This week on The CultCast: Why Apple’s done pursuing the “new hit product business.” Plus: The demise of Pebble Watch is a bad omen for wearables; Foxconn secretly prepares to make more Apple products in the United States; and we remember our favorite movies of 2016!
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CultCast #261 – Apple’s next big thing? — Subscribe on iTunes
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This week’s topics
Apple stops swinging for the fences
- Apple analyst Horrace Dediu says Apple’s cultural identity is undergoing a dramatic shift.
- Instead of being in the “new hit product business,” Dediu says Apple is trying to become a “services and recurring-revenue business.”
- Dediu argues that constantly trying for home runs has been demoralizing for employees, so Apple CEO Tim Cook is moving away from that attitude.
- Will Apple ever have another “iPhone”?
Apple Pay is now accepted by 35% of U.S. retailers
- Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay, says 35 percent of U.S. merchants now accept Apple Pay.
- Bailey says the new EMV chip cards are annoying customers and have helped drive adoption.
- New chip cards are the worst!!
Fitbit buys software assets from smartwatch startup Pebble
- Bloomberg has reported that Fitbit is buying out Pebble.
- Pebble watch hardware is dead, with support ending sometime in the future.
- All pending orders will be canceled and refunded.
- Tim Cook says Apple Watch sales are “off the charts,” but sales of Apple Watch fell more than 70 percent in Q3, according to IDC Research.
Erfon Elijah is the producer and host of The CultCast. When not editing podcasts or watching Mrs. Doubtfire, you’ll find him on Xbox Live hunting CoD Ghosts foes like the Predator. Here are his tweets…
4 responses to “Why Apple’s done chasing hit products, this week on The CultCast”
I owned a Pebble. That wearables are threatened and the demise of pebble points to it is a stretch. Pebble ultimately failed because it was outclassed by the competition. Consumers wanted more and got it with other brands. Pebble was fine, and I scored it highly, when that was all we could expect. I now own 2 Apple watches and am quite happy now that i can get 2 days on one charge. It amuses me how “reporters” draw such inferences based on opinion rather than real data.
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You guys are totally missing the killer app that will launch the Apple Watch into the stratosphere.
It can’t be something that does what the iPhone does but at a smaller, less convenient form factor. It can’t be just a fitness device, that’s a niche product. It’s main advantage over other consumer computing devices is that it can be in direct physical contact with your body for the whole day. So there is something a smartwatch can do that almost everyone could use and would want, and that no other device can do:
Real-time, bio-authenticated, secure transactions. Imagine, if every time a financial transaction is made in your name (major credit card purchase, loan application, direct transfers from your bank account, etc.), real-time clearance will be requested from you via your watch and clearance can only be granted if your watch confirms (via a biosensor on its back) that it is really you who is approving the transaction. Properly configured, a universal bio-authentication network can drive down the risk of financial fraud from stolen credentials and identity theft to virtually zero. It can also drive transaction friction way down.
Okay, so the biosensor technology isn’t ready for prime time yet, but it’s coming. And once that tech is ready, watch as Apple Watch sales explode.
If Apple wanted to get out of the “hit” game then they’d continue to make things like their well-regarded routers and thunderbolt displays. Cancelling those things makes it look like ALL they’re only interested in are hits.