Apple gradually losing it

I have made money with Apple shares. How I wished it was just paper profit but I have come around to believe that Apple cannot do without Jobs. I have kept this mostly to myself but today Apple newest ear piece make it easy to explain. Just compare it with Samsung which by the way had beaten Apple to the post for this part of the race.

This Apple Earpod is ugly isn't it? And would certainly look worse on Asian ears.

The much prettier Samsung Gear X

Update: 8:30 pm

From the NYT, the writer articulated my thoughts exactly.

Update: Sep 17 7:00 am

Counter punch from the iPhone: Competing with the iPhone's specs is harder than it seems

Quoting two passages from the article. 

Samsung’s approach to competing with the iPhone has always been to sprint at a breakneck pace and reach new hardware milestones first. But that has backfired horribly this year with the unfortunate Galaxy Note 7 recall, which was caused by exploding batteries. Chasing ever higher densities and ever more aggressive fast-charging methods, Samsung seems to have made the mistake of pushing that little bit too hard. But that’s the sort of risk every Android manufacturer is taking on: Xiaomi launched its Mi 5 flagship earlier this year with the highest-density battery technology available.

and 

EVERY SPEC HAS A THRESHOLD AFTER WHICH MORE OF IT IS NO LONGER REALLY VALUABLE

The iPhone’s greater power efficiency stems from two major factors: neither of its models has class-leading display resolution, and neither has as much RAM as the typical Android smartphone. This resolution issue is a great example of knowing when a spec ceases to be important: Samsung, LG, HTC, and others have all reached more impressive resolutionnumbers than the iPhone, but none of their Quad HD flagship displays looks much better than the iPhone’s. Apple achieves enough resolution (for everything but VR applications), crossing its Retina display threshold, and then it stops. Such pixel frugality leads to longer battery life.

However these haven't detract me from my primary point: Apple design leadership and innovation have almost stopped without Jobs. Fortunately for them they have a wide moat to defend their castle but that is only buying time. I do not know when one day the market decided to wake up and turn against Apple. So from a risk analysis basis, I sold.