Btw I don't think there's evidence that Apple has given up on the desktop. Only that their last few big product releases have been in the iPhone/iPad space. Like any company (and perhaps more so than Microsoft) they have a finite number of internal staff, especially in key roles and with key talents (eg. 1 Jobs, 1 Ive), and I'd bet that there would be some internal decision to focus and do something like a product/release sprint. Plus, there's probably a lot more room for innovation in the phone/tablet space than in the desktop space, so it seems reasonable to want to strike while the iron is hot. If you can link to some quote where Jobs has said something equivalent to "we're giving up on the desktop space", I'll retract my argument.
It's hard to keep growing a company as big as Apple. Maybe they need to spin-off the desktop division into a separate company that can innovate independently of their mobile devices.
Apple is fighting too many competitors at the moment. It used to just be Microsoft, but Google's dominance in smartphones and slow but constant pressure in tablets and "good enough for most people" laptops is causing the company to lose focus.
Microsoft also traditionally didn't have a credible hardware story, giving Apple a complete vertical integration story. Now both major competitors are vertically integrating (Microsoft with Windows + Surface and Google with Android/ChromeOS + Pixel).
I think Apple is having to choose where they're going to focus and tbh, the Mac line is a smaller line of business for the company. If you simply don't use a laptop/desktop at all, then nobody cares that you can't connect your other devices cleanly to it, your other devices are your primary computing devices.
Microsoft doesn't have a good story on the phone front, but it's not inconceivable that they'll try again with a shrunk down surface line if the it proves successful enough.
Google's desktop story is also incomplete, but they're moving rapidly towards something if they ever stop having OS confusion.
The iPad Pro is large and powerful enough that it basically can be the "good enough for most people" computing device. And they have a cohesive ecosystem from small to large in the iDevices.
There's no significant future for Apple with the Mac line and the company is allergic to commodification in ways that their competitors aren't (and that's where that line is heading). Apple is more likely to keep playing with iDevice sizing and software than to continue dedicated serious resources to keeping the Mac line alive.
I'm not calling it a deathwatch yet, but it's clear it's a backburner line of business for the company.
Attempting to see all this from as wide a perspective as possible, I think it's only natural given the incredibly fast pace at which mobile is developing right now. The mobile industry is in the middle of a massive renaissance, Apple somehow ended up right at the center of it, and it just makes sense to focus all their resources on it while they have the advantage.
In a few more years, as this new generation of mobile matures, Apple will probably shift back to the desktop as the pieces begin to drift together for the next generation there.
Re:cannibalization, Apple is more than willing to cannibalize their products - just see iPod Nano v Mini, iPhone v iPod, iPad v Mac, iPad 2018 v iPad Pro. It's part of their playbook to cannibalize themselves, so that competitors don't wind up sneaking in market segments. This is enabled by organizing the company functionally rather than by product line, which lets them avoid the 'strategy tax' of pre-existing divisions that own products wanting to keep those products alive (bureaucracies self-perpetuate and all that).
That said, a phone that converts to a desktop (at least in how I think OP and others who bring this up think of it) is not part of the playbook, because its making the device do double-duty in UI/UX. See iPad not having a mouse.
I think Apple's perspective is that the glue that ties mobile UX to seated/desktop UX together is the cloud, and to your point, that involves multiple devices. The exception is non-interactive content (AirPlay), which third parties can license.
Apple is doomed because they're not focusing on desktop computers? Um..... what?
Alternately: Apple is ignoring desktop computers because the market is mobile and laptops, and really it's just corporations and enthusiasts that will go out of their way for a desktop... ya know, the kinds of people that aren't going to buy a Mac anyway. So why should Apple focus on a market that they're making obselete?
I wish I had saved the article but I remember reading somewhere (and just paraphrasing here) that the team that works on the iPhone make it good enough so you'll use your iPad (tablet) less, then the iPad team makes it so good you'll use your MacBook less, and so on. I think it's great forward thinking to be always trying to put one of your largest product lines out of business as a way to constantly innovate. In so doing, you hopefully have less chances of having to lay off tens of thousands of people because you tried hard to stay ahead of the curve.
I'm not saying its the end of Apple. There was no end of IBM or MS either, in fact while both companies were losing developer mindshare they were making record profits.
I'm talking about a much more nebulous concept of a company as a thought leader, one that people follow. There was a time when the rumor of MS entering a market would cause competition to shut down. Now nobody blinks an eye when MS ships an actual product that competes with them.
