
Off - mh_
http://www.marco.org/2013/10/24/off
======
cstross
Stuff I expected, under "one more thing ..." (or earlier):

The Mac Pro ships with enough bandwidth to drive three 4K desktop monitors,
yet Apple's most recent monitor -- the 27" Thunderbolt Display -- dates to
2011 and has the same resolution as the current 15" Macbook Pro. Bluntly, this
is disgraceful. Serious video folks are going to be buying Mac Pros and then
paying ASUS three times as much for the monitors! _Where 's the Apple 4K
Thunderbolt Display?_

A keyboard cover -- like the Logitech Ultra-thin Keyboard Cover, or
Microsoft's Surface keyboards -- would be nice. (I suppose Apple are relying
on the after-market, as witness the startlingly fast announcements by Belkin
et al.)

Finally, the "software is free" announcement ... yes, they're taking aim at
Microsoft, but iWork 5 on OSX turns out to be a mixed blessing; there are
regressions all over, _especially_ in scripting (they've virtually dropped
AppleScript from their office apps). What is this, an attempt to build market
share for MS Office? (The mind boggles.) What other power user features have
they planed away in the pursuit of a clean and consistent user interface
across all platforms? (Which in practice seems to mean dumbing down the apps
on the Pro platform -- OSX -- for compatibility with the mass market platform
-- iOS.)

~~~
bane
> Finally, the "software is free" announcement

This is really about the desktop/laptop market and not the mobile market. It's
important to separate these two markets when looking at this decision.

Right, they _are_ taking aim at MS, but not in the way I think most people
here are talking about. For _most_ Windows users, Windows is either free or
transparent (OEM install so the price is both ridiculously reduced over
consumer, and it's just part of the computer purchase). You'll also generally
get years of significant updates to Windows for $0.

For Apple, selling the OS has always been kind of weird. 99.999% of people who
get the latest OS X are going to run it on their Apple built and sold
computers anyway. And Apple obsoletes their hardware from the upgrade path
faster than the Microsoft equivalent. So most users might see 3 or 4 years of
solid updates before getting obsoleted out.

(Anecdote, my Windows desktop from early 2007 is still able to be upgraded to
the very latest MS desktop OS. My MBP from the same time frame is so obsolete
I can't even get a version of Flash that runs on it.)

So what changed? Surface. Apple has never competed well in the desktop/laptop
market until very recently. Despite all the MBP and MBA I see at Starbucks,
Apple only owns about 10-11% of the global market. But tight vertical
integration and a very loyal customer base means they can squeeze that 10% for
lots of profit. A user who upgrades their Mac every 3-4 years...well $100 for
an OS license isn't all that much. And Mountain Lion? What was that $20?

So Surface changes this, Apple knows that Microsoft has the appetite to
swallow ungodly amounts of money trying to get Surface some marketshare. And
with Surface the OS is basically free with the device. A Surface Pro 2 isn't a
bad little computer and _is_ a better MBA competitor than any ultrabook is.
This is the first time that Microsoft has really built, marketed and sold
their own _computer_ which means that the OS really is free. A couple price
cuts and Surface Pros will dominate the Starbuck's scene (at least outside of
the Valley).

While not really important to Apple right now, Apple needs to strategically
move to cut this off quickly for the future. As a company Apple is just now
finally starting to get large groups of people to move to their computing
platform, and it'd be a shame to lose their momentum right now.

~~~
yajoe
You're right, and you are the first person I've seen say it out loud.

Further evidence: the Office competitor from Apple is also free. Why? The low-
end Surface devices bundled Office for free, and one cycle later Apple began
bundling its Office version alongside _new_ devices. Microsoft would bundle
Office with the high-end Surface devices (Surface Pros) if it weren't for
pesky anti-trust threats looming (Windows RT is advertised to regulators as a
separate OS from the Windows NT line, and a lot of weirdness stems from this
distinction). It's very clear that Apple is trying to head off the Microsoft
efforts with these pricing games.

Personally? I'm bummed there was no mac mini update... I need a new personal
server at home, and I had been waiting for a supposed refresh... now I need to
build and set up my own Linux server... that was fun when I was in my early
20s, but now it just feels tedious.

~~~
bane
and here's Microsoft's reaction...

[http://www.informationweek.com/software/productivity-
applica...](http://www.informationweek.com/software/productivity-
applications/microsoft-exec-trashes-apples-free-iwork/240163073)

------
nostromo
There's another story on HN that says, "The PC is not dead, we just don't need
new ones." That's actually my exact situation with Apple right now. My iPad
Mini, iPhone 5, Mac Pro, Apple TV and MBP are all more than adequate. Making
them gold or shaving off a few ounces isn't very exciting.

The iPad was released less than 3 years after the iPhone. Now we're three
years past the release of the iPad with nothing new to talk about. I'm sure
there are exciting things happening under the hood at Apple, but the event was
a bit boring.

Apple should also rethink their television ads. The style they popularized has
become trite and they ooze with self-importance. The iPad mini video with the
pencil reminded me of Facebook's terrible Chair ad. I miss the lightness and
humor of watching a John Hodgman riff with what's-his-name.

