prob have the best AI, but I'm sorta skeptical that the Pixel is gonna work for them. They've never been able to brand and command like Apple has in this regard. For cloud though, they destroy Apple still.
[+] [-] digi_owl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schizoidboy|9 years ago|reply
"tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem"
[+] [-] liquidise|9 years ago|reply
Their failure to execute on this is what is wrong with the current Apple. While it may sound nefarious, it was never a secret agenda, but it was successful because of trust. There was an inherent trust that buying into the Apple walled garden of products was superior to the outside world. Like it or not, Apple delivered on that promise to an almost frustrating capacity.
Fast-forward to the present, that trust has been broken. The flailing we see from the Apple community (of which i am one) is because so many of us feel that trust has been broken. I can't plug my headphones into an iPhone 7 without a dongle. If i bought a new MacBook Pro, i can't plug an iPhone 7 into it, either. The total lack of answers on the desktop side has exceeded concerning. Those of us in the walled garden are seeing the flowers wilt and the maintainers turn a blind eye. But because many of us have built our professional careers on Apple hardware and OS, there is fear of change. What if Ubuntu isn't as good? How will i ship my iOS app, etc.
Trust is an important but delicate idea. Once broken, it can takes years to earn back.
[+] [-] nogbit|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cma|9 years ago|reply
– tie all of our products together
– make Apple ecosystem even more sticky"
[+] [-] ianai|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riprowan|9 years ago|reply
"lock other products out, preventing future customers from adopting our ecosystem"
[+] [-] creshal|9 years ago|reply
> – Strategy: catch up to Google cloud services and leapfrog them (Photo Stream, cloud storage)
> – way ahead of Apple in cloud services for contacts, calendars, mail
Interesting to see how critical Apple internally was (is?) about their competitiveness.
[+] [-] achairapart|9 years ago|reply
Typical Apple process here: Ship a base model (MVP?) to test the market, then ship the full featured one on next iteration.
Also, this is why you should always wait at least for revision 2 before buy every new Apple product. The new Macbook touchbar thing could fall under this, too.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|9 years ago|reply
In fact, Q2 2016 PC sales are slightly up and ipad sales down in a bizarre turnaround. The year-over-year decline is still there, but mostly because a 5-6 year old desktop or laptop is perfectly usable still, while a 2-3 year old phone or tablet is ready for the garbage heap.
[+] [-] bbctol|9 years ago|reply
EDIT: I forgot that Siri hadn't come out yet; I suppose they did jump ahead of Google, but not with a product good enough to corner the market.
[+] [-] coriny|9 years ago|reply
> I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.
The primary strategy appears to have been to use IP courts to make Android undistributable rather than competing directly, as Apple have no interest in capturing the bottom 90% of the mobile market. The Oracle v Google case is probably part of the same campaign.
[+] [-] legohead|9 years ago|reply
It's such an obvious strategy, but oh well..
[+] [-] cma|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] basch|9 years ago|reply
>– Strategy: catch up to Google cloud services and leapfrog them (Photo Stream, cloud storage)
iCloud is an embarrassment. I can't tell you how many people I have met who dont understand why their phone stops backing up, and that they need to pay $1/m for more space. To absolutely ruin someones ios mobile experience over $12 is inexcusable. iCloud and iTunes backups are completely incompatible. If you attempt to use both you end up with forked independent backups. To check all of your available iCloud restore points, you either need to call Apple Support and confirm the times or wipe a device and get back to the restore screen. Let me repeat that: you need to ERASE YOUR PHONE TO CHECK __IF__ A BACKUP EXISTS. Then there is iCloud Drive, iCloud Backup, yet I cant browse through backups in the cloud, I can only do a full restore to a device.
Photos has "iCloud Photo Library" "My Photo Stream" "iCloud Photo Sharing" etc. And iCloud has Photo backup in the iCloud section of settings. How many different ways is Apple going to reinvent localstore, sync, cloudbackup, sharing of photos? It's almost starting to feel like its too late for them to catch up to Google Photos. It is a telltale sign of rottenness in Denmark that Google Photos is coming to the rescue to save Apple users FROM a lack of unified iPhoto/iCloud backup+share.
My Passbook/Wallet needs to be recreated every time I set up a device?
Apple needs three things
1) a visionary. a leader who makes arbitrary design decisions and cuts through committee banality and risk aversion. Someone a tiny bit reckless, ready to make bold decisions that dont have statistics to back them up. A person actually forging a unique strategy path through the untamed cloud wilderness. The current level of cohesiveness and interoperability IS NOT GOOD for a company trying to compete in the 2016 cloud space. Microsoft Teams is Microsoft merging Exchange/Sharepoint/Skype into one interface. Apple should be scared by how independent they have left their software silos. There has been no movement whatsoever.
2) to start spending its cash reserves on acquiring fully fleshed out software companies. Microsoft needed a mobile Mail app? They acquire the team and software and rename it Outlook. Apple needs to seriously evaluate every piece of Office/Productivity software that Google and Microsoft (and Adobe and Facebook) make, and acquire a competitor. And not roll the team into their existing product, but SCRAP their existing product and migrate the data over cleanly. They should look at the best apps in the apps store, that dont have Microsoft and Google competitors, and buy those too, thus making their Office and Productivity suite unique. Buying Adobe might be a good start. Adobe's Marketing Cloud would position Apple in a new market against Salesforce and Microsoft. Buying Hubspot could do similar. Apple could buy THOUSANDS of the companies represented in its app store, and have first party titles like Nintendo. First party development studios are a great way to attract people to your platform, while letting your other services become cross platform. They should be throwing cash at the wall of potential, nurturing unprofitable but useful/addictive products, and hoping they stumble bassackwards into the next Minecraft or Dropbox before it costs billions. Yet the Valve model of make just a platform, no games, seems to be winning out.
