back to article Done making the big stuff better? The path to Apple's mid-life crisis

Forty years ago today, Yasser Arafat was on the front page of The New York Times, the cover of Time magazine was screaming about "The Porno Plague," Johnnie Taylor sang "Girl you ought to be on T.V. on soul train" as his "Disco Lady" topped the US pop charts, and the Apple Computer Company was born. Apple co-founder Steve …

  1. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    RE:"currently no clear, easily marketable, crying need in mass-market consumer electronics"

    Battery life anyone?

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: RE:"currently no clear, easily marketable, crying need in mass-market consumer electronics"

      Indeed, that is an irritation for many.

      However, more penitent is the fact there often never is "no clear, easily marketable, crying need in mass-market consumer electronics" because world+dog would have filled it. What Apple did that made it such a money-spinner was either:

      1) Make something that already was well known, like a "PC", but make it suck less than others that were available at the time (i.e. Windows, with all its AV needs and infestations that were the home user's experience).

      2) Imagine something a little different that no one in the tech world thought would sell big-time. Such as the iPad that partly dealt with (1) but was too simple for most technical designers to see the big use for it.

      The watch is not such a game-changer. Maybe a TV/PC home entertainment centre convergence that "just worked" and did not have shitty on-screen controls, partly-supported features that get pulled a year or two one, and inconstancies from TV, to streaming, to music, to recording/time-shift, etc, would allow them to mark it up and thus get the big profits they know and love? Who knows...

  2. JeffinLondon

    Crisis, wot crisis?

    Of course they are in mid-life. And the market's P/E valuation of 11.6 says all you need to know. The 'insiders' know there are no more iPhones in them - so they plod along polishing their best hits and collecting bags of cash for doing so.

    That's not so bad actually - but this collection of 50+ year old white guys are done - put a fork in them they are well and truly done. (Apple Watch was a flop btw)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Crisis, wot crisis?

      But it's us mid-lifers and the generation below us who've invented everything good so far. For instance: Anything better than the Unix way come along? No.

      Two generations below us are so empty headed, childish and narcissistic, they expect all the thinking to be done by others. So if "this collection of 50+ year old white guys are done" (and why you're so hung up on them being white I don't know), then who do you honestly think will step in?

    2. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Crisis, wot crisis?

      This is the second run of this experiment. There is no reason to believe this run will turn out any different than the first. When Jobs left in '85, and Apple was run by MBA types, it ended up on the verge of bankruptcy selling mediocre junk. Obviously, Jobs turned the company around after his return in '97. Apple is well down the same road again.

      1. 404

        Re: Crisis, wot crisis?

        'Obviously, Jobs turned the company around after his return in '97. Apple is well down the same road again.'

        man... I don't know how well I'd deal with a Zombie Jobs as CEO of Apple...

        1. DJV Silver badge
          Angel

          @404

          "man... I don't know how well I'd deal with a Zombie Jobs as CEO of Apple..."

          Yeah, I can see a repeat of the "You're not holding it right" episode but this time with the added Addams Family bonus of his hand falling off onto the floor and rushing off stage with said iPhone.

          1. Dave 126 Silver badge

            Re: @404

            Maybe a detached hand, al a 'Thing' from the Addams Family is the 'next big thing'. It could type for you, fetch items, and in times of privacy perform more intimate functions...

    3. Kebablog

      Re: Crisis, wot crisis?

      '(Apple Watch was a flop btw)'

      Flop compared to iPhone sales, but i'm sure other smartwatch makers would love to have a device that has flopped this bad.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Crisis, wot crisis?

      Apple's P/E has been in that range since the 2008 crash, despite Apple from then to now selling an order of magnitude more iPhones and managing profit growth every other company in the world would kill for. The market has been assuming the leveling off of iPhone sales would occur every year since, even though it is only finally going to happen in the quarter that just finished (assuming Apple's projections of a YoY decline come to pass)

      The fact iPhone sales have leveled off doesn't mean they won't have any successful product. But if success is only measured by another product that successful, I guess they might as well shut down their R&D department now, because matching a product that has been more successful (as measured in profit) than any other in the world aside from crude oil is almost impossible.

      That's the problem Wall Street has that will restrict them to this "middle aged" P/E forever. Even if they introduced something very successful, if it only brings in 5% of the profit the iPhone does, even quadrupling its market would only add 10% to Apple's total profit. Wall Street wants companies who can double their profit, not increase it by single digit amounts.

      Though quite why Microsoft has a P/E in the upper 30s escapes me. The odds of them growing enough to justify that are lower in my estimation than the odds of Apple finding a new product that makes as much money as the iPhone!

