By Apple launches a new headquarter. Over a 51-acre plot near Culver City, California for, according to analysis by Cushman & Wakefield. It will occupy the space vacated by Sony. The move comes as Apple faces slowing sales of its devices and shifts in demand for the company’s products.
This move is important because it marks a significant development within Silicon Beach, home to some of the biggest technology companies in the US including Facebook, Google and Snap which are all headquartered nearby. For now representatives from these companies have not commented on whether they’re willing to relocate their offices given that Apple is also expanding nearby offices for its retail operations.
The new space that Apple will occupy, has not been used for years; it was once the home of Sony’s movie studio. Apple is already leasing 15 leased floors in Culver City, about 20 minutes away from its new location. It moved there to make room for its expanding operations while awaiting approval of the new site.
“It is confirmed that Apple will be taking over the Sony Studios lot, which was not utilised for several years,” Matthias Clamann, a Cushman & Wakefield executive, said in an email to Bloomberg. “There are currently 15 leased floors in Culver City that Apple is using to expand its
offices. The new building is planned to be a state-of-the-art Cupertino campus that will focus on retail, food and beverage, research and development, along with a new app store for the Apple Watch.”
The firm has been hired by Apple to help it negotiate the lease. In April this year Cook told investors that he was also looking at several other sites in Silicon Beach as part of Apple’s plans to accommodate its growing workforce. The company currently employs 14,000 people in California.
A brief history of Apple devices
The move comes as Apple faces slowing sales of its devices and shifts in demand for the company’s products. Sales were up by five percent thanks to higher demand for iPhones, but revenue was down by 13 per cent year on year due to failing sales of iPads and Macs during the quarter that ended March 31st.
“We ship twice as many iPhones and iPads each and every quarter and we sell five times as many Macs,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a conference call with analysts. “We believe we have the best products in the world. We know we have great products.”
Apple is now the most valuable company in the world with a market capitalization of $866 billion. And through its innovative products, it has become one of the most recognizable companies in the world, valued at more than Google’s parent corporation Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., and IBM combined. It might be surprising for some people to learn that Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, one of the most innovative CEOs that has ever existed, credited for coming up with iconic products such as iPhone with its iOS operating system.
Apple’s quality assurance
Shortcuts and voice recognition commands that would help facilitate easier tasks such as dialing phone numbers and navigation through menus. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile was able to reach 40 million units in sales by the end of 2008, forcing Apple to adapt and improve its operating systems. This led to their release of iPhone OS 2.0 which featured improvements in mail, camera and music management. Apple was able to reach 100 million units in sales by mid-2011 with iPhone OS 4.0 which also introduced the App Store concept which enabled users to download additional features for cellphones over the internet rather than having them preinstalled with the phones themselves. This concept was so popular that Apple was able to dominate the cellphone industry with its app store.
Apple has also been able to monopolize the music industry with its iTunes online music store which dominated the mp3 download market by 2007, making it one of the most successful companies in terms of shares. By 2015, iTunes had reached 50 billion songs downloaded and had more than 60% market share over other legal services such as Spotify. However, iTunes faced a major setback after Apple refused to pay royalties for songs which were downloaded through their service.
There are many reasons why people buy Apple devices. First, they’re reliable. They work every time you plug them in, and the apps perform flawlessly without crashing or freezing. Furthermore, Apple offers different types of devices to suit your needs with amazing features like Face ID and ARKit. Most importantly, the UI is simple enough for anyone to use with ease and comfortability. The OSs (operating systems) are also thoughtfully designed; they’re easy to use even without prior experience or knowledge about computer technology.
However, this reliability is not without its downsides. Some may see the lack of clutter on the UI as an inconvenience, but that’s only because they’re unfamiliar with how it works. For example, you can’t reorder the apps in Home screen just by dragging them around. The only thing you can do is to create folders and move apps and other files to different folders and organize your apps accordingly. That means if you need to use a different app than the one downloaded last time, you might have to delete some unnecessary apps and restart your device before you could install it again.
Read: General Motors warns Chevrolet Bolt owners to park outside
How Apple protects user data
The “6 Commandments”, Apple’s guidelines regarding phone security and privacy, were created in 2015 to protect us from scammers and viruses. However, this may be a bit of an inconvenience too, as you need to give your Touch ID or Face ID if you want to install any app from the App Store. This is because it’s either coming from an unofficial source or it needs additional features that aren’t available with the basic version of the app.
It’s also important to note that Apple devices are relatively more expensive than other brands such as Samsung, LG, Nokia, etc. This is only amplified by the fact that their customer service isn’t well-received by customers at all. There are many who have experienced being scammed by either retailers or the company itself when it comes to service cost for replacement of broken or malfunctioned ports or hardware components.
Apple has become one of the world’s most valuable companies by producing top quality products with a limited range of features, but they face increasingly strong competition.
Competition
This is a list of competitors to Apple:
- Samsung
- Nokia
- Dell
- Lenovo
- Motorola Mobility
- Huawei Technologies
One of the key reasons for Apple’s success with the iPhone is that it has been able to sell its phones at a premium price, up to 3 times as much as one of Samsung’s flagship devices. The introduction of premium devices such as the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus with larger screens could allow Apple to increase its revenues and profits. However, in terms of market share, it took Apple seven years to grow from 7% in 2007 to 17% in 2014 which is still far behind Samsung and Android with a market share of 87%. The main reason for the lack of success in the iPhone has been its inability to compete with Samsung’s demand for low cost phones. As a result, the iPhone 6 Plus (which is much more expensive than Samsung’s equivalent models) has only sold 1 million units in its first 10 days.
Conclusion
The iPhone can be used as a media player for music, movies, TV shows, audio books etc. However, most Apple users have not used an iPhone as their primary media player. Another key reason is that the iPhone cannot be used with any third party applications that can
play or stream audio or video content. Apple does not allow third party developers to produce iOS apps that play media content on Apple iPhones, iPads etc. As a result of which many apps have just been made for Android devices. This has enabled Samsung to create millions of cheaper smartphones with larger screens. However, this trend is expected to reverse over the following years with the increasing popularity of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. What are your thoughts on this? What can be the possible pros and cons of the new headquarter of Apple in LA? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
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