3) recognizing that cross platform software is a gateway drug. A lot of people got into Apple stuff because iPods worked with Windows computers. Apple is where it is because iTunes released for windows and was easier and safer than Napster/Kazaa. They need to recognize that they wont convert everyone from Android and offer Android and Windows versions of their cloud software. If they sow and nurture seeds, iOS wont feel foreign in the event a person decides to finally leave Google or Microsoft. Obviously its important that it work Better on iOS/macOS, but people need to get a taste before they convert to a new ecosystem. Gmail works good on every platform, but it works BETTER with Google Assistant. Apple has 18% mobile marketshare, if they want iMessage to become WhatsApp or Messenger, they need to release it elsewhere, otherwise it will always be second best.
and a bonus fourth thinking a bit outside the box.
4) recognize Yahoo's place in the cloud world is collapsing and offer refugees an alternative. Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Fantasy Football. Maybe buy and save Flickr, and turn Flickr into an iCloud Photos Social network for professional photographers. If only they had a good word they could use to name their nonexistant social cloud product instead of the current word salad they are serving up (hint it's iPhoto.) Apple is very poorly positioned against Instagram, Google Photos, and Adobe Cloud. They should put the effort into Photos that they have into Music and Streaming. Pinterest could be another option. Buy OpenFolio and Robinhood, merge them, and create something better than Yahoo Finance ever was. A finance driven social network could be Apple's way of finally becoming social, without being a "meetoo" like Google+ or a flop like Ping. The state of Fantasy Sports is atrocious, ESPN, NFL, and Yahoo all spend time and effort making their apps worse. CBS is a pay platform minimizing its visibility so most people dont know how good it can be. Can you imagine the cash Apple could print if it was loosely affiliated with sports betting? Apple obviously wants to get into content distribution, and after saying they dont want to acquire ATT, maybe they could look at Medium or The Atavist.
4b) There is a HUGE gap in the world in the Banking/Payment industry. Venmo and Facebook are making payment social. SplitWise could be a great foot in that door. Mint Bills (Check) and the defunct manilla were great cloud bill backups and calendars. Mint and Personal Capital are meta-bank managers that let you see across all your accounts. OpenFolio lets me see all my investments with different companies. Intuit (TurboTax and Mint) have a market cap of 4 billion, buy them.
tldr: Flickr+OpenFolio+Medium+Adobe, and suddenly Apple could be giving Facebook and Google some fair competition, albeit with a lot less AI. Probably let Adobe run the "cloud strategy" part of the company tho.
[+] [-] tristor|9 years ago|reply
This is pretty spot on. I'm a heavy Flickr user who also uses Adobe CC, but I don't upload my media to CC. I'd be much more trusting of Apple running Flickr than I am of Adobe CC for storing and sharing my work. I think I'm not the only one in this boat either. Apple still has strong mind-share with creatives, but they're working on throwing it away instead of using it to accelerate themselves into the next wave.
[+] [-] j2bax|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianai|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2f979e912114|9 years ago|reply
> Let me repeat that: you need to ERASE YOUR PHONE TO CHECK __IF__ A BACKUP EXISTS.
Maybe I don't understand what you're getting at here, but you can see if there is a backup of your device. Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage – Lists all the devices w/a backup, the last time they were backed up, the size of the backup, an estimate of the size of the next backup, etc.
> My Passbook/Wallet needs to be recreated every time I set up a device?
See "How Apple Pay uses the Secure Element" - https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf
[+] [-] solatic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksec|9 years ago|reply
But I think Apple should have packaged a better deal. Or Heck they should have worked with Carrier to allow people to sign up to iCloud Storage as option on their iPhone monthly contract.
Or the current iPhone upgrade program where you get a new iPhone every year, should be an Apple as a Services packaged with Apple music, Apple Care, iPhone etc.
And by the way, even 500M users with free 50GB storage is 25 EB. That is roughly 100 BlackBlaze.
[+] [-] heisenbit|9 years ago|reply
What I really would like to see the equivalent process for coming up with the themes and the discussion around customers and where they were going. Maybe such a thing exists in Apple and that would be great for them. Maybe too much relied on Steve intuiting and translating it to executable battle plans.
The proof will be in the pudding (code name for iPhone 10).
[+] [-] happytrails|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Steko|9 years ago|reply
Take a drink if comment claims Tim Cook is no Jobs/visionary.
Take a drink if comment mentions going nuclear on Google.
Take a drink if comment mentions his cancer would have been fine if he didn't follow Eastern/New Age quackery.
Take a drink if comment mentions he wasn't a great philanthropist, make it a double if they go straight to accusing him of being a "sociopath".
[+] [-] bshimmin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oliv__|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1_2__3|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edditoria|9 years ago|reply
I love Mac, no doubt. But I do think Microsoft create a lot of great concepts and do test it on market. Apple is not the first eveb on consumer market (remember the WinCE products and XP Tablet Edition?)
In my opinion, Microsoft is pioneer of electronic products. Although they often made their final products "unusable", I would hear about what they "are going to do". It is worth to project the future.
p.s. sorry about bad English
[+] [-] cryptozeus|9 years ago|reply
What apple is going through right now !!!
[+] [-] revelation|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j2bax|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jack9|9 years ago|reply
Whatever this means. TB of data with the PC at the center is dumb.
[+] [-] brianzelip|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macca321|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akhatri_aus|9 years ago|reply