Are Apple finished (or on the slide)?

[Kieran]

Bending iPhone 6, iOS 8 disasters - and a horrible U2 spam on iTunes.

Have the Fruitoids lost their touch?

 

[tented]

I've been using iMacs for about a decade now. I still love them from a hardware perspective, but their software has become hugely disappointing over the last few years. I don't think it's a coincidence, either, that this has been happening in a post-Steve Jobs world.

He was a famously controlling perfectionist, who used to drive people nuts because of the bottleneck created due to his insistence on personally approving everything before it was released to the public. But that perfectionism was key to their enormous success. He was a true visionary.

When he was alive, I would upgrade all of my Apple software as soon as I received notification of a new version, or even just an update. Not anymore. Over the last couple of years, their versions of iTunes, Pages, Numbers, and iMovie (among others) have become dreadful. Even worse, they're ignoring the massive number of complaints users have registered.

What's most frustrating is they're taking away options, instead of adding them. They're also working towards forcing everyone to use their software, by adjusting their OS not to work as well with software from other companies, and in other formats. It's a mistake to design everything to work best only when working with other Apple software/hardware. People will seek out other companies' products in order to find things which are more compatible.

The irony is this is a lesson Steve Jobs learned ages ago. He finally realized he was boxing them into a corner, and had to design products compatible with non-Apple products in order to survive. The people in charge now are demonstrating they never learned this lesson.

 

[tented]

P.S. - I started using Apple hardware/software because I reached a point where I swore I would never use Windows again. If Apple's slide continues, I'm not sure what I'll do. Linux?

 

[Kieran]

This is exactly what I'm talking about. And is it a coincidence that since Jobs died, there's been a lot of mishaps with things, updates not working properly, new equipment being less that eye-catching? I know Jony Ives is still there, and he's the tech maestro, but Jobs was the one who drove the ideas, and Ives made them happen. Jobs was quality control, he understood what he wanted and was fussy to the point of megalomania until he got it. Now, for the first time in about 8 years, I'm contemplating going elsewhere for a laptop or tablet.

And my phone is due a change next year, but the iPhone 6 absolutely has not become must-have for me. I'm looking at the enemy - Samsung - and it doesn't look so nasty to me now...

 

[Billie]

Every big empire falls eventually. They become so arrogant and think they can get away with anything, so it is normal.

 

[nehmeth]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2732mi_how-to-fix-a-bent-iphone-6-tutorial_fun

Since Jobs died, there has been an all out ad war attempting to change the mindset that Apple is "it". Missteps like these from Cook and Team Apple have given their competitors limitless ammunition.

 

[Kieran]

:laydownlaughing

Great video, Nehmeth! It's true, they've slipped since Jobs left. He wasn't a nice guy apparently, but he drove a tight ship. I think everything becomes unexciting after a while, no matter how great it is...

 

[nehmeth]

Apparently Apple posted the biggest quarter of any publicly traded company in history... go figure.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31012410

 

[DarthFed]

^ It is alive and well...but I've read that they are rolling mostly on the cell phone war. So if Samsung, Amazon or other competitors up the ante it could get a little dicey.

EDIT: The article he linked says as much about the IPhone as well. The stock is currently at an all time high. Usually that would not be a good time to buy in but in this case, on the heels of the earnings report it would have been good to jump in very short term.

 

[Billie]

They can post big profits when they treat their workers in China like slaves. This was a shocking BBC documentary that our Canadian Broadcasting Company showed last night. It shows footage of over- worked people who sleep during their breaks, work up to 16 hours a day, 80 hours a week, all other sad things. The video was taken down from YouTube and this one on CBC website can be seen only within Canada it seems. Maybe BBC has something on their website.

http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/episodes/apples-broken-promises

The parts for this phone cost probably $50.00 if that! And with cheap labour why are they charging it so much?:nono

 

[DarthFed]

It's a business Billie, all vastly successful businesses are cutthroat to some degree. Those workers may very well be happy to work as long as they are...

 

[Riotbeard]

It's a business Billie, all vastly successful businesses are cutthroat to some degree. Those workers may very well be happy to work as long as they are...

One difference though is that Apple sells themselves as a liberal company unlike say Wal Mart, so their horrifying labor practices feel more hypocritical.


I say this typing from a Mac with IPad sitting next to me...

