Gadgetory

are you excited to see Santa to me too she's so lucky you be 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 but there is no dispute that this is a different company moving forward so if you watched our 2016 predictions show from last year everything I predicted pretty much happened in unfortunately that's not a good thing 2016 was the year of iterations and very little exciting innovation maybe that's what's really missing Apple isn't an exciting company anymore but maybe they 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 I wanted to swim with it you can just keep your first gen with the same battery life form factor while also running the same OS in fact watch os3 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 sales fell 71 percent in the third quarter of 2016 compared to that same quarter last year and Apple still won't give us sales numbers ouch all right now the iphone 7 the crown jewel and money maker for Apple is still its bread and butter they took out the headphone jack to promote a wireless future 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 that wireless future was directly linked to the Apple earpods honestly it was their most innovative product of the year purely because of the w1 chip and how it makes sinking unlike anything we've seen before but just because its innovative didn't mean it looked good with the 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 have to use your phone for most of the controls sea air pods are good just not great and that's the best new product you released 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 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 apples touch bar 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 will still wait to see if any apps 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 apples 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 a mac OS and iOS we'll just keep holding it back from doing more than it can and a pencil alone is not going to 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 sling TV PlayStation view and DirecTV 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 it's just a 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 and 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 an echo apple also scrapped their 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 add on to the 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 going to 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 all right that's going to do it for this week's show you can email us at the apple byte at cnet com or to me at Brian Tom let me know if you thought 2016 was a good or bad year for Apple thanks so much for watching we'll catch y'all next time for another bite of the Apple meet Santa Santa okay it's really okay okay I'm doing it okay Santa so the first thing I wanted to know is could you have apple bring back the headphone jack on the iphone sure yeah okay okay that's awesome awesome um could you also make sure that that Apple finally updates the mac pro I mean all my friends wanting you and could he do that also I can do that Santa oh ok ok also um could you make sure that Apple does a TV streaming service that's what I want could they do that we can do that ok ok and the last ones and this is really serious like could you just make sure that Apple brings back innovation really are you done yet yeah no I'm yeah yeah elevation yeah oh come on Oh oh yeah no no yeah i am now yeah yeah yeah oh yeah i am now okay okay o too lovely else yes