Apple (AAPL) finished Tuesday down 8% after it reported iPhone sales came in 5 million units short of Wall Street expectations. Apple also lost ground in its battle against Samsung in the mobile market. Apple, once the the leader in smartphones, remained in second place with its market share falling from 18.7 percent year-on-year to 15.3 percent, while Samsung’s market share rose 1 percent to 31.3 percent.
The reason? Apple is no longer a crowd pleaser. It’s a crowd teaser. Here’s the proof:
Apple is way, way behind in getting a large screen phone like Samsung’s products. So now Apple’s smartphone “looks like a smartphone, only smaller.”
Apple also has a habit of taking things away in newer products … iDVD, for example. Apple supplies iMovie to make video content, but now has no functionality for creating a DVD from the video because Apple eliminated iDVD from new Macs. That was a not a pleasant surprise the first time a lot of loyal users wanted to create a new DVD on their new Macs. Apple also took away a cool screen saver that provided useful news feeds on screen savers. It’s not like the screen saver took a lot of memory.
Apple is also notoriously cheap on RAM. They supply a Mac that barely has enough memory to reasonably use the system with a few programs open. Without enough RAM, the Mac system lags or crashes. The lagging involves the mouse slowing down to a crawl or acting unpredictably.
Apple, with iOS 7, recently changed the design of the iPhone and iPad interface with fonts that are too thin, moving backgrounds that are reported to cause nausea and migraines, and garish neon colors — “features” for some adult that are just plain awful torture to the eyes.
Look at the Notepad app, for example: It used to be a realistic-looking legal pad complete with yellow paper and a realistic-looking binder. Now the notepad is an ugly whitish, boring app. It looks the result of a middle school science project showcasing a student’s first app. Apple apps used to be something you enjoyed using — you would love to immerse yourself in the apps. Now you want to look away, unless you have to squint and stare to read the thin, weak fonts that iOS uses presently.
Apple left the realistic looking 3D icons for flat icons with neon colors — a move that some critics say made Apple look like they were imitating Microsoft Surface and following their lead. That’s ironic since Apple has actually had the lead. Why would Apple mimic an inferior product’s design? Sabotage? Is someone who is shorting Apple’s stock calling the shots in the UI design department?
Critics have reported that the design team must have taken most of their input from a team of 13-year-old girls with a love for 1970s gradient colors. Bottom line? The new Apple interface looks a little like what a bad trip might look like after dropping acid. So if the design team isn’t following orders from some evil stock investor who shorts the stock, it’s either got to be the 13-year-old girls, or bonked out LSD acid freaks that are calling the shots.
There are numerous other problems with the interface. Apple removed “.com” from the keyboard in favor of a spacious-looking design of the keyboard. Apple also removed the “slash, /” from the primary keyboard used when entering web addresses. So users need to take an extra step of calling up a secondary keyboard to enter the “slash” in a web address. If innovation means causing changes by angering customers and users by taking away useful features, Apple is perfecting this form innovation. Apple has a split keyboard feature setting which leaves a gaping hole (looks like someone lost their two front teeth) between the left and right QWERTY keyboard. It’s astonishing that none of their brilliant software engineers and/or their guru user interface designer Jony Ive figured it would be a good idea to put keyboard macro buttons in that gaping hole, including at least the “.com” button and “slash” key — and maybe “.net” “@” and other common keys too. Android OS, Microsoft Surface, and Amazon Kindle all have the .com key that Apple innovated years back. Now Apple iPhone and iPad are the only products without the “.com” key. What do you call that, “reverse innovation?”
PARODY: The World Redesigned by Jony Ive by “Loud and Jaded” who describe the new iOS as the world’s best acid trip — and are right on target while lampooning Apple’s out of touch iOS 7 interface.
Apple also has become obsessed with thin. On Macs it’s apparently cool to have a thin, wispy scroll bar that disappear when you don’t need it. The Apple UI people are trying to MASH the desktop and the mobile device UI. But the feature is horrendous when it lags and is slow to appear, or if you are trying to target the scroll bar with your touch device or mouse. It’s especially bad if you’re on a bumpy ride in a train or living a multi-tasking life as a passenger in a car or bus.
For simplicity and “design” over functionality, Apple has also eliminated the ability to see the URL address in the URL field — a nice feature in case the URL is misspelled.
Apple has also blurred or frosted dialogue windows which now prevents users from being able to see a web page behind the SIRI dialogue window, for example. Hey Apple, it might be nice to have the visibility in case the user needs to see something on the web page at the lower layer. The blurriness is just Apple showing off their silly design carnival, instead of recognizing the importance of functionality in their products. The problem is that loyal users ARE recognizing the importance of functionality over a design circus. And they’re starting to look elsewhere for products. They are either hanging on to their older non-updated Apple products, or their starting to look at Samsung.
Many investors worry that the stabilization and maturity of the high-end smartphone market is beginning to limit Apple’s growth potential, and are hoping for a new “revolutionary” product. Some believe Apple can’t do it anymore without Steve Jobs.
It’s actually a much worse situation. Apple design under the obsessive command of Jonathan Ive is so bad that the UI almost looks like sabotage. Investors are missing the boat. It’s user exodus — even loyal users — running for the doors from the smell of this new iOS 7 that stinks. Some user are spitting mad about the changes. Just ask mom’s at youth athletic games in the grandstands. The word is: don’t upgrade your Apple iPhone to iOS 7, and think about getting a Samsung.
Those that are shorting the stock must be just leaning back in their office chairs and smiling.
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