Is Apple a company on the decline?

There is an old joke about a French actress who, after her career was past its peak, moved to a high-rise that did not have an elevator. When asked why, she replied that that was the only way she could make the hearts of men beat faster at that stage in her career.

Apple must feel an odd sense of kinship with her.

The company that has, for the last few years, shaped user behavior and altered expectations now finds itself unable to impose its will on its users.

Consider the reception for Apple’s newest, the iPad Pro. CEO Tim Cook had laid the metric by which success would be measured: “The iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people who will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phone.”

In other words, close the (W)indows while Apple guards the door.

The reviews for the iPad Pro, while generally favorable, fall short of Cook’s expectations:

• According to CNET, its large size makes it less portable than other iPads. Once you've paid for the Pencil and keyboard peripherals, the iPad Pro costs as much as a good laptop, but lacks its flexibility.
• Fortune magazine wonders if “the market for the iPad Pro will be relatively narrow, at least at first. Artists, architects, and designers will be drawn to it. But for the rest of us, not so much. If you need a keyboard, you’re better off with a PC or Mac. If you need mobility, you’re better off with a smartphone. If all you want to do is read email, surf the web and watch videos, you’re probably better off with the tablet you already own.”
• According to the Verge, since the iPad runs iOS (which is not a desktop operating system), the overall design does not allow for lots of “laptop” things a user may do on a daily basis. Other gripes included not being able to manipulate more than two app windows at a time, not being able to control things with a trackpad, the cumbersome process to data into cells in Google Sheets, etc.

Additionally, the market - the economic version of the “like” button - has not been Apple’s friend of late.

• According to Apple Insider, across Apple's fiscal 2015, annual iPad unit sales fell by an astounding 19% while iPad revenues fell 23%, a plunge from fiscal 2014 of just over $7 billion. iPad sales have declined for seven straight quarters.
• The first-day U.S. sales of Apple’s iPad Pro were 70% lower than comparative sales during last year’s launch of the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3, according to research firm Slice Intelligence.

Is Apple now trending downwards on the gentle slope of gradual decline?

Apple is blessed with competitors that lack its reach or its grip or both. That said, Apple faces a much different reality than during its Jobs-fueled heydey.

Undeniably, there is an element of repetition to its products, much like Harry Potter books.  

The iPhone changed how folks communicated and used computing. During my internship at Sprint in 2002, executives kept repeating the mantra that “voice was out, data was in.” No one, however, knew how to translate that boilerplate pablum into a business strategy, until the hipster sage of Cupertino came along. The market and users approved, and like pounds picked up over the holidays, Apple’s gadgets were here to stay.

Nothing that Apple has done in the last few years compares to that paradigm shift in user behavior. The company of the iPhone is becoming the company of the iClone.

So, each product is a variation of its predecessor, as if Apple is either afraid of the kind of change it once drove, or it simply wants to cash in on its existing innovations by changing how they get used.

As an innovator, Apple has gone from the exceptional to the operational to the somewhat trivial. Either way, "Infinite Loop" describes more than just Apple's corporate address.

The aforementioned CNET review states that the iPad Pro needs more optimized apps and accessories before it can fully achieve laptop-killer status. Bombarded by the ravenous demands of the digital moment, Apple now occupies unfamiliar terrain. It is just as likely to to be driven by events as to drive them. How many will shell out the dollars to buy the iPad Pro? How many designers will create apps that require all the power the Pro provides, therefore justifying the price tag? Who will make the first move?

Apple is also haunted by the ghosts of Microsoft’s past.

Microsoft's decay began in the 1990s when it was doing well - when the Internet was expanding and users were accessing and interacting with each other in ways outside the ones Microsoft had perfected. No one knows if a similar migration of preferences is occurring presently. Disturbingly for Apple, neither do its leaders.

Microsoft never got past the ground it had perfected: you could install its programs on your Microsoft-driven PC, manage data, send email and messages, and do all that on Microsoft’s terms. They were so imprisoned by their brand that they were unprepared for the next obvious transition, that users would want to do all this using a different device or different delivery mechanism.

Apple is at a similar crossroads. Its products carry a high price point, and is trying to provide variations of its existing product to a different audience with each release. This strategy may help with sales, but once you lose the “wow” factor of bringing something new to market, it is very hard to retrieve it.

Ask Matt LeBlanc.

The actor, who played “Joey” in Friends, never recaptured the magic in its forgotten spinoff Joey. Apple is beginning to look more and more like a sitcom actor, very successful within its brand, but just as confined in its appeal and lacking a next act just as the audience is getting distracted by other shiny objects.

Apple still remains extremely profitable. Plus, $203 billion in cash helps. Apple is worth more than all the gold in Fort Knox, five times the combined value of all 30 MLB teams, and could send everyone living in the U.S. about $600 before running out of money.

However, Apple is slowly ceasing to lead. Like an amateur dancer, Apple is stuck in place, swerving left and right to convey a false sense of rhythm, it’s awkward moves obscured by sleek design.

The iPad Pro is an apt metaphor for Apple’s woes in that it is geared towards a niche audience of graphics affectionados. Rather than growing its audience, Apple is catering to a smaller group with each iteration.

The high priests of the iChurch are preaching to the choir, and everyone is singing passionately, and the collection plates are full. Except, somewhat ominously, the congregation is not growing.