Apple is on the way to having the same problem as Facebook - becoming an uncool brand for older people.
The under-30s increasingly care about climate change and other more immediate threats. Unless they have Type 1 diabetes, blood glucose is not an issue for them.
Apple under Jobs did a solid job of making cool lifestyle accessories for all ages and genders.
Apple under Cook has drifted towards a kind of white picket Disneyfied techtopia, where the sun always shines, people always smile, everyone is very creative and colourful but also professional, fit, and focused. And it's somehow very sterile and boring.
As a result Apple missed out on the user-generated content wave, which was owned by YouTube and then TikTok. Apple already had some of the basic infrastructure in place with podcasting, but a middle aged outlook meant it missed the (mildly but interestingly) anarchic possibilities.
And that's going to be a problem for the future. Jobs was anarchic enough to want to shake things up but stable enough to make the shaking work (mostly).
Cook is small-c conservative, safe, and suburban in outlook. And now Apple is too.
Asking what The Next Big Consumer Thing will be is already missing the point because it assumes a model where there is a Next Big Consumer Thing and it's important enough to matter.
Ten years from now that's going to look like a weird and dated assumption. There will be much more chaos and uncertainty, and I suspect Big Consumer Things will be less important to everyone than they are now, and the people who are in their 10s-20s-30s now will be looking for something entirely different.
I don't agree. Apple is definitely a cool brand because what is the alternatives in the phone space for being cool? I can guarantee you that no one thinks Android devices are "cool" amongst the younger generation.
Apple is doing a fantastic job right now and I believe they're going to do great in the next 10 years because of one really simple fact:
Apple makes great products that just work and look great. No other company has been able to do that. I was just gifted a Fitbit and it failed about 5 times to pair to my phone. I restarted both the device (5x) and phone and it finally worked. How easy do you think it was for my girlfriend to setup her Apple watch? That's when I was reminded why Apple is #1.
I think Apple should continue what they're doing, create great products that just work and look great. It doesn't matter what the next 10 years looks like if they can continue doing that and I really think they can.
I have a Fitbit Versa 3 that's gone and bricked itself in less than seven months. But my Apple Watch's battery life is <18 hours, so, for example, it's essentially impossible to wear it during the day and use it for sleep tracking overnight. I'd love it if Apple would come up with a fitness tracker that ties in with the rest of the Apple ecosystem and-- most importantly--has a multi-day battery life like Fitbit's smart watches.
Apple maybe made great products that just worked but honestly it isn’t that simple anymore. With the Apple Watch, multiple kinds of phones, iPads and Macs they definitely fragmented their lineup to a point where they seem to have trouble to maintain quality software-wise. I had so many issues with iOS and iPadOS and always thought I’d be the only idiot who doesn’t know how to use a phone. Until I’ve started googling. I don’t even say Apple is not cool or whatever but don’t give me the „it just werks“ because it simply isn’t true.
Apple is the farthest from cool and actually is a borderline embarrassment if you own their products for the majority of my friends. I know we are the minority though.
> what is the alternatives in the phone space for being cool?
Phones aren't cool anymore, and neither is the iPhone. If you think the iPhone is cool, let me introduce you to my incredibly cool 70+ year old parents who love anything that is bland.
Some things remain cool because they are fringe or have uniqueness and character. Somehow cars have managed to remain cool, but your average family sedan or SUV isn't cool, and that's where the iPhone is.
So are there cool android phones, no. Probably not. Are airpods cool, getting to be not so cool very quickly. iPads definitely aren't cool.
Having said all that, it doesn't mean that Apple needs to make the next cool thing to continue to be successful. Microsoft hasn't been cool for ages, and arguably never was, but Satya has found incredible growth opportunities.
Tesla is cool now, but it won't be in 20 years, but Musk will have an incredible business.
I guess part of the problem for Apple is that they always marketed themselves as "cool", but in my personal experience, none of the cool kids are Apple fanboys anymore, it's the ones who want to be seen as cool who are.
Piper Jaffray do a semi-annual study on US teens which includes the categories in which apple market a range of devices.
