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Yeah, and those people's wrongness was pretty well-established by Apple's ever-increasing sales, revenues, and establishing new market categories. All of which have ended. I have, I think, a pretty nuanced view of Apple. It's looking increasingly like 2015 was the best year ever for Apple. 2016 was worse, and there's very little sign that 2017 will be better than 2016. That said, 2015 was the high water mark for a uniquely valuable company with a uniquely valuable product. There's a lot of value in Apple that doesn't require being literally the single most successful year in, like, the history of capitalism. And I think that most of Apple's decline is due to secular, external forces -- basically, the maturation of the smartphone market -- not because Cook is fucking up. Probably any CEO Apple had would have had pretty similar results -- or worse ones. But that said, all the people who are like, "What? No, there are no problems with Apple" are obviously wrong on the face of it. iPhone sales are falling. iPad sales fell off a cliff more than a year ago. The Apple Watch has not been successful enough for Apple to even tell us how many units were sold. This is not the picture of the company in 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014. |