
What the Heck Is Happening at Apple? - rfreytag
http://www.cringely.com/2016/10/31/heck-happened-apple/
======
UVB-76
What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake.

I'm never going to buy an iPhone without a headphone jack, but reinstating the
jack on a future model would be admitting they made a mistake with the iPhone
7.

Likewise, with the new MacBook Pros, they are not going to release an update
in a year's time that doesn't sacrifice ports and performance and battery life
for size and weight, because doing so would be admitting a mistake. Nor are
they going to dramatically cut the prices, such that they are actually
affordable for _someone_ , because doing so would be admitting a mistake.

~~~
elicash
I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without
a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone. They're not going
backwards because they think they're right, not because they think they're
wrong but don't want to admit it.

And the reason they aren't cutting prices is likely because they're more
profitable with prices as they are, not because they're afraid of admitting a
mistake.

~~~
rsync
"I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone
without a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone. They're not
going backwards because they think they're right, not because they think
they're wrong but don't want to admit it."

I believe that the iphone is by far the best executed mobile phone platform
and the best hardware - and has been from day one.

However, I have _never_ purchased or used an iphone because of my stubborn
indignation over the lack of plain old USB for charging.

Contrary to all expectation and experience, everyone in the world got together
on one little thing - establishing the global standard for USB charging - and
the world was actually a _very slightly_ better place. And apple shat all over
that, and continues to do so, in order to make (on average) an extra $10 for
every iphone sold.

So fuck that and fuck their iphone.

~~~
dpark
I don't understand the obsession with USB charging. This makes no sense at all
to me. How would my life be materially better if my phone charged over USB? My
last phone charged over USB and I can't say it felt better.

At this point, you might be tempted to claim that I would be able to use the
same cables as other devices. To this, I'll point to the ongoing switch to
USB-C and note that's you're buying new cables anyway.

Micro USB was a shitty plug. USB-C is better, but you can actually thank Apple
for that, because it's a reaction to the Lightning plug.

~~~
ng12
Come visit my company gym, we have 20+ perfectly good treadmills that all have
outdated iPhone chargers. The best part about micro USB was that it was
absolutely ubiquitous. If my phone was dying at a friend's place or at my
neighborhood coffee shop chances are I could charge my phone.

My least favorite thing about my 5x is that it's USB-C. I regret upgrading
before USB-C became more commonplace.

~~~
dpark
I don't know how this is an issue for Apple. If those treadmills were micro
USB, they'd be trending rapidly toward obsolescence anyway.

I'll note that almost everyone who complains about lightning seems to _not_ be
an Apple user. Apple users seem fine with the horror of not sharing cables
with Android devices. Apple users are also pretty happy that random hotels and
whatnot have docks for their phones.

~~~
ng12
> I don't know how this is an issue for Apple

Oh, it's absolutely not. Apple makes a killing selling adapters. It's the
users who get screwed.

~~~
stouset
Apple makes hundreds of billions from iPhone sales. They make probably tens of
millions from cables.

Suggesting they'd knowingly sabotage #1 for #2 is absurd.

~~~
ng12
They're making a bet that the sales lost from customers who are willing to
switch to Android is less than the profit made from proprietary hardware, and
they're probably right.

~~~
stouset
I think you're going to need a lot more evidence to essentially make the claim
that bean-counters have taken over Apple.

Clearly many of these decisions have been popular. I'd even wager that this an
unprofitable decision for them, in the short term. This might sound counter to
my original assertion that they're sabotaging billions of iPhone revenues for
millions of accessory revenues, but it isn't.

There's a third thing they're optimizing for, and I think they're willing to
sacrifice _both_ of those revenues for it. USB-C is the "right" thing forward.
Bluetooth is the "right" thing forward. They're trying to push the industry
towards these things (whether or not it's a good idea is something you can
agree or disagree with), and they're willing to sacrifice earnings if they
believe make that future come sooner.

Happened with floppy drives, happened with CD drives, and it's happening now
with USB-C and the removal of the audio jack. For better or worse, the bean-
counters have never been in charge at Apple, and that's been one of their
greatest long-term strengths.

------
snowwrestler
I'm old enough to remember that public hand-wringing always accompanies major
updates to Apple product lines. The Macbook Air was WIDELY panned when it was
first released. It went on to be the most popular laptop they sell, and one of
the most popular in the U.S.

Apple has a ton of money and a willingness to percolate new ideas. We won't be
able to really evaluate the new MBP--and the ideas it contains--for years.

~~~
bluedino
>> The Macbook Air was WIDELY panned when it was first released.

The Air wasn't a replacement of the Pro. It was a new device, an ultra
portable.

It didn't become popular until they added a second USB port and SD card
reader, added a higher resolution screen, fixed the battery life issues, fixed
the horribly slow performance, and reduced the price big-time.

~~~
snowwrestler
The Macbook Pro has seen its share of pro hand-wringing, like

\- When they dropped the matte screen option

\- When they dropped the 17-inch screen size

\- When they dropped the Express Card slot

\- When they dropped the optical "super drive"

\- When they dropped Ethernet and Firewire

\- When they made the battery non-removable

\- When they made the display Retina

Many of these complaints were driven by legitimate concerns at the time (for
example first-gen Retina machines really did struggle sometimes). Ultimately
Apple saw significant sales growth, even among pros, and I don't see many
calls these days to reverse those decisions.[1]

[1] This thread will probably now be inundated with calls to reverse those
decisions.

~~~
nicolas_t
And all through this, they kept selling macbook pros that were competitive in
term of specs. The first macbook pro retina could already be ordered with 16GB
ram.

This time, they do not have a single laptop with competitive specs. This time,
they do not have a single laptop that has enough horsepower to be good upgrade
for a lot of professionals. The new graphic card is average at best and
there's only 16GB ram.

There's actually only one decision from your list I'd love to reverse. I liked
the 17 inch macbook pro and I'd love to have one again... I have a macbook for
when I need portability, my macbook pro is my work machine and just needs to
go from my desk to my client's office.

~~~
snowwrestler
When is the last time a Macbook Pro had a graphics card that was better than
average? I don't think it has ever been a GPU monster.

It's fine to criticize Apple for that (plenty have), but to me it seems weird
to single out the newest model for something that has characterized the line
for years.

I expect the 32GB option will appear with the next Intel architecture. They
undoubtedly engineered the case for that point in time and will just suffer
the complaints until they get there. The case is not something they can change
from year to year; the logic board is.

In the meantime it will be interesting to see what happens when people
actually try the new machines.

------
dahart
Is this whole thing satire? I'm taking it as serious, but maybe the joke's on
me...

> these new Macs seem to have gained an average of $200 over the preceding
> models of the same size. What makes Apple think they can get away with that?
> Apple can get away with that because it always _has_ gotten away with it.

So, inflation has gone up 10.7 percent since 2010, which is just over $200 on
a $2000 laptop.

[http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm](http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)

Seems like a bogus assumption to suggest that Apple is "getting away" with
something. What comparable companies with comparable products have left their
prices untouched since 2010? The Big Mac went up more than 20% since 2010.

> Apple fanboys are proud to be the first and proud to have spent so much.
> It’s a luxury thing, I suppose. [...] This very durability presents a
> problem for Apple

I'm totally confused. Apple has a problem because it's products are _too_
good? The products outlive your cheap shitty Windows laptops 3:1, yet only
luxury and status explains why people buy Apple products?

> All Apple needs is a new product category, right? Another iMac, iPod,
> iPhone, iPad will do nicely. Where is it? It isn’t anywhere and in that
> sense Apple has lost its mojo.

Same argument every year. This one has been used every year that a new product
category was introduced, because it's deemed not new enough. How many product
categories have been introduced since Apple started, or even since the iMac?
And how many years have elapsed since then? It's a strange myth or fail or
arithmetic to think Apple has done something mind glowingly innovative twice a
year for the last 15 years.

