Apple’s best metaphor for a company design might be that of the Titanic; a marvelous ship that was once headed by a visionary, but ran into disaster due to its own inability to see the dangers ahead.
Let’s start with the biggest problem Apple currently faces; no, not the headphone jack. It is Apple itself. A company that is so good at being snobby that it actually gets loved for it. A company that is so good at marketing that consumers fall for the trap every time. A company that is so well-known that they can charge nearly $1,000 for a laptop that is worth half of that.
Apple needs to innovate. It’s what the company is based upon and what it will continue to pretend to do. The problem Apple faces now is that its visionary is gone and it is basically a headless ship.
Apple Inc., since its inception in 1976, has prided itself on ingenuity. Steve Jobs was so emphatic on the closed system products we see today, that he got rid of the standard floppy disk drive in 1984 with the Macintosh. Then, just to stick it in our faces, he got rid of Flash Player in 2010 with the launch of the iPad.
The iPhone 7 was announced on Sept. 7 to mixed reviews but still managed to sell out. Before getting to the main problem with the phone, let’s do a quick rundown of all the other features that the iPhone 7 still doesn’t have in 2016.
Wireless charging? Nope. Fast charging with a stable battery? Nope. Actual water proof rating? Nope. Expandable storage? Nope. Open ended system that is easy to work with? Nope. Reduced price point to match a shaky economy? Nope. New features that haven’t been introduced before in other phones? Nope.
Their best non-feature is the lack of a headphone jack, yet Apple still has no real plan to replace the port. Sure, it has Bluetooth 3.0, which is a stable and reliable platform, but there is no technology to support worthwhile and cost-effective Bluetooth headsets. As it is, they are charging $160 for their AirPods which means $160 for a pair of earbuds that you will lose, have to replace and then lose again, only to use them for 5 hours before recharging, max.
“But Jager, there is a dongle that comes with the phone to plug in your headphones!” Oh right, I forgot, all is right in the world. The magical headphone dongle that doesn’t allow you to charge your phone and listen with headphones at the same time. I almost forgot about how convenient it is to have yet another thing attached to my phone. Silly me.
Another major problem is product revision. Not only does the iPhone 7 needlessly get rid of a useful port, it ditches it with no new revision to the phone. It looks identical to the past six phones.
Just for comparison, the Mac Pro hasn’t been updated in more than 1,000 days, according to MacRumors.com, and Apple’s flagship desktop hasn’t been touched or revised in almost three full years. The longest time the iPod went without revision in Steve Jobs’ time was almost 300 days and that was because they were releasing the iPod Touch.
This lack of inventiveness at Apple is leading the Titanic that is the company into the iceberg that is the consumer market. But maybe I’m just being paranoid because, like I mentioned earlier, the phone is already sold out.
But why? Apple is selling a hysterically overpriced and limited phone. I was hoping this next generation of phones would be the big revolution to convince Apple, through lack of sales, that they need to change their business practices. We were all supposed to jump on the Samsung or Google bandwagon and win the day, except Samsung is losing market share because they released the Note 7 which explodes and Google is holding onto their new flagship Pixel phones because they want to make them great.
The number of faults Apple has presented since Jobs’ death and opportunities the Android competitors have squandered since 2011 is almost shocking.
I guess we’re all crazy though because I’m writing this on my MacBook Pro. I’m going to go back to my Galaxy S7 Edge and wait until this all blows over.
richardk32 • Sep 20, 2016 at 4:17 pm
If I had a dollar for every review that’s predicted the imminent demise of Apple, I could afford an upgrade.
Jager Robinson • Sep 23, 2016 at 8:19 am
I’m not predicting the demise of Apple, I’m just laying out why I think they are a failing ship. I even clearly mention that I’ve given up trying to predict when the company will fail in the last 3 paragraphs.
richardk32 • Sep 23, 2016 at 9:34 am
I’m not sold on the removal of the mini-phone jack. Sometimes a standard lives a really long time because it is a simple, elegant solution to the problem. (Did I mention royalty free?) However, like the iPhone itself (name one phone that looked like the iPhone before the iPhone), it appears the rest of the industry is already moving to follow Apple’s design lead. Again.
Jager Robinson • Sep 23, 2016 at 9:40 am
I completely agree. The iPhone changed the market. The iPod changed the market. The iPad changed the market. The Macbook Pro changed the market. But you cannot deny the fundamental product shift since Steve Jobs death. They copied the Surface Pro, they refuse to innovate their products and now they change the culture of phones for seemingly no reason. It just seems forced and awkward for a company that did so much right between 2000-2011.