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Avoiding BlackBerry's Fate: How Apple Could End Up In a Similar Position (marco.org)
It's almost unbelievable today that BlackBerry ruled the smartphone market once. The Canadian company's handset, however, started to lose relevance when Apple launched the iPhone in 2007. At the time, BlackBerry said that nobody would purchase an iPhone, as there's a battery trade-off. Wittingly or not, Apple could end up in a similar position to BlackBerry, argues Marco Arment. Arment -- who is best known for his Apple commentary, Overcast and Instapaper apps, and co-founding Tumblr -- says that Apple's strong stand on privacy is keeping it from being the frontrunner in the advanced AI, a category which has seen large investments from Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon in the recent years. He adds that privacy cannot be an excuse, as Apple could utilize public data like the web, mapping databases, and business directories. He writes: Today, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are placing large bets on advanced AI, ubiquitous assistants, and voice interfaces, hoping that these will become the next thing that our devices are for. If they're right -- and that's a big "if" -- I'm worried for Apple. Today, Apple's being led properly day-to-day and doing very well overall. But if the landscape shifts to prioritise those big-data AI services, Apple will find itself in a similar position as BlackBerry did almost a decade ago: what they're able to do, despite being very good at it, won't be enough anymore, and they won't be able to catch up. Where Apple suffers is big-data services and AI, such as search, relevance, classification, and complex natural-language queries. Apple can do rudimentary versions of all of those, but their competitors -- again, especially Google -- are far ahead of them, and the gap is only widening. And Apple is showing worryingly few signs of meaningful improvement or investment in these areas. Apple's apparent inaction shows that they're content with their services' quality, management, performance, advancement, and talent acquisition and retention. One company that is missing from Mr. Arment's column is Microsoft. The Cortana-maker has also placed large bets on AI. According to job postings on its portal, it appears, for instance, that Microsoft is also working on Google Home-like service.
If AI becomes the next big thing, they will just buy their way into the game with acquisitions. Or they'll buy their way into a whole new market.
Blackberry never had anywhere close to the money Apple does, it's like comparing apples to prime rib.
We were fresh off a seven-night cruise in New Orleans, with a lot of dirty clothes to wash, and our hotel did not have laundry facilities for the guests.
So, I said to my Nexus 6p, "OK, Google: I need a f***ing laundromat."
I never imagined there was so much laundromat pr0n in the world...
As I've often said... Apple Computer: on the brink of oblivion since 1975!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
". . . machine learning is a core competence of Google."
And monetizing consumer data is their core business model.
I will admit that Google's results are often better. However, my privacy has value to me as well, and the cost/benefit doesn't work out in my head. I'll stay with the company that's not trying to build a model of me to sell to advertisers as long as I the service is available. I'm not confident it will be long, since the large population of users that haven't consciously considered the long-term ramifications of so much of their personal data being harvested have established a standard that doesn't weight privacy very highly.
I'll enjoy the availability of alternatives while I can, though.
Why would Apple ever care about your privacy more than their profits?
Two reasons:
1. They really DO have a longstanding corporate culture of NOT selling-out their customer base. That is because they have always fancied themselves as a Hardware company (which they are), who's profits are based on sales of Hardware, not Customer-Data.
2. Because they have (rightly) sensed that they are getting a reputation for being one of the few (or maybe only) large tech companies that does value their Customers' privacy, and as a result, there is no disconnect between that stance and increased profits. In fact, the more the national (and international) mood swings against the Panopticon, the more attractive Apple looks to a lot of people.