What is the problem with Apple?

Apple’s biggest problem, by far, is that it’s essentially a hardware company. And so it’s always at risk of suffering the same fate as BlackBerry (and Nokia).

ople loved their BlackBerrys just as much Apple fans love their Apples. I loved mine. But Blackberry’s software got left behind, specifically the lack of a well-executed app marketplace, and so we all switched over to iPhones and Androids.

Hardware companies struggle to create big moats - it’s easy for others to invade especially because there’s always innovation - and hardware is usually less sticky than software.

And with Apple massively dependent on the iPhone, with over 60% or revenues coming from it, the risks are bloody high for a US$815bn company.

I reckon Apple has a 5% chance it does a BlackBerry within a decade, 30% within two…

Apple has a few problems, so I'm not going to limit myself to “the”, but I'll try to keep it short. Or at least by my standards.

Success hides failure, and Apple has perhaps the most successful product of any in all of history (and maybe the biggest we will see for generations to come). The iPhone can hide a lot of failure.

Apple has not historically paid very well compared to the other big tech companies (they rely on asking candidates if they want to make money, or if they want to change the world). That can work out ok, except from talking to more recent ex-Apple employees fewer and fewer real decisions are made by programmers and more and more by management. So you aren't changing the world (at least not into your idea of the future), and you aren't getting paied enough to mindlessly work long hours on someone else's dream. So employee retention (and/or acquisition) seems like a real problem.

In the double edged sword category Apple’s products are very opinionated. If those opinions match yours that is awesome. If they fall in areas you don't care about it is meh. If they oppose your opinions it sucks rocks. For example “products with accurate indirect pointing devices don't need and should not have a direct touch interface & vice versa”, also known as: “touch screen Macs will never exist (unless we change our mind on this point), and if you want mice on iPads you can go pound sand”…oh, and USB-C counts here too (I like it, I know many dispise it, or at least the “if it has USB-C that is the only USB it gets”, which honestly is exactly how Apple always handles port changes, and I'm not talking about “just the last two or three times”, or “just in the last decade”)

In the “it use to be a good thing” Apple didn't make low end products. Except they use to make a mid-end Mac (Mac mini), and now they make a low end product priced like a upper mid end product (Mac mini).

Oh, and, hey, I know the Mac world isn't exactly the number one or number two profit driver, but if you can't refresh a product every other year or so you should probably get rid of it (Mac mini, Mac Pro, and in fact most Mac products at various times in the last few years!)

That's a lot of words, so I'll drop one more and then get out…

…and of course software quality is down now that I have left :-)

(Yeah, not really, Apple has a lot of talent, one fewer good programmer is unnoticeable, but this is my answer, so I get to leave on my joke!)

You need to register as a company to get your business name on the App Store, even if you are a registered business you are forced to use your real name, which looks very unprofessional.

However, it's better then Google, if you sell anything you need to show you physical home address online, apple one sounds better.