Apple Is Gradually Shifting Away from Its Traditional Product Release Strategy
TapTechNews October 7th news, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman published the latest issue of 'PowerOn' newsletter last night, mentioning that Apple is gradually abandoning the 'annual update' style of product release strategy.
'Apple is gradually giving up the annual product upgrade cycle, which may make product releases more frequent and reduce disturbing delays,' Gurman said.
Traditionally, Apple usually releases the preview version of the latest system in June every year, and releases new generations of iPhone, iPad, Mac and other products from September to October every year. This move has the following advantages:
It helps to motivate employees to move forward towards the same goal. Employees will not be confused about when certain products need to be ready.
Analysts and investors know 'what to expect'. The company gets reliable sales growth at the same time every year, which helps drive the most important holiday season (TapTechNews note: 'Holiday season' often refers to the period when merchants and retailers have the highest sales volume in a year, including Christmas, New Year, as well as Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other holidays).
If Apple holds a large-scale press conference in the autumn, it is easier to plan its marketing and public relations. Because this can ensure that after the media end their holidays and return to work and pay attention (usually the iPhone conference is on the Tuesday or Wednesday of the first week after the first Monday in September in the US Labor Day).
But even so, Gurman believes that this strategy is beginning to 'show cracks'. Because the current variety of Apple's products is increasing day by day, pursuing annual updates of products such as iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, etc. is not practical. In addition, products such as Apple Watch Ultra or iPhone SE also don't need to be updated frequently.
Gurman analyzed accordingly that Apple is gradually deviating from its 'new products in autumn' plan. However, Apple'may have to' further adopt a more flexible way, that is, to release when the product is ready, and not to release if it is not ready.
The current iPadOS 18 also shows the drawback of Apple's previous approach: the system has hardly any new features and even contains a bug, which causes some iPad Pros with the M4 processor to be unusable and the hardware must be replaced to solve the relevant problem. As a result, this version of the operating system cannot be used for two weeks and was not restored until Thursday. The day before, Apple was forced to withdraw the third beta version of watchOS 11.1 because it caused a similar failure. In September, the same problem occurred with the HomePod beta update.
Gurman said that Apple 'obviously realizes' this problem. Pursuing the release of most new hardware and software products in the autumn has brought excessive pressure. Currently, the company is gradually moving away from this path. For example, Apple announced Apple Intelligence in June, but has already stated in advance that the function will be launched in steps.