Features - QOTW: Has Apple finally lost some of its sheen?

[Namix]

Apple do one thing thats great and thats marketing, they have their market nailed down and unless they start to ship some kind of disease with their products, i suspect they will continue to sell like hot cakes.

Every mistake they make damages this though and id guess they really don't have much fuel left in the marketing tank.

Sheen? well i never really thought they had any after the initial iPhone, that was a really great device and certainly lead the market at the time, everything after that tho has been a steady down ward trend imo and as the general consumer gets more tech savvy their attempt to hide their hardware limitations will lead to large sales declines.

[Spreadie]

Apple never had a 'sheen'. They just make best in class products.

That's a surprising statement, given the recent press coverage:

Phones that can be bent in your pocket.
OS update that bricks your phone.
As yet unpatched vulnerability.

[OilSheikh]

I don't get why these customer keep going back for more and why they sit outside all night to get their hands on the newest gadget they are selling, I pity the fools!
.

Hear hear
I too do not understand why some people queue for a week before the launch date, just to get their hands on some garbage which costs a fortune!

[themandark_uk]

Thats one hell of a lot of phones to replace if their all benders. Did we not live through this once all ready with microsoft xbox 360's.

[iranu]

Hear hear
I too do not understand why some people queue for a week before the launch date, just to get their hands on some garbage which costs a fortune!

It's because the product is seen as giving the owner status. Being the first person to own one in the gang brings 'credibility'. The iphone is just the Raleigh Chopper of the 21st century.

It's like an aga or a fancy coffee machine or the first household to own a microwave. It says hey look at me I'm rich/successful/fashionable. How often do you see the local chav in a pair of Nike Air-Max costing £120 when they are on the dole? Iz is nt poor bruv iz gt da Nike innit.

Same goes for the iphone - it's marketed as something you must have and people simply fall for it. Apple then lock them into rubbish like itunes and the less tech savvy simply don't know of the alternatives.

Just look at Beats headphones (bought by Apple). The are over-priced rubbish, but have 70% of the market because they are heavily advertised using rappers, celebs, footballers and wannabes, which chimes with the plebs desire for recognition and association. Being able to wear the same headphones and use the same mobile phone as your TV celeb hero is a must. Once group think and peer pressure is applied then the fashion snowballs into a kind of mania.

The media love it because they can sell advertising off the back of the stories so hype the product to god like status. How many Apple articles have been released in the last few weeks? Thousands - all click bait.

[LSG501]

Hear hear
I too do not understand why some people queue for a week before the launch date, just to get their hands on some garbage which costs a fortune!

I'm not sure if they do it with new releases too but pretty sure when a new apple store is opened they often give away free stuff, I'd say this is where it all stemmed from. Personally I've got better things to do than sit outside a store for a week lol

[Myss_tree]

I work in an engineering/manufacturing enviroment (welding, fabrication, steelwork, etc) where iPhones are far from suitable. Two colleagues only use iPhone out of work and will not be renewing contracts when they expire, preferring cheap candybar phones like Nokia's which are more robust and less sensitive and should you damage it its not a device that cost hundreds of pounds.
Other smartphones are of course susceptable to similar damage however Samsung,s and HTC's do seem more resilient, still work when damaged (as long as its not to severe) and are cheaper to get repaired.
Having seen the 6 and 6+ in the flesh they are the first Apple phone i would own, but not at the price they command and certainly not for use at work.

[Spreadie]

The iphone is just the Raleigh Chopper of the 21st century.

It's like an aga or a fancy coffee machine or the first household to own a microwave. It says hey look at me I'm rich/successful/fashionable.

That's funny, I don't recall my parents living like hobos for three days in the town centre waiting to purchase my first Raleigh Chopper, a Betamax or their first microwave.

[Dareos]

That would be because your parents showed some common sense

Apple products are generally very well built. They have had some issues, but the higher profile the company and product then the bigger the fallout when something goes wrong. The press and the public love to point fingers when something isnt quite as great as its made out to be, or doesnt live up to expectations.

I am far from being an Apple fanboi, all my devices are windows or android based, but the reason there is that I like a degree of versatility that I find Apple do not offer (itunes anyone) and im not clued on Linux, mainly due to laziness
I will say however that they deserve the bad publicity from the relatively small percentage of broken handsets due to the overinflated prices and marketing strategy. If you say something is the best and consistently harp on about it, make sure it is.

[peterb]

It really makes me smile at the vitriol poured on Apple products. Yes, the marketing may be overhyped, but that is true of many products - both within and outside the computer industry.

Looking within, products marketed as "designed for gamers", Microsofts productivity claims. All vaguely ridiculous. Looking outside, the fashion industry - brand names and 'designer' clothes. Just two examples where expensive products are bought on a name rather than on functionality.