~~~
gxs
For what it's worth I went to an apple store this weekend and actually played
around with the new entry level, non-touch screen, 1499 13" mac book pro in
space gray.

Not sure what all the fuss is about: that machine is awesome and reasonably
priced by apple standards. It even has the esc key that everyone is whining
about. It is indeed missing a few ports, but the machine itself is so solidly
built and fast from my first interactions, that I am considering buying one.
I'm going to wait for the touch screen ones first though.

Also for the record, I've ordered the XPS's and Lenovo's people are mentioning
here are alternatives. They are decent machines, but it takes 2-3 tries to get
a fully functioning one without QA issues.

~~~
dahart
> Also for the record, I've ordered the XPS's and Lenovo's people are
> mentioning here are alternatives. They are decent machines, but it takes 2-3
> tries to get a fully functioning one without QA issues.

One company I worked for offered to buy me any laptop I wanted. When I asked
for a MacBook Pro, they talked me out of it and I got a Lenovo running Linux
instead. The machine had great specs on paper, and it ran software just fine,
but it was the worst laptop experience I've ever had. The trackpad was
completely unusable, the keyboard & screen were crappy. It was fine as a
desktop computer, when you plug in an external mouse & keyboard & monitor. It
was truly awful as a laptop.

------
strictnein
So the whole point of this article is to get to his magical idea, that Apple
should somehow hire all the screenwriters and be then be granted the streaming
rights for all of their work? Just a tiny problem (well many problems, but
this is the most glaring) in all that:

The companies who actually pay for and produce the movies, films,
documentaries, etc would never agree to it.

~~~
exodust
Yeh I agree, I think this is another "Apple need to do more" even though they
actually literally _don 't_ need to do more.

~~~
dexterdog
They're a public tech company. If they don't grow like cancer they will die.

~~~
exodust
They grew so big, they can now afford to sit at cruising altitude and release
a few updates here and there.

If they're not growing to your liking, blame consumers for handing over all
that cash year after year just for the Apple brand, and hopefully a useful
product that turns on, turns off and all those other fancy things.

~~~
dexterdog
I'm not saying I care that they grow like that, but the market does.

------
abakker
He's right - Apple has a numbers problem ins that they need to have any
potential investment be a big product category almost immediately. They've
been notoriously careful to avoid random development in the public eye. When
they have come to the market with half-baked products (Maps, AppleTV,
iCloud/Mobile Me) they've tended to double down on them, rather than walk them
backwards.

The highly integrated approach they've taken to hardware, software, and
services across Watch, phone, tablet, computer, apps and a number of
accessories have put them in an awkward place. They need to integrate more
things into the stack, and whatever they choose needs to be almost immediately
integrated into the full stack. HomeKit has been an effort to jump into the
IoT with a better platform. Seemingly, Apple's main strategy now is to rely on
the accessories or apps to highlight opportunities (siri, maps, etc) and then
buy them and integrate them. I suggest that Apple should probably buy Sonos to
continue pushing HomeKit and to follow on their acquisition of Beats,
especially given the tighter integration that Sonos now has with the Apple
ecosystem.

The lack of an obvious target for complete ecosystem integration is not only
their lack of creativity, but the lack of obvious consumer demand for
additional pieces of the puzzle. CarPlay is very nice, but it doesn't change
car buying behavior, it is more like icing on the deal.

Finally, this leaves Software, which Apple has been investing less in since
creating the app store. They've become comfortable as a platform company and
have been unable to beat Adobe and others in the pro app market. To any
professional, Software should be the obvious target, but it seems the vast
majority of Apple's customers don't care enough to seek alternatives to
Apple's apps. I think the lack of focus on pro software is what is really
behind the lack of newer pro-level machines, since I suspect that APple's
engineers on the software side were really the ones pushing for greater levels
of machine performance (Logic, Aperture, Final Cut X).

Right now, Apple has Breadth in their stack, and they need depth. Software is
the way to build depth, but it is not clear that Apple has anyone who
understands software beyond OS-level details.

~~~
yequalsx
With regard to CarPlay I disagree. I will never buy a car that doesn't support
it or Android Auto. The software that car manufacturers create suck. I'd
rather have no computer interface - all knobs and buttons - than deal with the
garbage that car manufacturers use.

I know I am just one data point but pretty much everyone thinks that the
infotainment systems that car manufacturers create is junk. As CarPlay
increases in use I think the demand for it will increase as well.

~~~
jasonkostempski
I'd much rather have all knobs and buttons for car interfaces. I can feel the
fear every time I look down to adjust anything on a touch screen. I pretty
much won't do it while moving. It's horrifying to know so many people are
driving around with it now.

~~~
gerry_shaw
I have CarPlay on my Spark and all the audio controls for audio playback are
mapped to the steering wheel. The rest is controlled by voice using Siri. E.g,
"open podcasts", "call Jesse", "directions to work".

The interfaces car manufactures build are horrible. Once you try CarPlay or
likely the Android equivalent you'll never go back.

------
gaius
Hands up who would happily trade 5mm extra thickness for 32G, 8 cores and a
bigger battery? For me its a no-brainer... And I'll wager for anyone else who
wants a workhorse not a fashion accessory...

~~~
lmm
What on earth would you want/need 32G or 8 cores for? My laptop is for doing
work but that just sounds like an obscene spec unless you're doing 3D
rendering on it or something. 16G is plenty, and while I'm not that fussed
about thinness per se I wouldn't want my laptop to be any heavier.

~~~
gaius
I want to run lots of VMs to simulate different network topologies. But lots
of people these days can make good use of power: 3D as you say, CFD and FEA
and other engineering applications, computational chemistry or bio, machine
learning, financial modelling...

~~~
akvadrako
If I was running network simulations I'd certainly run all those VMs on a
server cluster and not my laptop.

------
Keyframe
The proposed idea is interesting, where interesting means stupid.

If Apple wants to dominate music industry, all it has to do is to create a
baseline support for songwriters.

If Apple wants to dominate software industry, all it has to do is to create a
baseline support for programmers.

If Apple wants to dominate computer industry, all it has to do is to create a
baseline support for EE guys.

If Apple wants to dominate the flower industry, all it has to do is to create
a baseline support for horticulturists and maybe buy some bees?

Naivety of couch analysts with no clue how certain industry works and why so
is always amusing and irritating at the same time.