The tl,dr: Popularity of apple in youth is and remains consistently high.
As this is a US-centric forum conducted in English I think it’s safe to use PJs research here.
> As a result Apple missed out on the user-generated content wave, which was owned by YouTube and then TikTok.
I don't disagree with your take on Apple's perception. However, I don't think UGC is the end-all be-all. UGC is only useful for companies in the sense that it drives advertising. By changing its Privacy policies, Apple has managed to triple its advertising revenue in the last six months, now at $5B, with expectations of reaching $20B in three years.[1]
UGC is nice, but so is having the hardware and OS that the UGC runs on.
Millennials left Facebook for Snapchat and Zoomers for TikTok, but where are either going to go if they leave Apple? Your "white-picket Disneyfied techtopia" may be right on the mark, but when Apple's mobile computing ecosystem is competing for it-factor with the likes of Samsung, there's still no competition.
Ultimately, it's not really about Apple's ever-more anodyne first-party positioning; it's about the entertainment elite and the influencers that continue to carry iPhones.
For years every years flagship phone camera comparison reviews have varied largely by reviewer preference over whose post processing they prefer, which they often even note. Favourites varying from brand to brand year to year. For photos.
I have never seen anyone suggest that another phone camera touches the iPhone in terms of video quality. In fact in these days of casual user content creation, this wave you say apple missed, video remains a minor element of camera write ups and I can’t help but think it’s because “if you care about shooting video with your phone at all and have the money, get an iPhone” is all that can be said on the matter.
Phone camera tech isn’t stagnant. It’s one of the(just the?) most important factors people value in their phones. Apple is making an intentional choice to prioritise video quality. I hardly think that’s them missing user generated content. They’re just cashing in at the device purchase level rather than diving in to the algorithm driven ad feed engagement game.
I agree with pretty much all you said except I don’t think coolness is that much of a driving factor for Apple purchases. Maybe Apple marketing layers on the cool hipster videos to make it look that way, but that’s just a surface level understanding of what’s going on. I often hear this as a misunderstanding about why people use Apple products.
There are plenty of ways to be cool. And people young and old understand that trying to be cool is not cool,
and they don’t buy Apple to be cool. They buy Apple stuff for other reasons.
If I was trying super hard (not cool) to be cool, I would use a flip phone or some oddball Android phone with an innovative shape and look from China. And a nice looking watch, not a square of glass.
People use Apple for the convenience (just works), quality, and privacy. People interested primarily in coolness over these factors use other products.
This is what I'd like to see as who don't care health much. Current metrics like heartbeat, SpO2 aren't very useful unless I constantly exercise or become ill, but blood-glucose should be useful metric since we eat everyday.
> As a result Apple missed out on the user-generated content wave, which was owned by YouTube and then TikTok. Apple already had some of the basic infrastructure in place with podcasting, but a middle aged outlook meant it missed the (mildly but interestingly) anarchic possibilities.
Apple has stores for music, for books, for video and also nice recently includes subscriptions for periodicals, news and podcasts. Go ahead and add "apps" to that if you like, although people tend to not think of software as "generated content".
Apple doesn't really have it in their DNA to be a social network and provide free hosting in exchange for monetizing people's content with ads. Podcasts existed before Tim Cook; Apple jumped on the chance to promote it but always considered it more a way to people get further use out of their Apple hardware.
This has changed recently with the focus on services, which means Apple is competing for people's attention and free time. Making it easy for people to pay for premium content (and providing Apple's own premium content through subscription costs) is pretty much a necessity.
However, they are still continents away from say the algorithm-driven video maelstrom of TikTok. And even if they made hosting user content easier at the same tier as professional content, I would suspect they would sooner do revenue sharing of a monthly subscription than they would leverage advertising for monetization.
> Apple already had some of the basic infrastructure in place with podcasting, but a middle aged outlook meant it missed the (mildly but interestingly) anarchic possibilities.
