Silicon Valley Veteran On Apple: Company Has Become Sloppy, Missed Updates, Delayed Refreshes (chuqui.com)

Silicon Valley veteran Chuq Von Rospach's blog post, in which he has criticized Apple for the things it did last year, has received quite a few nods from developers, analysts and users alike. Von Rospach, who has previously worked at Apple, has lambasted at the company for, among other things, how it has handled the Mac Pro, a lineup that hasn't seen any refresh in ages, and the AirPort routers, which too have been reportedly abandoned. From the post:Back when I was running most of Apple's e-mail systems for the marketing teams, I went to them and suggested that we should consider dumping the text-only part of the emails we were building, because only about 4% of users used them and it added a significant amount of work to the process of creation and testing each e-mail. Their response? That it was a small group of people, but a strategic one, since it was highly biased towards developers and power users. So the two-part emails stayed -- and they were right. It made no sense from a business standpoint to continue to develop these emails as both HTML [and] text, but it made significant strategic sense. It was an investment in keeping this key user base happy with Apple. Apple, from all indications I've seen over the last year and with the configurations they've shipped with these new laptops, has forgotten this, and the product configurations seem designed by what will fit the biggest part of the user base with the fewest configuration options. They've chopped off the edges of the bell curve -- and big chunks of their key users with them. The most daunting sentence from his post, according to Nitin Ganatra, who worked at Apple for 18 years and headed engineering of iOS, is, "If you just look at the numbers, things are okay."

Comments

since when has it been a business decision

[nimbius]

It made no sense from a business standpoint to continue to develop these emails as both HTML [and] text, but it made significant strategic sense.

the fact that this rose to the level of a marketing decision shows that as far back as Chuq's tenure, Apple has been on a steady decline. As an email admin, let me spell this out for you. You supply email in text and HTML format because people who do real and meaningful work on desktops and laptops want to see the text, not HTML. these are the same people who still use real F keys, a real escape key, and consider removing the headphones from a cellphone a form of jackassery, not bravery.

See auto manufacturers and racing

[jasenj1]

Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, etc. don't make race cars and compete in things like 24 Hours of LeMans, WRC, etc. because those cars and those events make them money. They do it because 1) It provides a venue to show off cool new technology 2) It provides them marketing cachet, name recognition, and bragging rights.

Apple has lost sight of this. Apple is happily making Corollas & Caravans - which sell large volumes and make a profit. But it has forgotten the high-performance end of the bell curve where the bragging rights are earned and new tech is shown off.

Apple seems stuck in profit trap

[swb]

Any potential innovation costs money and fails to produce the same levels of profit as existing products will be seen as a failure, so Apple is stuck doing nothing because its the most profitable thing in the short term.

The problem seems to be by the time the highly profitable products stop producing huge levels of profit they won't have any new products available because no innovation is likely to produce the same profits, so they don't do any innovation as it will be only a cost or cut in overall profitability.

What I'm curious is whether investors will be happy with innovation-less profit or whether they will respond to public criticism of lack of innovation and put pressure on Cook to pursue more meaningful innovation even if it hurts short term profitability. And more meaningful innovation means real stuff, not grinding users for headphone dongles or new wireless headphones.

Re:Apple seems stuck in profit trap

[DickBreath]

Apple was once a great company. Back in the day Apple was ahead of the industry in just about every way. BYTE magazine wrote that the history of the microcomputer industry was an effort to keep up with Apple. In the 1980's and 90's I was a card carrying Apple fanboy. Then I got hooked on Linux in 1999.

I parted ways with Apple when OS X would not run on the several $5000+ computers in my household. I had fond feeling towards Apple, but was no longer interested in their products.

When the iPhone came out, I realized that in five years everyone would have such a phone, but with a dozen different brand names other than Apple. Just like the Mac vs PC when Apple would not license it's OS.

