Wednesday 11 September 2013

Apple - losing it

Those who know me will be aware that I am a big fan of Apple. Over the years I have been seduced by their sexy kit that does what it says on the tin and has, by and large, lead the market with some great innovation. I have been at the stage where I am almost locked in. In the house we have a main Mac, several i-Pads, i-Pods, Apple TV as well as a couple of i-Phones. All function around our i-Tunes library.

Over the years I have slavishly updated this kit to gain new functionality and all has been well with world. However, for some time now Apple has been struggling. The gap between product launches has increased and the level of practical innovation has slowed. I have increasingly been eyeing larger, brighter and more attractive looking Samsung phones and have even been considering getting another PC although Windows 8 has not encouraged me.

In terms of the phone, I have been prepared to bide my time and set my sights on an i-Phone 6. My existing i-Phone 4 is a couple of years old (maybe more?) but the i-Phone 4S didn't justify the change and, frankly, neither did the  larger i-Phone 5.

The announcement yesterday then that the next mobile phone product would be an i-Phone 5S which appears to offer little more than a finger recognition security feature is a major disappointment. What it really says is that Apple have run out of new ideas and can't justify an i-Phone 6. They have also launched a "cheap" i-Phone with a plastic case which they are calling the 5C (for "Cheap?"). Plastic isn't an improvement on aluminium and it simply isn't cheap at just short of £500. My guess is that this will justify even higher prices for the real deal as launched going forward - the UK price for a 5S with 32g memory will be £629 and the 64g at over £700.

There's something else too. Apple have always delivered improved functionality free-of-charge through their main software releases and it has been available to all Apple customers across the device range. They are now saying that iOS7, will now be released at least initially only to Customers with latest devices. Big mistake Apple. 

I will now look even more closely at those Samsungs. I love the i-Cloud updating across my devices, but it's not a killer application and I can live without it for a better phone from a company that now innovates faster than Apple.

6 comments:

  1. I totally agree. I was a massive iPhone fan but I jumped to the Android ship last year when the iPhone 5 was announced. It just wasn't different enough and being a techie by trade I got bored with it after a 3GS and 4! Samsung are good but they're starting to get as greedy as Apple - don't forget about HTC or LG either. Google's own Nexus 4 is good (although is expected to get replaced with the Nexus 5 soon) and gives a pure and unadulterated Android experience if you're after that.
    Apple has lost its pizazz. Nothing has changed far enough from the iPhone 4 for me and the only functionality that might justify upgrading is 4G which the phone will work with.

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  2. Get a Samsung Galaxy sXXX - You know it makes sense.


    Sent from Petes Samsung Galaxy S4 sooper dooper fast 4G ready lovely bit of kit

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  3. Iain,

    Pretty sure the i-Phone 4 will not work on 4G although I am not rushing to get on it...

    Dave.

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  4. Charlton Blogger brings down Apple

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24058630

    ReplyDelete
  5. Downloaded iOS7 today - wasn't really aware of any delay in accessing it, so the planned class system re latest devices appears not have been anything to worry about....as yet.

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Go on, you know you want to....