~~~
sosuke
I'm not asking this as a joke or facetious question but are you familiar with
Cringely? I personally wouldn't categorize him as a couch analyst. Maybe
checkout his Wikipedia entry or Youtube for "Triumph of the Nerds", he has
been around the block.

~~~
Keyframe
Yes, I am very familiar with his work. I think he is a great interviewer, but
analyst - not so very much. For example, watch his interview with Autodesk
founder. I can't find it on my phone now, but it's out there (an old
interview). It pretty much dissected how Autodesk became what it is. their
strategy from the start was to straight out buy competition. Something that
became evident over the years, but first time I've heard that was there.

~~~
sosuke
I haven't seen that one thanks!

~~~
Keyframe
Here it is:
[https://archive.org/details/nerdtv007](https://archive.org/details/nerdtv007)

------
rsync
"So Goldman Sachs is upset that Apple didn’t at least bid for Time Warner. I’m
pretty sure Apple didn’t even know Time Warner was for sale."

Is there really any person, anywhere, who isn't absolutely certain that in ten
years time we will all look back on the time warner / ATT merger and how badly
it turned out and the 20 billion dollar write off and blah blah blah ?

In fact, in this case, the actual company in question has already been the
subject of the very same narrative - the disaster that was the AOL/TW
merger.[1]

It's incredible to watch the people who spent all of their B-school years
studying these train wrecks dive right into a new (but almost identical) train
wreck of their own. Goldman complaining about Apple not being involved is
either stupidity or a selfish for the m&a fees that would have resulted.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Merger_with_AOL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner#Merger_with_AOL)

------
cs702
The fact that this post is on the front page is evidence that the most
demanding users of laptops, including software developers, feel they are being
IGNORED by Apple.

I believe this creates a window of opportunity for other vendors to offer top-
of-the-line Linux/Unix-friendly laptops. Many people here, including me, would
jump at the chance to buy a _high-quality_ Linux laptop without the MacBook
Pro's nonsensical limitations.

~~~
igravious
I know we're not meant to do "me too" comments on HackerNews but _me too_.

For the life of me I do not know why one of the top Linux distro makers hasn't
attempted this. Or even a consortium of them? The top ten distros on
Distrowatch are:

    
    
       1 	Mint
       2 	Debian
       3 	Ubuntu
       4 	openSUSE
       5 	elementary
       6 	Manjaro
       7 	Fedora
       8 	Zorin
       9 	CentOS
       10 	Arch

If they partnered with a hardware maker like Lenovo or Dell or Asus or whoever
they could jump-start a whole new world. Chromebooks show it can be done.

~~~
ianai
It would have to be a hardware manufacturer choosing a Linux distribution.
They would have to expect more sales than the cost of development. Contrast
that with market share and growth of the Linux desktop. It's historically not
been worth it to them.

------
pascalxus
There's only so much innovating you can do on a laptop or handheld device.
It's time for Apple and the rest of the big tech companies to start focusing
on moonshot ideas: like teleportation, trains, transportation, perhaps even an
iHouse. The iHouse could be a modular unit that can move around the city when
you need to move, thus plugging into any other iInfrastructure areas, making
moving much easier and reducing commutes, saving the environment and huge
amounts of time and money.

Unfortunately, no company will be able to do the above, because government
prevents all of that from happening. The next 100 years will be a period of
great innovative stagnation, until people and voters understand that
innovation must first be legalized before it can occur. And we haven't even
begun to educate voters and politicians on these matters, so it's going to
take a looong time.

~~~
anentropic
I don't want Apple to stuff around with teleportation (or more
realistically... cars)

I just want them to make a pro laptop

~~~
bsmith
Why?

What if Google had just stuck to search? Would your life be better?

------
SEJeff
The comment on Apple at industry conferences is a bit of a misnomer. I've seen
at least 12-15 Apple engineers (from the backend Siri team) at MesosCon this
year and last year when I went. In fact, they gave a talk[1] about how the re-
did the entire Siri backend ontop of Mesos and it has became much more
reliable as a result.

[1] [https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/04/23/apple-details-j-a-
r-v...](https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/04/23/apple-details-j-a-r-v-i-s-the-
mesos-framework-that-runs-siri/)

~~~
goodwink
I think he might mean things more like CES and other trade shows. Apple has
frequently been involved in technical conferences.

~~~
SEJeff
Ah got it. I don't honestly see the value of a lot of those types of
conferences. Apple is a marketing company with some serious engineering
talent.

------
vermontdevil
Seems a repeat of what we have seen at Microsoft, HP, and many other
companies.

Apple has become too reliant on iPhone and unsure how to look beyond it.

Either they would have to shake the leadership team up like Microsoft or split
the company up.

~~~
exodust
Aren't they allowed to sit on the iPhone? Why must they come up with amazing
new stuff when they've already got a mountain of cash and loyal fans who love
the point release updates?

In other industries like cars, the manufacturers don't necessarily create
hugely different models every year, but only small improvements on last year's
model, and they seem to do okay.

Personally I think the touch-bar thing on the Mac is unremarkable, even a
gimmick. Why would anyone want the furniture moving around on their keyboard?
I could be wrong, I suppose if it's highly customizable then it will be handy
for programmable shortcuts.

~~~
PerryCox
> Aren't they allowed to sit on the iPhone? Why must they come up with amazing
> new stuff when they've already got a mountain of cash and loyal fans who
> love the point release updates?

Apple cannot rest on their laurels because if they stop innovating Android
manufactures will implement all of their features and sell the phones for
cheaper than an iPhone. The Google Pixel is a killer phone and could easily
steal some iPhone market share if a new iPhone does not keep iterating with
new features.

If Apple keeps removing two features for every new one that they add, that's
going to upset some customers.

~~~
pjc50
Phone markets aren't really about features; Android phones already out-feature
(although not out-perform) iPhones all over the place. It's the usability and
image that Apple sells on. And Apple believe - sometimes correctly - that
_removing_ features improves usability. Or at least keeping them coherent.

------
nakodari
The problem is right here, "I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch
MacBook Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the
memory to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a
terabyte Fusion drive."

Here's the thing. Apple is making this increasingly difficult in newer Macbook
Pros.

~~~
laurentdc
I agree, the underlying philosophy is wrong (at least from a hacking/tinkering
perspective) but again... how many people outside our tech bubble are actually
doing these upgrades?

The average Joe with a Mac (or a Lenovo or a Dell for that matter) doesn't
know about RAM upgrades or SSD random seek times. He doesn't want to know.
Apple still manages to deliver a laptop that will work decently out of the box
for the years to come, with a reasonably fast SSD and an acceptable amount of
memory for most tasks.

Now, why the rest of their product line (Mini, iMac) still ships with sub-par
hardware (4 GB base memory and/or 5400 rpm drives), that I don't know. I guess
they're becoming products for a more and more niche market.