While I have some criticisms of Apple, impugning them for doing the best possible thing for an ecosystem seems like an odd thing to attack. Sure, Spotify, Stitcher and others have "innovated" with dynamic ad insertion and they occasionally dump massive bags of money on a few individual podcasts like Joe Rogan, but I don't view their profiteering as an improvement.
Kids still buy or want iPhones and see blue bubbles as desirable. As long as hardware sales are strong (and they are), Apple can miss out on the next cool app or have services that perform just okay.
> As a result Apple missed out on the user-generated content wave, which was owned by YouTube and then TikTok. Apple already had some of the basic infrastructure in place with podcasting, but a middle aged outlook meant it missed the (mildly but interestingly) anarchic possibilities.
Agreed. Apple had the ENTIRE digital hub strategy nailed, with fantastic tools.
Software, let alone online services, has never been Apple’s forte. They were and still are a hardware company. Just look at the current mess of the services they run - iCloud, iMessage, Music etc (I recently found out they’ve something called Clips) - yes, these are broken; and they break in a very Applesque opaque manner. Each of these are light years behind the competition, in fact it’d be an insult to the competition to call Apple an competitor on this front.
Top that with Apple’s pathological need to remain a walled garden - Tim Cook starting a TikTok - “iTok runs your iPad and iPhones”. They never stood a chance when it comes to content; and they never will in their current shape and form.
"I believe, if you zoom out into the future, and you look back, and you ask the question, 'What was Apple's greatest contribution to mankind?' it will be about health," Cook told [Mad Money's Jim] Cramer." Jan 2019
Their comments on AR seem pretty far off. "REALLY AR" has plenty of uses that every day people would love IMO. This to me is the same as no one getting PDAs from Newton->Palm-Pilot->Windows CE->iPhone. Once it became truly usable everyone finally caught up with the geeks that got it from the beginning.
As others have pointed out, "real" AR, if nothing else, would give you virtual displays. That's more than just not needing a monitor for your laptop. It also means not needing a display for your phone. The typical, turn your wrist, and a display shows up
And, at the point that everyone is using real full AR there's no need for TVs anymore. In the same way much of the society is going cashless and practically requiring a smartphone (1), an AR world with as much penetration as smartphones today would easily get rid of lots of things. Why cover a room in physical nicknacks and art when it can all be virtual.
The anime, Psycho Pass, showed some ideas on the topics. People changing the style of their bedrooms from modern to antique. Their actual furniture was generic but via AR (or Holograms) they'd select what they wanted the everything to appear like. Same with clothing. Monuments and statues in the city were also just projections.
(1) many restaurants now only have QR codes for menus. Don't have a phone, can't read the menu. I've been to one that you couldn't order unless you had a phone. Told them I didn't want to do that. They said I'd have to sit at the bar instead of a table if I wanted to order+pay not via the phone. Yea, I hate it but I'm fighting the tide.
The thing that I would love Apple to make would be an Apple hearing aid. I currently have the Resound Bluetooth hearing aids and they're ok, but I miss the ease of use of the Beats headphones I had before these (I've never been able to pair the Resounds with anything but my phone). I'm imagining something with the easy pairing of the Airpods with built-in find my integration. Given that the Resounds sell for $2000+ per pair,¹ I have to imagine that this could be a great high-margin business for Apple to get into.
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1. As someone with profound hearing loss, I don't expect the predicted relaxation of hearing aid rules to have much impact on me. As it is, I still need a doctor's approval to buy my hearing aids at Costco which isn't necessary under current rules for most people who need hearing aids. That said, it would be wonderful to be able to replace my hearing aids for less than the cost of a good laptop (and it's worth noting that insurance will pay for a hearing exam sometimes but pretty much never pays anything for hearing aids).
I strongly suspect, with nothing but circumstantial evidence, that the AirPods are the result of Apple's research into hearing aids.
The precursor for the AirPods by a few years was actually a MFi (Made for iPhone) hearing aid protocol, doing audio streaming from the phone over Bluetooth LE. This is in many hearing aids on the market today.
