Apple under CEO Angela Ahrendts? Hmm ... (beard stroke) Cloud king Marc Benioff has hailed "future Apple CEO" Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s new head of retail and online sales, as "the most important hire Tim Cook has ever made". Some have interpreted the tweet by Benioff, chief executive of software-as-a-service success Salesforce.com, as more than just a bit of encouragement for his …
"Meanwhile, Apple has lost its global smartphone crown"
The Register seems to have forgotten that news is over 2 years old. It seems to me:
1) The Register forgot Samsung has been selling more smartphones than Apple for some time. The Crown Samsung have not yet claimed is profit (there was an erroneous story about Samsung taking more profit on Smartphones than Apple back in July, which The Register reported on, but then failed to correct their story when it turned out it was way off the mark). Also Samsung still aren't selling more of their Galaxy range than Apple are iPhones, but that's a different matter.
2) They Published a story about it as though it was news (which if it had been news would have been top of Techmeme for a day or so).
3) Have persisted with the story to save face, even though there is no news.
@SuccessCase - >""Meanwhile, Apple has lost its global smartphone crown"
The Register seems to have forgotten that news is over 2 years old." "They Published a story about it as though it was news..."
Ah, but did it's such a heart-warming story. Good overcoming evil. The dragon being slayed. David defeating Goliath. You can never tell a great story too often.
"But really, where’s the kind of paradigm shift Apple’s famous for – which famously had bigger companies like Microsoft at first ignoring it and then scrambling to copy?"
BOLLOX, and here's why:
In the 80's when PC's made their way into mainstream business, people where buying green screen with legacy software. The, I suppose "fashionistas" of the time, were already looking to the future. During this time, consumers started to purchase said machines.
The next step was WIMP. It started to make trails in the business world and shortly after most businesses had WIMP PC's. Those who had their green screen for 18-24 months were frustrated at having to shell out again for the up-to-the-min tech.
Of course those looking forward were already eyeballing the new developments in faster processors/memory and improvements in the OS, offering a wider range of services. Bye bye sneaker net!
The green screens were dumped and consumers moved on again and again and again.
The same story with smartphones. Those who are forward thinking were using the commander (and other products) effectively daily. Apple released the iPhone which made the same functionality look and feel better. By 2007 consumers where a lot more savvy than they were in 80/90’s and smartphone ownership really took off.
Of course, except for tech journos who seem to be stuck in the past, those of us who are forward thinkers are looking for the next development in OS/hardware and see Apple as starting to look like a relic of a bye one era, whilst the great unwashed are still “astounded” by 2007 tech!
On the whole, the plebs are usually ½ decade behind those looking forward.
There hasn't been that many big leaps in computer interface technology and in the two big leaps (GUI and multitouch) Apple released the first commercially available and successful product.
Of course if you think a big leap is cramming computer interfaces with millions of gimmicks and features then of course Samsung would be a big innovator.
Have you not noticed that generally the big computer ideas tend to come out of Europe and the US?
WWW - British scientist.
Intel - US
Apple - US
ARM - UK
Microsoft - US
The East is great at process and manufacturing innovation. Making chips, screens and all the grizzly shit, but they don't seem to have any success in changing the industry. Either that or the industry at large doesn't see that any alternative to x86 or ARM is going to succeed.
"The East is great at process and manufacturing innovation. Making chips, screens and all the grizzly shit, but they don't seem to have any success in changing the industry. Either that or the industry at large doesn't see that any alternative to x86 or ARM is going to succeed."
Missed the point!
"I call Dunning-Kruger ..
'those of us who are forward thinkers are looking for the next development in OS/hardware ...'
You're not a forward thinker .."
and you'll NEVER be in the anything but stuck in the past, a follower 1/2 decade behind what is really happening. Thanks for clarifying that point!
With sales of "just" 33.8 million iPhones, Apple earned more than Samsung's entire mobile unit (which includes PCs, netbooks and tablets) plus the mobile phone hardware divisions of LG, Nokia, Huawei, Lenovo and Motorola, too.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/30/apple-earned-more-than-samsung-lg-nokia-huawei-lenovo-motorolas-mobile-shipments-combined
"Posted Wednesday 30th October 2013 16:55 GMT Anonymous Coward "
"Of course, except for tech journos who seem to be stuck in the past, those of us who are forward thinkers are looking for the next development in OS/hardware and see Apple as starting to look like a relic of a bye one era, whilst the great unwashed are still “astounded” by 2007 tech!
