Let me state for the record that I use Android and Windows devices — two ecosystems are enough for me to master — but I admire what Apple does to retain its brand and value for shareholders. I think its kit is well made. I have no personal opinions on Apple so don’t shoot the messenger here. What I hope is that fanboys and girls will present erudite opinions on the various issues to ensure balance.

Some recurrent themes have been juicing the ether.

Is it a good investment?

Perhaps this should have been the last item in this article but I can’t help feel that when billionaire Carl Icahn exited and "value investor" Warren Buffett made an entrance, that Icahn may have been more stock savvy. iTWire commentator Alex Zaharov-Reutt wrote an article stating that one billionaire’s trash is another even richer billionaire’s treasure! Apple share prices closed at US$94.20 which is better than $90 seven days ago but down from what Buffett paid.

According to USA Today, investors have seen nearly US$240 billion in wealth evaporate in their Apple holdings since the stock hit its closing peak on 23 February 2015. That's a staggering loss, rivalling some of the biggest implosions in stock-market history – even exceeding stock investors' losses on failed energy firm Enron as the epitome of a terrible investment. The US$240 billion lost on Apple makes it the fourth largest market value loss among current members of the Standard & Poor's 500 from their all-time highs to now.

What goes up must come down and we have not seen the full extent of Apple share price readjustments yet. The caveat is that Apple is a long-term stock.

Smartphone saturation?

iPhone revenues account for about 66% of the company's earnings. Analysts say that a perfect storm has hit and "you'll never see that type of growth from the iPhone again". Why?

• Most markets are saturated (almost one phone per person)
• Most new models are incremental improvements, not aspirational ones, offering few compelling reasons to upgrade
• The flagship segment that Apple dominates is less than 10% of the market and toxic to all, bar those with deep pockets
• The main ecosystems are well established – there is littlle between them
  
• Smartphone replacement cycles have lengthened from 18.7 months (2007) to nearly 30 months (2016)
• The after-effects of the global financial crisis (austerity) have led to a quest for value – evidenced by the rapid rise of the Chinese companies like Huawei, OPPO, VIVO, Xiamoi and more offering better value for similar features.

Upgrade cycles explained

The 30 months, however, is a direct result of users planning to change every two years due to telco contracts, rather than declining functionality (most handsets are good for 4-5 years) or feature imperatives – a lack of compelling reasons to upgrade puts this on hold. If Apple’s iPhone 7 is a "tock" (feature refresh of the 6/S), then buyers will wait for a "tick" – what excites them.

But added to this are the wholesale changes by carriers to discontinue offering cheaper handset prices subsidised from the profit made on calls and data. In the US, Apple iPhone is mostly being offered by carriers at around US$700 and all of a sudden the Chinese companies, at half the price, are looking much better.

Some bad press

There have been millions of articles in the past year on Apple missteps (polite words for FUPs) that have saturated social media and put off its prime market that expects great corporate social responsibility and transparency.

Frankly the past 12 months’ has been an annus horribillis that has overshadowed #antennagate, #bendgate and #Foxysuicide.

Apple’s policy of "not commenting on anything" used to speak volumes to sceptical baby boomers, yet the very Gen X, Y, Z and Millennial audience Apple appeals most to are asking for more. Here are some of the head-scratching issues not well managed by Apple PR in 2015/16:

• Why did Apple let error 53 drag on, lose control of the discussion and let it drag it down?
• Why is iOS9 so buggy (perhaps version 8 was even more so)?
• Why are hackers declaring war on iOS when Apple claimed it was secure?
• Why does iOS have more [unpatched] vulnerabilities than Android? Ah, but how many are exploited?
• Why did Apple let XCodeGhost malware into the Apple Store?
• Why won’t Apple let in third party security companies? What is it afraid of?
• Why did Apple gloat over selling fewer apps and making more money?
• Why won’t Apple be open and release Apple Watch sales figures? Is it because they have tanked?
• WTF with the 4” iPhone 5 – sorry SE? New versions of existing products don’t cut it.
• What about nude photos of celebrities and the breach of iCloud?
• Why did many music celebrities disavow iTunes?
• Why did Apple make a misstep in the FBI case (it had lots of opportunities to make good of this)? Apple could not win either way but its recalcitrance makes it likely technology companies will no longer be allowed to ignore court orders or design devices to evade reasonable searches.
• Why is Apple letting users find this bugs in premium products? Jobs would never allow this.
• Why is co-founder Woz bagging Apple?
• Why did the raft of recent mockumentaries about Steve Jobs not show the man in a particularly nice light?
• MacBook sales have fallen dramatically – the new MacBook is the old MacBook wearing make-up.
• iPad Pro has not annihilated Surface and sales appear to be limited at best
• Apple TV was left in the dust by rivals Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and even Google’s Chromecast
• Apple's home-automation protocols were seen as too proprietary and overtaken by open products from Amazon et al
• Why has Apple lost the crown as the world’s coolest brand?
• And, perhaps most monumental, is why is China abandoning the iPhone and why are iTunes and other Apple services locked out there? iPhone sales are down 44% with major decreases predicted in Q2 and Q3.

CultofMac — an Apple aficionado site where many of these questions have come from — asks “Does Apple’s design team need some fresh blood?”

Apple’s design team isn’t perfect. There have been some missteps over the years, and it seems like they’ve become more common under Tim Cook. Its design has also become predictable; even before we get a new product, we have a good idea what it will look like.

I also don’t think it’s as fresh or as exciting as it once was; Apple seems to have become more conservative in recent years. It doesn’t take risks or experiment with exciting new things like it used to. We can expect its latest devices to be thinner and lighter every year, but it’s safe to say they will still be made out of aluminium and glass, and they’ll look almost identical to their predecessors. What’s more, Apple appears to stick with this familiar formula even when it limits functionality.

Apple doesn’t listen to our feedback, either. It doesn’t care that we’d accept slightly thicker iPhones with better battery life, or slightly bigger Macs that you can repair and upgrade. Jony Ive and his team decides what’s best for us, and don’t really care what we think of it.

In contrast, you have a manufacturer like Samsung, which, in recent years, has become closer to Apple in its earlier days. It is experimenting with new things!

Samsung has out Appled Apple

Three to five years ago "switchers" from the marginal players (Blackberry, Nokia, and Windows Phone) had a black and white choice – a superior iPhone or an economic "plastic" G3/G4 Samsung.

However, with the Galaxy S5, S6/Note 5 and now the amazing S7/Note 6, Samsung has not only substantially narrowed this gulf but surged ahead of the iPhone. It has addressed security via Knox and Android works well with third-party antivirus/malware suites to the extent that it's now considered safer than Apple’s iOS which will not let them into its ecosystem.

Tech reviews have almost universally given Samsung phones strong ratings over the iPhone and even the most diehard iPhone fans cannot honestly dispute that.  On a stand-alone basis (i.e. untethered from the Apple ecosystem), the Samsung (and LG and Chinese companies) competes fairly well with the iPhone.

Let’s talk about the ecosystem

Apple’s is closed – once you are in it and have invested in apps and iTunes, it is hard to leave. Call it sticky. Well, more app developers are allowing a free "switch" and more apps now play iTunes content. The new Samsung Switch app makes abandoning the iPhone painless.

Apple’s ecosystem is considered too expensive whereas Google and Samsung have the same or similar apps at a lower cost. While developers are doing the iOS version first, the Android version follows shortly after.

Samsung is also prepared to work with Microsoft and offer their apps on the handset – the familiarity of Office over Apple’s offerings on mobile devices is compelling.

Comment

This article highlights the most frequently mentioned issues in the past 12 months. If I were Apple’s PR department, I would be considering hara-kiri for not having been able to adequately address many of these issues in a positive, meaningful way. To be fair, they work under a strict policy that is perhaps not right for the times.

The irony is that I could not write a similar article about Google, Yahoo!, Samsung, Microsoft, HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sharp, etc – but I will try to. While all have had missteps, none has as comprehensive and undefended catalogue as Apple.