What the Heck Is Happening at Apple? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2016/10/31/heck-happened-apple/ <comment> 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.

<comment><USER4> 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.

<comment><USER5> "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 - <USER2> 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.

<comment><USER6> 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.

<comment><USER7> 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.

<comment><USER6> 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.

<comment><USER7> > 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.

<comment><USER8> 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.

<comment><USER7> 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.

<comment><USER8> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 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.

<comment><USER10> >> 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.

<comment><USER9> 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.

<comment><USER11> 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.

<comment><USER9> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 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.

<comment><USER13> 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.

<comment><USER12> > 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 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.

<comment><USER15> Yeh I agree, I think this is another "Apple need to do more" even though they actually literally _don 't_ need to do more.

<comment><USER16> They're a public tech company. If they don't grow like cancer they will die.

<comment><USER15> 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.

<comment><USER16> I'm not saying I care that they grow like that, but the market does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> 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.

<comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER19> 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.

<comment><USER20> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 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...

<comment><USER22> 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.

<comment><USER21> 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...

<comment><USER23> If I was running network simulations I'd certainly run all those VMs on a server cluster and not my laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> 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.

<comment><USER25> 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.

<comment><USER24> 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.

<comment><USER25> I haven't seen that one thanks!

<comment><USER24> Here it is: [https://archive.org/details/nerdtv007](https://archive.org/details/nerdtv007)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "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)

</comment><comment><USER26> 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.

<comment><USER27> 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.

<comment><USER28> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 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.

<comment><USER30> I don't want Apple to stuff around with teleportation (or more realistically... cars)

I just want them to make a pro laptop

<comment><USER31> Why?

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 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/)

<comment><USER33> I think he might mean things more like CES and other trade shows. Apple has frequently been involved in technical conferences.

<comment><USER32> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> 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.

<comment><USER15> 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.

<comment><USER35> > 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.

<comment><USER36> 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 - <USER3> _removing_ features improves usability. Or at least keeping them coherent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> 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.

<comment><USER38> 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.

<comment><USER39> _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.

<comment><USER40> > 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> 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.

</comment><comment><USER42> Just offensive and very stupid article. Regret for the lost time.

<comment><USER14> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 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."_

<comment><USER44> Doesn't it go against the common thing Apple users seek: simplicity ?

<comment><USER45> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> 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).

<comment><USER47> 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).

<comment><USER46> 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.

<comment> 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/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> 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).

</comment><comment><USER49> How often must Apple release a new category? They released a watch in 2015. Apple needs an entire new product category every year?

</comment><comment><USER50> 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.

</comment><comment><USER51> 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..

</comment><comment><USER52> > 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).

<comment><USER53> 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 ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> 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.

<comment><USER55> _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.

<comment><USER54> > 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.

<comment><USER55> _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.

<comment><USER56> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I agree Apple needs a new billion dollar business segment and it's simple what it is; Apple Bus Pool Pro :-)

<comment><USER58> Apple Bicycle!

<comment><USER59> 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.

<comment><USER57> You only need a USB-C to bipedal human cable, what's the big deal?

<comment><USER60> The cable will be released 2 months later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> 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?

</comment><comment><USER62> 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.

</comment><comment><USER63> "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?

<comment><USER64> They experiment and fail occasionally. Remember the iPod HiFi?

<comment> 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.

<comment><USER65> Apple's mice have all been duds. Siri on the desktop is a dud. The pencil is a dud.

<comment> 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.

<comment><USER65> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> > 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.

<comment><USER67> Especially just a paragraph or two after "and have raised prices by about $200, for seemingly no discernible reason".

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> 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.

<comment><USER44> 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) .

<comment><USER69> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> 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.

</comment><comment><USER71> 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.

</comment><comment><USER72> 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.

<comment><USER39> 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?)

<comment><USER22> > 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.

<comment><USER39> 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.)

<comment><USER22> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> 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.

<comment><USER74> How do you target iOS with USB Type C?

<comment><USER73> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> > 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.

<comment><USER76> > 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.

<comment><USER77> 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.

<comment><USER52> 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)

<comment><USER56> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> 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.

</comment><comment><USER79> 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.

</comment><comment><USER61> 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

</comment><comment><USER80> 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.

<comment><USER81> >> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> 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.

<comment><USER83> You are only looking at CPU, though. What about memory, and why does Apple not care about a "Pro" having more than 16GB RAM?

<comment><USER84> 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)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Their ethnocentric headphone design discriminates against those with larger ears.

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

</comment><comment><USER86> 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

</comment><comment><USER87> > As Steve Jobs (and Picasso) said, they are stolen.

AFAIK, Picasso didn't.

</comment><comment><USER88> 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.

</comment><comment><USER89> they are leveraging their watch tech as a very expensive value-add.

</comment><comment><USER90> 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.

</comment><comment><USER91> 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.

</comment><comment><USER92> 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.

<comment><USER93> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> > 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.

</comment><comment> 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.

</comment><comment><USER95> 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.

<comment><USER96> So higher supply will create higher demand?

<comment><USER95> More free time to spend on leisure activities will create higher demand.

Demand for talent has skyrocketed over the last 5 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> 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.

<comment><USER98> 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.

<comment><USER99> 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.</comment></comment></comment>


JS8Call – weak signal communication on HF with a keyboard-to-keyboard interface - <AUTHOR> http://js8call.com <comment><AUTHOR> Seems we hugged the site to death. Here's archive.org's snapshot from today: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200828183315/http://js8call.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200828183315/http://js8call.com/)

And a related presentation on YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZKhVcFOljY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZKhVcFOljY)

</comment><comment><USER2> JS8 communication monitored over the last 24 hours: [https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html?preset&callsign=ZZZZZ&m...](https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html?preset&callsign=ZZZZZ&mode=JS8&timerange=86400)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you've fallen behind on recent ham tech as far as I have, this might help (from the WSJT pdf [0]):

"WSJT-X is a computer program designed to facilitate basic amateur radio communication using very weak signals.... JT65 and QRA64 were designed for EME ("moonbounce") on the VHF/UHF bands and have also proven very effective for worldwide QRP communication on the HF bands.... JT9A is 2 dB more sensitive than JT65 while using less than 10% of the bandwidth.... These four "slow" modes use one-minute timed sequences of alternating transmission and reception, so a minimal QSO takes four to six minutes — two or three transmissions by each station, one sending in odd UTC minutes and the other even."

[0] from the WSJT-X 2.2 User Guide PDF (offers 10 languages) at: [https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html](https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> So, as I have a ham license, what do I need to get started using this?

<comment><USER5> HF radio+antenna and digital setup. Digital setup includes computer (or a rpi), audio interface to your radio and (optional) cat control to radio. for example i have a ft-891 with a usb 2.0 type-b to type-a for cat control (lets the software set frequency of the radio), and then a mini-din connector that connects to the back of the radio and gives me a mic/speaker connector which i connect to a usb sound card into my rpi or computer. then you can use js8call or WSJT-X (for other modes like ft8). you will probably want at least a general license. since tech doesn't give you a lot of hf access, but since this is digital (can be same allocations as CW) you can do some on tech license.</comment></comment>