I fear the slow but inevitable process of what Cory Doctorow calls “enshitification” is grinding through Apple as it has through Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter and all the other major platforms. His thesis, which I suggest reflects experience, is that once an organisation captures sufficient users into a closed system a point comes where it is easier and cheaper to extract rent from existing users than to recruit new ones.
Users face considerable cost of change, be that loss of a social network or the money and effort required to switch to another platform. They can thus be squeezed right up to the point where the cost becomes prohibitive. If you squeeze gently but continuously, the user is the frog in the pot; barely noticing the increasing temperature.
I don’t know the exact figures, but it seems to me that Apples prices set a bound on its user base (rumours of a “cheap” laptop notwithstanding; it won’t be cheaper, just cheaper even if it is more performant than an x86 equivalent). Apple’s prices were in some manner justified by the operating system, software and services it delivered bundled. They provided value.
Now, however, it feels like Apple sees that value to the user as cash left on the table and wants to take it. It’s visible in many places: It’s response to European demands to allow alternative app stores; a move consequent to Apple’s decision to seek a rent rather than compete. The incessant push towards subscription services like Apple Music and News. I can’t open my (paid for) music library without having the subscription version shoved in my face. Likewise the Stocks app and Apple News. Rebundling iWork is just the latest small step.
I’ve gone out of my way to replace Apple apps like Books and Music with third party alternatives so I can avoid the relentless hawking of subscriptions or paid content.
On my iPhone Doppler has replaced Apple Music for music I already own (I use Qobuz as my music streaming service), BookPlayer has replaced Apple Books for audiobooks, and Readwise Reader has replaced Apple Books for ebooks. The worst: flogging free trials for some Apple subscription or other in Settings.
Enshittification is indeed proceeding apace. Consumers are one side of Doctorow’s enshittification coin; businesses that also rely on the platform is the other. I gather developers and consumer service providers are to Apple what advertisers and content creators are to Meta and Google.
I’m not making any bets one way or the other about Apple’s future. I never thought Nokia or BlackBerry could be knocked from the top. It just takes one wrong move and since Steve Jobs has gone so has the innovation (IMO).
The thing is, it’s never one wrong move, it’s lots of small wrong decisions which gradually add up to a large conclusion.
People pick a turning point (e.g. the announcement of the iPhone) but RIM were already on a downward turn before that happened. Nokia selling to MS was a bad decision, but Nokia were wedded to S60 (I think that’s the right name) as an operating system and it was never going to work long term in that format.
In the end, the larger the company, the more difficult it is to make changes, and with smaller or more agile competitors they can change more easily i.e. without a phone, Apple could innovate and shock the whole phone market.
The Smartphone sucked a heck of a lot of air out of electronics and replaced a lot of other devices. I can’t think of much that’s been innovative since the iPhone, Apple or non Apple.
The iPhone (and other Smartphones) completely eliminated the iPod, and they also almost completely took over the camera market as this striking chart shows (good luck zooming in!):
The shame is that there are sectors in which Apple could have innovated and captured markets. Home / SOHO WiFi is one (like Eero); core smart home devices another; NAS a third; and with the introduction of the M-series SoCs, a rack-mounted system like the old X-Server.
Apple’s tight integration of hardware and software could have produced some great systems in these areas and, so long as they participated in the development of and then supported internationally recognised interoperability standards, could have avoided the sort of flak the EU is raising. You can have a monopoly so long as you don’t use it to prevent competition.
I understand Apple getting further into the services model, which we have seen since Apple Music arrived, then AppleTV etc.
But surely, a company the size of Apple with its amazing revenues, can share with their community a little generousity and keep gifting Pages, Keynote and Numbers with full functionality for free?
I am sure I probably would never need the proposed super functionality of the Apple Office suite that comes with the Apple Creative software, and likely won’t buy it, but it just grates a little. It feels like an old friend has become a pyramid scheme seller to some minor degree.
