How long will Apple's decline continue? Can iPhone 7 turn the tide?

How long will Apple's decline continue? Can iPhone 7 turn the tide?

After Booth's death, Apple's innovation ability is drying up, and its obsession with excellence is disappearing.

As a company with leadership as its core, Apple is deeply marked by Jobs. Jobs's dictatorship over employees, his understanding of consumers, his obsession with products, and his confidence in his own taste have created a series of world-changing products such as iPod, iPhone, and iPad. However, in the post-Jobs era, Apple, which has lost its soul, has gradually lost the dazzling light of Jobs. Although holding on to the huge legacy left by Jobs, his successor Cook listened to the voice of users and released products such as iPad mini and iPhone6, which still maintain a strong momentum, but they are no longer great. Apple's innovative soul has been lost.

In the Steve Jobs era, iOS, app store, capacitive touch, multi-touch, gyroscope, and retina screen were all great innovations that greatly improved the user experience. The Touch ID fingerprint recognition and large screen in the post-Steve Jobs era were just responses to user needs. 3D Touch and iPad pro can no longer even solve pain points. They can only be regarded as trying to create an itch point, but they can only be said to be dispensable under the current experience. Without strong software experience support, hardware innovation has no meaning. Reflected in the market, Apple's sales fell for the first time since 2003 in 2016, and its profits plummeted 23% compared with last year. Apple's stock price is currently down 0.9% to $98.94. In the past year, the stock has plummeted by about 24%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by 5% during the same period.

Jobs's grasp of language is also very accurate. His evaluation of his products is shocking, but after getting the products, users find that Jobs' words are actually very modest. "iPod will completely change the way you listen to music", "iPhone will make you forget what garbage your previous mobile phone was", "iPad's advantages in entertainment will make you leave the computer", "Once you see the retina screen, you can never go back", every sentence is unbelievable but has become a reality, proving that Jobs knows what consumers want better than consumers do. In contrast, Cook now often says "This is the greatest product we have ever made", but the product has received mediocre response after launch, which can only make us think that these people are now capable of this.

iOS is the reason for success and failure

If Apple has any winning formula that makes it stand out in the mobile phone market, I think most people now would not think it is Apple's excellent hardware, but the iOS system.

iOS, or iPhone OS, was first released by Steve Jobs at the Macworld exhibition on January 9, 2007 for iPhone, and later developed for iPod touch and iPad. Compared with other mobile operating systems on the market, such as Android and Windows Phone, iOS is more closed, while providing higher security and ease of use, and better user experience. It has been updated with nine versions since its release, and is the most powerful weapon for iPhone to fight against other brands of mobile phones.

iOS has great advantages over other mobile phone systems and has attracted a large number of loyal users. However, after Jobs left, this also led to great inertia among Apple's top management, because iOS provides an excellent differentiated experience, which provides Apple's mobile phone brand with huge premium capabilities and user loyalty. The strong appeal of iOS has led Apple's top management to mistakenly believe that as long as the iPhone is slightly repaired in successive generations, it will be sought after by a large number of users. This misconception has continued to this day. It can even be said that the excellence of iOS has obliterated Apple's ability to innovate.

However, after two years of upgrades, the aura of iOS has gradually faded. iOS8 and iOS9 have not made any progress but have regressed. Not only have they failed to provide more complete and novel features, but they can no longer guarantee the stable and smooth experience they have always had. Bugs everywhere, freezes and crashes, which were not related to iOS before, have now become the norm for iPhones and iPads.

Compared with the decline of iOS, Android is catching up

The iOS experience used to be completely overwhelming compared to the Android user experience. This is because Android uses the Java virtual machine operating mechanism, which greatly reduces the operating efficiency of the hardware. The cost of open source is that more permissions are open to developers and users, which greatly reduces the stability of Android phones. Android requires more hardware configuration support than the iOS system. A few years ago, when mobile computing technology was not well developed, the extremely low hardware configuration made the Android user experience very poor. System freezes, mobile phone freezes, and software forced exits were almost synonymous with Android. In addition, the mobile phone market was still controlled by several major mobile phone manufacturers a few years ago. The flagship models of Samsung, HTC, and MOTO were expensive. Android phones had no advantages over iPhones in terms of user experience or price.

In recent years, this situation has gradually changed. With the improvement of mobile computing technology, the configuration of Android phones has skyrocketed, and the user experience of Android has also greatly improved, gradually catching up with iOS. The participation of a large number of emerging Internet manufacturers has also repeatedly lowered the price of Android phones. Now you can get a usable Android phone for a few hundred yuan. For a price of 2,000 yuan, you can basically get an Android phone with an experience that is almost as good as that of the iPhone, while the price of the iPhone is more than 5,000 yuan.

It can be said that Apple is on the brink of crisis. Although Apple will not be destroyed immediately thanks to the good foundation laid by Steve Jobs and the loyal fans he has cultivated, the poor market response of iPhone 6S has already shown us this dangerous signal.