 

[Riotbeard]

I have been rocking a Mac for about 10 years now, and I am finally not convinced that they are worth the money. My laptop is five years old, and still rocking although I lost a hardrive a year and a half ago. I think in general the gap between windows computers and mac have shrunk as better companies like google have gotten involved. The biggest problem is a mac laptop cost 2-3x as much as a pc, and I am no longer convinced the gap between pcs and macs is that wide. When I got an Ibook G4 10 years ago, it cost 1000$ so it was expensive but still in the range of normal laptop prices and it was FAR BETTER than any windows machine I had ever used. Today unless you are in the arts, I am not convinced the quality gap is that big and the price gap has only gotten bigger.

 

[DarthFed]

It's a business Billie, all vastly successful businesses are cutthroat to some degree. Those workers may very well be happy to work as long as they are...

One difference though is that Apple sells themselves as a liberal company unlike say Wal Mart, so their horrifying labor practices feel more hypocritical.


I say this typing from a Mac with IPad sitting next to me...

Well I haven't read any articles or seen videos on it but stuff like that is just a sad reality. I've been to China and seen my friend negotiate a 4 hour roundtrip drive to the Great Wall for US equivalent of $6 and the farmers thought they were ripping us off. It's different over there. What we see as awful conditions might be acceptable to some there.

Also, one thing to ask is whether these conditions are a year round practice. Maybe the month up to the new phones being released is the only time that they are working absurd hours.

 

[DarthFed]

I have been rocking a Mac for about 10 years now, and I am finally not convinced that they are worth the money. My laptop is five years old, and still rocking although I lost a hardrive a year and a half ago. I think in general the gap between windows computers and mac have shrunk as better companies like google have gotten involved. The biggest problem is a mac laptop cost 2-3x as much as a pc, and I am no longer convinced the gap between pcs and macs is that wide. When I got an Ibook G4 10 years ago, it cost 1000$ so it was expensive but still in the range of normal laptop prices and it was FAR BETTER than any windows machine I had ever used. Today unless you are in the arts, I am not convinced the quality gap is that big and the price gap has only gotten bigger.

I've never owned a Mac but have worked with one as part of my business a few years ago. And it was a huge gap between that and your standard Dell laptop. So I do find this interesting that they might be struggling in that regard.

Apple's stuff has always been very expensive so I think it will have to adapt soon. You can see it with the IPAD's. I've never thought about getting one as I'm perfectly content with a $300 Kindle Fire. The IPAD is bigger but is it really worth double the Kindle Fire and other tablets? It seems many are saying no. I'd imagine the Kindle Fire is the main competition but there are others as well.

 

[Riotbeard]

It's a business Billie, all vastly successful businesses are cutthroat to some degree. Those workers may very well be happy to work as long as they are...

One difference though is that Apple sells themselves as a liberal company unlike say Wal Mart, so their horrifying labor practices feel more hypocritical.


I say this typing from a Mac with IPad sitting next to me...

Well I haven't read any articles or seen videos on it but stuff like that is just a sad reality. I've been to China and seen my friend negotiate a 4 hour roundtrip drive to the Great Wall for US equivalent of $6 and the farmers thought they were ripping us off. It's different over there. What we see as awful conditions might be acceptable to some there.

Also, one thing to ask is whether these conditions are a year round practice. Maybe the month up to the new phones being released is the only time that they are working absurd hours.

I agree that that is the sad state of labor practices, just that Apple cultivates an image of being the "progressive" company, when they are just like anybody else.

At least at Wal Mart, the slave labor is reflected in the prices uzzled

 

[nehmeth]

If the country allows outside companies to treat workers like slave labor, then the country is just a culpable. And if you look at other documentaries Apple's abuses are minimal compared to others. There are whole towns that have cancer, towns where the drinking water is contaminated from the chemicals from the factories... the corporations rake in the money hand over fist, but so does China.

 

[Billie]

It's a business Billie, all vastly successful businesses are cutthroat to some degree. Those workers may very well be happy to work as long as they are...

Believe me they didn't look happy at all. There were all kinds of funny stuff in the documentary but for "some reason" somebody took it down from YouTube (and it was there for a short period of time).

Anyway, I am surprised that nobody here has any issues about Apple charging so much for their products when the making of their product is so cheap.

I am also surprised that nobody has any kind of issues that the governments (US and Canada specifically) take a lot of their manufacturing to China and other countries in that area and close factories in USA and Canada thus creating more jobless people here.

Well if they kept factories here, then they wouldn't be posting such profits, would they?:snicker

 

[Kieran]

Well, they're good points, Billie, and nobody here likes the idea of slave labour, but regarding the price of Apple products, they look at the market and see inferior products priced so much, so theirs of course should be dearer. It would have little to do with the cost of making them, and more to do with supply and demand...