When it comes to personal computers, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches, which company dares to own the premium end of the product spectrum? If you guessed ‘Apple’ you would be correct.
Yet, across the board, Apple’s flagship products– Mac, iPhone, iPad (Watch remains too new to have a product cycle)– sales are falling. Why? Consider these: Lower priced competition is intense. Apple’s prices are too high. Insufficient product differentiation. Various and sundry economic issues which impact technology gadget sales.
What should Apple do?
Let’s Own The High End
Instead of cutting prices around Apple’s already notoriously high gross margins, instead, our favorite gadget maker has decided to double down on the premium space it already owns. Sure, you can buy PCs with better specifications than a Mac for less than a Mac. Yep, you can buy high quality smartphone hardware for half that of an iPhone, and tablets are so 1999.
What of Apple?
As tablet sales fall into the gutter worldwide, Apple double down on the premium end of the iPad line and introduced two iPad Pro models with more capabilities than previous models; more storage, better screens, and even a Pencil option (for another $99).
What about iPhone?
The rumor mill has been in overdrive for a few months longer this year than last and it’s clear that Apple is about to do an iPad Pro jump to the premium end of the premium end of the smartphone spectrum with an iPhone Pro. Alright, that’s my prediction.
iPhone 7 Pro will arrive with newly developed dual camera system that ups the ante of digital photography and videography. Also included will be a larger storage option and more RAM. I’m thinking 256GB of storage and a full on 4GB of RAM. With a higher resolution OLED display to match.
Just get ready to pay more for iPhone 7 Pro.
That does not mean that the rest of the iPhone 7 line– the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will have shabby cameras and lesser performance. Each model will see upgrades across the board, but just as it did with iPad Pro, iPhone 7 Pro will get the best of the best features as Apple struggles to get volume production for new components from the supply chain.
Hey, it’s only an educated guess, and after the fully unexpected rise of a New York candidate for President of the good old U.S. of A., why not my list vs. someone who gets paid to make such lists. It’s not as if the political pundits could have predicted what happened in U.S. politics this year, right?
Here’s one feature I would pay extra to have, but should be on every iPhone. Every iPhone.
No more vertical lens orientation. Watch the news and you’ll see vertical videos. That’s just wrong. Yes, I know it’s easier to hold a smartphone vertically than horizontally, but that’s not the point. TVs are not vertical. We don’t watch N.C.I.S. in vertical mode. So if Apple only did one thing new to iPhone 7– across the line would be nice– it would be to get rid of (or, in the alternative, create an option) the camera’s vertical orientation so no matter how you hold the camera, it always captures in horizontal mode; the way God intended humans to watch movies.
