During most of the slide Apple has tried to maintain the same attitude and outlook that they had when their market share was solid. Analysts were falling all over themselves to predict the continuation of Apple’s dominance. We all heard how Apple would stay in power until well into 2015 and some even said 2016. Many of these were made last year in 2012. Now in the latter half of 2013 we see that Apple’s hold and their image has broken. They are not only far behind in terms of OS market share (Android holds 81%) but they have even slid behind Samsung (their biggest competitor) for phones and are in danger of losing their tablet dominance very soon.

Even worse news for Apple is that fact that they are no longer the leader in customer satisfaction. That honor has been handed over to Samsung by J.D. Power. Samsung pulled this off by a hair (835 to 833), but a win is a win. Apple’s response to the news that they are slipping has been an unusual one: “We are not solely focused on unit share as I've said many times, but we're focused on usage in customer's side, the loyalty and other things that are very important to us”

Tim, I hate to tell you this, but if you are not pushing out new and compelling products you are going to lose that loyalty. One part of the user experience is about being able to afford the device you want. Here is where Apple has slipped so far. Many consumers feel that Apple is asking for prices that are out of line with what they are getting. This is even with the free applications and upgrades that Apple is offering (out of character). Tim Cook might try to re-engage the public with comments about new products and technologies, but the sad fact is that Apple has failed to deliver on that promise with the iPhone 5s and potentially with the iPad Air. According to most reviews the new tablet can crunch through the benchmarks, but you would never know it if you were a regular user. This problem seems to be a problems with what Cook says Apple is all about…

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