~~~
hrktb
Is three years a long time ? There is a theory that Apple products are priced
at more or less 1$ a day for their expected life span, and it matches m y
experience pretty well.

A MBP easily goes 3000$, you could be expected to be satisfied with it for 3
years at least. Apple shouldn't need to convince people having bought an iPad
2 years ago to absolutely buy one now, same goes for the iPhone 4S or 5 (the 5
is from last year, yeah you might not _need_ a new one)

Looking at the software support charts, 2 or 3+ years devices are all still
fully supported.

For comparison, I bought a 2010 MBA, it's plenty usable, but I'm having a hard
look at the new generation MBP because it's actually a very very nice upgrade
with featuers that really make a difference in everyday use. Same thing for
the ipad, looking at the first ipad, I can't imagine anyone saying "that's
good enough for me, why go retina, have 4x the RAM, 4x the speed all of these
for half the weight ?"

~~~
weaksauce
for the $1/day metric to be valid you'd have to hold onto that mbp for over 8
years.

~~~
CanSpice
Assuming you keep it when you get a new one. Apple products hold their resale
value quite well.

~~~
vacri
Is the amount of time you spend in dealing with the resale included in the
overall costings? My impression is that most people who do the resale dance
aren't cheap when paid by the hour.

------
akmiller
"We know Microsoft’s tablets suck"

This irritates the hell out of me. Who is this "we"? Fine if Marco wants to
suggest that they suck, but I'll take a shot in the dark and say he hasn't
even tried to give one a fair shake...would love to hear from him if he
actually has.

I have never found a use for a tablet, but I have several around my house
including iPad Mini, iPad 3, Nexus 7 (1st gen), and now a Surface. The Surface
is the best of those devices and the only one I can see myself continuing to
use going forward.

I would challenge anyone to just open their minds if they haven't tried one
and jump in completely for a week or so then make up your mind. Definitely not
saying the device is perfect, there are some things (both hardware and
software) I'd like to see added but it's a damn nice device!

~~~
kingnight
You will love this article...

[http://www.marco.org/2012/10/26/an-alternate-
universe](http://www.marco.org/2012/10/26/an-alternate-universe)

~~~
kunai
Wow. That was more than enough to prove to me that this guy is an idiot.

I don't know why this is on HN.

~~~
zmmmmm
> I don't know why this is on HN.

Because despite the fact that he is a wild-eyed Apple fan with hugely
distorted opinions and is horrifically wrong much of the time, he has
connections and insights into the Apple ecosystem that nobody else does. Just
hold your nose and scan for the actual information in between lines of
rubbish.

------
spot
"We know that effectively nobody browses the web on their Android tablets full
of stretched-out phone apps."

this is false. android tablet browsing is substantial and growing fast. Looks
like 25% in july 2013 in this graph, up from 15% in july 2012.

[http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2013/08/reality-android-
tablet-...](http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2013/08/reality-android-tablet-usage-
browsing-share-region.html)

~~~
YooLi
That's Marcos hyperbole based on the fact that Android has, according to IDC,
a 63% tablet marketshare in 2013 (iOS has 33%), yet, as you stated, only 25%
browsing share. So, Android has double the market share, but only a quarter
the browsing share. Hence, the comment generalizing that people with Android
tablets aren't browsing the web with them.

~~~
zmmmmm
The whole thing is silly because browsing is clearly a reflection of installed
base while "market share" is (usually) talking about the current rate of
sales, which are fluctuating year by year on an exponential scale.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Android phones came a year after the release of the iPhone. 5 years later, the
iPhone still dominates web usage share.

I see a similar trend when comparing web usage share between Android tablets
and iPads.

~~~
zmmmmm
> Android phones came a year after the release of the iPhone

In 2010, 3 years after iPhone release, Android had around 8% market share. It
grew something like 1200% that year. These things aren't linear with time.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Currently, Android has 80% smartphone market share. Android smartphone market
share growth is over. And yet, iPhone web usage share remains much higher than
Android’s.

~~~
spot
"Android barely beats iOS in terms of mobile web browsers that actually go
online."

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/10/16/why-do-
onl...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/10/16/why-do-online-
browsing-habits-favor-iphones-and-ios-devices-over-android/)

where do you get your numbers?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Hitslink and Statcounter.

~~~
spot
so you are tracking your own sites. well maybe they appeal to iOS users.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Eh, no. Hitslink’s data[1] comes from approximately 160 million visitors per
month. StatCounter’s data[1] comes more than 3 million websites. Caveat:
StatCounter’s hasn’t been reporting very reliable global stats lately, it’s
most useful for Europe and North America.

Personally, I use Mint[3] for analytics on my websites, iOS usage share is
much higher for those.

[1] [http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-
share.aspx?qp...](http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-
share.aspx?qprid=0&qpcustomd=1)

[2] [http://gs.statcounter.com/](http://gs.statcounter.com/)

[3] [http://haveamint.com](http://haveamint.com)

~~~
spot
neither of those is specifically for tablets.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
[http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/apple-
announces-170m-ipads-...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/apple-
announces-170m-ipads-sold-with-81-tablet-usage-share-and-475k-apps/)

------
nwh
He's not wrong. The presenters kept saying slightly the wrong words and having
to go back and correct themselves. The constant untucked-shirt comments were
painful, and completely out of their usual presentation style.

