Posted on 01/21/2016 12:24:26 AM PST by Swordmaker
I fully expected Joe Wilcox to be a bearded hipster millenial but it turns out he is a rather plain (and by plain I mean bizarre) looking, bald middle-ager.
Still, that doesn’t prevent him from using the kind of adolescent internet cliches that invalidate his piece through their sheer volume and triteness. To wit:
idiots, flame clickbait, egos, haters/hating, kiss ass, fanboy, f*** you moment
He also misuses ‘schizophrenic’ as does 99% of the rest of the world.
I realize blogs are exactly that but far too many of them extrapolate personal anecdotes and choices into macroeconomic certainties. Bloggers seem to lack any awareness that they are a minority within a minority ie power users who obsess over the smallest details and who will make wholesale changes in their technology over the smallest trifles or merely for the sake of change. They imagine there is a personal, emotional connection between them and a multi-billion dollar corporation. In other words, they scoff at the mass marketing while falling victim to that same mass marketing even as they tell themselves that the multi-billion dollar corporation is bound to care about their every thought.
Finally, the author’s thesis is...what? Inevitable? Cowardly? Blindingly obvious? Predicting that market leaders will eventually lose market share in large or small measures is the safest bet in the casino. The list would fill a book: GM, McDonald’s, Staples, et al.
His criteria for success are contradictory and odd: products that offer new and deep revenue streams are unworthy and ultimately detrimental because they are not - Hackneyed Phrase Alert - ‘disruptive.’
What follows is bewildering stream of consciousness that essentially says ‘Apple will ultimately fail because it has succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.’
The concluding paragraph is pure comedy: ‘My personal loss of interest in Apple products is boredom.’ This piece runs 2,497 words. If this is boredom I hate to see what keen interest looks like.
I bought an iPad Pro around Xmas, and I still can hardly put it down. I rarely use my $2k laptop anymore. the iPP's performance and form factor are incredible. Favorite device ever...and I was an Android guy.
The products he’s lamenting aren’t “disruptive” are really extensions to existing lines, rounding out support for customers who find the product not quite to their liking, as they’re outliers.
Watch? it’s an extension to the iPhone. If you don’t have an iPhone, you’re not in the target market - period (until the product develops enough, over several years, to earn its independence). If you do have an iPhone, it’s _not_ a given that you’ll want one.
iPad Pro? the full-size iPad just isn’t big enough for some. Nothing wrong with making a “giant size” version for people who _would_ get one _if_ it were that big. It’s not intended for the general public.
12” MacBook? some people want a really stripped-down notebook, yes without any more ports than power & headphones. Again, not for everyone...it’s for those edge-case users wanting something special beyond the “one size fits all” products.
And yes, the core products are doing really well right now, not demanding a “wow! new! disruptive!” every cycle. Just keep incrementally improving the core, and customers will keep returning; be “disruptive” every cycle and people will give up for want of continuity.
I wonder what this author will think of the “disruptive” iPhone 7 featuring no headphone jack, forcing users into either Bluetooth headsets or proprietary Lightning plugs. Any bets he writes a screed about how Apple is going to fail because it’s too disruptive?
http://betanews.com/2015/08/30/collapse-of-the-iphone-empire/
iPhone is headed towards commodity status Other smartphones will swamp it.
Big stock market drop here and China will mean millions less vanity purchases these Apple junks. I dumped all my AAPL a few months ago and anyone with a brain will do the same.
Never get married to Tim KooK and never get married to a stock. Go ask Art Cashin.
And what is Apple’s vision for the next 3 years other than milking retread phones and tablets again?
Nothing? I thought so.
The author did point out an obvious flaw of Apple cheerleaders. They want their products to make themselves “feel good”.
Now, Swordmaker, before you go off into some giant gyrating novel-length response, please sum up this vision in a sentence or two justifying why you think Apple’s on the right path to future domination of the technology world.
There should be some catch words in this vision like “holographic”, “universal”, and “flexible”. Tell us why Apple is going to be a game changer.
The only time anybody needs to worry about Apple is when it gets to be more like Sculley’s Apple than Jobs’ Apple.
Just take a look at the difference in those three Apple eras (Jobs Era 1, Sculley Era, Jobs Era 2) and compare the Cook Era to them.
