An Apple Engineer believes from here and out Apple will see a decline. He believes that Apple has hit it’s peak and for the next few years things will stall. I certainly believe he’s right this always happens in tech when a device and company takes and their products are on fire. Remember when Nextel was the hottest thing to own, that came and went. Remember when everyone had a Blackberry, you can’t give those things out for free if you wanted to. In a few years it’s going to be remember when we had iPhones. It’s just the trend in tech.
Worse still, Apple’s hyperbole is now getting a long way ahead of reality. Now, Steve was famous for his “reality distortion field”. I saw it up close and personal, and it was amazing. But Steve knew that when he turned on the hype, he needed an outstanding product to back it up. The reason he could seemingly bend reality to his will was that products like the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad really were exceptional, breakthrough products. Steve’s showmanship was justified.
Compare that to the launch of the latest revisions of the iPad and iPhone. They are accompanied by amazing levels of hype: “I don’t think the level of invention has been matched by anything we’ve ever done”, “This is the biggest thing to happen to iPhone since the iPhone”. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone 5 is an excellent product; it’s probably the best smartphone on the market right now. But it’s only an incremental improvement over the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 5 is better, but it’s really not that much better, and iOS 6 has had some decidedly mixed reviews. But you wouldn’t know that listening to the hype from Bob Mansfield, Tim Cook, Phil Schiller et al. The problem with over-hyping is that people notice, and over time it erodes their faith. There are only so many times you can be told that a relatively small increment is “the greatest thing ever in the history of everything ever” before you get jaded. Steve knew how to balance hype and product. Apple today seems much less adept at this.