The Mac Pro is absolutely hilarious in it's pricing. When converted back to
USD, it's almost 30% more expensive in Australia for absolutely no
understandable reason. The fact that it wasn't released is very strange too,
along with it's very vague "December" date. Makes me feel like they expected
to be releasing it but ran into problems with their process.

~~~
timcederman
10% more just for GST, some buffer for exchange rate fluctuations, and they
also need extra to cover the more onerous warranty requirements in Australia.
I'd expect all these costs to be around 25-30%.

~~~
nwh
Apple flat out ignores their legal obligations with warranty, so I don't see
that as a factor. I had the logic board replaced in my year-and-a-bit-old
MacBook and got a massive bill ($1400+), laughed and told them that the
warranty was two years in Australia, and it was miraculously replaced with a
$0 fee with no questions asked. If I'd not known and paid it, they'd have
ripped me off for the value of the machine.

~~~
hornetblack
They attempt to avoid refund laws as well. Apple claim you can't get a refund
on the App store. Although they have to provide one if an App you purchase
does not do what was advertised. (This was brought up on The Chasers show "The
Checkout")

~~~
akavlie
I accidentally purchased a $5 app not too long ago (it was in the group of
apps that were free for the 5th anniversary of the App Store). I selected the
"Didn't mean to purchase this item" option in iTunes and got a refund
immediately. No problem.

[http://www.imore.com/how-request-refund-itunes-or-app-
store-...](http://www.imore.com/how-request-refund-itunes-or-app-store-
purchase)

------
rbritton
For me the most notable parts of the whole event were the software-related
announcements. Nothing about any of the hardware was in the least bit
surprising. My notes:

\- The Mac Pro is still not available. I don't believe it's ever been like
Apple to pre-announce something this far out.

\- The iPad update was the first not to make me want the new one. I'm
perfectly happy with my iPad 4 and see no reason to update yet.

\- An iPad Mini with a Retina display is nice, but I've never been attracted
to that screen size so it doesn't do much for me.

\- There was no "One more thing..." or anything more surprising than them
making all of their consumer software free.

\- There were brief mentions of new versions of both Aperture and FCPX, but
that was it. I only found out later that the Aperture update is just a small
dot update and now requires Mavericks.

~~~
corresation
_There was no "One more thing..." or anything more surprising than them making
all of their consumer software free._

But that was a _huge_ one more thing, yet somehow they managed to deflate
giving an enormous quantity of top quality software away for free. I
completely agree that in the end it was very ho hum, but I still can't even
place why that is.

Similarly, the Mini announcement had a real potential of being huge...everyone
expected a new screen, but few expected the new processor. To have pinnacle
gear in a minuscule, big-pocketable, relatively inexpensive
device...killer....or ho hum blah.

The MBP updates are fantastic. Maybe expected, but geez that's a killer bit of
kit in an amazing form factor at a remarkable price.

They really did have amazing things to announce. Somehow the presentation (and
perhaps the endless leaks) managed to suck the life out of it. As Marco
mentioned the scripted commentary (and complete inability to adlib on a
mistake, making it just painful to watch) and the already-seen videos were
just really bad decisions. This could have been a soft web release.

And they've played the Mac Pro for too long already. They've spent too much
time on it. And really, of all of Apple's recent products that one is by far
the most dubious of them all. The value proposition isn't there, and the
potential base is tiny compared to the other products.

~~~
phaus
So what part about the rMBP upgrade was fantastic? The part where they reduced
the amount of RAM, or the part where they used Iris/Iris Pro graphics like
every other PC manufacturer is going to be doing pretty soon? When Intel
releases new CPUs, everyone starts using them soon after, how is that in any
way remarkable?

If a person's in the market for a super high-res laptop, the new rMBP is still
one of the best options, but personally I found this upgrade underwhelming.

So far Tim Cook is to Apple as Bobby Kotick was to Blizzard. He may be
increasing profit margins, but he is clearly doing so to the detriment of the
company's reputation, and to the detriment of the customers that made them
what they are.

~~~
fredsted
>The part where they reduced the amount of RAM, or the part where they used
Iris/Iris Pro graphics like every other PC manufacturer is going to be doing
pretty soon?

1) It seems like they introduced a "cheap" model with only 4gb ram and 128gb
SSD.

2) However, the previous version with 8 GB ram and 256gb SSD is _costs less as
well_.

3) Iris Pro graphics aren't bad - it's certainly better than Intel HD 4000.

4) Apple did not remove any dedicated graphics card on the 13" retina. For the
15", a dedicated card (nvidia 750m) is still there.

New prices: [http://mu.ms/f/qc.png](http://mu.ms/f/qc.png) Old prices:
[http://mu.ms/f/rc.png](http://mu.ms/f/rc.png)

Basically, if you want a MacBook Pro with Retina Display, there's a new model
that's now a whopping $200 less, the previous low-end model is $100 less, but
with brand new cpu, graphics and battery life. There's even more money to save
when buying the 15" models.

I don't understand what you people want from Apple

~~~
phaus
I'm just saying that its not really a "fantastic" upgrade. Apple can price
their products however they want, but I would have been impressed if they
reduced the price by $200 without removing $30 worth of RAM from the machine.
It just seems kind of petty to do it, that's all. It gives the impression that
they are nickel and diming their customers, just like it did when they spent a
bunch of money developing the overpriced 5C, when all their customers really
wanted or expected was an iPhone 5 at a cheaper price.