Of course the Cook Era is a moving target, but watch the trajectory and see where it’s headed in comparison to the aforementioned Eras.
Psst. Hey, Joe. Word is, Apple's working on developing its own car. You heard it here first.
There aren't any asteroids big enough to 'destroy' Earth.
Destroy the human race, yes. But Earth will be just fine.
It was getting pretty late here so sorry. There has been some pretty heated discussions going on some of the other threads with a lot of distortions and mischaracterizations about both of them. I will be happy if either gets the nomination but some of the people here need to step back and take a deep breath.
Np, though my criticism was directed towards the author of the article and not you as the poster with added commentar.
Swordmaker, often provides the best fun on the forum with articles that provoke a good healthy Apple vs everyone else debate. It would be interesting to find out whether Cruz uses any Apple products. I know that some of those claiming to be his supporters here are too “pure” to use a product made by a company whose CEO is gay.
There probably *are* asteroids that big, but there may be a nomenclature preference for ‘dwarf planet’ at that size. But well put. OTOH, I regard the Earth as its population, rather than the rock hurtling around the Sun. :’)
I got one too, a little earlier than that. Did you get Apple's Pro keyboard? I looked at it and selected Logitech's keyboard instead. It's a little less expensiveat $149 compared to Apple's $169 and, for me, has a better keystroke, and seemed to be better built. The screen is gorgeous.
I feel fine about myself. My self esteem is not defined by the products I use or purchase, Up Yours. That over-used meme only comes from weak-minded amateur bloggers with little evidence to support it. How can they make such an unsupportable assertion about over 800 million consumers, many of whom were once Microsoft or Android users who made a conscious decision to buy another platform because of their poor experiences on the other? It is dancing in the graveyard hubris from people who are still using what those others have eschewed in favor of something those ignorant of the reasons for their moving on can not grasp nor understand. Therefore, they reason, it has to be something trivial such as self-esteem, and they shout this faux logic reason to themselves in their echo chamber to make them comfortable as more and more of their erstwhile compatriots leave.
I bought the Logitech, the case of which must be ballistic nylon, it is very strong. However I then also got the Apple Pro and haven't used the logitech since. It is not backlit, and lacks a few of the keys, but it is so thin and convenient, and protects the screen, and I got a thin leatherish sleeve for the whole thing together. The 3 rare earth magnets are so strong the pro keyboard stays on snug.
the screen is gorgeous indeed, and the iPP is FAST. I didn't realize my son had 10 games open in the backgroound while I had Chrome with 12 tabs, and the thing still FLEW, and with only 4GB. My Windows 10 laptop would choke to death with that load at 8GB.
ROTFLMAO! You are seriously linking to another article by Joe Wilcox, the same BOZO who wrote this idiotic FUD article? Here's just an example of his evidence in your linked article:
"Previously disclosed financial results may already foreshadow the future. Apple's percentage of revenue from China was higher in fiscal Q2, 29 percent; sales fell quarter-on-quarter from $16.82 billion to $13.23 billion. Set the change against analyst revenue consensus for Apple's fiscal fourth quarter: $50.9 billion. Even 3 percent or 4 percent decline in China's contribution could carve $1 billion or more off the top.
The BOZO is using as evidence of the iPhone slumping Quarter over Quarter statistics, a huge financial fallacy! No one ever compares unlike quarters because each quarter is a different financial environment. In this instance, The idiot is comparing Apple's FIRST fiscal quarter, September to December, which inclusive of all the holiday sales, to its SECOND fiscal quarter that has only Martin Luther King Jr. Day and President's Day as holidays, unless you count Super Bowl Sunday as gift giving holidays? Then he points to this comparison to claim the iPhone's sales are in a slump, even though he admits there was a 29% year over year record breaking quarter in the second fiscal quarter! He's an abysmal moron!
And, if you use his conclusions to support your position, that makes you one too, Baron.
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday called Apple CEO Tim Cook's coming out as gay a "personal decision."
"Those are his personal choices," Cruz said on CNBC. "I'll tell you, I love my iPhone."Ted Cruz on on Apple's Tim Cook coming out as Gay--The Trailblazer.com
My Logitech keyboard is backlit. I'm typing on it right now and the keys are lit. You might want to check that yours is not defective.
No I meant the Apple one is NOT backlit
Ah! A light bulb lights over mine head!
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