  3. AndrueC Silver badge
    Joke

    Whatever. Jesus wasn't born on December 25, 0 A.D

    Either way it seems he had to wait for 2,000 years before his mobile phone was ready.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In any case 0AD doesn't exist ... AD numbers are ordinals and not cardinals. Also, Dec 25 is 9 months into 1AD which is why, when adding in the effects of Pope Gregory, the UK tax year starts in 5 days time

      1. getHandle

        UK tax year

        Is that why everyone goes "Oh Jesus"?

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: UK tax year / Oh Jesus

          Could be. I was given to understand he used to have dinner with taxmen.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Yes, we've seen peak AAPL

    Let's look at the situation -

    A muddled code-base for iOS, OS X, and further forks for Apple TV, Watch etc.

    No IaaS/PaaS offering for corporates

    No MDM/EMM for corporates with iOS devices

    An ecosystem which locks in-devs, pushing own language Swift

    Surface Pro knocks iPad 4 Pro into a c0cked-hat

    Can't maintain price-point on Watch

    iOS 8.x and 9.x bug-fest

    Grandiose HQ, always a sign of corporate hubris

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yes, we've seen peak AAPL

      A muddled code-base for iOS, OS X, and further forks for Apple TV, Watch etc.

      Have you actually seen the code base? Very few outside of Apple have.

      No IaaS/PaaS offering for corporates

      so?

      No MDM/EMM for corporates with iOS devices

      I thought that the idevice that was being used by the San Bernardino shooter was supposed to have MDM but that the owners hadn't gotten around to it.

      An ecosystem which locks in-devs, pushing a language Swift

      The open sourced Swift just as they promised to do

      Surface Pro knocks iPad 4 Pro into a c0cked-hat

      Depends upon your use case

      Can't maintain price-point on Watch

      Citation please.

      Grandiose HQ, always a sign of corporate hubris

      Spot on. That spaceship is perfect for them to escape the FBI.

      Especially as Elon Musk is the new Messiah. SJ is... so last week/year/decade

      I own a Macbook Pro (2011) model. Far less faffing about that I have to do with Windows. not perfect by any means but IMO a darn sight better than Windows 10.

    2. Gordon 10
      Thumb Down

      Re: Yes, we've seen peak AAPL

      none of which seems to have remotely impacted their share price.

      Is the above meaningless in the grand scheme of things or sign of internal rot? Im not sure sure. What I am sure about is $150bn in the bank gives you a lot of leeway for mistakes and about-face's

      Hell look how MS and Oracle have managed to endure with a fraction of that cash pot.

      My prediction - Apple buys Tesla in the next 3 years, with either Musk bought out to run SpaceX or tipped to replace Cook and invigorate a mature product line with some monomaniacal special sauce, given that he's probably the closest living thing to Steve Jobs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Grandiose HQ

        Apple wanting to have all its employees on a single campus is not unreasonable, so just building a big HQ is not a crazy idea. Some could argue it is grandiose because of the design, but you rather see another gray concrete skyscraper or campus full of squat gray buildings and acres of parking, as the low cost solution would dictate?

        It is no surprise that someone like Jobs, who saw things to improved upon in the design of just about everything, would find ways to improve upon the design of the standard office building. He chose the 'spaceship' specifically to improve upon the standard office building, and while you might not agree with his reasons, that's why he did it, not as some sort of Egyptian style monument to his life.

        If your building doesn't have corners, there are no status fights for corner offices. If it is thin enough then everyone is close to a window, instead of being entombed in a space with no natural light. If it has a courtyard in the center there's a natural gathering space for employees to meet and share ideas. There are clearly some advantages to the design, and while I don't know what the low cost alternative of gray concrete boxes would run, obviously they are paying more to build something that's quite a bit out of the ordinary.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm dying a death here!

    Project Titan......they do realize that the the word 'tit' is in there, don't they?

  6. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    If you're supposed to start sliding into midlife crisis at 40 I'm already late by almost a decade... but then I plan to live at least 'till 120...

  7. John 156

    A hundred years later, cars still have four wheels and an engine under the bonnet. Without some rapid human evolution, the scope for identifying more niches between the iphone and the Imac desktop is limited.

    Nevertheless, cars are not remotely the same as they were one hundred years ago and there is still scope for evolutionary change under the bonnet since Apple are still still selling PCs using the obsolescent x86 processor.

  8. Whitter
    Boffin

    Companies are not living things

    Old companies rarely create new stuff: new companies do that.

    The old companies try to survive by buying the new companies, which they rarely understand well. I suggest that this is because companies typically act like living things, trying to survive come hell or high-water, when they should be no more that economic vehicles for getting stuff done - created for active purpose and allowed to dissolve once that purpose is no longer significant.

