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 Apple’s public spat with Basecamp developers has been a very interesting window into what may be going on at the highest levels within Apple. This disagreement was about much more than Apple simply “sharing the wealth” with developers. This strikes to the very question of Apple’s identity. Are Apple services going to be simply a support role for hardware or will they become a profit center as well driving real revenue growth? Does Apple remain primarily a hardware company or not?
 When I was working at the Cabela’s Corporation as a senior financial analyst I had the keys to the room which held the company’s Crown Jewels. I had access to their customer and sales database. I enjoyed running queries to see how our customers for coolers were interspersed throughout the world. Or what week of the year did sales of sunglasses pickup? It helped me to run complex future profitability models.
 So some guy conjures up a horrendous business idea that can only succeed if he has no overhead costs. And that’s Apple’s fault? TechCrunch is reporting that Phil Schiller from Apple says "No".
 I was listening to a podcast with Myke Hurley this week in which he asked “what possible benefit arises from removing the power port from the iPhone?”. He and his fellow hosts couldn’t think of a single good thing. It’s not to make the iPhone waterproof since many phones with ports are already waterproof. And it can’t be to free up space because Apple didn’t do anything with the space that they gained from removing the headphone jack.
 Last week I briefly wrote about how absurd I find the idea that a forward-thinking company like Apple needs to dive into a stale industry such as automotive. But all week I’ve been thinking about how I didn’t go far enough. Apple, and really all the big tech companies, are actually killing the very need for the automobile in the first place.
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Robert PerezManufacturing and distribution analysis since 1993. 
Perezonomics is available in Apple News
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October 2024
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