Apple is doomed because it doesn’t have a folding phone

The Macalope has long said that Apple is the Schrödinger’s cat of tech companies, it is either a success or a failure depending on your perception of it.

And how fast you have to bang out an article about it.

Despite a decade and a half of dire warnings about iPhones being snuffed out of existence by Android phones, Apple still does pretty well in the smartphone market, particularly in the U.S. The other guys have had a bit of a time of it recently. According to Counterpoint Research, slumping Android phone sales mean the iPhone hit 55 percent market share in the U.S. in the second calendar quarter of 2023. To be fair, iPhone shipments fell, too, but at a much smaller rate than those of Android phones.

Counterpoint’s director of North American Research Jeff Fieldhack further suggested it might not get better this year for Android OEMs.

”Weakness is likely to continue through the start of Q3 2023, but stronger iPhone 15 demand could offset weakness across Android.”

That’s… not great. And what’s even not greaterer is that market share isn’t even as important as profit share. It’s nice to sell 500 things for a $1 profit each. It’s even better to sell one thing for a $1,000 dollar profit.

This, of course, doesn’t mean Apple isn’t still receiving dire warnings about its iPhone lineup from what are surely just people looking out for the company’s best interests.

“Apple needs a foldable iPhone soon or iPhones won’t be worth buying” (Tip o’ the antlers to Daring Fireball.)

Because all anyone is buying are those $1,800 and up foldable phones from other vendors. So many of them that… Android sales are drastically down.

No one said it had to make sense. The Macalope doesn’t know why no one said that, but apparently no one said it.

Also, not to rain on your Trip Chowdhry fan fiction but, if you will recall, Apple had the original foldable smartphone. Aherm.

“Bending’ iPhone 6: Apple claims only nine customers have complained”

And at the time it was described as a big problem so please make up your minds.

Counterpoint doesn’t really seem to see the problem with as much urgency. In a report issued just days before the one above, it said foldable phones were currently a niche product, but the market could reach $100 million by 2027 assuming a foldable iPhone comes out in 2025.

Senior analyst Jene Park said, “In the long term, we are waiting to see what Apple does.”

You don’t say.

Turns out iPhones aren’t the only Apple product line that’s been faring better than the competition lately. According to IDC, while the PC market fell overall in the second calendar quarter of 2023, Mac sales grew by 10.3 percent. Some of this is because Apple had a bad second quarter in 2022. Also, Apple’s share is still relatively small, just 6.8 percent.

And, hey, they shouldn’t be trying to compete against anyone. They should just be trying to be the best Apple they can be.

Oh, sorry, forgot we were talking about capitalism. Never mind. Strike that. Crush your enemies. Drive them into the river Despair so they can be swept into the Sea of Misery. And maybe get eaten by some sharks, too.

Suffice it to say, that despite the fevered dreams of some, Apple’s going to be just fine.

It’s weird that you have to say that about a $3 trillion company but here we are.