    A better scenario is for the shareholders to sell their shares in the old and buy shares in the new, letting the old company dissolve when it no longer has anything to do. But that requires CEOs and employees who are not afraid of loosing position and "face" with a faster company-death cycle and shareholders who actively know about the companies they own. I don't see either of those things happening any time soon, so it is little more than idle speculation: never going to happen.

  9. Michael Sanders

    Following's not what Apple was good at

    Steve's real skill wasn't in tech. It was in knowing when a product's time had come. And knowing exactly when the right technology was available to make it premium and a hit. Successful Apple hit the wealthy spender with a big price tag to make up for being first. That's when margins are the tightest.

    If Apple takes the strategy suggested they will just be another tech company. And nobody beats Dell at that. Or Samsung for phones or any other company that does great quality/form at a reasonable price. They are in the "suits in charge" phase. That's the dying Apple.

    Personally I see there's some team within Apple that's doing phenomenal work. But management isn't doing their job either in marketing/realizing those ideas are great. Or in seeing a project through to success. ex. Apple TV losing Disney.

    And another example is the amazing Magic Trackpads and the new interface it brings to the desktop. Touch screens do not work on a desktop. It's awkward. But the Trackpad and going full screen for your apps and all the new gestures revolutionize the desktop interface. Scroll bars are unnecessary and you utilize more screen space without them. Plus no windows! But do you hear about this? No. Well I mean you know there's a trackpad. But nobody explains what goes along with it and why it's important.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Following's not what Apple was good at

      >And another example is the amazing Magic Trackpads and the new interface it brings to the desktop.

      That is a good example of how to bring some ideas from a touch OS (iOS) to a desktop OS. Bringing gestures to OSX didn't stop anyone from using OSX in the traditional way with a conventional mouse - if they so wanted.

      I use Windows on my PC with a 'Hyperglide' Logitech mouse, and it works well for me. However, I find it very frustrating trying to use a cheap Windows laptop's trackpad to scroll. The Logitech software also emulates what on OSX is called 'Expose' - a press of one of the mouses many buttons, and all my open windows are presented in a grid. I've grown very used to it.

  10. wx666z
    Pint

    IT still works

    I'm not an IT person, mere mortal. And all my Macs and Apple II's still work. From the II+ to The B&W G3.

    They all still work, the Apples are for fun and to remind me of the old days, the 68k Macs either run NetBSD or Debian. The oldest is a IIsi. Now I'm sure someone is running a '386 still, a tip of my hat to you.

    My point is simply this, the cost is nearing 0 for using these old boxen, other than electricity, And I love the classic Mac OS.And yes I'm typing this on some kind of quad-core AMD home built machine. The icon is for you who are still working.

  11. Kepler
    Boffin

    What you MEAN, Rik, is something different from what you (repeatedly) SAY!

    "Corporations, however, are not people — despite what the US Supreme Court might believe."

    Rik, do you really believe it should be impossible to sue a corporation, rather than its owners and employees individually? Because that's what you're saying, and that's what's at stake in regard to corporate personhood or non-personhood.

    Of course corporations are not actual human beings. However, if corporations are not legal persons, then they cannot sue or be sued! They have no legal rights or status at all! I don't think that's a state of affairs you want.

    .

    I have always liked your articles for El Reg. A lot. So it saddened me greatly to learn you were semi-retiring and would not be writing much here anymore, and to learn that you would instead be devoting a great portion of your time to seeking to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. A decision whose overturning — despite what those who would overturn it usually say — would require nothing short of the (partial) repeal of the First Amendment.

    (Just as any amendment to allow Congress or the states to prohibit flag-burning would — to that degree — repeal the First Amendment!)

    It is just amazing that so many Americans want to put muzzles on their fellow citizens, and do not even feel the slightest shame or embarrassment about this fact!

    And likewise, that those on the Left who routinely decry corporate personhood — the legal personhood of corporations — are in this instance the very ones who let mushy, mystical, metaphysical nonsense blind them to the obvious and inescapable fact that a corporation, as such, cannot speak apart from the actions of actual living, breathing human beings! Who would also — necessarily — be muzzled if "corporations" are muzzled (as a contrary decision in Citizens United would have done).

    (The person or people who wrote the script, the actors who read it, the person or people who filmed it, the person who directed the film, the person or people who paid for the film to be shown on TV, and so on. A "corporation" as such cannot do any of these things!)

    .

    (I'll not even go into the fact that the corporation involved in Citizens United was formed for the sole purpose of engaging in speech! Speech directed at persuading the company's founders' fellow citizens! People who wanted to produce and distribute films expressing political views, and who wanted to be able to do so without having to risk losing their homes if some pinko with deep pockets (George Soros?) disliked one of their films sufficiently and decided to sue them. It was not a case involving lobbying or political advertising by some big, preexisting, profit-seeking corporation like General Motors, or anything like that.

