Apple leaves nothing to chance and certainly not its own luck.
In fact, in a field that is rapidly transforming and every day that dawns it calls for new answers to more and more challenges.
And so, despite the fact that you can hardly imagine Apple without the iPhone, it is preparing at full speed for a life without its trademark product.
After all, we are talking about a company that in so many decades of its existence has known and overcome a few obstacles. There were times, say, in the early years of PC, when he struggled with IBM for a piece of the commercial pie, trying to find its place in the operating systems within the regime of absolute omnipotence of Windows of the 1990s.
Even with a padlock he was threatened in those dark days of 1997, so he knows nothing but obstacles and competition. And if there is one thing he has learned over the years, it is that the great challenge remains to be ahead not only of the competition, but also of yourself.
Rumors have it that sales of the iPhone XS and XR are not going well at all, although no one can be sure, as Apple remains reluctant to tell us how many smartphones it has sold in 2019. Not only that, but it has already announced that it will no longer provide data on the commercial impact of any of its devices, giving headaches as analysts say.
From all this it is clear that the incredible growth rate and crazy sales of the past have been limited. In a letter sent by Tim Cook to Apple shareholders on January 2, 2019 and concerned the last quarter of 2018, he characteristically warned everyone that his estimates will not be justified. They will not even come close to the predictions! The problem is twofold, says Apple CEO: the US-China trade war and the wider financial crisis that has driven iPhone sales.
But Cook saw another reason, a minor commercial threat, well known to his customers, environmentalists and Apple itself, ultimately considering it not a problem but a privilege: that people keep their iPhones for longer!
The world is changing and so must Apple, if it is to meet the needs of an era dominated by the global economic downturn. The iPhone continues to represent the largest and most robust part of the company's commercial activity, which, however, does not hide that it is trying to disengage from the product's leading position in its market impact. This tells us in recent years with a new range of devices and services and this was recently confirmed at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, held in San Jose, Italy. California in early June.
But is Apple made without an iPhone? The colossus of the colossus still represents today 59% of its revenue (data of the most recent quarter). Even if the rumors that iPhones sales are declining or even sinking are true, it will obviously continue to sell a lot of iPhones in the years to come.
Only that every product, no matter how successful, makes its rounds. The iPod he knows this very well. And Apple obviously better. That is why, as everything shows, it moves gradually and progressively towards others.
Making many talk bluntly that Apple has already entered its post-iPhone era…
Apple has been talking a lot, but a lot, about its business activities for a number of years. And in 2016 it officially launched its ambitious goal of doubling revenues from the services of 2020.
What does this mean in practice? Annual spending of $ 48 billion by 2020, which will turn the services sector into its second largest activity. Or the first if you want after the iPhone! Apple is of course not the only one focusing on services, but it is extremely determined.
That is why the very wide range of services that continues to fall at the feet of the consumer. First of all, it constantly strengthens the most reliable flow of its revenue, the sale of content and subscription packages to the users of its devices.
Second, it seeks to create new services to increase revenue from its existing customers and attract new audiences. And third, it is trying to expand its customer base beyond those who already use its products, constantly adding more to the so-called "Apple ecosystem", this vast array of applications it offers and wants to make everyone stumble upon it. At every technological step, they want it or not.
Here the reports from market players tell us that the goal of 48 billion by 2020 is an easy job. With the Apple TV streaming service event and the expansion of its music activities to other platforms (such as Amazon Echo), hot money inflows are increasing exponentially.
In 2018, for example, according to Apple's balance sheet, revenue from its services industry climbed to $ 37 billion. In other words, she traveled more than halfway to her goal in exactly half of the time she had set. But that's what Apple does, it sets "moderate" goals first to dust them off right after…
Shielding the future of Apple and the vision of an era where the iPhone will no longer be its central pillar obviously goes far beyond selling more services in the market. Apple is also at its best when it lets innovation lead it.
What if Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs, having several failures in its assets, everyone recognizes that for the time being it is the great driving force of Apple. And the big boss paved the way for one of Apple's biggest new initiatives: health.
Here her movements did not go unnoticed by the market, everything else. It all started when the product he believes in the most, the Apple Watch, started from the end of 2018 with an integrated electrocardiogram service. Apple's smartwatch has since steadily placed the burden on healthcare services, becoming its main product for monitoring the user's health.
And this is indeed a possibility that has never been applied to such an extent in a mass-consuming electronic device. But it is not just the Apple Watch that is making the leap to health applications. Apple has been working feverishly for a long time to give its customer a complete digital health record, ready for any use. At the same time making it even easier for researchers to use its innovative technology and thus taking science a lot further down.
It is now clear to everyone and especially to the competition that Apple is constantly integrating more and more health services into its devices. She even recently filed a patent for "health sensors" for her headphones! Something we will probably see in future versions of AirPods, to measure our body temperature and other biometric data.
At the same time, Apple is looking for ways to measure other health features, such as blood pressure and blood sugar levels, through its existing devices. No one is wrong: health is the cornerstone of Apple's future…
If there is one fundamental rule in technology, it is that things are constantly evolving. And like all tech giants, Apple is constantly looking for the next day in terms of hardware, wanting to catch up or even fix the current.
One of the areas that is obviously focused is the realm of augmented reality, augmented reality, as we call it in Greek. It's not the first one here, it just seems to have taken technology very seriously, with both headsets and glasses. A technology that is of course nothing but a crazy bet for the time being, more and more analysts are seeing the future of an Apple away from the iPhone right here, in the realm of virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
Apple Watch and AirPods record sales of up to 50% each year. But these and all other Apple products, from Apple TVs and Beats to HomePods, iPod touch and accessories bearing its logo are far behind the iPhone in terms of revenue.
Still others are betting that Apple's future is already here and hears his name iPad and the Apple Watch. The first is not a secret that the giant has been trying for a long time to turn it into a replacement for the laptop first and the desktop itself later. As for the smartwatch, where initially it was just an iPhone accessory, it has now become autonomous with its own functional and exclusive applications.
The good news for Apple is that with so much advanced and extensive hardware and software activity, it is ready to cash in on the next big fad, whatever it is. Like Apple's long-awaited standalone car, let's say, arguably the most interesting of the company's new projects, if it is considered to ever be released. But if it does, the Apple Car could be a product with the potential to overtake the iPhone from the top of its products.
This is exactly what Apple's business history shows us: even if he is not the protagonist in something, he is the player who will perfect it. Gaining head over and over again in the market. It is, after all, the only company with a capitalization of 1 trillion. dollars, so something will do well, it can not.
"Apple is innovating like no other company on Earth and we do not intend to take our foot off the gas," Tim Cook wrote in the above letter to his shareholders.
As for the cigarette case, tomorrow's Apple will be very different from today's Apple. And it tries to show us from the here and now, how it will be both the same and the technology in 20, 30 and 40 years from today.
And if the iPhone is such a milestone that you can hardly imagine a world without an iPhone, this is it another Apple success. Because we are essentially talking about a product with a history of 12 years (first presented in June 2007)! Twelve brilliant years that turned Apple not only into the world's largest technology company, but also one of the most innovative.
An innovative company with available reserves of $ 200 billion, hot money with a tail that makes everything possible.