It is choice - I'm running Linux, Windows, MacOS and Android devices here. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. My next purchase may well be an Apple device, because the software for it fits my needs better than any other platform.

But no matter how good a brand name, it will ultimately fail if it doesn't deliver what it says, and in general, Apple (and Microsoft, and Android, and other Linux devices0 do It comes down to what an individual wants from a device, and if brand x delivers it - good luck to them!

[TheAnimus]

It really makes me smile at the vitriol poured on Apple products. Yes, the marketing may be overhyped, but that is true of many products - both within and outside the computer industry.

I'm not aware of anything that is easily objectively compared, which has a company that provides such arrogant advertising.

From their stance on security in the whole I'm a Mac I'm a PC thing, which immediately, obviously, crudely suggested that all PC users are less good characters.

To something as simple as their "This Changes Everything... Again" taglines and the like.

[crossy]

I wouldn't change back to an Android now, purely because of the way I use a phone; iOS just suits me better.
As far as I'm concerned, their recent problems only prove that they're not a perfect company, which no one can expect them to be.

As far as I'm concerned that quote above is the most sensible thing I've read re the latest Apple mess up.

As far as I'm concerned:
1. iPod - definitely still THE music player, although given the rise of smartphones I don't know for how much longer this key brand will exist. After all the top-end Classic got killed this year (a bad move in my book - they could have taken it upmarket);
2. Mac - still strange, but nicely designed. Trouble is that other folks do equally nice designs that are more flexible and cheaper.
3. iPhone - first three models definitely deserved their plaudits (and accompanying high price tag). Heck, I STILL think that the iPhone 3 is "pretty". And compared the alternatives at the time, yes, iOS was just better - no question. Problem is that by the time of the iPhone4, the others had caught up, and the response to the "Antennagate" scandal was half-hearted to say the least. From the 4 onwards they went from "must have/aspirational" to "okay" and now "meh". Personally I see zero justification for any price premium on iPhone, as a competing Windows or Android phone of similar pitch (e.g. Galaxy S5, Z3, etc) will be just as easy to use for 90% of the use cases, and there will be other use cases where Windows/Android is actually better (which is probably heresy to iFans).

So yes, I think the Apple "golden sheen" has wore off and it's about time folks stopped believing the hype and see them for what they are - purveyors of pretty good, but not remarkably so, devices.

[Corky34]

Just a thought, but maybe the fall in Apple's stock price isn't just to do with the two recent blunders.
It was announced on Thursday that Apple is Being Sued for Infringing 13 SanDisk Patents.

[Goobley]

I have a 13" MBA that I use daily, when I'm not at my main desk. I didn't really buy the computer because it was a mac, I went for it because it was significantly cheaper than any other equivalent machine (was lucky to compound a few discounts). I like the build quality, battery life etc of the Apple laptops (battery life is something that in my experience neither windows nor linux can compete on and I need a *nix system in my day to day use).

Not keen on their "desktops". When it comes to mobile devices, my phone still lives in the dark ages of only just a colour screen. I also have an iPad mini, not really due to it being an Apple device, but at the time I couldn't find another 7" with a screen that felt like a sensible aspect ratio.

I think the people who didn't like Apple prior to this may be pleased to have some more reasons to wave around, but I doubt most people will really notice, they'll either be happy with their shiny device, or they won't. I do agree that Apple's quality has gone down significantly in recent years (I've been using their computers all my life - grew up in a mac only household) but that goes with the growth. One day they will fall over, but I think that day is still a while off.

[KeyboardDemon]

As far as I can tell Apple are only good at regurgitating a single idea over and over again. New iPhone is just another iPhone, just like their Mac Books, Macs, iPads etc... the first of anything they do is where the wow factor comes in and the next iteration is usually where it goes out. And now that there's no Steve Jobs, I think there is no one at the company that can bring in the next big wow device. IMHO.

[walibe]

Let's not forget the iCloud issue wasn't actually a hack and the iPhone bending problem when tested on Friday independetly it proved to be a very strong phone but the anti Apple brigade are all over it spinning complete lies. The software bugs keep happening with the first release of each major iOS version which hopefully apple learn from.

You can usually find the market leaders by the tone of the adverts mocking competitors. Remember the I'm a Mac campaign? It was extremely negative but as it has become the market leader it's now other brands (mainly Samsung and Microsoft) that use negative anti Apple campaigns which in my opinion just do not work (samsungs profits are evidence of this) and its a real shame because the surface Pro 3 is a brilliant product which should talk for itself.

As pointed out, Apples share prices always bounce back quickly as they make a lot of money so can be considered a 'sure thing' which is rare in the stock market. I wish Google would consider taking their hardware design completely in house so they control all aspects of android and could make a phone that looks and feels as good to hold as an iPhone. If that was to happen then Apple would need to worry.