Apple's crisis is not just about product innovation

During the Steve Jobs era, Apple always took providing the best user experience as its minimum standard. It seems to be a simple statement, but in fact it is difficult to implement. Jobs' pursuit of the ultimate experience made him like an autocratic dictator. Designers at the time worked diligently all day, fearing that any design would not suit the CEO's mind. Even Apple employees did not dare to take the same elevator with Jobs, fearing that they would be fired by Jobs before they even got off the elevator.

It cannot be denied that the successor Cook is an excellent businessman, but he is just a businessman. He provided a peaceful working environment for his subordinates in the "centralized" Apple, met the user's demand for large-screen iPhones and small-screen iPads, and even achieved a leap in the company's profits. However, as the CEO of Apple, for countless fans of the Jobs era, Cook's performance can only be described in three words: failing.

Under Cook's leadership, Apple no longer pursues product experience or ultimate product design. Instead, it can abandon the brand image that Apple relies on in order to pursue profits. In order to compete with Google, Apple implemented de-Googleization in iOS, even removing Google Maps, which has a better experience, and instead allowing users to use its own extremely imperfect map app (it may not be effective in China, because it uses AutoNavi Maps due to domestic map policy, and the experience is acceptable); in order to obtain higher profits, it provides a ridiculous 16G starting iPhone capacity, forcing users to buy a larger capacity iPhone with a higher profit margin (don't say Apple didn't realize that the iPad pro has already started at 32G); in order to consume the iPhone 5S accessories that have been hoarded for several years, it launched the iPhone SE. Although it consumed a lot of inventory and made a lot of money, the poor quality was criticized by users, such as the severely yellowed screen.

Even if we don’t talk about the ugly way Apple is greedy for profits, Apple’s product design skills and ability to grasp user experience have also plummeted. Some products that would piss Steve Jobs off have been released one after another. For example, the New iPad, which has a lifespan of only half a year, is hot, freezes, and charges slowly; the iPhone 5, which has serious paint peeling and only has a larger screen; the iPhone 6 Plus, which bends easily and has a terrible screen-to-body ratio; the Apple Watch, which has a poor experience and needs to be charged every day; the iPad Pro, which is a production tool but has no productivity; the Apple Pencil, which is difficult to store and has a weird charging method; the Macbook, which has only one interface and low performance, etc. Any of these products would make Steve Jobs fire someone to strengthen the company.

In this way, the reputation that Jobs had worked hard to build up over the years that Apple products are of the highest quality was ruined. Although it was converted into cash, Apple's future was sold out, which was really not worth it. Once you get used to making money lying down, you will never be able to stand up again. Apple has completely lost the ability to create products that change the world.

iPhone 7 is powerless to change

Someone once said: "There are two kinds of mobile phones in the world, one is an iPhone, and the other is not."

Apple, which once created countless myths, has now fallen from the altar. The departure of Jobs has turned Apple from a company that could not create mediocre products into a company that could not create myths.

Apple, which used to be good at keeping secrets, has been full of loopholes in the past two years. Even before each press conference, everyone already knows almost everything about the content. Currently, a large number of spy photos and rumors about the iPhone 7 are circulating on the Internet. Based on the experience of the past two years, the credibility is relatively high.

The spy photos show that the appearance of iPhone7 and iPhone6 ​​is not much different, except that the upper and lower white bands have been hidden. It is not an improvement in terms of aesthetics, and the appearance and feel that are too similar to the previous two generations are unlikely to attract consumers' interest. In order to further reduce the thickness of the body, it is rumored that iPhone7 will cancel the headphone jack, and the camera will still protrude. This is really a nonsensical design. A design that is a few tenths of a millimeter thinner will not bring about a drastic change in the feel, but the protruding camera and the cancellation of the headphone jack will seriously damage the user experience. It is far less practical than thickening it by a few tenths of a millimeter and increasing the battery capacity and battery life of the phone. Moreover, canceling the headphone jack is really an unwise design, because users have to give up the headphones they are currently using and switch to Bluetooth devices with much worse sound quality, or use adapters in a troublesome way, and they will not be able to charge the phone when using headphones.

Since Jobs' death, people's interest in the speculation and spy photos of the iPhone before its release has been declining year by year. Unlike the previous scenario of imagining the future of mobile phones through the iPhone, people no longer believe that the future of mobile phones lies in Apple, and have accepted the fact that Apple has become mediocre. People no longer look forward to Apple bringing us new changes, but hope that Apple can not cancel the headphone jack, can not make the camera protruding, can increase the screen-to-body ratio, and can design the body beautifully. This is the current Apple.

I believe that no matter what, iPhone7 will still be a hot-selling phone, and many users will habitually upgrade their phones. I also believe that iPhone7 will still bring huge profits to Apple. However, if the iPhone7, which should have been a big change, is really as lacking in innovation as the current rumors say, then Apple will definitely find it difficult to reverse its downward trend. Of course, as users, we certainly still hope that Apple can take advantage of the low tide of iPhone 6S to re-examine its own lack of innovation, reflect on its mistakes in profit-seeking policies, find its original intention of focusing on products, and launch iPhone7, which will change the world again.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.