~~~
iainmerrick
_how many people outside our tech bubble are actually doing these upgrades?_

That's true, but I think the point is, the people in the tech bubble are also
_the people making the apps_.

I don't know how you'd go about testing this, but I feel very strongly that
part of Apple's recent success has been due to making _very_ developer-
friendly computers in the early 2000s. The original iPhone was a joy to
program for (once they finally opened it up) because it was based on OS X,
which was already pretty great compared to the competition.

If programmers stop buying Macs, because they're just too expensive, too
limited and unexpandable, the apps will start drying up and users will start
drifting away. Maybe.

It's just hard to see who these new machines are aimed at. I see tons of
students using Macs in coffee shops -- but what's happening to the low-end,
semi-affordable Airs? Graphics and video professionals love Macs -- but
where's an up-to-date Mac Pro, or at least a really beefy MacBook Pro? I'm a
mobile app developer, I love my MBP, but if I get a new one I'd also need a
ton of adaptors for all the mobile devices I work with.

~~~
xienze
> If programmers stop buying Macs, because they're just too expensive, too
> limited and unexpandable, the apps will start drying up and users will start
> drifting away. Maybe.

Well now you see why XCode can only run on Macs. Want to write apps for the
biggest and most profitable mobile ecosystem? Gotta buy a Mac, we don't care
if you don't like the lack of upgradability.

------
alva
Shame Apple don't go ahead and create a Macbook Developer Edition. Even if it
had smaller margins, it seems like it would do a world of good for the
community.

1\. Larger body for bigger battery

2\. Previous keyboard mech that devs seem to love

3\. Up to 32gb

4\. Graphic card options

5\. Ports galore

Perhaps I don't realise just how expensive it would be to manufacture a line
that has lower but more targeted sales.

------
EugeneOZ
Just offensive and very stupid article. Regret for the lost time.

~~~
strictnein
Yeah, the "I've got a super good idea, but Tim Cook will have to call me to
get it" is about as obnoxious as it gets.

------
walterbell
From a comment on the article, that could be applied to a future quad-core Mac
Mini derivative:

 _" I would love to seem them cannibalize their lack luster, overpriced iCloud
by introducing a “personal cloud” home server product (that would also be the
hub for HomeKit, and all that other stuff). Apple getting back to their roots
as a high-margin value added hardware company. NAS systems are terrible,
especially when trying to integrate them into a macOS and iOS network."_

~~~
petra
Doesn't it go against the common thing Apple users seek: simplicity ?

~~~
hawski
I would see it successful if:

1\. Just works.

2\. Primary mode of operation as a cache for iCloud and all other Apple
things. Acting as a router probably and as was said a HomeKit hub.

3\. Private cloud as an option.

------
marknutter
I've always hated Cringely's opinions on Apple and this article is no
exception. He has simply been wrong about them time and time again, yet people
looking for FUD disguised as thoughtful criticism keep giving him hits. Apple,
by every known metric known to the financial world, is doing spectacularly
well. They are innovating at the same pace the always have, which has always
been a brand new product category every 3-5 years with a series of incremental
improvements on existing products from year to year. They absolutely dominate
the wealthiest subset of the consumer market, and as such, they can seek rent
for the next 10-20 years and continue to make money hand-over-fist for
themselves and their investors without ever introducing a new product again.
But they're going to continue to innovate just like they always have, and that
innovation is going to be met with skepticism, ridicule, and dismissiveness
just as it always has been. Bet against Apple at your own peril. Having
closely followed them since 2003 when I made the switch to OS X myself, I've
yet to see a single indication that they have made anything but the best
business decisions of any company during that same period (possibly ever).

~~~
scaryspooky
How is releasing the iPhone 7 which is port-wise incompatible with the new MBP
a "best business decision of any company" when they clearly knew the product
timetables?

The Google Pixel phone is better suited for the new MBP than the iPhone.

I think there are serious leadership problems at Apple and these sorts of
incompatibilities among their own products is a symptom.

I'm stuck on my late 2011 MBP because every model after it is failing at the
'professional' part by removing ports and upgradeable/swappable components.
USB-C is nice and all but it's not sufficient as the only port (and with only
3 of them left while charging).

~~~
marknutter
I'm not saying every single decision they've made has been the best. I'm
saying that on the whole their decisions have been among the best as
demonstrated by their dominant market position and insane growth and profits
over the past 16 years.

~~~
at-fates-hands
>> as demonstrated by their dominant market position and insane growth and
profits over the past 16 years

If you go back that far - then yes. More recently? Not so much:

Apple's iPhone Share Continues To Slip In The US And Japan

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2015/06/30/apples-
iph...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2015/06/30/apples-iphone-share-
continues-to-slip-in-the-us-and-japan/#65ac3e141572)

Apple's Smartphone Profit Share Slipping Vs. Samsung

[http://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apples-
smartp...](http://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apples-smartphone-
profit-share-slipping-vs-samsung/)

Latest Gartner/IDC data shows Apple PC market share & shipments slip, Macs
fall behind ASUS globally

[https://9to5mac.com/2016/07/11/apple-market-share-
shipments-...](https://9to5mac.com/2016/07/11/apple-market-share-shipments-
mac-q2/)

------
csomar
I'm not sure if he is serious with his idea or not. I can't see how it'd work.

Also, the MacBook Pro just launched. We can't know if it'll be a success or
not, until 4-6 months later. I'm personally going to buy one (the higher end).

------
binarymax
How often must Apple release a new category? They released a watch in 2015.
Apple needs an entire new product category every year?

------
jbverschoor
Why do people expect Apple to deliver a completely new product every year?

There's not much to be changed in the macbook pro. Yes, it would be nice to
have more cpu or a better gpu, but no, not at the expense of battery life.

I think the bar is awesome, although I won't upgrade since my 2013 retina mbp
is doing everything perfectly fine. If I would be able to add the bar for
$300, I'd do it.

The last 10 years, apple has created: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, the Retina
macbooks, the new macbook, the new mac pro, new imac, better icloud, the new
appletv, better music/itunes, the app store and probably lots of other things.

All greatly different than before.

Whenever Apple does something, it always seems incremental... Until 5 years
down the road when they realise they were in a revolution.

------
itsobvious
all the things happening at Apple right now and this guy drones on about they
should be getting buying media companies.

what the heck indeed..

------
a_plastic_bag
> And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to
> be cheaper to own. I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch MacBook
> Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the memory
> to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a terabyte
> Fusion drive, replaced both the battery and the keyboard when they wore out,
> but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device with which I have
> so far generated well over $1 million in revenue.

His arguments makes no sense to me. How is it cheaper to own a laptop that is
expensive in the first place, but is also one of the less upgradeable ones on
the market (making it more expensive to run post-warranty)?

And no, that's not what IBM reported either. They reported that Macs are
cheaper to use as company PCs (which doesn't necessarily extrapolate to the
laptop market as a whole).