The medical market is not something Apple is really suited for, something they hit when they rolled out the EKG watch capability a few years ago (which is _still_ trickling out in markets due to slow regulatory approval).
Apple also typically sells high volumes of premium products and has durable differentiators (say software experience) to justify good margins. Hearing aids unfortunately would be too low volume to justify a product - typically when something is deemed to be lower volume they work with third parties to ship it. Hence, MFi hearing aids.
Because of the lower volume and high quality focus, I suspect you wouldn't save much from an Apple Hearing Aid.
The variability of people's needs typically means people need at least a test by an audiologist and many need custom fittings and support. Medical offices with ongoing support add a lot of cost, which is one reason why Costco can undercut third parties so severely.
It is a shame, because the hearing aid industry would be totally transformed by Apple's design and miniaturization talent.
Please no. I am also half deaf and wear hearing aids full time. If the tech companies make hearing aids they will inevitably find an excuse to make “always connected” required and somehow siphon data from it. I’ll keep my 6k offline only hearing aids for as long as they’ll last.
I wouldn't buy a Google hearing aid for that reason (and definitely not a Facebook hearing aid), but I trust Apple to do the right thing and I think their tech would translate well to hearing aids.
I think (and hope) that Apple’s strategy is seemlessly integrating health as a feature in their current products, not in additional products. AirPods 9th gen, now with a built in hearing aids feature for $179. Apple Watch, now with FDA-approved blood glucose monitor for whatever that thing costs. VR headset with Siri and VoiceOver to describe everything in front of you and help the blind live better. And I’m creeped out by the trans humanist stuff, but Apple VR contact lenses that somehow connect to your brain and literally give you sight. Or at least Apple Contacts with built-in automatic eyesight correction if you’re myopic, that can be setup in minutes and doesn’t require a doctor’s visit. Better Siri and Shortcuts for seamless and productive voice interaction for blind people or those without arms. This stuff would be so cool.
The thing is, that the current Airpods form factor would not be socially acceptable as a hearing aid and vice versa. Right now, one of the things that Airpods do, in addition to play music is provide a visible signal to those around you that you're listening to music. Change that to maybe they're listening to music, maybe they're hard of hearing and it becomes a big social problem.
"Apple is a high margin company and the car business yields low margins."
And now what if Apple comes in and it doesn't anymore? Tesla appears to have 30% or so margins on cars [1]. Why couldn't Apple make that higher, or increase margin by bundling different types of subscriptions or integrations with other Apple products?
Yes and that is why I was never bought the low margin argument for Apple not doing TV. Especially when Android Smartphone for a period of time were negative margin.
That said I still dont think Apple should make a car. But it seems all is too late.
That's not what I heard about their batteries, which need replacing way more often than a regular ICE setup (i.e. every small-single-digit years vs every 15 years or so).
Also, it's true that electric engines see less stress, but a lot of the rest of the car is still a car.
There’s obviously no certainties - and I’m not a betting man - but I think this author is on to something.
Healthcare fits the brief of a “painful, expensive problem where technology can help”. That’s the fundamental criteria for any software development, and in this case requires good integration with hardware. That kind of problem plays to Apple’s strengths.
Coupled with their long-standing and (apparent) sincere interest in customer’s health and well-being and this seems a safe bet.
a prior example is how iphone built in the flashlight app...now the apple watch built in a period female tracker (which have multiple apps built by companies worth a couple hundred M all together)...I can't see how this fails since theyve released oxygen monitor in the last watch and better heart rate monitoring...
One of Apple's major projects for the next decade will have to be getting out of China. The antipathy between the US and China isn't too bad now, but it's only going to rise as time goes on, and China may have internal issues as well. Giving up the Chinese market would be a hit to Apple's sales numbers, but disruption of their manufacturing would be catastrophic.
Apple's best bet is to double-down on TSMC and Foxconn, work with them to set up manufacturing elsewhere and lobby for the US to continue to protect Taiwan. I think that if they continue to ship updates to their existing products on schedule while they make the transition, that will be a tremendous accomplishment and a huge market advantage. They may find themselves competing with Samsung and... um, maybe just Samsung? I don't know the Android ecosystem well enough to guess.
