Apple : Booming or Dooming

'Knowledgeable' observers revel in telling us that Apple can't make the same innovative products under Tim Cook that it did under Steve Jobs, or that having lower sales figures than cheaper alternatives means imminent collapse. It's just a matter of time, apparently, yet the refrain that 'Apple is doomed' is nearly as old as Apple itself.

It's easy to follow percentage figures – they're so nice and clean. For example, figures from market intelligence firm IDC say that the iPad's share of the tablet market was down from 38.2% in Q3 2012 to 33.8% in Q3 2013.

Indeed, Business Insider's Steve Kovach wrote in his article "Apple is about to blow it in tablets too" (having already 'blown it' in smartphones, of course) that "Samsung is poised to crush Apple in tablets using the same strategy it did to win in smartphones." The strategy in question is "to essentially flood the market with as many different types of tablet as it can".

Apple has "blown it" with phones – Samsung has indeed sold more phones recently, but sales of iPhones are still growing, just like iPads. Stats say that 59.6% of smartphone web traffic comes from iPhones, with 39% from Android. The mid-2000s were for Apple: there was a major new product category or fundamental shift coming every year, from the Mac mini in 2005 though the Intel switch, the iPhone, the Apple TV and finally the MacBook Air in 2008.

Then came the iPad and Retina displays two years later in 2010. Since then, you could argue the iPad mini and Mac Pro are big additions, but largely, Apple has released products that iterate on what's already there.

Products such as the iPhone and MacBook Air were so exciting when they were introduced – they were barely believable! People want to see that again, and when that comes dressed up as analysis is where things go awry. "They only have 60 days left to come up with [an iWatch] or they will disappear", as analyst Trip Chowdhry told CNBC, "It will become a zombie, if they don't come up with an iWatch."

Those 60 days ran out 19 May and Apple is still doing pretty well at the moment.

Every year, Apple dramatically improves its existing products. There is innovation to be found in battery life, convenience and usability, and ignoring that is what Apple's competitors get wrong. And it's why the company doesn't just throw out any old watch or TV concept and call it a finished products – look at the scathing reviews of Samsung's Gear Fit.

Have a look at its acquisition of Beats to see that some of its focus is already moving away from rectangular products.

"If Jobs was the star, Cook was the stage manager," wrote Yukari Iwatani Kane, author of Haunted Empire, Apple After Steve Jobs. "If Jobs was idealistic, Cook was practical. But without Jobs, Cook had no counterweight to his dogged pragmatism. Who would provide the creative sparks?"

"The more responsibility Cook took on in the nuts-and-bolts parts of Apple, the more Jobs was freed up for his creative endeavours. Released from customer service and retail management, Jobs spent the last decade of his life dreaming up the iPod, iPhone and iPad," wrote Adam Lashinsky, author of Inside Apple.

But we know that Steve Jobs was only part of the creation of these devices: famous Apple names such as Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall and of course Jony Ive – never mind hundreds more – played vital roles in making them what they are. Though Jobs no doubt provided a huge amount of direction to the iPhone, elevating his role to that of 'inventor' is a pernicious dismissal of the brilliant work of others.

Jobs considered Apple his greatest creation, and as long as it continues to hold dear the philosophies that made it great, it will thrive.

Source : techradar.com