On the whole, the plebs are usually ½ decade behind those looking forward."
Your 7 downvoters seem to be iFooled owners ( or tech journos)
"She needs to give consumers a reason to keep buying Apple in a market of cheaper alternatives."
Premium brand does not cut it any more!
Premium brand when every chav and their burberry wearing dog has one? HMM I don't think so!
Unless they can better what is already out their, Apple will never experience the whole "wow they are so great" wonderland they live in now.
Well, the cynically quick-and-easy fix to that problem is to jack the prices up to 150-200 percent. Then the unwashed masses won't be able to afford iProducts and they'll start being seen as the exclusive brand that they've always wanted to be.
I'm just saying that most of the 'premium brands' that are conspicuous aren't any better than the regular stuff, but they're blinged up with leather, wood paneling, brushed alumin(i)um, and, most importantly, larger price tags.
What could have been a vaguely interesting speculation on Ahrendts' career prospects at Apple became a reiteration of the same tired old tropes about Apple.
"No innovation since Steve Jobs." Have you seen the new Mac Pro?
"The "cheap" 5C failed to take off." The only people who have ever positioned the 5C that way are journalists who persist in using their brilliant business brains to demand that Apple do things the way everyone else does. The 5C is - as Tim Cook has explicitly stated - Apple's mid-range iPhone, and they are delighted if the more expensive 5S sells better. Can you imagine if it had gone the other way? The headlines would then read "Apple's profit margins endangered by more successful mid-range device!"...
"It feels like Apple hasn't moved on." Apple does those famous paradigm shifts very, very rarely - because they are very, very hard to do. They don't happen on demand, but when the hockey puck strays just far enough from the expected path for a company as brave as Apple to skate towards somewhere new. Otherwise, Apple have always been iterators - they bet on a long-term device and improve it incrementally, year on year. What were the great innovations in the iPhone's life cycle? Adding 3G? Improving the screen? I can remember when adding cut and paste was seen as a big deal.
Tim Cook isn't a visionary, but that's not what Apple mostly needs right now - they need someone who can keep an incredibly lean production process on track. There are enough people in Apple who have got Apple's DNA in their guts (mixed with a bit of Steve Jobs'), and Tim Cook's job is to make sure that Apple is brave enough to keep betting the farm on their instincts. Will Ahrendts add enough to that process? This article sure as heck didn't really attempt to find out.
"Tim Cook's job is to make sure that Apple is brave enough to keep betting the farm on their instincts."
Apple's instincts have nearly taken them down the tubes more than once. In the really bad times Bill Gates bailed them out (although, of course, he did have his own motives).
If I had a farm I'd bet it on my instincts that Apple is going to get that tube ride right, eventually.
And I'd bet it would have been just as likely with Jobs at the helm.
Yes, the 5c is Apple's mid-range phone, priced about 150€ above premium Android and Windows Phone models. At 599€ it is little wonder it isn't making much headway against sub 150€ Android and WP smartphones.
I wish I was on journalist wages, if they consider 599€ cheap!
A really terrible article, clutching at the inevitible straws to fortell impending Apple doom. I wish the Reg would actually write something interesting about Apple instead of repeating the same mindless crap over and over again.
Really, someone I never heard of says something completely off the wall about someone almost no one has heard of before now, and suddenly she is Tim Cook's successor?
Can I have whatever you're smoking, clearly my shit's not string enough
While everyone swoons over the genius of hiring Ahrendts, has anyone bothered to look at where she came from? US$1500 hand bags...$5000 trench coats...you get the idea. And just how does this transfer over to a high volume vendor of consumer products? Or are we expecting Apple to go even further in the direction of exclusive rich kids' toys?
If we believe 'technology futureologists' aka cooler yet geekier versions of Russell Grant, the future of consumer technology will increasingly focus on wearble devices increasingly integrated into the fabric (sorry) of our lives.
Surely Ahrents, with her Burberry pedigree, more than most would be a good bet on how this trend might translate into Apple fanboi nirvana?
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