Manufacturing decentralisation is happening anyway, in every industry, because of rising Chinese wages compared to other Asian countries, I don’t think that’ll be a competitive advantage except against poorly run companies that don’t read Stratfor.
Well they just built a datacenter in Gui An new area (Guiyang, Guizhou), just like microsoft, ibm etc. But production might move indeed, but only because the wages in China are increasing.
I'm personally very skeptical about an Apple Car appearing any time soon, although people like Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway treat it as a certainty.
If Apple were to sell a car they'd need a whole network of authorized repair centers and part distribution. Even if they do a slow rollout starting in the US, that's a whole lot of country to cover. They could start by selling it in just a few cities... but they can't limit where people will drive to, and people stranded with a bricked car, many hundreds of miles away from a service center would be a bad look.
Also, with iPhones and Macs a lot of their ability to provide worldwide repairs is based on entirely replacing whole parts (screen, logic board, battery) which I don't imagine is as easy with a car for multiple reasons.
When Apple created the Apple stores it was a mean feat of entering a new space (retail)... but they already designed and built the product, and did repair and distribution... so entering retail was just reaching vertically a bit more. An Apple car is a whole new "stack" where they only have a minimal part (software / user experience)... so risks / unknowns are much much bigger.
... All of this would not be the case if Apple were to partner with a car manufacturer that already has a network for sales, parts and repairs, and they just add their "UX magic". But I understand they tried and failed at this... maybe because car companies either don't want the rug being pulled from beneath their feet, operate at low margins, or think they can do user experience better than Apple.
Maybe the wide swaths of US country side are different, but for the (Western) European countries we need less cars and not more.
I love cars and driving but the mobility today is a smelly nightmare. 55 million Germans have insufficient public transport available [1] - they are dependent on cars. 64 million Germans live in cities. So even in cities, public transport is bad for quite a few million people. It's often not profitable to provide these services in certain areas, sparking discussions about privatization of public transport.
At the same time, roads and infrastructure are increasingly incapable of supporting all the individual cars. Congestion, traffic jams and just overall shitty "UX" hamper people's lives and by extension the economy. The denser the area, the more true this becomes.
Munich and Berlin both have major issues with their public transport. Munich grew really fast in the last 20 years and it's system is measurably worse than Vienna, for example.
I use car sharing a lot but it is only useful to an extent and doesn't seem to have the promised effect of reducing cars on the road (or rather standing around parking 95% of the time).
Maybe the wide swaths of US country side are different, but for the (Western) European countries we need less cars and not more.
In theory, self-driving cars will mean fewer cars, not more. Instead of owning your own car, you just summon one from a pool to take you where you need to go. When you get there, it becomes available for someone else to summon. It's like Uber, but without any people.
That's the one vision of self-driving cars that I like.
From what I understand they already invested a lot of money in research for their car. It seems strange to just let go of that, but of course it is possible
That could be money spent building fully functioning prototype cars to attract a partner and/or experimenting with AI, Lidar, etc. to see what kind of breakthroughs they could offer... Or even seeing if they can design a car that can be serviced as easily as an iPhone by replacing large parts.
... Or maybe they're really doing 100% a car.
... Just that in their history they never jumped so completely into a wholly new kind of product with such complex logistics... so I find it hard to see it as a sure thing.
Readit News
The under-30s increasingly care about climate change and other more immediate threats. Unless they have Type 1 diabetes, blood glucose is not an issue for them.
Apple under Jobs did a solid job of making cool lifestyle accessories for all ages and genders.
Apple under Cook has drifted towards a kind of white picket Disneyfied techtopia, where the sun always shines, people always smile, everyone is very creative and colourful but also professional, fit, and focused. And it's somehow very sterile and boring.
As a result Apple missed out on the user-generated content wave, which was owned by YouTube and then TikTok. Apple already had some of the basic infrastructure in place with podcasting, but a middle aged outlook meant it missed the (mildly but interestingly) anarchic possibilities.