And in that regard, I think we're seeing the end of Apple's role as a technologically interesting company (at least wrt software). For example it used to be pretty much only Apple and a few exclusive MacOS developers who actually cared about design. Now designing thinking has gone mainstream all while Apple seems to be busy ignoring everything from their classic HIG.
Agreed on a lot of your points. After owning Apple stock for several years, I'm considering selling it now.
It looks to investors that Apple has run out of ideas, or don't have the design instincts Jobs did and their well has run dry. Sure they've introduced smaller versions of existing products, but where is the next Apple product which is going to make waves and disrupt industries like their other products?? The investors haven't heard anything, and I think Wall Street is getting itchy about the long term prospects of a company whose product ideas seem to have evaporated when Jobs passed away in October of 2011.
Is lack of talent the only reason to discontinue a product? My money is on the more general concept of focus, and specifically focusing on the future. This is not a new thing, Apple has always operated this way, so it's totally in character now as it was during the Jobs era.
I definitely believe Apple has a plan far beyond what we are privvy to, and that that plan is focused on the long-term. But that said I'm skeptical of Apple's to deliver on the next big thing. Amazon and Google are the ones on the cutting edge of cloud services which I believe are shaping the next sea change, and Apple is playing catchup. I'm definitely biased, but I feel like nerfing the Mac and shrinking it's accessory line could lead to a reverse halo effect where all the influencers leave, and before Apple knows what happened their App Store ecosystem dries up and all the cool stuff is now happening somewhere else.
Absolutely agreed with that. The key is they insist and hence they failed in the desktop to fight WinTel, then they go to try non-Desktop. iPod, iPhone, iPad etc. The MAC is left abandon quite awhile. And I am not sure it is still a big business enough for them.
Think of it this way. Imagine that Apple just came out of nowhere and released the iPhone, iPad, and iPod line. Do you think their next move would be to launch a line of proprietary computers?
If you pitched that idea to Jobs, you'd probably be looking for work the next day. It would be that dumb.
While I agree that trying to challenge Apple is a mistake, the problem with your suggestion is that Apple _already_ has entered the enterprise market.
Big Fortune 500 companies are rolling out iPhones and iPads because enterprise employees want them, and they meet the list of required enterprise features: Exchange support, remote provisioning and app deployment, VPN, remote/incorrect PIN wipe and encrypted storage. That and a rich app ecosystem covers 90% of enterprise usage.
Unless BB offers truly unique, compelling features that employees _want_, you're only going to come off as the sad employee that has to use the crappy clunky phone that you got from work rather than an elite member of tha BB gang.
If they manage to make a great phone that employees want, they might as well sell them as upmarket consumer phones as well. But as you said, I don't think they'll succeed in competing in that space, so I think the ship has sailed.
To make an analogy, Apple could have decided to focus exclusively on shipping Macs for media professionals and education, where they had the biggest user base in 1997. However, had they not come up with products that were unique and compelling in the PC, music player and mobile markets, they would never have had the success they've had.
Instead, they might have ended up like SGI.
Unless and until there's a fundamental philosophy change at Apple, I don't see them being successful in the enterprise market. I'm in education, and we're a fairly flexible-yet-enterprise-y place, and we've constantly been burnt by Apple's lack of exposed forward planning (even when we spend literally millions of dollars with them annually).
I'll believe Apple is seriously interested in the enterprise market when there's a docking port on the MacBook. Either that, or they'll hoodwink everyone into doing what we were told before: buy a laptop and a desktop for people, and sync between the two.
Has it? Apple's move to the exceptionally closed has only proved profitable in handheld devices and as these devices become more powerful it's going to stagnate like the Mac system.
Apples complete refusal to implement Flash is a prime example of this. They want to lock their users into paying for games that they can play freely online if only they could use flash.
With the Dell Streak expected to have flash support and almost as powerful CPU as many netbooks, Apple is already falling out of the market. Smart phones are taking the step to mini-tablet PC's and Apple is vehemently opposing the steps necessary to keep it competitive.
It's a shitty business model; Apple just deployed it where it doesn't make a blind bit of difference . . . until now.
When people suggest Apple has an evil plan to impose the walled garden on our laptops and desktops, and turn all of our computers into appliances, I roll my eyes. But their neglect of the Mac Pro lends those arguments at least a little bit of credence.
On the other hand, despite Apple's huge cash reserves, I'm sure their human capital resources are limited. With iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks as wildly successful as they are (and for good reason, IMO), it would be really, really stupid not to allocate most of their resources to these products, and push for the major updates there.
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