We are used to Apple charging a premium for their products. That's fine,
because they have historically made some really nice stuff. What we aren't
used to is watching them take obvious, public actions to reduce manufacturing
costs.

If we ignore the RAM reduction for a moment, its not a bad upgrade, its just
not "fantastic." The 5S was a fantastic upgrade (even if most people won't use
the extra horsepower), the iPad Air is a fantastic upgrade, the original rMBP
was a spectacular upgrade, but this is just ordinary.

3\. The GPUs are amazing for integrated graphics, but that's Intel's
accomplishment, and soon everyone will be using them.

4\. I didn't say that Apple removed a GPU from anything.

~~~
fredsted
If we're just discussing your definition of fantastic who cares really?

They lowered prices by $200-300, made them faster, more battery life,
basically all you can do to improve a product, along with making a bunch of
software free, that's several hundred more dollars there too.

I mean the Retina MacBook has no competitors. They don't need to lower prices.

Adding to that, a good quality laptop is honestly the same price or higher at
other companies.

I guess Apple is nickel and diming their customers, though. That definitely
follows...

~~~
phaus
>If we're just discussing your definition of fantastic who cares really?

I was responding to someone who said the he felt the upgrade for the rMBP was
"fantastic." He expressed his opinion (which no one is obliged to care about)
and I did the same. If you don't care, why take the time to respond?

>They lowered prices by $200-300, made them faster, more battery life,
basically all you can do to improve a product, along with making a bunch of
software free, that's several hundred more dollars there too.

If they did all you could do to improve a product, they wouldn't have cut the
amount of RAM in the baseline model, when people were already complaining
about the previous model not having enough.

Another issue is that the improvements are incremental. Like I said, I don't
consider incremental improvements a "fantastic" upgrade.

These are opinions, if you disagree, that's an opinion too.

>I mean the Retina MacBook has no competitors. They don't need to lower
prices.

Incorrect. You personally may not like any of the alternatives, but there are
now several machines, around 3.5 lbs, with full HD and retina displays,
targeted towards professionals.

There's the Yoga 2 Pro, which features a 3200x1800 display, and improved upon
every aspect of the original. It doesn't have Iris Pro graphics, but many
people have already been comparing it to the rMBP. Apple has excellent
keyboards, but many people prefer Lenovo's. Having used both of them, I have a
slight preference for Lenovo.

Lenovo also has the T440s, and the T440p coming out soon, with Full HD IPS
screens. They are close in size and weight, and also marketed towards
professionals.

Asus has a few things either on the market or in the works, which are clearly
designed to compete with the rMBP.

The rMBP has quite a bit of competition in 2013, and 2014 isn't going to be
any different. Some people act as if its a foregone conclusion that any non-
OSX system is going to be inferior to something made by Apple. In reality,
there are quite a few really nice systems out there, and some of them run
Windows by default.

>along with making a bunch of software free, that's several hundred more
dollars there too.

Apple's software simply isn't worth hundreds of dollars. As much as I would
like for something cheap or free to replace Microsoft Office, it isn't going
to happen any time soon.

>Adding to that, a good quality laptop is honestly the same price or higher at
other companies.

Build quality does cost money, I agree. My issue lies in the fact that a
company shouldn't downgrade any aspect of a system when they release a new
one. RAM is inexpensive enough to make Apple's decision mind-bogglingly
stupid. It would of made more sense to reduce the price by $170 instead of
$200 and leave the extra 4GB in. Once again, this is a matter of opinion. You
are entitled to disagree.

------
hadem
"We know that effectively nobody browses the web on their Android tablets full
of stretched-out phone apps."

Really? I use my Android tablet all the time and love it. So much so, I'm
switching from an iPhone to and Android phone. In turn, this also makes using
a Mac computer far less important for me.

~~~
Touche
I wouldn't read too much into those paragraphs. Marco famously wrote "there is
no tablet market, only an iPad market" so this is just goal post moving.

------
Lagged2Death
So we're way past criticizing a thing somebody makes. Instead we're
criticizing the "product messaging" that goes along with the thing.

The complaint seems to be that this event, despite all the time spent on the
usual "The things you fans bought have indeed turned out to be very popular,
yay for you" message, didn't deliver the same sense of materialist cult
excitement that some people had become accustomed to.

And that apparently is generally viewed as a criticism worth making, worth
discussing. It's considered important.

Hm. Well what do you know.

~~~
smackfu
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Apple has been lauded for their product
messaging for years.