And that's going to be a problem for the future. Jobs was anarchic enough to want to shake things up but stable enough to make the shaking work (mostly).
Cook is small-c conservative, safe, and suburban in outlook. And now Apple is too.
Asking what The Next Big Consumer Thing will be is already missing the point because it assumes a model where there is a Next Big Consumer Thing and it's important enough to matter.
Ten years from now that's going to look like a weird and dated assumption. There will be much more chaos and uncertainty, and I suspect Big Consumer Things will be less important to everyone than they are now, and the people who are in their 10s-20s-30s now will be looking for something entirely different.
Apple is doing a fantastic job right now and I believe they're going to do great in the next 10 years because of one really simple fact:
Apple makes great products that just work and look great. No other company has been able to do that. I was just gifted a Fitbit and it failed about 5 times to pair to my phone. I restarted both the device (5x) and phone and it finally worked. How easy do you think it was for my girlfriend to setup her Apple watch? That's when I was reminded why Apple is #1.
I think Apple should continue what they're doing, create great products that just work and look great. It doesn't matter what the next 10 years looks like if they can continue doing that and I really think they can.
Phones aren't cool anymore, and neither is the iPhone. If you think the iPhone is cool, let me introduce you to my incredibly cool 70+ year old parents who love anything that is bland.
Some things remain cool because they are fringe or have uniqueness and character. Somehow cars have managed to remain cool, but your average family sedan or SUV isn't cool, and that's where the iPhone is.
So are there cool android phones, no. Probably not. Are airpods cool, getting to be not so cool very quickly. iPads definitely aren't cool.
Having said all that, it doesn't mean that Apple needs to make the next cool thing to continue to be successful. Microsoft hasn't been cool for ages, and arguably never was, but Satya has found incredible growth opportunities.
Tesla is cool now, but it won't be in 20 years, but Musk will have an incredible business.
I guess part of the problem for Apple is that they always marketed themselves as "cool", but in my personal experience, none of the cool kids are Apple fanboys anymore, it's the ones who want to be seen as cool who are.
One of the things that distinguishes Apple is its focus.
It’s added services like Apple Music and TV but it absolutely doesn’t need to compete with TikTok etc.
As this is a US-centric forum conducted in English I think it’s safe to use PJs research here.
I don't disagree with your take on Apple's perception. However, I don't think UGC is the end-all be-all. UGC is only useful for companies in the sense that it drives advertising. By changing its Privacy policies, Apple has managed to triple its advertising revenue in the last six months, now at $5B, with expectations of reaching $20B in three years.[1]
UGC is nice, but so is having the hardware and OS that the UGC runs on.
1: https://www.ft.com/content/074b881f-a931-4986-888e-2ac53e286... ($)
... is the new "by leveraging its monopoly power" ...
Ultimately, it's not really about Apple's ever-more anodyne first-party positioning; it's about the entertainment elite and the influencers that continue to carry iPhones.
I have never seen anyone suggest that another phone camera touches the iPhone in terms of video quality. In fact in these days of casual user content creation, this wave you say apple missed, video remains a minor element of camera write ups and I can’t help but think it’s because “if you care about shooting video with your phone at all and have the money, get an iPhone” is all that can be said on the matter.
Phone camera tech isn’t stagnant. It’s one of the(just the?) most important factors people value in their phones. Apple is making an intentional choice to prioritise video quality. I hardly think that’s them missing user generated content. They’re just cashing in at the device purchase level rather than diving in to the algorithm driven ad feed engagement game.
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/05/apple-now-most-popular-...
There are plenty of ways to be cool. And people young and old understand that trying to be cool is not cool, and they don’t buy Apple to be cool. They buy Apple stuff for other reasons.
If I was trying super hard (not cool) to be cool, I would use a flip phone or some oddball Android phone with an innovative shape and look from China. And a nice looking watch, not a square of glass.
People use Apple for the convenience (just works), quality, and privacy. People interested primarily in coolness over these factors use other products.