~~~
renaudg
For an individual, the TCO argument for Macs still holds, but it's a bit
different :

\- Don't just look at the initial outlay that gets you on the Apple ladder :
Macs also have a much, much better resale value than PCs, even years later.
It's incremental and relatively painless if you upgrade regularly.

\- You're a human, your peace of mind matters and your time isn't free. Buy
stuff that brings you joy or at a minimum, stuff that doesn't feel like death
by a thousand cuts day after day. And you might not recognize that before
you've tried a Mac, seriously (I used to be a hardcore desktop Linux guy until
2004)

As someone who briefly lost faith in Apple last year, then went ahead and
built a Hackintosh ("why not?"), I can't stress the second point nearly
enough.

My high end 32GB 4Ghz Core i7 box with Thunderbolt and a 32" screen cost me
about 25% less than a top of the line iMac that satisfies the same use cases.
Great.

The money I saved is roughly what I make in 1-2 days, but I've spent at least
a dozen evenings so far researching / troubleshooting / preparing for OS
upgrades. Plus I need to reboot the box once after each cold boot before it
will see my TB devices and I can play music on my audio interface. Great. Not
to mention the floor/desk space compared to an iMac.

The tinkering was fun at times, I don't completely regret trying, but frankly
life is too short : guess who's going back to the Mac next time ?

------
ebbv
While the idea of hiring all the writers is cute, the "known" writers all have
deals in place already. So Apple would be effectively taking a gamble on all
unknown talent. That may or may not pay off.

Buying TWC is a monumentally stupid idea for Apple that I won't even go into.

Apple is obviously working on things (including self driving car systems), it
just doesn't announce them and it doesn't hesitate to cancel them if it
doesn't like the results. Those are, IMHO, good qualities about Apple.

The idea that Apple _has_ to get into a new category is kind of ridiculous. It
doesn't have to do anything. It has solid profits and tons of money on hand.
They can coast. The stock value will go down or stall for a bit if they do,
but so what? When they release another great product, if it is successful, the
stock price will reflect it at that time.

~~~
onion2k
_When they release another great product, if it is successful, the stock price
will reflect it at that time._

One of the things that keep senior engineers at a company like Apple is vast
amount of money they can make from their stock options. If the share price
tanks then the senior engineers don't make anywhere close to the money they
can make elsewhere, so they leave. That makes it harder to develop a
successful product.

I'm not suggesting Apple is a single failure away from a death spiral, but I
am saying they can't rest on their laurels simply because they're Apple.

~~~
ebbv
> they can't rest on their laurels simply because they're Apple.

No, but they can because they have something like $200 billion cash on hand.
Which means if they really care about their stock price they can do a buy back
if they want. Or if they are worried about employee compensation due to
lagging stock price they can give bonuses, etc.

~~~
onion2k
_No, but they can because they have something like $200 billion cash on hand._

That's technically true, but getting that money to a place where they can use
it to buy back stock or to pay bonuses to their engineering staff would be
incredibly expensive. There's a reason why they've not repatriated it yet.

~~~
greenshackle2
Even if it costs them 50 cents on the dollar to use that money, that's still a
good chunk of money to fall back on, isn't it?

I can imagine that you wouldn't actively take risks with money that's
expensive to use, but if they were already in a death spiral, wouldn't they
use it to avoid going down the drain entirely?

It seems absurd to me to sit on $200 billion if you can't use at least a good
fraction of it - but I don't even begin to understand the legal and accounting
issues with handling that sort of money.

------
andy_ppp
I agree Apple needs a new billion dollar business segment and it's simple what
it is; Apple Bus Pool Pro :-)

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Apple Bicycle!

~~~
pavel_lishin
The Apple iCycle: A two-wheeled revolution in transportation. The battery will
allow two miles of (downhill) travel, at which point you'll have to charge it
over USB-C. (Battery is not swappable.) No pedals are included.

~~~
andy_ppp
You only need a USB-C to bipedal human cable, what's the big deal?

~~~
diegoperini
The cable will be released 2 months later.

------
Shivetya
My biggest concern is that Apple products don't have any agreement on
connectors. Apple is becoming a company you need to buy dongles/adapters to
connect their own products together. While I can get some stuff done via
wireless/bluetooth its odd I cannot simply take the provided cables with my
phone and connect it to my Mac. Let alone the corded headphones.

Still I really don't understand the touch bar. When Microsoft is the lead in
fully touch screens for their PCs and tablets you know something is wrong at
Apple. A touch bar?? Really, what about all that screen where the action is
really taking place.

Then comes the abandonware as I term some of their hardware, namely the Mac
Pro but you can add the mini to that. Don't they have any shame?

------
jdmoreira
Here's a new product category for Apple... Give a digital paper solution, 13''
e-ink display plus pen running some sort of watchOS. They don't have to invent
it, just start from the Sony DPT-S1.

------
awinder
"But Amazon’s requirements for success are much lower than Apple’s and its
tolerance for failure (Amazon Fire phone anyone?) are higher."

Can someone explain why Apple has less tolerance to failure? It would seem
like they're in the perfect place for failures -- it's not going to torch the
company, and they have stable revenue to offset any failures. This seemed like
it was more of a company culture thing, but maybe there are strong reasons why
Apple couldn't tolerate some failures in the name of searching / growing?

~~~
criddell
They experiment and fail occasionally. Remember the iPod HiFi?

~~~
sjm-lbm
To be honest, I feel like the fact that you have to reach back 10 years to
find a genuinely interesting Apple experiment more or less supports the point
made in the article.

~~~
fnord123
Apple's mice have all been duds. Siri on the desktop is a dud. The pencil is a
dud.

~~~
sjm-lbm
I don't think the point is that 'Apple doesn't ever fail anymore', it's 'Apple
doesn't release strange and interesting things anymore'.

.. to your examples:

* Stranger mice have been made than Apple's. Also, Apple's 'strange mouse' lineage goes all the way back to the first iMac in 1998.

* Siri on the desktop isn't anything innovative, it's figuring out some way to build some iOS code to run in regular macOS.

* .. and the pencil is just a stylus. They can call it whatever they want.

IMHO, none of these rise to the level of something like MagSafe, which is a
mundane part of a laptop done in a new and innovative way.

~~~
fnord123
Amazon Fire wasn't really strange. It was only an experiment in as much as
being one of Amazon's first forays into hardware. Otherwise it was pretty
standard, iirc.

------
michaf
> What we can count on is that MacBook Pro prices won’t get any higher for
> many years

This is pure speculation stated as if it were fact. It makes me question the
validity of the rest of the article.

~~~
FireBeyond
Especially just a paragraph or two after "and have raised prices by about
$200, for seemingly no discernible reason".

------
gtrubetskoy
There is one industry where Apple can make a lot of money, and nobody is
noticing it: healthcare. One of the biggest problems holding the inevitable
healthcare disruption from happening is security - whom will you trust to keep
a record of your heart rate or whatever? I'd pick Apple over any other
provider because of the hardware innovations with the security enclave chips,
etc, as well as insistence that security does not need to be sacrificed in
order to make data useful.

