SUMMARY: There was a time when Apple was a “cool” brand and people were proud to display their Apple decals everywhere. Today Apple is a great business that makes a lot of money but they have lost the innovations that made them great.
Steve Jobs was amazing at anticipating how people use technology and developing products to help us navigate a technology-enabled world. Today, Tim Cook has lead Apple to record profits but the innovation has disappeared in a series of meaningless OS updates and products that have problems.
The OS updates are not revolutionary anymore, they’re evolutionary with features very few of us will actually use. Can you imagine someone from Apple actually going on stage to talk about emojis? Yet Apple still has events to introduce boring new products.
While Apple rakes in the cash it has done everything possible to hide profits rather than pay taxes. App developers say that working with Apple is like trying to strong-arm a mafia boss.
New products continue to have bugs and problems. The new iPhone 12, for example, owners are going to have to face up to Apple’s decision to prioritize form over function, because the thin design has compromised the battery life in general, and seriously compromised it in one specific area. Where rival smartphone manufacturers have increased the battery size on their handsets to provide a stable amount of ‘real-world battery life’ compared to previous handsets, Apple made the curious decision to fit smaller batteries in the latest handsets.
The new iMac’s, expected to be introduced next month, will not run current Intel-based software and there are sure to be OS problems too.
The goal of a business, according to MBA’s, is to make money. To that end, Apple has very well, but they have left their core customers behind. Steve Jobs didn’t care about making money; to him, it was about developing the best products possible. Do you think Steve would be happy with the constant software updates and problems?
Today consumers want responsible companies. Imagine if Apple, for example, charged $10.00 for software OS updates but rather than keeping the money users would select a charity to receive the funds matched 100% by Apple.
The smart home revolution has largely left behind Apple behind when we need a single, smart solution for ALL our devices. The decision to purchase BEATS headphones was perhaps the dumbest in business, and when it comes to cutting the cord, Apple TV is near the bottom.
Steve Jobs set the bar really high. I understand that. All Tim Cook has done is to make himself very wealthy while making Apple just another technology monopoly.
