OVERVIEW
Apple needs no introduction it's a company that has reached each and every household in almost all countries. It is well known for its design and aesthetics of the products especially iPhones which have made Apple what it is today.
PATHWAY TO 2050
Apple doesn’t follow the algorithm which is followed by Google, Amazon or virtually every other big company. In order to become a big company, Google bought all the other smaller companies in its class and eliminated the competition once and for all but Apple does the opposite it never buys companies instead it focuses on one thing which is brand value. It tries to be a luxury brand in the technological world which as we speak it has done very well in that aspect. As of before the pandemic, its market capitalization was north of $1 Trillion.
Apple don’t think about the next 5 years not even 10 years in the future rather it has plans for the next 30 years. To work according to that they make some decisions that are not liked by the reviewers or customers but their brand value is so high that they get away with anything in the eyes of normal customers. Apple don’t even consider Microsoft and Google as their competitors as they never enter the field that these companies are dying to conquer. Keep in mind that Google has touched more people than apple ever will despite Google being a relatively new company compared to apple which was founded in 1976 and the former in 1998.
It is the kind of company which can kill its own product to outsell another product in its class. It killed its iPod line to sell its iPhone and in future, it won’t be surprising to see MacBook Air gets killed because of MacBook Pro. It is just a matter of certain circumstances before we see something like this happening for real in future.
DOESN’T CARE ABOUT THE CONSUMER
Apple is a company to whom customer needs don't matter, here the reference is not about customer care but the customer in general, (the product buying customer). Nowadays they are never the ones to come with the latest and the greatest innovation in technology rather they are often the late ones to this innovation that the customer wants from them. Take for example the bezel-less trend which even the smallest of the manufacturer are doing but apple seems to ignore it completely, apple is repeating its bezel-less design for 3 years straight. Here the main focus is on money-savings and money-making scheme. Repeating and reusing the design enables them to save huge lumps of cash on R&D but the customer needs are just the opposite and are being ignored, the customer wants new innovation, fresh design and a bigger battery.
This is the exact reason why the repair cost of the back glass panel of iPhone X or Xs is $599 which is about 60% the initial cost. Earlier versions of the iPhone were made from the back panel to the front as they used aluminium which provided strength but the newer phones could not be given aluminium on the back because the wireless charging doesn’t work on aluminium rather it needs glass for penetration.
As we all know glass is not as strong as aluminium which meant the iPhone has to made from front panel to the back panel which was major R&D problem as the entire structure needed to be changed in the iPhone which was a serious “NO NO” in the apple as it would require a lot of financial resources. This is why the repair cost is so high as apple needs to remove each and every part of the phone to access and change the back panel. Basically apple indirectly tells you to buy a new iPhone if you break your glass panel
Many cheap alternatives have come out in the market to replace the back panel, here's a youtube video you’ll really like:
DISCLAIMER: I want to make it clear that I am not an iPhone hater rather I myself use an iPhone, the things talked here are the strategies that Apple uses to make money.
NOT ALWAYS ON TOP
The type of status and royalty enjoyed by Apple nowadays were never the same as Apple was nothing in the early 2000s as its brand value less than 1% of its today's value. It was Bill Gates who saved Apple from bankruptcy by investing in the company. Bill Gates didn’t invest by his own choice it was because of the circumstances that he was that made him do such a thing. Let me remind you Apple is Microsoft’s arch-rival but you must be asking then why did Bill decided to do such a thing? It was because he had earned a bad reputation unlike Steve Jobs, this was just an act to clean up his image. By investing in Apple it would make the shareholders think Bill Gates cares about his competition, not just himself.
Don’t you think Steve Jobs is considered one of the greatest and but Bill Gates is not given the same status as him?