Apple has stores for music, for books, for video and also nice recently includes subscriptions for periodicals, news and podcasts. Go ahead and add "apps" to that if you like, although people tend to not think of software as "generated content".
Apple doesn't really have it in their DNA to be a social network and provide free hosting in exchange for monetizing people's content with ads. Podcasts existed before Tim Cook; Apple jumped on the chance to promote it but always considered it more a way to people get further use out of their Apple hardware.
This has changed recently with the focus on services, which means Apple is competing for people's attention and free time. Making it easy for people to pay for premium content (and providing Apple's own premium content through subscription costs) is pretty much a necessity.
However, they are still continents away from say the algorithm-driven video maelstrom of TikTok. And even if they made hosting user content easier at the same tier as professional content, I would suspect they would sooner do revenue sharing of a monthly subscription than they would leverage advertising for monetization.
While I have some criticisms of Apple, impugning them for doing the best possible thing for an ecosystem seems like an odd thing to attack. Sure, Spotify, Stitcher and others have "innovated" with dynamic ad insertion and they occasionally dump massive bags of money on a few individual podcasts like Joe Rogan, but I don't view their profiteering as an improvement.
Apple relies on trust, and tries to cultivate (though not always successfully) coolness through innovation.
Show me a trustworthy mainstream alternative and I might agree with you.
Agreed. Apple had the ENTIRE digital hub strategy nailed, with fantastic tools.
Top that with Apple’s pathological need to remain a walled garden - Tim Cook starting a TikTok - “iTok runs your iPad and iPhones”. They never stood a chance when it comes to content; and they never will in their current shape and form.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/tim-cook-teases-new-apple-se...
As others have pointed out, "real" AR, if nothing else, would give you virtual displays. That's more than just not needing a monitor for your laptop. It also means not needing a display for your phone. The typical, turn your wrist, and a display shows up
And, at the point that everyone is using real full AR there's no need for TVs anymore. In the same way much of the society is going cashless and practically requiring a smartphone (1), an AR world with as much penetration as smartphones today would easily get rid of lots of things. Why cover a room in physical nicknacks and art when it can all be virtual.
The anime, Psycho Pass, showed some ideas on the topics. People changing the style of their bedrooms from modern to antique. Their actual furniture was generic but via AR (or Holograms) they'd select what they wanted the everything to appear like. Same with clothing. Monuments and statues in the city were also just projections.
(1) many restaurants now only have QR codes for menus. Don't have a phone, can't read the menu. I've been to one that you couldn't order unless you had a phone. Told them I didn't want to do that. They said I'd have to sit at the bar instead of a table if I wanted to order+pay not via the phone. Yea, I hate it but I'm fighting the tide.
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1. As someone with profound hearing loss, I don't expect the predicted relaxation of hearing aid rules to have much impact on me. As it is, I still need a doctor's approval to buy my hearing aids at Costco which isn't necessary under current rules for most people who need hearing aids. That said, it would be wonderful to be able to replace my hearing aids for less than the cost of a good laptop (and it's worth noting that insurance will pay for a hearing exam sometimes but pretty much never pays anything for hearing aids).
The precursor for the AirPods by a few years was actually a MFi (Made for iPhone) hearing aid protocol, doing audio streaming from the phone over Bluetooth LE. This is in many hearing aids on the market today.
The medical market is not something Apple is really suited for, something they hit when they rolled out the EKG watch capability a few years ago (which is _still_ trickling out in markets due to slow regulatory approval).
Apple also typically sells high volumes of premium products and has durable differentiators (say software experience) to justify good margins. Hearing aids unfortunately would be too low volume to justify a product - typically when something is deemed to be lower volume they work with third parties to ship it. Hence, MFi hearing aids.
Because of the lower volume and high quality focus, I suspect you wouldn't save much from an Apple Hearing Aid.
The variability of people's needs typically means people need at least a test by an audiologist and many need custom fittings and support. Medical offices with ongoing support add a lot of cost, which is one reason why Costco can undercut third parties so severely.
It is a shame, because the hearing aid industry would be totally transformed by Apple's design and miniaturization talent.
