Apple WWDC 2018 – Maintenance mode

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Moving into maintenance mode.

• Apple’s latest platform releases focus more on keeping users and driving stickiness than they do about encouraging people to buy a new device.
• This is a symptom of a slowing market where hardware on last year’s devices is good enough and where no real upgrade is needed.
• This goes hand in hand with the growth in Apple’s revenues moving to Services, something that Apple is moving to protect and extend.
• This theme was everywhere in iOS 12, Watch OS 5, MacOS Mojave and the new version of tvOS.
  • First, Performance: iOS 11 supports devices as far back as 2013 and iOS 12 will offer the same level of device support despite the oldest devices being one year older.
  • Apple has been (arguably unfairly) accused of hobbling older devices to trigger device upgrades but this has been firmly put to bed.
  • iOS 12 is specifically designed to run well on older devices while ensuring that new device performance is not impeded as a result of these optimisations.
  • Second, Apps: Apple spent a lot of time explaining how it has enhanced its own apps to make them easier and more fun as well as useful.
  • iMessage, Photos, Facetime, News and Apple Books all received upgrades that bring them into line with the best of what Google, Facebook & Amazon are putting into their services.
  • With its very rapid take up of new software, Apple may even get these “innovations” (copies) into the hands of users before the original creators.
  • Third, AR: It has also doubled down on AR with the release of a new file format, an ARKit upgrade with new functionality.
  • Given that the reality of AR is years away due to hardware limitations in eyewear, this is rapidly becoming the go to place to launch cool stuff to generate “wow” moments when you can’t think of anything else.
  • Fourth, Siri: Very little in terms of making Siri smarter and more intuitive was launched showing just how badly Apple is struggling with AI.
  • This is despite the claim that Siri generates more requests than any other assistant.
  • Siri is not improving nearly as fast as its competitors reinforcing my view that differential privacy is hobbling the development of Siri (see here).
  • This was clearly evident in the new upgrade for Siri called Shortcuts.
  • This enables developers to allow their apps to be activated by Siri (a bit like Amazon’s CanFulfillIntentRequest (see here)) as well as allowing users to set up their own Siri controlled routines.
  • An example of this would be “Siri, I am going home” resulting in the route home being brought up on maps, favourite playlist playing on Apple Music and messages being sent to those at home.
  • This is all pure software plumbing requiring no intelligence at all, further underpinning my view of the issues that Siri is facing.
  • There was also no mention of running Siri in the cloud rather than on device meaning that the fragmentation of Siri looks set to continue (see here).
  • Fifth, Wellbeing: Apple toed the common line (across all platforms) with regard to controlling screen time of both regular users and children.
  • While Apple has done nothing special here, critically I think it has implemented it better than anyone else has.
  • This means it will be easy to set up and manage and most importantly work well and consistently.
  • The same cannot be said for Android where even on the best devices, apps blocked from giving notifications still sometimes ping in the middle of the night when do not disturb is active.
  • The functionality and options offered here also show that more thought has gone into offering exactly what users want.
• These features combined with many other tweaks and changes (such as enabling some iOS apps to run on Mac) are aimed at deepening the engagement of users with Apple products and services.
• This is much more about holding onto the users it has and keeping them happy than it is about selling the maximum number of device upgrades.
• This is a recognition that the hardware business is rapidly flattening meaning that new revenues need to come from services.
• Services remains very small compared to the huge device business but fortunately the valuation of Apple is not desperately demanding compared to its peer digital ecosystems.
• Hence, Apple remains a great place to sit out the uncertainty presented by the current backlash against the use of data for monetisation purposes.