[OT] mobile rising

[Tony]

On Wednesday, 8 November 2017 at 09:34:39 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>>>>> Why did they fund development of a new iMac Pro which is 
>>>>>> coming this December as well as the new MacBook Pros that 
>>>>>> came out this June? That's a contradiction of "milk it 
>>>>>> like an iPod".
>>>>>
>>>>> Because their userbase was rebelling?  I take it you're not 
>>>>> that familiar with Mac users, but they were genuinely 
>>>>> scared that Apple was leaving them behind, since they 
>>>>> weren't refreshing Mac and Macbooks much anymore and all 
>>>>> Apple's focus is on iOS:
>>>>
>>>> So, let them rebel. You said that they would like to see it 
>>>> go away, and/or they want to milk it. If you have to spend 
>>>> money on development to keep selling it, then you can't 
>>>> "milk it".
>>>
>>> You and I and Jobs may've let them rebel, but Apple is a 
>>> public corporation.  They can't just let easy money go, their 
>>> shareholders may not like it. Perhaps you're not too familiar 
>>> with legacy calculations, but they're probably still making 
>>> good money off Macs, but it just distracts and keeps good 
>>> Apple devs off the real cash cow, iPhone.  Even if the Mac 
>>> financials aren't _that_ great anymore, you don't necessarily 
>>> want to piss off your oldest and most loyal customers, who 
>>> may stop buying iPhones and iPads too.
>>
>> It would either be you and Jobs, or just you, letting them 
>> rebel. I would keep the line.
>
> That's funny, as I was responding to your statement above, "So, 
> let them rebel." :D

"Let them rebel" was with regard to your point of view. As 
demonstrated by the sentence I put after it: "You said that they 
would like to see it go away, and/or they want to milk it." You 
said that Apple would be happy to see it go away. Then you added 
that they were "milking" the line while they could. Satisfying 
rebelling users doesn't jive with either position. They rebel and 
you want to get rid of it - and you get rid of it. They rebel 
wanting changes, and you only want to keep milk it while you can 
- then you get rid of it, because you can't milk what you have.

>
>> The large Apple profit comes from offering quality products 
>> and then pricing them at the highest gross profit margin in 
>> the industry. In order to get people to pay a premium for 
>> their products it helps to have a mystique or following, and 
>> the macOS line helps to maintain their mystique and it is 
>> small potatoes next to their phone business.
>
> I've already said repeatedly that they're not going to drop the 
> Mac line anytime soon, so I don't know why you want to write a 
> paragraph justifying keeping it.

My post was in response to this statement of yours "Simple, they 
see the writing on the wall, ie much smaller sales than mobile, 
SO THEY WANT THE LEGACY PRODUCT TO GO AWAY, which means they can 
focus on the much bigger mobile market." That seems to be a 
contradiction to "they're not going to drop the Mac line anytime 
soon".

> As for mystique, it is laughable that you think this outdated 
> Mac line that practically nobody buys compared to the iPhone 
> provides any. :) More likely, they will keep milking the 
> Mac-buying chumps till they stop, or when they can just tell 
> them to buy an iPhone with a multi-window option instead.

"Nobody buys" Rolls Royces, but they have a lot of mystique. 
Mystique isn't measured by sales volume.

If people ever get so cost-conscious that they decide to buy a 
$150 companion for their phone, instead of a $400 laptop, it's 
unlikely they will be using iPhones. You can get a nice Android 
phone with plenty of RAM/ROM for half the price of an  iPhone.