------
hamburglar
Oh jeez. It's almost like there's a certain ... legendary source of charisma
and showmanship missing. Give the hand-wringing a break. Steve Jobs could have
changed his _wardrobe_ and people would say it would have had an impact on the
feel of the presentations. Now the guy's dead. Of course they're different.

~~~
AsymetricCom
That's not it at all, this is not the first post-Jobs press release. The
presentation lacked modern salesmanship. Perhaps, they don't really want to
sell a lot of these products. Why would they want that? I bet the mini iPad is
being sold below cost, thus Woz's comment that the 128GB iPad isn't a big
enough premium price for his tastes, he's trying to pull the market away from
the low-end offerings by popularized consumer fads, preserving some of the
value of his AAPL holdings.

~~~
josso
> The presentation lacked modern salesmanship.

And even then, it's still light years better than most companies in the
tech/gaming-industry. It's an incredible standard we rate them against.

~~~
jasonlotito
Actually, I felt like it was like what most other companies do. I couldn't put
words to it, but Marco did.

> It's an incredible standard we rate them against.

I think that's fair. It's the standard they've set for themselves.

------
roc
If you ask me, the entire "games" black hole looks for all the world like
they're on the cusp of something that isn't _quite_ ready.

They introduced official gamepad support coming to iOS7 at WWDC, both
standalone gamepads and iphone/ipod-wrapping cases. A couple MFI partners even
teased things to come. And then... nothing.

It became actually real in the release of iOS7. The iPhone event even
dedicated some serious stage time to gaming and a few higher-profile apps were
updated to support it. But, still, nothing.

The iPad event came and went and they didn't even _mention_ the iPod Touch,
let alone gaming. I don't think they've _ever_ talked about the iPad without
talking about gaming.

So I wonder if the event was "off" because a tent pole feature, something that
encompassed phones, tablets, ipods and maybe even the appleTV, just wasn't
ready to go.

~~~
increment_i
I've often wondered about Apple's reluctance to fully take advantage of iOS as
a serious gaming platform. At the WWDC they mentioned some key partnerships to
deliver console-style controllers for iPhones and iPads -- I don't understand
why they don't just find a way to integrate console controls onto iOS devices
on their own and DOMINATE the space.

I want to play AAA titles on my iPad with AAA-caliber controls, not some flaky
touch screen stopgap.

~~~
rsynnott
> I don't understand why they don't just find a way to integrate console
> controls onto iOS devices on their own and DOMINATE the space.

You'd be talking about essentially a dedicated device. The 'hard-core' console
market, where the manufacturer takes a loss on the device and hopes to make it
up on the games, someday (it took Microsoft about a decade), is probably not
something Apple would be too keen on, given their business model. Of course,
they also have no experience making console controllers. Probably better to
leave it up to the partners.

~~~
increment_i
I've heard this rebuttal before, but I really think with some clever
engineering (which Apple has no shortage of) it could be done in way that
would preclude a dedicated device, and wouldn't be intrusive to people who
have no need for it.

------
rglullis
From the footnotes:

> _Let us continue to believe that these are relevant industry events rather
> than giant commercials!_

Why? Oh, why is it so hard to confront the reality that is right in front of
their eyes? IT IS A GIANT COMMERCIAL, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

This is the point where it becomes impossible to avoid comparisons to
religion. You have a basic admission of someone who wants to keep believing in
an illusion rather than exercising any kind of critical thinking.

~~~
archagon
> IT IS A GIANT COMMERCIAL, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

Is every form of communication from a company about its products a "giant
commercial"? While an Apple keynote is no doubt a marketing event, I think
it's also pretty clear that Apple gives a crap about its products and their
effect on the world at large. That's why people get so excited about these
things. It's a rare opportunity to peek inside Willy Wonka's factory.

Compare to a company like Samsung, whose events tend to be gaudy, sleazy, and
very clearly aimed at selling the product.

> This is the point where it becomes impossible to avoid comparisons to
> religion.

No, and by doing so, you lower the level of discourse on this website.

------
cocoflunchy

      The lines were so tightly scripted that the presenters often stumbled off-script slightly,
      and rather than rolling with it naturally, they’d just jump back and awkwardly retry the line. 
    

The "I'm a a big fan of The Black Knight" (instead of Dark Knight) part was
especially painful :/

~~~
kunai
'tis but a scratch

------
Void_
I loved Craig's Hair Force One joke, but those two guys teasing each other
during iWork demo were just annoying, that was too much.

Also, I think it was one of them going something like "it's just gor-
beautiful." He probably realized he used "gorgeous" in previous sentence so he
changed it to "beautiful"... Well, I didn't believe him.

~~~
mturmon
That was Eddy Cue. He seemed to be uncomfortable in this situation because he
was looking down at the teleprompter the whole time (hence the correction you
noticed, and the flat jokes). Even though he's prominent in the company, I
don't think he's been on stage much.

The other jokester was Roger Rosner (on the left in the "revise the record
cover" demo, at 50 minutes into the keynote), who co-founded a startup called
Lighthouse Design
([http://www.langreiter.com/space/Lighthouse+Design](http://www.langreiter.com/space/Lighthouse+Design)),
which, in dinosaur times, developed the presentation program Concurrence for
NextStep. That's Roger at the top of the stairs in the photo above.

Concurrence eventually was rewritten at Jobs's request, and became Keynote.
Roger also hasn't been on stage much, but he's a good guy, and a real
developer, so cut him some slack. (Incidentally, the guy at the very bottom of
the stairs is Jonathan Schwartz, who eventually became CEO of Sun, but was not
really a developer.)

