5 things Apple needs to fear
No company is perfect, Apple included. Every company has some problems and things that need to be worried about. Apple has been growing quite a lot recently and this growth will hopefully not slow down soon. It is great to see them gaining popularity in the tech industry. That said, here are five things that I think Apple needs to be concerned about if it wants to continue to grow so well.
1) High prices. Apple has a reputation for high product prices. If they really want to keep on growing, this is going to need to stop. The reason many people I know don’t buy a Mac is simply because of the price compared to a normal PC. Apple needs to get closer to their competitor’s price to draw more consumers to their products. I know it can be argued that a Mac’s quality is far greater, but the price can still come down. Hopefully with more demand, supply increases and prices fall.
2) iTunes competitors. iTunes has had a firm grasp over the digital music market for a long time now. However, more companies, such as Amazon, are catching on and releasing their own competitors. Apple needs to keep competitive with these companies by continuing to release more DRM free tracks, signing more deals, and opening up the platform overall.
3) Market share increase. You may be thinking, “What, they need to be worried about getting more customers?“ In a way, yes. With market share increase, comes more users. With more users comes more hackers and viruses. Apple needs to make sure it is prepared for theses viruses. If not, Mac OS X could become very dangerous and lose the trust of many of its users. It’s great that Apple is gaining popularity everyday, but they need to make sure to remember the security risks that come along with this.
4) A big slip. I think it’s safe to say that Apple has had some slips lately. For example, the Safari 3.1 auto install on the Windows Update Manager. In a large company that still has some catching up to do in market share, slips like this should be avoided. If not, one of these little slips could lead to a major trust loss in the company as well as the loss of users. Hopefully something like this never happens, but it could.
5) Closing products. Like high prices mentioned above, Apple has also been known to keep its products relatively tied together. For example, the iPod and iTunes. These products should also be more open to consumers because closing them down to one platform only hinders their growth. Believe it or not, some people like other music library apps besides iTunes and may like to use those with their iPod.
The overall idea here is don’t stop innovating. If Apple wants to continue to grow, more advancements and technologies should be brought forth and new ideas should be spread. So far Apple has been at the forefront of this, and I hope it doesn’t halt anytime soon.
Keep up with the latest Apple news! - 
Subscribe to our feed →
- Verizon employees suspended for accessing Obama’s call records
- Dell quietly adds artwork options to the Mini 9, Mini 12 lineup, also adds pink, red
- Who’s On Crack in tech: 11.21.08 edition
- HTC Touch Pro now available with Alltel
- Are you secure? Here’s a “Top 5” list of free security software downloads
your first point on high prices is complete rubbish. people have been saying that for years and yet, Mac sales continue to grow. Apple’s product lines cover a broad range of price points.
also, please keep in mind that when you price out computers from any other major vendor with the same processor/drive/RAM specifications Apple is no more expensive and is often times cheaper.
on April 24, 2008 at 04:18 PM - LINKThis is a pretty dumb list.
1. Consumers care about value much more than price. People are willing to pay for quality. If Apple stops delivering top notch products then it will lose market share if their prices are perceived to be high. If Apple keeps delighting its’ customers then all will be well.
2. Apple has very little to worry about here. iTunes just needs to keep executing. Eventually, the other big Music studios will allow Apple to offer DRM-free tracks and there will be very little reason to shop anywhere else.
3. There is nothing indicating this to be true. Apple has been increasing share rapidly and still no security problems. This may change one day but until then this argument is FUD.
4. Wow - you are saying that Apple shouldn’t make any big mistakes. Great insight.
5. Your example of stifled growth is the iPod/iTunes platform? It’s grown pretty well, don’t you think? Open/Closed, most consumers don’t care - they want a a quality product at a fair price that works well.
Apple has to worry about executing their game plan.
on April 24, 2008 at 07:07 PM - LINKI really think that some of the things you believe Apple needs to stay away from are actually things that make Apple a great company with a very promising future. If you really know Apple products you know what Im talking about.
on April 24, 2008 at 07:15 PM - LINKGetting ready for viruses and expanding itunes library are definitely things Apple needs to think about. Prices will continue to go down as demand gets higher but the “A big slip” point (4) is really lame, how many times this has happened to you on a PC? now you are making a big point for the one time it happened to Apple.
on April 24, 2008 at 07:16 PM - LINKIf you know Apple’s history very well you know they have gone so far when it comes to lowering their prices but still…a fine product will always be more expensive than a mediocre one and that will never change in any kind of market.
on April 24, 2008 at 07:20 PM - LINKDon’t you PC gamers have better things to do than invent nonsense 2 digit stories about Apple. Go kill some aliens.
on April 24, 2008 at 08:15 PM - LINKYou are so uninformed… your post is ignorant of the history. A total waste of my time.
Grow up.
How old are you, anyway?
on April 25, 2008 at 11:14 AM - LINK1) Key word: PERCEIVED. On a feature for feature competitive basis, Apple products are equal to 25% cheaper than any other name brand computer product. I can’t say the same for music players however.
2) iPods support non-Apple music. I have a 40 gb music collection (mostly ripped CDs from years of CD buying) and NONE of it is DRM protected AND it plays on my iPod
3) With a core of BSD Unix - the same UNIX that runs all the trusted computers in the NSA. Along with significant fundamental design differences in the OS from that other major platform, it will take a far greater effort to create any virus for OS X, much less of the magnitude and quantity of those that hit other platforms.
4) Attempts to learn from the evil empire, where tons of stuff is installed without even user knowledge or confirmation, along with data collected about the user without the user knowledge. Apple is at least open about these things, putting the information in plain sight and giving users the option to opt out. The amount of personal background information stored in a regular WORD document would scare the __ell out of you, and makes privacy advocates livid!
5) See 2 above. Unlike MS products, there is NO data lock in produced by Apple products. Every product supports industry standard open data formats, or provides an export vehicle to get there. Interoperability between applications and platforms is available through this openness. MS products are the opposite, with the adoption of any MS product, constraining the selection of any other product offering to provide data compatibility. This lock in , and the associated “consumer harm” are the key factors of a non-benevolent monopoly.
Apple’s products are VERY OPEN - it is all about your data, not your hardware. Diverse hardware increases complexity, opens the platform for attacks through poor drivers, and testing / interoperability issues. The prime example of this is Windows, which, by itself, is a stable OS - it is only when you install software on the OS (poor fundamental design - OS101 in any computer science program), or navigate the internet, that it becomes the unstable, unsupportable product that it has become.
on April 29, 2008 at 07:38 AM - LINK