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Trip Hawkins, the outspoken founder of Digital Chocolate has some strong views on Apple and their future.
Hawkins has a much respected history in the industry. He worked for Apple in the early 80's as a director of strategy, he also helped with their marketing during the same time. He was the founder of gaming giant Electronic Arts, so his views will certainly be seen as important.
He believes that Apple have reached their peak and is now headed towards a decline.
He spoke to EDGE and said “If you look at any institution in history – look at the Roman Empire – anything in history, and what it looks like when it’s peaking. Look at Apple, and how can you say it’s not peaking? The CEO is still alive, let’s start there. They invented this tablet thing that’s going to be really big. They’ve done really well by reinventing the phone. They breathed new life into the Mac. They’ve got this super-high marketing. All these things are about as good as they ever can be – how much better can it really get?”
He adds “The thing is, it may take another year or two before it starts to decline, but it has to – everything does. Everything revolves so much around Steve, and no matter how good his lieutenants are, they're not Steve. None of us is going to live forever, though I hope he lives for a really long time.”
His latest venture Digital Chocolate was founded in 2003. They make games for handheld devices and he has worked on iOS with many of the titles. He has some strong views on the Apple platform, specifically the closed nature.
He said “Digital Chocolate's games will always be in the App Store. But I think it would be an incredibly positive thing for the industry if Apple decided to support all of the web standards, because then Apple could be the best about everything. Right now they make a conscious choice.
They want you to be in the App Store rather than the browser, so they cripple the browser. They've created this outlet and they had to have an excuse to keep you there, so they're like, ‘Oh it's nothing against Flash; we just prefer HTML5'. Well, Flash can actually make a really good game, and with HTML5 you can't do that. But give HTML5 another few years to mature, and that could solve the problem. Or Apple could be more generous about deciding to support more de facto standards like Flash, or at least let it run its course.”
Kitguru says: Have Apple really reached their peak, or will they continue to grow and dominate in the coming years? With the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 around the corner we can't imagine their sales will decline anytime soon.