~~~
Void_
Yeah, I mean all of these guys are undoubtedly very smart, but why force them
to do something they're obviously not comfortable with..

------
georgebarnett
It feels to me like they highlighted the minimum amount of stuff they needed
to get out the door before the holidays. Lets be fair - there was a _ton_ of
stuff announced. Maybe too much which lead to the lack of flair and detail.

I do think they've announced major refreshes - it seems to me that many
products brought in features that have been years in development (e.g. Touch
ID, 0.5 lb off the Air, Mac Pro, etc). I'm not saying these things were huge -
it's just that any kind of getting any kind of multi year effort to line up
while still keeping the normal plane flying is really hard work.

I personally think the current lineup is really good. Sure there's a few bits
missing (notably there are apps in Mavericks which missed polish and touch id
needs to be everywhere), but it feels to me like each of their hardware lines
are now at a really rock solid iteration.

Software wise, the lineup feels even more integrated if you're an all apple
customer.

TL;DR - it feels like they're getting their lineup up to a solid level
baseline before using that as the base for the next set of awesome stuff, but
hey - I could be wrong :)

------
acqq
Yes and no. Yes, it was obvious that the presenters didn't have that "natural
burning feel" of Jobs. But that was obvious since Jobs is gone.

No, the product changes are still the right ones:

I have iPad 3, but I've bought iPad 2 for my parents. Whenever I go to them
and use it I am impressed by the slightly lighter and thinner feel of it.

Now the iPad Air is significantly lighter and thinner than iPad 2. If you have
any other iPad, wait to try the iPad Air, then tell me if you still think it's
not a big improvement.

Ditto for iPad mini. If you have the present one, wait until you can try the
new, then tell me it's not significant. I'm quite certain I'm going to by it,
just to take it with me to the places for which I consider "full" iPad too
big. Now it's retina, I'm sure it's the best device of that size. Is it too
little? I'm considering best as "best that money can buy" not "best when I
want to give as little money as I can." And if you're not using Apple tablets
then this won't change your mind: others make cheaper stuff and it's still so.

------
jroseattle
Apple is in a tough spot, and these rollouts really reflect it.

Jobs was such a perfectionist in message delivery that anyone else doing that
on behalf of the same company just is not going to measure up. The
expectations are so high, and nobody carries that persona. I'd rather
personally see the voice of Apple change to something I can identify with, and
that voice just isn't there. If anyone at Apple is listening, just so you
know...the company has no voice at the moment.

The rock-and-hard-place is the product offering. Frankly, the products haven't
really advanced all that much in the past few years. There have been some
improvements, but improvements are to be expected, and everyone tends to
deliver incremental improvements. Those improvements certainly don't measure
up as a premium. The days of massive lines for product releases, the waiting
all night for the next iThing...I just have a hard time expecting that those
are going to be on the order-of-magnitude to what we've seen in the past.

------
protomyth
They are still doing Steve Notes. Give them a bit of a chance to learn to do
it another way. If anything, it shows how good Steve Jobs was at these things.

I know there is a "CEO must do these" thing, but I would prefer if they left
the keynotes to Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi. The rest can appear in the
videos.

------
jcromartie
I think all we know what we're witnessing here, even if some people are afraid
to say what it is.

This isn't the first event since Jobs' death, but I think 2 years is about
right for the momentum that he left behind to start running down.

Even if Jobs was pushing Apple to build shiny consumer-oriented gadgets, he
was still _pushing_. Nobody can replace what he brought to the company.

