Apple Sucking Up to Customers in Desperate Attempt to Save the iPhone

By CCN Markets: Apple founder Steve Jobs never believed in listening to customers. He believed that common people like us don’t exactly know what we want. So the great Apple founder took it upon himself to decide what features belong in an iPhone.

The success of the iPhone under Jobs was evidence that his line of thought worked, but his successor Tim Cook is throwing that policy to the winds. The iPhone is dying right now and it could go the BlackBerry way if Cupertino doesn’t take desperate measures, which is probably why Apple is finally bending over backward to appease customers instead of telling them what they need.

Apple is finally falling in line

Apple pioneered the smartphone space when it launched the first iPhone back in 2007, and this gave Jobs the luxury of putting whatever he wanted in the device. But times have changed, and Apple is not the only one making smartphones now.

The likes of Samsung, Huawei, and a clutch of other Chinese companies have stolen Apple’s thunder with well-specced smartphones that won’t burn a hole in your pocket. Apple, on the other hand, has stagnated as engineers at Cupertino have stayed in their bubble, oblivious to what the market needs.

For instance, Apple finally launched dual-SIM phones only last year, while I bought my first dual-SIM smartphone nearly five years ago.

Cupertino was so fixated with the design of the iPhone that it forgot to include certain basic features that come as a given with smartphones nowadays. As sales are now plunging, the company is trying to correct that.

Bloomberg reports that the next-generation iPhones that Apple will release next month will feature a triple camera system “with a third sensor for capturing ultra-wide-angle photos and videos.”  Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi already offers a triple camera set-up on its latest device for less than $200.

Bloomberg also adds that the new iPhones will have improved low-light photography, something that Apple’s Chinese and Korean rivals are already adept at.

Will it be a case of too little, too late for the iPhone?

IDC estimates that sales of Apple’s iPhones plunged over 18% in Q2 2019. The company now controls just over 10% of the global smartphone market, representing a sharp decline from the 18% market share it enjoyed during Q4 2018.

Revamping the iPhone with all the features that Bloomberg listed is not going to cut it for Apple. Investors need to understand that the company is now playing catch-up in the smartphone space. It will continue to stay behind the technology curve as the new devices are not likely to be equipped with 5G.

Apple is expected to equip the iPhone with 5G network capabilities in 2020. But again, that might be too late as networks are in the process of being rolled out and rival smartphones already boast of this feature.

So don’t be surprised to see Apple’s sales plunge once again this holiday season, as the new iPhones might not bring anything new to the table that rivals don’t already offer. Cupertino will pay the price for missing the pulse of the customer and dancing to its own tunes for far too long.

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