The Six Five team discusses the recent Apple event.
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Transcript:
Daniel Newman: We did a Callin Pod and we published it on the Apple event. So our last two segments here, we’re going to talk about Apple and the event. We’re going to talk about a little bit of individual piece of news as our last item, but we’ll put the show notes.
We’ll put the link to our pod because you get a little more in depth there, but this is our big show. This is the one that we have the huge audience for. So we wanted to make sure that we at least circled back here, Pat, talked about some of the key announcements at the Apple event. So I’ll let you take this one. And we’re doing the six, 20 today.
We’re going for the longest ever episode. So, we’ve got to keep it short, but let’s make sure everybody out there gets that link if you didn’t have a chance. Pat, what’d you think? Apple event, iPhone 13, watch, pod, pad, go.
Patrick Moorhead: So overall, I was unimpressed with the level of innovation that had come out. And I say that, and Daniel, you always reinforce this, that it doesn’t mean we don’t buy the products, that we don’t respect the stock, right? I mean, I carry two phones. I carry a Samsung, either fold or S20 plus for my real phone.
And then my iMessage phone is a mini. Why? Because my family won’t use anything other than iMessage. But low on the innovation curve, low on surprises and here’s what’s different, and this is not just me. I admire Apple for a lot of things, and one thing about their events, they’ll always come out with something different and unique to get you thinking about something and whether that’s a service or thought leadership or a product.
And I’m not talking about, and yet another thing, or just another thing at the very end of these things, or whatever Tim and Steve says. It’s about making you think a little bit differently. Oh my gosh, I just said that. And this event had none of that, even though we had new iPhones, new iPads and a new watch.
There was really nothing that was there. A couple of things that I was impressed by. First of all, the 815 bionic is just yet another iteration of Apple running up the score, at least on CPU performance. We’ll talk about 5G performance a little bit later, but well, we can talk about that now.
Apple phones have the slowest performance of any smartphones here in the US and part of that is because they have a DIY RF solution and the rest of the industry uses a Qualcomm RF solution. On iPads, nothing really to write home about. A new version, by the way, I got excited about the iPad mini.
It makes a great coffee table device to change channels on your TV and do some light snacking. Does that change anything in the education market? Does it push on PCs? Absolutely not. It’s still too expensive even compared with a Chromebook. Because let’s not forget, you have to add a keyboard to that iPad when you’re in education.
And what are you looking at? At 100, 200 bucks for the keyboard? So not affordable. Apple watch, I am an Apple watch user. Why? Because it happens to be the best watch currently for health. If Samsung can get blood pressure approved here in the United States, I’m going to go to Samsung. What did they do?
They made the display bigger in the series seven, added some interesting algorithms, but really nothing to get too excited about. Bigger display is better. It’s 20%, but I don’t think it’s going to motivate that many people. I want Apple to add a blood pressure sensor to this thing. And it’s like, you got me, take my money.
Does this matter in the big picture? I don’t think it matters in the US. Now I do believe, and I do know that Samsung is taking a little bit of share away from Apple with its flip and its fold, particularly with the flip. And we will see probably next quarter how much share Samsung actually took. Samsung’s biggest challenge is that it can’t supply the goods.
I mean, T-Mobile did their big promotion, not with Samsung like they normally do, but they did it with Apple with the iPhone 13. And basically threw a shot out at Samsung that they couldn’t supply enough phones. So maybe they didn’t take share because they just couldn’t meet that supply.
So net net, low innovation, I don’t think it matters in the US. I do think it matters outside the US where there’s not an iMessage lock-in. Just to give you a comparison, Apple has about 50% market share in the US and then the rest of the world, about 20% out there.
Daniel Newman: Yeah, 22% global. A lot of great points. Like I said, definitely check out our special episode on the Collins, but we did put it out on all of our big channels. So it’s out on Spotify, Apple. We did dig a little bit deeper into this. Pat, I was asleep by the second set of announcements.
It’s like I said, it’s iterative. It’s all fine. It’s fine. It’s good, it’s whatever. Sleeker bezel, okay. If you give me a magnifying glass, I might notice that. I love edge to edge comments on devices that clearly weren’t edge to edge. I don’t understand what defines edge to edge if there’s like a full centimeter of bezel around the outside of it.
The cinematography was cool. I do like that. As someone who’s now put a very expensive DSLR in my studio, I looked at that and I’m like, isn’t that exactly what I’m doing with my really expensive DSLR? But again, a really expensive DSLR. It’s still cheaper than a loaded up iPhone. So, you’ve got to make that decision as well.
Pat, I’m actually more excited about the services, the TV, the music as some of the things that are a part of their platform ecosystem that have been with the last several launches. So I don’t have much more to say. I’m bored. Apple, I’m bored and I expect you to entertain me. So, I feel like this is the moment, I’m in the arena, throwing the sword up to the office of Tim Cook, and I’m saying, I’m not entertained.
And so I’m not entertained, but you know what? To your credit, you will sell a ton. You will return to shareholders. You will do buybacks. You will make the market happy. And most people are pretty unaware of what innovation really does look like and what the cutting edge tech means. And sometimes it’s just because what is actually the best, fastest, and most capable isn’t necessary.
And I think Apple really constantly sort of straddles that fence of how necessary are some of these next generation technologies.
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