~~~
petra
Most of the healthcare dollars goes to poor, elderly - who have much more
chronic health issues. The iPhone isn't strong in that demogrpahic, due to
economic reasons(source: a post by a health IT guy) .

~~~
mst
I believe Apple are partnering with healthcare providers since the savings in
care costs make it worth subsidising the phones. Or, at least, that's the
theory; I'm not informed enough to say if it's going to work.

------
davidf18
I'm a rMBP 15" 2015 entry level machine owner who was looking forward to a
Skylake version of the $2K machine. It would have been more battery efficient
and lighter which are both important for my work. It would have been wonderful
if they would have updated the machine with Skylake, with the new thinner,
brighter, better color gamut screens.

As it is, the AMD models will probably consume more power than the entry level
Skylake model would have with the iris pro graphics.

------
Spooky23
My pet theory is that without the dictatorial control of Jobs, people like Ive
are off the reservation and distracted by vanity Christmas tree design
projects.

As a company, they're also wasting time and energy on designing the new
building.

It's ridiculous that the company can't bother to do the basic product line
maintenance that even dying companies like HP can do. Why are they making Mac
Pros and Mac Minis?

It's an institutional hubris that is very dangerous.

------
pilif
Let me be contrarian for a moment when I tell you that I absolutely don't
understand the negativity surrounding the newly announced MBPs. All the
arguments I'm hearing about why the new machines are a step back, at least for
me, are irrelevant or just the usual "I don't like change":

Magsafe:

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I have never been in the position where could be
tripping over the power cable but not over another cable that was also
attached to a device. That's the thing: I rarely ever have just the power
connected, so magsafe doesn't really protect me much.

Plus: With 10 hours of battery life, maybe I don't even need to connect the
device outside of charging in the cases where I really only need power.

On the other hand, by not having a proprietary power connector, I can share
power adapters with other devices, and I finally reach the point where I only
have to connect exactly one cable to the machine to both power it and to
connect the USB hub where all the devices I use are already connected to.

Touch Bar:

This is finally a discoverable function row. Yes. I'm a developer and I'm
using some shortcuts involving F-Keys. But I'd much rather just press the
touch-screen button spelling the name of the function I'm using instead of
fiddling with various modifier keys and a matching F-key.

This is a huge improvement in discoverability of shortcuts and I can't wait
for applications to take advantage of this and show me context-specific
shortcuts. It will also make new application much easier to learn and to be
maximally productive with them.

The Esc-Key still exists, albeit only on a touch screen, but as it's to the
top left, I assume I'll still be able to hit it blind. If an App decides not
to show me the Esc button, I assume it also doesn't have a binding for it.

And speaking of binding: If I have trouble hitting the virtual esc key, I'll
be able to rebind caps lock.

Touch ID comes at the cost of having another locked-down processor running in
my machine. I don't like this 100% but on the other hand, I think this is the
first time where there's crypto hardware built into a machine that then isn't
used for DRM but to protect something of mine that I really, really don't want
applications to have access to.

I might even be using this.

USB-C:

Yes. Right now that's annoying because right now I only have maybe one or two
USB-C cables. But as USB-C is so much superior to the other existing USB
solutions, I fully expect USB-C to quickly become a standard and for cables to
be bundled with the various devices.

I already have more USB cables (A to Micro, A to Mini, A to B, A to lightning)
than I can count and most devices I purchase come with more unneeded cables.
It's just a matter of time before the collection completes itself.

At that point I will finally have my reversible plug on my machine. No more
fumbling and trying the correct orientation. Also in the really rare case when
I really need to plug more than the monitor (which has a hub on its own), I
now have a much more versatile solution as any device can be plugged into any
slot. Much better.

With regards to HDMI and DisplayPort, it was my experience so far that neither
HDMI nor DisplayPort would actually work for me in all the cases where I
wanted to plug in the laptop (with the exception of my desk in the office
where I had a thunderbolt display): Whether it was at conferences or at
customers for presentations: The selection of ports I had to deal with
included the (Lenovo proprietary) Mini-HDMI, DVI and VGA. Only very rarely
could I use HDMI and Display Port was never available.

Which meant that I needed to have a collection of dongles with me anyways, so
there, nothing changes.

So now I'm left with the other two arguments I hear:

One is the missing card-reader which, I can accept is annoying for some and
we'll have to see how it plays out. Once everything is just USB-C, then maybe
it's worth it to just connect the device instead of removing the card, dealing
with card-size converters and all that crap.

The other is the 16GB RAM restriction which, by now we have learned is a
hardware restriction because there's no solution yet for low voltage RAM if
more than 16GB are required.

Sure. They could have gone with non-low-voltage RAM, but that would have come
at the cost of either battery life or size and weight.

And weight, honestly, so far was the only thing that was annoying me about my
existing MBP (2012 retina). Every gram the can shave off is very welcome to me
as it brings me closer to my optimal configuration which would be to just have
one device and commute with it.

The current machine is too heavy for that and who knows, the new one might be
light enough.

Being able to do serious development (which you totally can on these new
boxes) and still commute with the machine, this would be a total dream of mine
and maybe, just maybe, this machine is the one to finally make it possible -
even at the cost of 16GB of maximum ram. The existing 16GB is enough for MacOS
and a VM or two.

~~~
iainmerrick
I think the new MBPs are simultaneously trying to a) be all things to all
people, and b) push the envelope a little and encourage everyone to adopt
USB-C.

a) means it has to be reasonably powerful, but also thin and light for road
warriors. But why is a single device better than a range of device -- really
light Air for those who need portability, and a beefy 17" for people who need
power?

b) is fine as far as it goes, but taking away _all_ the other ports, and doing
this in the same machine that ticks all the boxes in part a), just means it's
a compromise that's awkward for everyone.

If I buy Apple's latest laptop and their latest phone right now, they have
different connectors, so I still need the same number of cables as before, I
just need a whole set of new ones. If the next iPhone switches to USB-C, that
would start to make sense (but then all those Lightning headphones suddenly
become obsolete, so that's a bit awkward...)

It's not that the new MBPs are really bad, they're just underwhelming. If I
needed a new Mac right now I'd be feeling resigned rather than excited about
it. (Which is a strange feeling! Who doesn't like getting brand-new Apple
kit?)

~~~
lmm
> a) means it has to be reasonably powerful, but also thin and light for road
> warriors. But why is a single device better than a range of device -- really
> light Air for those who need portability, and a beefy 17" for people who
> need power?

Computers are finally powerful enough that they think they can manage both at
the same time. Having replaced both my travel netbook and my 18" gaming laptop
with a Surface Book, I think they're right.

~~~
iainmerrick
There's something in that, but doesn't segmentation make sense purely from a
pricing perspective?