I share a lot of Matt Gemell’s feelings, especially the sense of general disappointment with Apple’s apparent pivot to maximise profit at all costs, but it seems a little unfair to be so harshly judgemental of Tim Cook. He’s one of the most successful CEOs in history for his shareholders, and has a solid record of achievement for his customers too: the invention of Apple Silicon and the seamless and smooth transition genuinely risked the whole company. I genuinely cannot imagine what I would do if I ever found myself in his political context. Being in a position where others are speculating on what he might really believe and want, while he acts publicly to divert and placate a massive, direct threat to his company and values, might be as good as it gets for now.
You don’t have to be a prophet to realise that things are gong to have to change, at Apple, in the role played by people who tech has made richer than imagination, and brought them enormous power and control over the rest of us, the extraction of wealth and even dignity from almost everyone, for the benefit of a very, very few. Apart from anything else, current patterns of ownership and investment make it hard to imagine how something like the iPod or iPhone or even the Mac could ever happen again and we have already run out of time to avoid severe repercussions on our climate and environment of all that.
I hope we, as a planet, find ways to make those changes peacefully, and that Apple manages to change successfully and effectively, even if that means a new CEO and senior leadership fairly soon.
I think that the last year since Trump became the President have done much to tarnish Cook’s legacy. Before this, people could forgive the relatively safe regime he managed because of the success.
I’m not one in general to think “What Would Steve Do” but can’t see anything other than a F you to Trump for everything and anything.
Donate $1m for my inauguration, deify me, bribe me, make me happy, come and see my wife’s new film. I honestly don’t see Steve doing any of those things, and if it led to him being fired by the Apple Board I think he’d have stuck by his principles. I don’t know this for a fact of course, but he never seemed to be one to cowtow.
As I recall Apple’s Airport routers (I had one for a time) sold well for several years, until Apple apparently lost interest and fell behind the advancing technology. And they did the same thing with the Xserves, IMO. I purchased two for my company, one with an Xserve RAID.
Apple is only interested in very high volume items. An item that might be a fantastic product for a smaller company may not sell enough to get Apple’s attention.
That may be one reason Apple totally missed the start of the AI revolution. They were looking for the next big thing in hardware (the Vision Pro, a self driving car, . . .? ). And it looks like the future is going to be software. That can run on just about any kind of connected device.
@Bmosbacker 's ability to identify and post excellent and thought provoking topics and attractive subject titles continues to amaze me. Bravo, sir. Doesn’t feel like clickbait; this one was just beyond my current thought-chaos radius, and I appreciate being taken here.
it comes from Apple’s recent released bundle of the Creative Suite apps.
I resent being pushed into a new subscription for apps that i have had included with my already-considerable annual “apple tax”: HARDWARE. i’m not sure i’m going to follow apple down this path
nor do i pay for Apple-One
but I did simplify my Apple Care by bundling three of my devices, and glad for the simplicity.
iCloud for 2.99 USD should be at 1TB or even 2TB. come on, guys. YOU WILL SELL MORE HARDWARE with more storage to keep local device copies of it. (OK, i’m filing a feedback on this one)
my deepest concern is the turnover of the company to new senior executives.
so many at once means a fundamental shift.
if you haven’t read/listened to “APPLE IN CHINA” and you consider yourself an #applefan, it’s worth it. I had NO IDEA the details of the behind the scenes struggles or the lives sacrificed in those years from Apple folks who burned the candle at both ends.
I was just pissed off about the loss of Newton and left the fold for 15 years.
If John Ternus does become Apple CEO (or whoever else does) one of the first things they should do as an easy win both in the press and Apple users is to move all Apple iCloud storage Tiers up one level e.g. 50gb is free, 200GB is 0.99 per month with 2TB at 2.99 and 4TB at 8.99.
haha true! and shows what i thought i was paying (5.99, but actually 2.99)
this reminds me of when cellular went from analog to digital and Cellular One was bragging about how we’d still get 60 minutes for $25/month – “NO INCREASE in plan cost, but waaay better call quality.” i laughed so hard.
The unlimited plans followed shortly afterward.
hehe. my 1998-grandfathered plan still has me at $0.40/minute airtime and $0.60 long distance, if i’m out of “home area”, and $10/MEGABYTE of data when I’m overseas.
