Apple is the most valuable company in history and the new focus on privacy is going to win them even more loyalty.
This seems to be a common talking point, but I'm not convinced it is a real driver outside of a small niche of within the niche of software people. Privacy is not something regular people really are aware of or give a damn about.
The biggest driver towards getting an iPhone that I see is shutting up friends who whine because you're a "green person" in their iMessage.
This was a big factor as to why blackberry's phone business didn't die sooner than it did.
And while laypeople today care little about privacy, Apple can bring it into the collective consciousness. All it takes is a good meme (in the original Dawkins sense, not in the image-macro sense). A meme that tells people: “only the poor can’t afford privacy”. If they can get this into people’s heads then they’ll demand privacy, because nobody likes feeling poor.
"According to a Pew Research Center study, 26% of Facebook users in the U.S. have deleted the app entirely and 74% have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months. User growth on Facebook is slowing."
So there is hope after all.
Whatsapp is being used significantly more in Europe than SMS. I can't remember the last time I got an iMessage/SMS except 2FA prompts.
As for privacy, I think you'd have to show that those customers don't have facebook accounts to take that seriously.
But in order to be fashionable, they need to have compelling designs and technology. They do not anymore.
Their main new product seems to be those stupid AirPods, and I don't think you can carry a trillion dollar company on that. Everything else is just a minor tweak on an existing product.
The reason for that is that PCs and smartphones are plateauing as a computing platform.
I'm super curious to see what Apple's game for VR and AR headsets will be. Currently, Oculus/FB is leading the race there.
Plus, apple has a huge lead in CPU and GPU performance and this is only accelerating, paving the way for future potential phone features imo.
Not compelling relative to what? People have been saying this about Apple with respect to the original iPhone X (which sold a very large amount), the Apple Watch, and even the iPad which they managed to bring sales back up as the rest of the tablet industry floundered.
> As soon as someone else has a compelling, exclusive phone feature, Apple's likely to collapse.
Your biases show through when you talk about a company with the resources of Apple collapsing because of one exclusive phone feature. In reality, Apple's biggest challenge is competing against last years iPhone.
> There's no lock in, and there's no reason to be loyal -- it's a fashion brand.
Again, your biases. For many people iOS is the easiest mobile OS to use. It has it's quirks, but for many people it just works.
To desktops and laptops that offer more RAM/CPU/GPU per buck while costing much less.
> For many people iOS is the easiest mobile OS to use.
If they can afford it. Not so easy when earning 500 euros or less per month.
This is not why people buy Macs, and it hasn't been in a long time. If anything, Macs are closer to giving performance/$ than they usually ever have.
People by Macs for aesthetic and usability. The vast majority of the population does not care "how many gigahertz their RAM has", and Mac sales reflect this.
As for the sales, not when you compare Mac against all other vendors worldwide.
Naturally it is nicer to just compare Apple against single OEMs.
What features justify replacing a 2 yr old phone with a new one? For $800-$1000?
Not everyone across the globe has salaries to pay for privacy features.
That's a belief.
> the new focus on privacy
I see a trend here.