There are many people who would love a Mac but don't have a ton of money.
Apple don't have to slash prices to meet that demand, the current Air was
already doing OK. But they're actually moving in the opposite direction,
raising prices.

And there are many people who like Macs and are prepared to spend a lot of
money on one. Why limit their options to a very narrow range of models?

(I guess the cynical answers would be, low-end users aren't worth much, and
high-end users will upgrade frequently anyway so there's no need to sell them
a machine with headroom for future expansion.)

~~~
lmm
Well, segmentation or not it's certainly worth making the Pro light and
portable if they can achieve that without compromising its power too much.
They seem to believe they can, or at least get close enough (I mean perhaps a
larger/heavier Pro could have run to 32GB while maintaining acceptable battery
life).

Whether it would be better to make a cheaper Air than the cheapest new model
is a separate question. I'll just say that Apple has always gone the premium
route (and the limited-range-of-models route) and there are advantages and
disadvantages to that.

------
ZenoArrow
From what I've seen of the latest Apple devices, they make sense to Apple if
Apple wants greater integration between OS X and iOS, as in eventually having
a single OS on all Apple devices. The new bar on the keyboard helps with iOS-
style swipe gestures, standardisation on USB Type C means peripherals can
target iOS and OS X devices, etc...

That's the only explanation that makes sense to me.

~~~
mcintyre1994
How do you target iOS with USB Type C?

~~~
ZenoArrow
Perhaps that was a bit of a stretch, though both are protocol-agnostic, so
switching from Lightning to USB-C in the future may not be as problematic as
it could be.

------
cdubzzz
> And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to
> be cheaper to own. I’m writing this on a mid-2010 non-Retina 13-inch MacBook
> Pro I bought six years ago last June. Yes, over time I increased the memory
> to from four to 16 gigs, took the hard drive up from 240 gigs to a terabyte
> Fusion drive, replaced both the battery and the keyboard when they wore out,
> but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device with which I have
> so far generated well over $1 million in revenue.

My own experience with Apple's computers has been similar. The last Apple I
purchased was a MacBook Pro back in 2006/7 that lasted me a solid eight years,
including three in an extremely hot and dusty environment. The only problem it
ever had was a faulty optical drive (and I did always have lots of trouble
with Apple's laptop optical drives). But that is just one more individual
experience.

Anyway, I don't know that "revenue generated while using the computer" really
says anything at all. And I doubt Apple would come out ahead in that
calculation industry wide.

~~~
criley2
> And as IBM reported a couple weeks ago, even at higher prices, Macs tend to
> be cheaper to own.

>but that still puts me only about $1600 into this device

I always forget how dis-attached and money-blind pro-apple authors are from
the 98% of people and how they approach money. I guess if I was in the 1%, I'd
also think Apple was the cheap option! (I'd probably also think that about
Lexus and BMW...)

$1600 over 6 years, or about $270 a year, is not inexpensive and the false
label "cheaper to own" is absurd to the highest degree.

I could go out right now and buy a $600 laptop, a $200 chromebook, and be out
$800 dollars. Then I could build a $500 rather powerful budget desktop, and be
at $1300, with three devices, and have $300 leftover for repairs or upgrades.

I could buy a $800 laptop and another one in 3-6 years for that price.

I could buy an iPad, a Chromebook, and a $600 laptop. I could buy three $500
laptops.

There is no universe in existence where spending $1600 total cost of ownership
in 6 years approaches ANYTHING CLOSE to "cheaper to own".

Frankly, I DON'T EVEN KNOW windows users who have spent $1600 in the past 6
years total, except for hardcore PC gamers whose hardware so dramatically
eclipses the medium-grade consumer level tech in Apple laptops that to compare
them is entertaining and silly.

~~~
jklinger410
My Lenovo, which cost >$800 and had a $120 SSD upgrade from 2007 still runs
just fine. What alternative evidence is there that macs last longer other than
fanatical circle jerking?

Do those upgrades listed include labor at apple care? The numbers don't even
add up.

Not to mention, unless there have been some large strides in macOS lately,
older apple products seem to lag pretty hard when you upgrade to the current
OS and basically stop working if you don't. Windows 10 runs great on old PCs
and many apps still function all the way back to Windows Vista.

~~~
a_plastic_bag
From what I found, Apple's laptops are sligthly above average in terms of
reliability [0]. Sqaretrade sells warranties though, so there might be some
selection bias, but I'm not sure if it would benefit Apple or not.

[0] [https://resource.squaretrade.com/laptop-
reliability-1109](https://resource.squaretrade.com/laptop-reliability-1109)

~~~
greenshackle2
I'm willing to assume the selection bias affects all brands in a similar
enough way to call it even. The bigger issues is that this is 7 years old now,
I wouldn't rely on it too much unless you're buying an 8-10 year old laptop.

------
syntheticnature
This is a better-reasoned opinion than much of Cringely's recent work. That's
not exactly a recommendation, though. He's an idea guy, some of which he
shares, some of which he doesn't, but it's another thing to execute on said
ideas.

------
pducks32
Hey Apple acts like they don't care about competition but they do. So I really
think all of this is good. I find it impossible to believe Tim Cook himself
hasn't read these posts.

------
Shivetya
Second post, I did find it interesting another blog compares Cook to Balmer.
both expanded their companies bottom lines but both also reigned over a
stagnation of innovation

------
marcalc
I was eagerly waiting for the release of a new MacBook Pro, but when I saw the
Apple keynote, my first/only reaction was to buy a new mid-2015 model to
upgrade my mid-2009 one. Great upgrade, btw. I want to see what are apple's
next moves, I just secured more 4-5 years on a great and stable laptop.

Just speculating: maybe Tim Cook wants to force a decline in sales in order to
justify the killing of the low-performant MacBook line? Hackintoshes are
fairly common nowadays and external keyboard and trackpad 2 can keep the great
interaction provided by OSX.

~~~
slantyyz
>> I was eagerly waiting for the release of a new MacBook Pro, but when I saw
the Apple keynote, my first/only reaction was to buy a new mid-2015 model to
upgrade my mid-2009 one.

As much as we like to hate on the new MBP (myself included) -- in the grander
scheme of things, the new MBP is a more than competent Mac laptop for a _lot_
of people.

The thing with people who spend a lot of time with computers is that we're an
extremely passionate bunch. And because we're so passionate, we pay attention
to the small details that matter most to us, while assuming those details have
equal importance to everyone else, when that may not be the case.

I tend to think a lot of people, including those who aren't terribly happy
about the changes, will begrudgingly accept these changes over time. If you're
a fan of the Mac operating system, you don't really have many other places to
go, even if those places are functionally equivalent.

For a lot of people who hate the changes in the new MBP, staying on macOS is
still better than having to switch to Windows.

------
JohnBooty
Putting aside the ports discussion, the stagnant performance of the Macbook
Pro is just kind of where the market's at - Apple uses Intel chips and Intel
slammed up against Moore's Law quite a few years ago. Looking at current
ThinkPad offerings, it looks like I can get a $4,000 7.5-pound luggable with a
mobile Xeon CPU (Thinkpad P70) but I'm not sure how much extra performance
that buys me.