And now what if Apple comes in and it doesn't anymore? Tesla appears to have 30% or so margins on cars [1]. Why couldn't Apple make that higher, or increase margin by bundling different types of subscriptions or integrations with other Apple products?
Enjoyed the article though.
[1] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-gross-margin-wiggle-room-ev-...
That said I still dont think Apple should make a car. But it seems all is too late.
Those low margins reflect commoditisation of large majority of cars. In the era when cars are computers on wheels it should be easier to avoid this.
In particular Apple can distinguish itself from others through high degree of integration with other Apple products.
EVs are much cheaper and simpler to manufacture and last basically forever.
That's not what I heard about their batteries, which need replacing way more often than a regular ICE setup (i.e. every small-single-digit years vs every 15 years or so).
Also, it's true that electric engines see less stress, but a lot of the rest of the car is still a car.
Healthcare fits the brief of a “painful, expensive problem where technology can help”. That’s the fundamental criteria for any software development, and in this case requires good integration with hardware. That kind of problem plays to Apple’s strengths.
Coupled with their long-standing and (apparent) sincere interest in customer’s health and well-being and this seems a safe bet.
Apple's best bet is to double-down on TSMC and Foxconn, work with them to set up manufacturing elsewhere and lobby for the US to continue to protect Taiwan. I think that if they continue to ship updates to their existing products on schedule while they make the transition, that will be a tremendous accomplishment and a huge market advantage. They may find themselves competing with Samsung and... um, maybe just Samsung? I don't know the Android ecosystem well enough to guess.
If Apple were to sell a car they'd need a whole network of authorized repair centers and part distribution. Even if they do a slow rollout starting in the US, that's a whole lot of country to cover. They could start by selling it in just a few cities... but they can't limit where people will drive to, and people stranded with a bricked car, many hundreds of miles away from a service center would be a bad look.
Also, with iPhones and Macs a lot of their ability to provide worldwide repairs is based on entirely replacing whole parts (screen, logic board, battery) which I don't imagine is as easy with a car for multiple reasons.
When Apple created the Apple stores it was a mean feat of entering a new space (retail)... but they already designed and built the product, and did repair and distribution... so entering retail was just reaching vertically a bit more. An Apple car is a whole new "stack" where they only have a minimal part (software / user experience)... so risks / unknowns are much much bigger.
... All of this would not be the case if Apple were to partner with a car manufacturer that already has a network for sales, parts and repairs, and they just add their "UX magic". But I understand they tried and failed at this... maybe because car companies either don't want the rug being pulled from beneath their feet, operate at low margins, or think they can do user experience better than Apple.
I love cars and driving but the mobility today is a smelly nightmare. 55 million Germans have insufficient public transport available [1] - they are dependent on cars. 64 million Germans live in cities. So even in cities, public transport is bad for quite a few million people. It's often not profitable to provide these services in certain areas, sparking discussions about privatization of public transport.
At the same time, roads and infrastructure are increasingly incapable of supporting all the individual cars. Congestion, traffic jams and just overall shitty "UX" hamper people's lives and by extension the economy. The denser the area, the more true this becomes.
Munich and Berlin both have major issues with their public transport. Munich grew really fast in the last 20 years and it's system is measurably worse than Vienna, for example.
I use car sharing a lot but it is only useful to an extent and doesn't seem to have the promised effect of reducing cars on the road (or rather standing around parking 95% of the time).
[1] https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik... (Disclaimer: this study was done by a mobility startup BUT I honestly believe it to be accurate from experience)
In theory, self-driving cars will mean fewer cars, not more. Instead of owning your own car, you just summon one from a pool to take you where you need to go. When you get there, it becomes available for someone else to summon. It's like Uber, but without any people.
That's the one vision of self-driving cars that I like.
From what I understand they already invested a lot of money in research for their car. It seems strange to just let go of that, but of course it is possible
... Or maybe they're really doing 100% a car.
... Just that in their history they never jumped so completely into a wholly new kind of product with such complex logistics... so I find it hard to see it as a sure thing.