P.S. I'm not saying it's the end of Apple. I'm sure they can keep making good
stuff for a long time. I'm saying that this is an inflection point, where
Apple is now moving away from Jobs' vision and towards someone else's.
Anything that started under Jobs is wrapped up now, and what we're seeing
today is wholly the product of this next phase of Apple.

~~~
slouch
Except the television set he worked on?

> “‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to
> use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices
> and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes
> for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user
> interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

------
pbreit
I generally agree with the post. It was so dull that I didn't even finish
watching. And I couldn't believe how much Cook was stumbling over his lines. I
always though they did tons of rehearsals. And they do have teleprompters,
right? (maybe that's the problem).

I realize Apple/Steve nailed the presentation format and many are trying to
copying (and some, like Samsung, are trying to stray from it). But maybe it's
time to shake it up a bit. Every event feels exactly the same, even the
general structure and collection of stats and retail store openings. Apple is
creative and smart. It should figure out the next format/style.

------
Tiktaalik
Apple has never treated games much of a priority and it's always felt to me
that the success of games on the iPhone/iPad has been a happy accident and
they have no idea what to do about it, other than to continue to build great
hardware and improve graphics tech.

If Apple was more of a games oriented company and concerned itself with the
market I think we would have seen the controller API years earlier, actual
gamepad hardware from Apple and a more powerful Apple TV with a games oriented
App Store.

------
robomartin
One of the biggest things Apple will have to manage going forward is the issue
of backwards compatibility. The Windows ecosystem has had to deal with this
for a long time. Windows XP was released twelve years ago and the installed
base is huge. For the most part you can still use any current Windows software
with XP and anything in between.

Apple is somewhat famous for summarily killing off whole product lines in the
interest of technological innovation. I get it. No issues there.

However, as their installed base expands it will be increasingly hard for the
average person to stomach the idea of their expensive computers or iOS devices
becoming obsolete. Not everyone lives on the bleeding edge. In fact, most
people don't.

It'll be interesting to watch what happens. It sure feels like the rate of
innovation might have slowed down a bit. Thinner and lighter only go so far.

There are a few surprising things here and there. For example, I can't
understand why Apple didn't acquire Bump [0] and and tightly integrate that
capability both iOS and OSX. Google grabbed them instead. We'll see what
happens.

------
smackfu
>Part of it was the lack of surprises, which isn’t Apple’s fault.

For the iPhone announcement, I would have agreed. That was unsurprising due to
supplier leaks.

For this event, it was completely Apple's fault, because there was nothing
really that surprising. A lot of "that is some very nice engineering" but
nothing to really make competitors go "uh oh, we gotta go back to work and
catch up."

------
chasing
Jobs always seemed to express a genuine sense of wonder about what he
presented on stage. And, given his personal history in technology, he could
kind of pull it off in a sort of "who knew we could ever get here from two
guys in a garage with a soldering iron?" sort of way. While I respect the
current team, I'm not sure they can pull of that tone as well, and so I think
these product presentations suffer a bit.

Otherwise, I didn't watch live, but I wasn't particularly disappointed or
anything. Despite the hype, Apple events are always kind mostly dry affairs
you can catch up on later with just a few minutes of reading. With the
exception of new product line launches, which obviously can't happen three
times a year.

~~~
TillE
As the post mentions, Federighi did a great job. The rest, well...it all feels
a bit try-hard. Tim Cook in particular seems to be attempting to replicate
Steve's enthusiasm but not actually feeling it.

------
ja27
"...the iPad Mini probably somewhat reduced the demand for the Touch"

The $229 / $299 price reduced the demand for the Touch. I'm surprised they
haven't found a way to get a sub-$200 Touch.

------
Touche
> None of the pricing was a surprise.

I personally was very surprised that the raised the price of the iPad mini.

~~~
slouch
I keep hearing this, but the 329$ mini is now 299$. The mini with retina is
399$, and it didn't exist previously.

~~~
Touche
The Mini with Retina is just the new mini. It's better than last year's model,
but that's always the case. The iPad didn't become more expensive when it got
Retina, nor did the iPhone.

~~~
rsynnott
With neither of those devices did Apple have to warn the markets upfront of a
significant reduction in margins, though (there _was_ some fall, but it was
smallish); they did with the original Mini.

------
dorong
Apple has a very nice product line. No one can deny that. That said, after
looking for a new machine for my wife and checking out the Apple lineup, I
went with a Dell. For full disclosure I work for Dell Software, but this was a
home computer for my wife and I wanted something that would make her happy.
You pay a LARGE premium for the name. You get much more hardware for the buck
with Dell. You may like the OS better on the Mac side, but honestly - is the
Mac OS more stable than Windows 7? In my experience no. Is it easier to use?
[hint - try to uninstall a program], in my experience no. Windows, while not
as trendy, is a good workhorse that does its job well. My wife needed to do
video editing, web surfing and word processing. I got her an 4th gen Intel i7
with 12GB of RAM and a larger display than the iMac for a much better price.
If you honestly separate the hype from reality, you'll realize you're paying a
significant 'Apple tax'. Of course, if you need to use XCode to develop for
iOS or some other reason where only a Mac will do, by all means, buy one. it
is great. But if you want to have value for your money and don't use Xcode, I
think there is nothing wrong with using a powerful PC.

------
k-mcgrady
I think what Marco is missing is Mavericks. Sure developers have known about
it for a while as have the tech press but to the average consumer Apple
announced a brand new operating system version yesterday, released it the same
day AND made it completely free. That's a pretty huge announcement. Especially
when it was alongside lots of updated and now free software, new iPad's and
new Mac's.

------
InclinedPlane
We're in sort of a weird place with mobile computing. We're in the part of the
technology/market growth curve where it's easy, for some, to make a killing
with comparatively little effort and innovation. The iPad mini is a perfect
example, it's mostly just iPad 2 guts with a smaller screen and battery, but
they sold like crazy and made an even crazier amount of profit for Apple. And
to some degree rightly so, they put a device in people's hands that they
wanted.

Nevertheless, when the rewards for laziness are so high what incentive is
there to take on risk? There are negative incentives, in fact, because any
amount of effort or resources spent pursuing something risky will likely come
at the cost of working on something safer. If the safe and lazy thing is sure
to bring in billions in profit then even if the risky things succeeds it might
end up being a short-term loss due to opportunity cost.

It's obvious that things like the iPad are the harbingers of the future. But
at the same time it's just as obvious that the iPad does not represent
anywhere near the final evolution along those lines. It's clear to me that
consumer OSes will increasingly be like modern mobile OSes, with managed apps,
streamlined UI, and even more streamlined administration. But the idea of
there being such a gulf between a desktop with a keyboard and mouse on the one
hand and a touch-only tablet on the other is mostly an accident of history. As
well, the idea, from Windows 8, that there should be a single UI model that
spans both portable (touch only) and stationary (keyboard and mouse) realms is
ridiculous.

There should be a lot more innovation, a lot more development, and a lot more
trial and error out in the market today. But until the market dynamics change
we'll likely be stuck with a lot of lazy designs for a while.

------
ableal
_" [...] iPad 2 sticking around for_ another _year, shamelessly at the same
price as last year. "_

I also found that a bit jarring. A 4-to-5 price ratio relative to latest
model, which has much better processor, screen and weight ... it's hard to
justify.

Perhaps it's because of the cheapest Mini price acting as some sort of
backstop.

