[MUSIC]
Are you excited to see Santa?
Me too, me too.
[MUSIC]
So lucky!
[MUSIC]
Me?
[MUSIC]
What's good?
Brian Tong here and welcome to the Apple Byte.
It's the end of the year.
And it's the perfect time to talk about 2016 and really the highs and lows for Apple this year.
Now, we're not trying to pile on, but we're gonna look at this objectively, so, follow along if you can take it.
Now 2016 was the year where Apple truly lost its shine.
If you've been an Apple fan during their heyday.
Or if you've been a fan of tech who admired them from a distance.
Or if you just started loving Apple with your first iPhone.
You gotta admit, 2016 was the year where Apple lost its mojo.
Now they might get it back Everything I predicted pretty much happened and, unfortunately, that's not a good thing.
2016 was the year of iterations and very little exciting innovations.
Maybe that's what's really missing.
Apple isn't an exciting company anymore but maybe can change that in 2017.
So Let's break it down.
First up the Apple Watch Series 2 in this year.
Unless you really need a GPS on your watch, or wanted to swim with it, you could just keep your first gen with the same battery life, form factor, while also running the same OS.
In fact, watchOS 3 was the best thing about the Apple Watch this year, and it was more of an admission that they did it all wrong the first time around.
Now, reports say Apple watch failed still 71% in the third quarter of 2016, compared to the same quarter last year, and Apple still wont give us sales numbers.
Ouch.
All right now, the I phone seven, the clown jewel and money maker for Apple is still, its bread and butter, they took out the headphone jack to promote, a wireless.
Feature.
It's still a great phone but what hurts even more, declining iPhone sales for three straight quarters this year.
Ouch, that's another low.
And now wireless future was directly linked to the Apple Airpods.
Honestly, it was their most innovative product of the year purely because of the W1 chip and how it makes thinking unlike anything we've seen before.
But just because it's innovative Didn't mean it looked good with a design that was really brutally mocked by many.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the promise of a wireless future was delayed by two months.
And by the time it got here, you still had to use your phone for most of the controls.
See, AirPods are good, just not great.
And that's the best new product you release the entire year and you continue to brag and tell the industry you're the best at what you do?
You know what, you start looking a little cuckoo.
Now this could have been a high point but it was an example of how things have changed.
Apple was the the king of execution, and I know this is a tough business, but I can't call them the king anymore.
All right, let's go on to the new Macbook Pro with Apple's touchbar that took away ports Added hard disk speed, but stuck you with normal processing power, and was sold at yes, a premium price.
Touch bar reaction was mixed.
It's been done before by other companies, but not in Apple's way.
We'll still wait to see if any apps can Can really make it as special as they say.
But the one thing you're not hearing is people still raving about it.
See, reviewing it for a week is a lot different than owning it for a month or more.
Okay, the iPad Pro gave us a True Tone display, arguably Apple's second best new innovation of the year, taking ambient light sensors and adapting the display to match the light in your environment.
But the iPad feels really behind, especially compared to what Microsoft is doing with the Service Pro!
Like the lack of any type of hybrid OS, with the macOS and iOS, Will just keep holding it back from doing more than it can, and a pencil alone is not gonna change that.
Okay, opportunities missed in 2016.
Apple couldn't make a TV subscription service happen, and instead brought us their TV app that would be amazing if every TV network, and cable provider, and service like Netflix and Amazon made a deal with them to work with it.
Except, they don't want to.
See SlimTV, Playstation Vue, and DirectTV now, are doing it and making real money from it.
But Apple isn't.
And did you see what Microsoft did with the Surface Studio?
They threw down.
Now that's a truly inspired design, and a real innovative concept.
Is it the start for them?
And that's the type of stuff Apple used to do.
Instead, Mac Pro users are wondering, why their Pro machine hasn't seen a single update in over three years.
Three years, people.
And now onto the home assistant.
Amazon was the one that came up with the next platform in product for consumers with the Echo a year and a half ago.
Google Home is now in the mix, and these AI speakers are awesome, and where is Apple with this?
Well, you can do some home automation from the phone but, I'm already using AI, so.
Apple also scrapped an initial smart car plans.
They don't have anything in the virtual reality space, but they have publicly committed to augmented reality And we might just see it as a software feature right on tot he iPhone.
So,what do we know?
Apple will still sell millions of units of things, it's what they do but don't forget, Apple is exciting and innovative before they sold millions of things.
Now 2016 was the year you really felt like they were behind competitors.
And it's gonna take more than an amazing new iPhone to change that.
But you know what?
It can help.
Now I know what the glory days of Apple felt like and they are nowhere close to that right now.
And for the sake of competition and innovation All of us should hope that changes in 2017.
Alright, that's gonna do it for this week's show.
You can email us at theapplebye@cnet.com or tweet me @bryantong and let me know if you thought 2016 was a good or bad year for Apple.
Thank you so much for watching.
We'll catch you all next time for another byte of the apple.
[MUSIC]
Me, Santa, Santa.
My God, it's really you.
[LAUGH] Okay, okay.
How are you doing.
I'm doing good.
Okay Santa so the first thing I wanted to know is Could you have Apple bring back the headphone jack on the iPhone?
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, sure?
[LAUGH]
[LAUGH]
Okay, okay, that's awesome, awesome.
Could you also make sure that Apple finally updates the Mac Pro?
I mean, all my friends want a new one, could you do that also?
I can do that also?
I can do that, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]
[LAUGH]
[LAUGH]
No problem.
Okay, okay.
Also could you make sure that Apple A TV streaming service.
That's what I want.
Could they do that?
We can do that.
[LAUGH] Okay, okay.
And the last one Santa, this is really serious, could you just make sure that Apple brings back innovation?
Really?
Are you done yet?
Yeah, no, I'm, could, you-
Innovation?
Yeah.
No come on.
[MUSIC]
[LAUGH]
[MUSIC]
No, no yeah, no yeah, I'm now, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, two lovely elves, yes.
You need help.
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