Posted on 01/12/2019 3:33:51 AM PST by dennisw
The iPhone is arguably the most valuable product in the world, representing the backbone of Apple Inc.'s half-trillion-dollar hardware business and undergirding its software-peddling App store. It remains the envy of consumer-product companies world-wide.
If history is any indication, though, America's favorite handheld device will someday take up residence with the digital camera, the calculator, the pager, Sony's Walkman and the Palm Pilot in a museum. Although it's hard to imagine the iPhone dying, change can sneak up rapidly on contraptions that are deeply entrenched in American culture.
Consider it was as recently as the mid-1990s when I spent an hour a day during my senior year in high school in a room full of electric typewriters learning to type. Today, I spend most of my working hours using that skill to bang away on a keyboard, but I have rarely touched an actual typewriter in 25 years.
"Over time, every franchise dies," said Nick Santhanam, McKinsey's Americas practice leader in Silicon Valley. "You can innovate on an amazing mousetrap, but if people eventually don't want a mousetrap, you're screwed."
Kodak, Polaroid and Texas Instruments are all examples from the recent past of companies that held too tightly to an old idea. Today's tech giants, ranging from Netflix (having already reinvented itself to be dependent on advertising-free streaming video) to Google parent Alphabet Inc. (counting advertising as 86% of revenue), should take note of those painful demises to avoid the same fate.
FULL ARTICLE AT SOURCE
(Excerpt) Read more at marketscreener.com ...
FULL TEXT of originally a WSJ article
Phone, wallet, keys.
Arguably the iPhone is just a recent iteration of the typewriter, with computers and word processors and personal computers, since morphed into laptops, increasingly sophisticated variations on the original typewriter.
Put voice commands, and eventually thought commands, in as input devices and you’ll have simply added a little more innovation.
Way back, the typewriter was a refinement upon the pen, the stylus, etc.
I think the iPhone was very much a status symbol; like a wristwatch was back when they were mechanical. The glamor is gone from it. Just like the mechanical watch gave way to the cheap electronic watch. It was no longer worth the price difference to get a mechanical watch when you could have an equal or better product for a fraction of the money. And, like the attempt to make mechanical watches sell as luxuries by adding diamonds and gold, I saw a phone case that cost more than my house and cars together. (It was for sale in Saudi Arabia.)
As far as iPhones go, the bloom is off the rose. It’s just a commodity now. iPhone pricing in China has fallen precipitously as a result. (China’s markets are a bellwether for status symbols.)
boy I have to tell you that the apple watch is quite the status symbol among the twenties and thirties set.
What I love is how users of iPhones and other Apple products are always proudly preening when they have an appointment for help at the “genius bar”.
As if they themselves are somehow geniuses needing to go into a store for help in using their tech products right!
We all willingly walk around with locating trackers, spending trackers, banking trackers, mail, phone, and messaging trackers, and pay a company for the privelidge of being spied on and hacked in every aspect of our lives.
It’s easy to predict that the iPhone and current cell phones in general will be replaced by something else, if I could figure out by what and when, I’d never have to work again.
I don’t disagree. Have a flip.
There was a time when people lived in small communities and the chief source of entertainment was keeping track of the other members of the community. In a way, we have made a full circle.
If one wished anonymity, moving to a new town was necessary.
Not sure where I read the quote, but here it is ...
The biggest question that individuals will have to answer in the the next few years is "How much of my independence and freedom am I willing to give up for the convenience these devices offer?"
So...they are pretty much your finger in the sand. And that still works on dusty football fields around America.
“I don’t disagree. Have a flip.”
I have bad news. We replaced DH’s flip last month. They still flip, but are going all 4G, and have operating systems like smart phones. His LG is on Android. It’s very “pissifying” (is that a word?) And annoying.
Good news for Buick, then.
The iPhone will be replaced by a newer iPhone. It's not going anywhere. The title comparing it to a Polaroid or a Walkman is silly. Those devices did one thing.
Ford has been making the F-series pickup truck since 1948. Apple can expect the iPhone to enjoy the same run.
Personally I think pagers are in line for a comeback. I don’t know about you but my phone has become worthless. I get ten telemarketer calls a day saying I am preapproved for $250,000 or I should buy their health insurance or some crap. I can see how a pager would help filter the trash.
I do think it is funny how I can get a watch for under $100 bucks that will tell me the correct time, day, date, atmospheric pressure, and lots of stuff and needs only a new battery every couple years. A Rolex has to have the accurate date input manually 6 times a year.
“Just like the mechanical watch gave way to the cheap electronic watch. It was no longer worth the price difference to get a mechanical watch when you could have an equal or better product for a fraction of the money. And, like the attempt to make mechanical watches sell as luxuries by adding diamonds and gold...”
Now just hold on thar...
Watches are my one guilty pleasure. Wearing a watch isn’t about knowing what time it us. Also you don’t need diamonds or gold as there are stainless steel mechanical watches that sell for 10’s of $thousands, and people virtually line up to buy them. A run-of-the-mill entry level Rolex will set you back around $5k. A Patek Philippe dealer won’t even talk to you unless they know you, even if you are waving cash under their nose. Haute horology is not going away anytime soon.
That said, I got G-shock watches for my nephews for Christmas 2017. They thought they were cool, but they don’t wear them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.