    The position of the Left appears to be that if people want to engage in political speech, they may not protect their homes and personal property via limited liability, the way people engaging in any other activity can and routinely do! You can protect yourself by incorporating, but you'll lose your First Amendment rights. Or you can keep your First Amendment rights, but run the risk of losing your home and having to file for bankruptcy if someone sues you. Which under the misguided and God-forsaken "American Rule" concerning the bearing of costs by parties in a lawsuit is all too easy to do. But you cannot protect your home and other personal assets and enjoy and exercise your rights under the First Amendment. That is the position of the Left on this issue.)

    .

    You can take pleasure, I suppose, in being on the same side of this question as Noam Chomsky. I find his error on this subject as puzzling and mystifying as yours. How can people of such obvious intelligence and general good will be so wrong about this one particular topic?

    Plus, y'all are barking up the wrong tree!

    What you should be bitching about, and where you and other critics of the corporation as a legal phenomenon have a really good point/objection, is the fact that the corporate form limits the ability of victims of torts committed by a corporation's employees in the course and scope of their employment to recover from the corporation's owners, whose agents the employees are. Implicitly, the conferral of corporate status on a business enterprise limits the traditional scope of the legal/tort doctrine of respondeat superior. That, and only that, is the one aspect of the corporation's special legal status that cannot be explained simply as the result of contract — of voluntary agreement by those who choose to deal with corporations knowing in advance that they are corporations (because the word "Corp." or "Inc." or "Ltd." in their name alerts all prospective parties).

    (A tort victim does not choose to deal with a company who injures him at all, and therefore has consented in advance to nothing!)

    If that's not enough for you, then you also might take on the shameful and outrageous way in which corporate executives so often are excused from personal criminal liability for their actions on the corporation's behalf. Innocent shareholders' pockets are picked, while the actual human beings who were negligent — or worse — serve not a day in the clink. There's justice for you!

    Fixing these messes and injustices would be the result of clearer thinking, and of de-mystifying the corporation. But additional restrictions on the speech of actual human beings would not.

    </rant>

    .

    (Sorry so long! I wanted to write something like this to you two years ago, or whenever it was you semi-retired!)

    1. Kepler
      Pint

      And to ask you who your favorite bassists are!

      And to ask you who your favorite bassists are, ETC.!

      (Obviously I snuck a favorite guitarist in there as well.)

      May Jaco rest in peace!

      .

      (El Reg's goddam 'net nanny or whatever would not let me include those last two sentences — now three — in my original post unless I omitted the links! And every time it inflicted the captcha screen, it deleted my entire post from the goddam browser!

      Luckily, I somehow recovered my post and made a backup copy this time, before finally outsmarting the nanny-ware by splitting my post in two. I have encountered and complained about this before!)

    2. Kepler
      Coat

      A mind IS a terrible thing to lose!

      "I wanted to write something like this to you two years ago, or whenever it was you semi-retired!"

      Mr. Senile here is at once pleased and disappointed to see that he did write something like this (only much shorter!) two years ago (30 June 2014). Not only did I note — with sadness and disappointment — our disagreement over the Citizens United decision and the fundamental principle that would be violated were it overturned, but I also made three comments referencing bassists I like and whom you may or may not like as well (Stanley Clarke,* James Jamerson, and Bob Babbitt).

      Does my having dug up and provided the URL of the article in which Lester dubbed you "the Joseph Conrad of IT journalism, or something like that" make up for my heretical views and my forgetfulness, if not for my long-windedness?

      (Even though I'd quite forgotten all of that as well! Both the appellation itself, and the fact of my having remembered it and reminded you of it on the occasion of your departure.)

      .

      * My comment re Stanley Clarke actually chided him for his flamboyance and spotlight-hogging — an ex-girlfriend who played the bass described him as a frustrated would-be guitarist — but the fact is he remains one of my favorites anyway. Probably my favorite after Jaco, along with Andy West.

      At least I linked to different bassists — Jaco Pastorius and Tal Wilkenfeld, the latter accompanying Jeff Beck — this time!

      But why are so many of the bassists I like dead?

  12. jonaD

    What Apple needs to 'invent' is a way to make Socialist fan boys hot and bothered about American built products, versus so willing to support Chinese slave labor for their 'jollies'. In other words, Apple needs to carry across the threshold a metalogical imperative, 'we' not 'them'… but as long as they have a LGBT Socialist CEO… who has mediocre taste and a tiny imagination… they'll hit rock bottom. Luckily for them, all of their cash reserves are in foreign banks.

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