Reply to post: Re: So where is the new market ?

Re: So where is the new market ?

It's not our job to find a new market for apple. If there is or isn't a perfect new market for Apple to enter, it does not change the fact that they have focused too much on their iPhone line and neglected other products and other opportunities. The brilliance of Apple at one point was that they could find a place that seemed like it didn't need a ton of innovation and they could innovate anyway. Whether the result was pleasing to everyone was not the point; whether you like or dislike iPhones, smartphones, or mobile phones, you can't deny that Apple's creation of the iPhone caused a lot of innovation in the market, both from them and their competitors. However, let's look at where Apple is and where they could go.

Where they are:

They have a few lines of products. Most are somewhat stagnant.

Desktops:

iMac: This is still a normal machine, and suits those who need a lot of computing power (from a standard home user to their pro model with xeons) and wants that attached to a big screen. They have innovated here with higher resolution screens and the pro model with high specs.

Mac Mini: They have updated it with more modern components, but the concept is still the same and the cost has gone up. The components are more expensive, but it isn't the low-cost Apple box it once was.

Mac Pro: The internals are from 2013. I honestly don't know why they're still making them.

Macbook Pro: Their innovation was dropping all the ports for USB C and taking the function keys off for a little strip of touchscreen. I haven't heard anyone all that excited about that.

Macbook air: They dropped the ports off this one too and took the price up a bit. The screen is now higher resolution. I don't think taking a screen they already used and putting it in the air case counts as innovation.

Macbook Retina: The thin, light, and underpowered one. It has been exactly the same since introduction.

iPod Touch: They still sell these with a chip (underclocked) from a phone they stopped selling a long time ago. I don't know why they're making this either.

iPad: Now available in five sizes. Those sizes are small (not updated with modern specs), normal, normal with the capability to use a pencil, large but still smaller than a laptop, and very large but still smaller than a laptop. However, the last major change was the pencil, which doesn't seem to be a major seller.

Apple TV: Maybe the software is changing. I don't own one. It doesn't seem the hardware is, though.

Apple Watch: Wait a minute. How many different versions of this have they made? Four? Well, I don't really know what the innovations are there but I certainly haven't heard about them.

These are all their real products other than the iPhone. Most of them are either outdated or just odd. In other cases, the computers have the modern processors in them but otherwise are the same as the old ones. Taking away the old ports isn't innovation.

Where they can go:

They already are looking at TVs. They could probably do quite a lot. I think that, if Apple built a TV, they could at least get it working with fewer remote control devices, which seem to have multiplied in the past decade. They could also get a streaming service running should they be so inclined. Both of those leave room for Apple to innovate if they wanted.

Apple has a home speaker thing. I didn't mention it above because it's ludicrously expensive and doesn't do very much. However, they could expand into the home automation market much more than they have already. Plenty of home devices could be designed differently.

There are many other markets for them, too. They could become more technical and start building services for developers, for example trying their hand at the cloud services market. They could embrace their artistic users, fix the high-end image, video, and audio programs they've been breaking and make machines for designers of many types (for example, a large screen with their pencil and touch capability but also running a full mac OS and creative software rather than the mobile versions that pretend utility. They could expand their music technology and start producing hardware for those who write music. They could try a watch with fewer capabilities and longer battery life, starting a real competition for the fitness tracker market. They could make a bluetooth headset that 1. doesn't have the various problems seen with bluetooth and 2. doesn't consist of two tiny units that each cost $80 and each fit easily through a street grate.

Diversification without consideration is useless. In fact, it's harmful. But this is Apple. Their business has been finding things that need a new design, and making that new design. Continuing to make the same style of computer with weirder software and an increasing number of flat touchscreens without doing anything else will eventually leave them stuck if they don't find something else to complement them.