When Apple became a litigation factory, I realized that the end was near. Slide to unlock, really? Rectangles with rounded corners? Apple argued in a foreign court patent suit that Samsung could have made their tables thicker and heaver, as if thin and light were some exclusive Apple right. Here we are ten years later from 2007 to 2017 and the headlines in industry trade rags are beginning to paint the fall of Apple. Hey, it happened to IBM. Then eventually to Microsoft who is trying to grasp at relevance and embrace the open source world. Why can't Apple fall? Unthinkable? Think different! It could happen. (And some of us would say good riddance after enduring the snobbish fanboys.)

Today's Apple fanboys are little more than ditto heads. They protested that Apple's was not a patent troll. Yet Apple and Microsoft together formed Rockstar, one of the biggest patent trolls around, in order to shield their good brand names while patent trolling.

It may just be what happens to big corporations when they grow past a certain point. Hey Google are you paying attention? They become too conservative. They can't rock the boat that generates today's huge profits. They can't invest too many resources into the future. They don't have vision. They can hire people with vision, but then they won't believe what those visionary people tell them. It seems to be a common story of successful tech companies.

If Apple does go away, it won't be overnight. Not quickly. And maybe not even completely. Just a gradual slide into irrelevance. But Apple was once great, and had a good long run. And from my once fanboy days, I'll point out a saying of the early 1990's: people have been predicting the demise of Apple every year since 1981.

Re:While I don't totally disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not saying that emails are the problem. The email story is one illustration how Apple used to consider "power users and power developers" instead of just the mass-market consumer. Apple used to say "only 4% of people use this, but they are still important;" while Apple now says "only 4% of people use this, f*ck them."

Re:how often are Mac Pro's upgraded?

[aaarrrgggh]

In a rational market this would mean that the price drops between cycles.

I get how it is hard for Apple to justify a sku that brings in less than $50MM a year (or some random number), but the problem is Apple is built on mindshare. Pithy example, but my company switched to iPhones (back in the day) because of me, our sole Mac user; Apple no longer makes a computer well suited for my personal needs. This leads to erosion in core markets over time, and is hard to recover from.

So, sure... there is no profit to be had in a better Mac Pro, or a laptop that has built in Ethernet, or whatever. Worse, the designers run things now, and other functional items are eliminated for better visual appearance.

Tail wags the dog...

[rockmuelle]

As a developer/power user who sits at the far end of the bell curve, here's what I see as the folly of Apple's ways.

I switched to Macs after working on a beta version of OS X in the late 90s. Unix + sensible desktop was enough to keep me off the Linux train for daily use. That the hardware was also well designed with a good level of performance was also important. For the next 10 years or so, that held true.

But, in the last 5 years:

- the hardware has stagnated (e.g., I'd really like to buy a MacMini for my kids, but there's no way I'm shelling out Apple prices for 3 year old processors)
- new hardware decisions make it difficult to use existing peripherals (music is a hobby - no way am I dropping a few grand on new audio interfaces just b/c I upgraded my Mac and need to support new ports)
- Apple has ignored sensible design decisions made on the non-Apple side of the world (specifically, touch screens on laptops - my wife as an HP for work and the touch screen is useful, those old studies that claim otherwise are just that, old and dated).
- The OS continues to have a slew of undocumented features that may or may not be useful, but definitely affect performance (the real dig here: just document the features Apple, I hate discovering things OS X has done for years on random blog posts)
- The iPhone and OS X still don't work well together

Why does this matter from the perspective of the bell curve and my place on it? Simple: I switched not only my family, but also my company over to Macs. The middle part of that curve was filled by people following people like me into the Mac universe. I'm seriously considering dropping Macs for computer use and (horror of horrors) going back to Windows + Linux. If I go that way, it's just a matter of an upgrade cycle or two before those in my sphere of influence abandon Macs as well.

Apple seems to have forgotten that it's us geeks that couldn't wait for Linux on the Desktop that helped drive adoption 15 years ago. Kinda like the Democrats forgetting that the working class matters.

-Chris

Re:Which customers?

[ArhcAngel]

Then you missed the example already given. Apple kept outdated tech in their email system to accommodate a very small but crucial market segment. Now Apple is removing features large swaths of their consumer base still use. Anecdotal as it may be I know of several people who were waiting to upgrade their iPhone when 7 came out and decided to get a Samsung device because of the headphone jack. It may not hurt Apple in the short term but it will if they continue to alienate their customer base.

