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Apple's Annual Sales Fall For First Time Since 2001 (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNNMoney: Apple just posted its first annual sales decline since 2001, the year it launched the iPod and kicked off a tremendous run of groundbreaking products. The tech company revealed Tuesday that annual sales fell to $216 billion in the 2016 fiscal year ending September 30, from a record $234 billion in 2015. The sales decline is closely connected to the falling sales for the iPhone, which remains Apple's largest source of revenue. Apple sold 45.5 million iPhones in the September quarter, down from 48 million iPhones in the same quarter a year earlier. That marks the third consecutive quarter when iPhone sales and overall revenue have declined from a year prior. Many analysts have raised concerns that the global smartphone market is saturated. Customers are taking longer to replace their phones. And Apple's latest iPhone is a dead ringer for the previous two models, eliminating some of the desire to upgrade. The good news is that this sales decline may prove to be a blip and not the new norm. Apple is projecting that it will post sales of $76 billion to $78 billion in the upcoming quarter, up from $74.8 billion a year earlier.
Our design and products are the BEST.
"Performant" != "Fast". A performant thing is something which performs well, by whatever metrics are applicable to that thing. A performant algorithm is one that has both low time and space complexity. A performant web browser is one that renders the page quickly while also implementing the most web standards. A performant mobile device is one that is fast while drawing a minimal amount of power so that its battery lasts and it doesn't overheat. So "performant" is a very performant word, as it is a single word that means exactly what it needs to mean.
I've said it before and I will say it again: Without Jobs Apple is toast. Just like the last time Jobs left.
The original Mac under Jobs' tenure was an utter failure. Lots of press, disappointing sales. Many years after the Mac's introduction the Apple II was still paying the bills at Apple, carrying the Mac project. Jobs' Apple III (note 3 not 2) was a failure. Job's NeXTcube was a failure.
The Mac only became successful after Jobs was gone, when design features he opposed were introduced. An open box, slots, etc.
The iMac G3 of 1998 was Jobs' first successful computer. Prior to that he misread the market, the customers wants/needs over and over again.
That said what really made Macs popular was the shift to Mac OS X, which Jobs deserves some credit for since it was a fork of NextOS, combined with the shift to Intel CPUs. Basically once people no longer had to make a choice between Mac OS or Windows, but could dual boot or effective emulate (the cpu architecture no longer had to be emulated so performance was many times faster) so they could have both operating systems on the same machine. This is when Apple's Mac sales rapidly doubled.
In short while his record with digital music players and mobile devices is pretty damn good, Jobs' record with computers is pretty spotty, more likely a failure than a success. The Apple II was successful in part because Wozniak ignored Jobs on important design decisions and the Apple II had to carry Jobs for many years when he was able to bully people to get his way and those projects failed.