I'd say over the last 5 years Apple has lost its way and chosen to become a hardware company over being a software company.
Depsite their monster cash flows and huge profits, Apple has really got a list of shame when it comes to software:
a) Keynote - not a nice presentation program at all - it hasn't seen a makeover in years.
b) IOS 10 which replaces the old O/S - it looks pretty but is not very useful.
c) iTunes - this reminds me of music software from 2005! Its now years behinds its rivals like Roon.
d) All the office software looks dated. The word processing, spreadsheets etc. look a decade old - it's as if the dev staff have left the building. Look at the modern software advances like Dropbox, Slack and others leading the way. Apple has nothing new in this space to keep it moving forward for years.
Software can change faster in markets than hardware does, so I would advise Apple to engage in their software for the long haul.
Software (like Steemit) also allows us to engage more fully than we ever did before, and it appears that hardware often closes more doors than it opens.
I don't wish to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about Apple, but they do need to realise that hardware always get cheaper, so if you can't win in this space, you shouldn't run in it - switch the focus to software instead and your path will be much smoother.