There's an opportunity here for Google

[timholman]

Right now I'm using a mid-2012 MacBook Pro that I've just upgraded with a Samsung SSD. The reason I chose to upgrade the storage instead of buying a new MacBook Pro was that I couldn't justify spending $3000+ for a laptop that was unrepairable and unexpandable, and would have to be sent to the recycle bin if it broke after the AppleCare warranty expired. I'm hoping this upgrade will get me through the next couple of years, but what happens after that?

At some point I will need to buy a new laptop. So what are my choices, if not another MacBook? A Windows 10 machine? Absolutely no way in hell. Put Linux on a PC laptop? Maybe, but avoiding the time and effort of supporting a Linux installation is the entire reason I use a Mac.

But what if (for example) Google decided to take a page from Apple's playbook? What if Google were to develop its own laptop with a real Linux / UNIX / BSD OS with a nice GUI, and support it the way Apple does? Not just a Chromebook, but a laptop with a new OS to complete with MacOS? And what if that laptop had a sane upgradeable / repairable premium design, without Apple's obsession for thinness and appearance over functionality?

If such a laptop existed, I would buy it in a heartbeat. And when I did, I would almost certainly switch from an iPhone to a Pixel, and from the Apple to the Google ecosystem. Everyone says "Google is the new Apple", so why shouldn't that be true? Google has the culture and the resources to play the game by Apple's rules, and take a huge chunk of mindshare away from Apple. Not to mention the fact that Google apps like Assistant and Maps already leave Siri and Apple Maps in the dust.

There needs to be a new option for laptop and desktop machines. Apple and Microsoft have both gone off the deep end, pursuing development paths that are leaving power users in the cold. Google could step in and become the new king of the mountain in very short order - if it has the will to do so.

Re:Which customers?

[powerlord]

All true, but the real question is also if they are losing the "Decision Makers".

These are probably not either the "highest revenue-generating customers" OR the "most profitable customers", but are the ones that influence others in their purchasing decisions.

Personally, I buy computers infrequently. My home computer is ~4-5 years old, my phone is 3 years old. I am not the "Ooo shiny! Must have!" buyer who is going to make Apple money every year with a new phone purchase. However I also have been responsible for collectively having 5 people get iPhones, and 4 MacOS purchases based primarily on my recommendation. Will I still be recommending Apple products? Probably, but it will be much more qualified. Windows 10 is pretty good also for most users, and Apple's treatment of hardware is pretty abysmal from my perspective making it harder to recommend them.

End result, I may only be two sales, but if I don't see them as serving my needs, they may lose 11 sales total (mostly from people who fit their bell curve) because the decision maker is now outside the curve.

On the scale of Decision Makers, I'm peanuts compared to real Influence Peddlers such as reviewers, or other vocal critics that Apple is now hearing from. I would also disagree with TFA. While I agree Apple isn't a car with its engine on fire, I disagree that it is merely an engine that needs some tuning. It is an engine with the timing belt failing. It needs to be properly replaced/fixed soon, or the whole engine is likely to come to a crashing halt when you least expect it and in a way that will be very difficult to repair after the fact.

Software quality is my biggest disappointment

[Tangential]

I've been an OS X user since 2006 when Intel Macs arrived. I was strictly a linux user for the prior 7 years having abandoned Windows in the late 90s.

The reason I went to OS X was that its *nix under the covers (and gave me all of the programming/scripting power I needed) and also was incredibly stable. I would literally go for months without rebooting and without native (X86, not PPC emulated) apps crashing...at all...ever.

I feel that from a stability POV OS X peaked around 10.6. Ever since then, a pattern of increasing crashes and decreasing reliability has followed every release. The amount of instability is still very small, but when as a user you are used to 0 problems, it is very frustrating. (iOS seems to have followed a similar trajectory lately as well.)

I don't know what's happened to the QA process at Apple and I also don't see the point in rushing out a new OS every year. I would love for them to go back to the simpler, more stable approach that they have 5-6 years ago.