We already highlighted the 5 big hits from Apple in 2018. How about talking, now, what didn’t work out for Apple? After all, 2018 was not one of the best for the company – despite having been worth more than $ 1 trillion, $ AAPL is now in the $ 150 range (resulting in a market value of ~ $ 715 billion), out of many doubts mainly related to the future of the iPhone (which, as we know, no longer sells sells as it did in the past).
Let’s go to our list!
Prices
I don’t need to talk about Apple’s prices here in our beloved country. Everyone knows that, here, Apple products are overvalued in a mixture of strategy (choice of the company itself) and taxes (the famous Brazil cost). But the truth is that the values ​​of Apple products are bothering even Americans.
It is difficult to say where exactly it all started, but if I were to take a chance, I would say it was with the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in 2016. Since then, everything has been increasing in price – the maximum exponent of this new strategy was the iPhone X, which adjusted the base of the new flagships from Apple to no less than $ 1,000. But the fact is that it was not just the iPhone that saw its price rise: basically all the company’s products have undergone a good readjustment – in the case of the Mac mini, for example, we are talking about a whopping 60%!
Yesterday price surges: MacBook Air: 999 -> 1199 (+ 20%) Mac Mini: 499 -> 799 (+ 60%) iPad Pro 10.5: 649 -> 799 (+ 23%) iPad Pro 12.9: 799 -> 999 ( + 25%)
This is unreal. I find it hard to believe that only a handful of people are talking about this.
– Rodrigo Araujo (@rodrigoaraujo) October 31, 2018
Is Apple pricing its products off the market? Personally, I think that from the Cook era.
70%: Yes12%: No, prices are good18%: Increase justified
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Yesterday’s increases: MacBook Air: 999 -> 1199 (+ 20%) Mac mini: 499 -> 799 (+ 60%) 10.5 ″ iPad Pro: 649 -> 799 (+ 23%) iPad Pro 12, 9 ″: 799 -> 999 (+ 25%)
This is surreal. It is hard to believe that only a few people are commenting on this.
Remembering that this scenario is out there; here, it got to a difficult level to even comment on, with MacBooks Pro costing up to R $ 58,600, Macs mini up to R $ 34,200, iPads Pro up to R $ 15,600 and so on.
The confusion of the notebook line
If on the one hand Apple got it right by launching the new MacBook Air with Touch ID, it left the notebook line quite confused. If you are looking for portability (and taking into account some other aspects that we cannot rule out, such as specification), what is the ideal notebook: a 12 ″ MacBook or a MacBook Air? Is it worth buying a MacBook Pro without Touch Bar or a MacBook Air with Touch ID?
The fault, as we can see, is the new MacBook Air that took up more space than the old notebook; and there would be no confusion if Apple simply took the MacBook and MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar, for example; by making all these options available to consumers, Apple escapes its main “tradition”, which is to have a simple and very self-explanatory product line, facilitating the customer’s choice and avoiding possible frustrations.
To further complete this mess, the company still offers the old MacBook Air as an option to purchase. Where’s the courage to simplify things, Apple ?!
AirPower, where are you ?!
AirPower, Apple’s wireless charging base, was announced in 2017. The expectation was that such an accessory would hit the market in early 2018. Well, the year has passed and… no AirPower.
I have no doubt that there are great explanations for why the product has not yet seen the light of day – all of them beyond justification, I’m sure. What I do not “forgive” is a company that always spoke badly about the competition (that many present products still in the prototyping stage just to shout to the four corners that were the first to launch such a thing) to make this mistake, announcing something that still was in an unfinished phase of the project and ended up not being able to be ready in a timely manner.
This after many other delays and problems involving other products like AirPods, HomePod, etc. What a cardboard, Apple …
The battery controversy
The problem happened in 2017, but the result itself we feel now, in 2018. Unexpectedly (at least for the company), users discovered that the performance of iPhones was being intentionally reduced in order to save already worn out batteries from a possible unexpected shutdown. That is: if the battery on your iPhone was getting old, the device was running slowly.
Of course, nobody liked that and Apple had to publicly apologize, putting in place two measures: 1. offered to exchange batteries for a promotional price (much more affordable, for a certain period); 2. launched a software update that made everything clearer regarding the functioning / performance of the system, even giving the option for users to disable the reduction of the CPU’s processing power, if they so wish.
Even with all these attitudes, the story was ugly for Apple, which found itself entangled in several collective actions spread around the world – not to mention some fines that the company took from governments that did not like the deliberate attitude of the company at all.
Fight with Qualcomm
If Apple feels hurt, it has more than to seek justice. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem here is that such a fight ended up hurting customers.
In a nutshell, Qualcomm has always been Apple’s partner in providing modems for iPhones; in 2017, however, a big fight between companies broke out: Apple felt harmed by having to pay not only for the component (modem) itself, but also for having to pass it on royalties (a certain percentage of the final value of iPhones) for the company.
Whether or not Qualcomm can charge on two different fronts, justice must be said; but because of this fight, Apple was forced to use Intel chips, which are admittedly worse than Qualcomm’s in speed.
To top it off, in 2018 we had the return of a scenario that happened last time ago, when Apple launched the iPhone 5s: most likely because of the technology used in Intel modems, the American models of the iPhones XS, XS Max and XR are not compatible with all 4G bands used here in Brazil. If in 2015, 2016 and 2017 customers could enjoy their trips to the USA and buy an iPhone peacefully at an Apple store without worrying about whether it would work perfectly in Brazil, in 2018 this doubt returned to surround us.
It is worth clarifying that iPhones purchased in the USA do work in Brazil; however, they only support two of the three 4G bands (3, 7 and 28) used here. And a direct consequence of this lack of support for band 28 on American models is that such iPhones cannot connect to what we call 4.5G.
Whether this is the result of Apple’s use of the Intel chip, we are not sure. Still, there is a consensus that Qualcomm’s modems are better technologically speaking – the company, for example, is already ready for 5G while Intel is still racing to make everything the way Apple needs it.
As I said, Apple needs to stand up for what it thinks is right, but it’s a shame that customers get hurt along the way.
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Obviously, we are talking here about a very opinionated article; and you, would you put any other Apple stumble of 2018 on this list?
