The Pivot

Excellent piece from Horace Dediu:

Moving as it does between computers, devices, software, services, retail, logistics and manufacturing means that it’s not classifiable as an “x” company where “x” is an industry sector. Rather, the company should be classified by the set of problems it seeks to solve (e.g. communications, community, productivity, creativity, wellbeing).

This disconnect between what people think Apple sells and what Apple builds is as perplexing as the cognitive disconnect between what companies sell and what customers buy.

This is why so many people, particularly investment analysts, have always missed the point about Apple. They saw Apple as a computer company outside the Wintel world in a Wintel-dominated industry. Now they see Apple as a phone maker in a world where the market is saturated and people are holding onto the phones they already own longer and longer.

“Where’s the next iPhone?” they ask. That’s such a dumb question. As Dediu argues at the start of his piece, the iPhone is the most successful product of all time. What sense does it make to expect the same company to make two of the most successful products of all time within the span of 15 years? It doesn’t really make much sense to expect any other company to make a product as successful as the iPhone soon. I think there’s a good chance the iPhone is a once in a lifetime product.

★ Friday, 17 May 2019