The lack of 32GB options on Macbook Pros is definitely frustrating, though.

~~~
hellofunk
You are only looking at CPU, though. What about memory, and why does Apple not
care about a "Pro" having more than 16GB RAM?

~~~
denzil_correa
Apparently, the lack of a higher capacity RAM was due to the
performance/energy ratio.

[https://twitter.com/DanFrakes/status/791754757404626944](https://twitter.com/DanFrakes/status/791754757404626944)

------
kumarski
Their ethnocentric headphone design discriminates against those with larger
ears.

So many unused headphones, so much waste....

------
kirykl
What's notably absent from from Apple is the passion for the product. Sure
Jony is passionate for design. BUT Steve would bring the passion and frame the
product and exactly how it's innovative and will change things.

At these past keynotes for example product managers have given canned
passionless presentations for Apple products. Like the Apple TV presentation
from last week

------
rzhikharevich
> As Steve Jobs (and Picasso) said, they are stolen.

AFAIK, Picasso didn't.

------
gigatexal
Johnny Ive and company are ruining the firm that and people reportedly being
overworked. They should have bought Tesla and made the model 3 their iCar and
not gimped the pro-sumer laptops with midrange GPUs and 16GB of ram.

------
jlebrech
they are leveraging their watch tech as a very expensive value-add.

------
cletus
So some analyst thinks Apple should get into the content business. Yawn. For
largely historical reasons we have a model that is divided between content
producers and content distributors. Apple is essentially (at best) a
distributor not a producer. It's good to have this separation (which at least
in part came about from the Paramount decision). If Apple becomes a producer
too then that could hurt their distribution efforts (eg trying to make the
Apple TV a distribution platform).

The real problem with post-Jobs Apple is that Jobs had a vision and Tim Cook
does not. Don't get me wrong: Cook has done wonders on the logistics and
provisioning front to turn Apple into the behemoth but is he the leader Apple
really needs? I have doubts.

When Apple announced the watch, I raised an eyebrow. Personally I think
smartwatches are stupid. The tech just isn't there yet (battery life, size,
etc). Apple traditionally only got into markets once they were proven. That
wasn't (and still isn't) the case with smartwatches.

Look at Apple's change in direction. The first Apple Watch was positioned like
a luxury brand (another change for Apple). This one is focused on health and
fitness. Even there it's a compromise (eg for any serious exercise with a
heart rate monitor you need a chest strap and no one has yet invented an HRM
without one that's sufficiently accurate without one under stress). But
constant health monitoring and potentially warning before you have a major
health event (eg stroke, heart attack) is a real potential growth market. But
again, the tech just isn't there yet.

Steve Jobs famously stuck to having one mouse button. I think he was wrong on
this one. The right-click is here to stay but he did have a point about
discoverability. So I was once again shocked when Apple introduced Force/3D
Touch as it has even more discoverability and consistency problems. It also
adds weight and cost. The haptic home button is also (IMHO) a step backwards.

And again, ditching the headphone jack seems too soon. In another shock,
Apple's Ear Pods have been "delayed". Has Apple ever not had their shit
together to delay a product after announcement like this?

So phones are becoming if they haven't already a commodity. What I mean is
that pretty much any smartphone you buy now is probably going to be good
enough, even the prepaid phones you buy for $150 or less. Oh the hardware
front, only these things seem to matter now:

\- Display (although arguably they are or soon will be all good enough)

\- Battery life only to the point that it's sufficient (ie beyond a certain
point it doesn't matter and they'll all get to that point)

\- The camera

One the last one it does seem like the Pixel is better than the iPhone 7
(disclaimer: I work for Google).

After that, it's software the matters and is the real differentiator between
phones (IMHO). iOS, once clean, simple and elegant, seems to have gotten
clunkier, confused and is suffering more from feature bloat. That's natural if
product managers and UI/UX people aren't reined in.

This is mirrored in OSX, which seems to have gotten worse starting with
Yosemite.

------
pinaceae
beautiful qed - armchair product guy analyses situation (ok viewpoint), then
makes a suggestion so asinine that it acts as a reminder just how hard product
work is.

as tech is becoming mainstream, more and more "football coaches" will spout
their nonsense, just like in sports.

------
Artoemius
Everything about Apple these days points to the same elephant in the room:
their top management are just a bunch of clueless salesmen without their
leader.

~~~
neolefty
Cook isn't a sales guy -- he's operations. Still an elephant in the room
though; there's a natural tension between trying new things and streamlining
your existing things.

------
JackFr
> Yet writers, like most actors, are notoriously underpaid.

...according to writers.

Writers seem to me to be paid at a market clearing rate, with the protection
of a union. It seems to me that if they were truly underpaid they might find a
better use for their time.

------
hash-set
Apple has gone cheap. That's what is wrong. The Late 2012 Mac Mini I bought
recently died for no apparent reason. It had upgradeable hard disks and
memory. The 2014 version I just replaced it with has 4GB of RAM soldered onto
the board and the case is designed not to be opened at all. That is just one
small example, but a) the one I had shouldn't have died, and b) the
replacement isn't anywhere as good as the old one.

Apple, I'm done. You fucked me and I'm done.

------
BatFastard
Go Cringely! Very interesting proposition. I am a believer that when we free
ourselves from surviving day to day (to which we are pretty close), that the
creatives will be the people in the highest demand. Or at least I can dream of
such a day.

~~~
return0
So higher supply will create higher demand?

~~~
BatFastard
More free time to spend on leisure activities will create higher demand.

Demand for talent has skyrocketed over the last 5 years.

------
znpy
What is going to happen imho:

Apple is doing and will do a shitload of money anyway.

People will buy Apple stuff anyway because people already are: unless you are
an Apple user, you should know how "religious" (I'm being kind here) Apple
users are. They have been consciously been buying outdated and overpriced
hardware until now, and they have been super proud about this too.

Also, unless Apple software actively gets in the way of users doing their
stuff it is all going to be "okay".

So this is going to last anything from five to ten years at least, still imho.

I have no true idea whether newer apple stuff is so bad or not (besides the
idiotic drop of the audio jack on the iPhone). But Apple users have been
subject to this Apple-isy for literally decades.

I have a suspicion that now that Apple Macbook Pros are so widespread,
complaining about Apple is the new hipsteria.

This is what I feel, reading the news, on a foggy October, almost-November
morning.

~~~
gourou
Apple has been getting bad press these days because: \- A lot of employees
left the Apple Car project, it is now reduced to software only \- Siri is
lagging behind other assistants \- Removed the audio jack off the iPhone \-
Removed USB ports on the macbook

The only exception, Apple Music, is catching up to Spotify but that comes at
the cost of paying for exclusives.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Also declining software reliability; declining hardware performance; lack of
real vision or creativity; emphasis on superficial hardware changes (smaller,
thinner, etc) over engineering significant new classes of customer benefits.