~~~
pohl
_A 4-to-5 price ratio relative to latest model...it 's hard to justify._

If that's what the market will bear, then it's justified.

Let's say you have $10k to spend on 10" iPads for a school district, and
either model will run the educational software you want to run. Do you choose
to provide for 20 students or 25 students?

------
M4v3R
I got the exact opposite impression. This event seemed refreshing, presenters
were funny, and there were some suprises (new and free iWork, free Mavericks).
It was also well paced, they didn't use as much "amazing" and "magical" as
they did in Stevenotes. Overall I liked the event a lot.

------
frankcaron
Couldn't agree more. Not launching the game controller or talking up some big
new release, like Oceanhorn, whilst teasing the Apple TV gaming could have
really put a dent in the somewhat-weak line-ups of gaming systems that are
going big this holiday.

What a waste, Apple.

------
sarreph
Regarding Marco's footnote #1, I'm not entirely sure if I agree. At WWDC, I
thought the 'Designed by Apple in California'
[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGXFGjponC0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGXFGjponC0)]
video added an air of magic (excuse the metaphor) to the whole charade.
Considering these events go on for quite a while, surely a bit of overly-
produced footage can't go down too badly?

I'm glad that this was only a minor point, and that the main issue, that the
speakers currently seem to lack vivacity (exception of Federighi), was
highlighted as a major issue.

------
gtirloni
What comes next? We are seeing the same trend with smartphones where each new
device is more powerful then the one before. At some point they will pack so
much CPU, memory, storage and gadgets (bluetooth, wifi, sensors of all kinds,
etc) that it will be unlikely our apps will need more powerful devices. The
industry will move to something else (which I have absolutely no idea what's
going to be) and the smartphones makers will be the PC makers of the future.

------
zallo-zallon
These are the consequences of tying your company's brand up in the RDF of a
Dear Leader. No matter what Apple does, they're going to be criticized of
missing an intangible quality of innovation or genius, because Apple's
visionary is dead.

Tim Cook's number one priority should be untangling the Jobs cult of
personality and Apple Inc. And I definitely don't envy him.

------
Jormundir
This is the whole tech industry...

I realized a few months ago hacker news has become boring. I don't really care
much for the incremental updates, which is the entire hardware industry. Even
the internet has become pretty boring.

We're all excited for the promises of the future, and as usual they're taking
a lot longer than we want them to.

~~~
zallo-zallon
If you're excited for the future, work on breaking up the culture that keeps
technology a monolith. For instance, Oculus VR exists only because of
Kickstarter. What else could we do to get innovators the resources they need?

------
edwintorok
This is a situation where changing the original title would've been useful,
and you don't even have to come up with your own title, just use the original
article's first line:

Something felt a bit off about this week’s Apple event. [Was: Off] (marco.org)

------
untilHellbanned
apple fanboy blogging is "off" too, probably needs to retire

------
fusiongyro
Or maybe it's that they were over-excited at the previous presentation and
showed a bunch of stuff too early. The previous one was overloaded with stuff.
This one was a little light.

------
uptown
Correlates to this Ask HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6601148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6601148)

------
staunch
If you slow a car crash down to 1/1000th speed it may at first just look like
the car's steering is a little "off".

------
zeroecco
it is happening again. Apple (aka macintosh) is trying to squeeze blood from a
rock. Three rocks actually. They didn't learn the first time. Innovation has
died yet again at Apple. This time though they have an cash cow (iTunes) on
hand to keep them going while they pump out junk for the next x decades.
Microshaft 2.0 has hit the shelves.

------
brador
The speech slips really stood out for me at this event, kinda like they all
had a quick beer before the show started.

------
Aloha
I think there is something else coming still yet, maybe Q1 2014, maybe it was
supposed to be ready now, but wasnt.

------
izietto
Steve Jobs is dead. Nothing will come him back to life.

------
MikeTLive
when they announced iPad-Air I squealed. then i saw it is still not a
clamshell Air with dual touch screens. come on guys.

