Hacker News Reader

Comment by askafriend | Hacker News Reader

These events are like clockwork. You've got to ride out the unsubstantiated pessimism and outrage before you can have a healthy, reasonable, productive discussion about Apple and their role in technology and the world.

That's the price of admission for being such a cultural and economic force I suppose.

I for one, am incredibly excited. Their last keynote was packed with stuff, and it seems this one will be too. Lots to dissect.

Off the top of my head: iPhone, HomePod, Apple Watch, Apple TV, iOS/macOS/watchOS/tvOS public releases, updates on their new APIs like ARKit/CoreML, and whatever else they have up their sleeve.

View on HN

So, what exactly are you referring to? It certainly wasn't unsubstantiated when people found out Apple was dropping the headphone jack on their iPhone or forcing everybody to use USB-C dongles on their laptops.

That's the price of admission for taking things away that people actually want or just plain doing the wrong thing.

Anyway, I don't see how one could be excited about an Apple event. Their products are completely boring and sterile. You get zero choice, zero freedom and as a developer you get even less than that.

I think I'd get more excited about an actual pair of golden handcuffs.

Are there particular views you see trending that are unsubstantiated?

I don't know why being pessimistic should matter.

The main ones are that innovation has rotted and quality has slipped after Steve Jobs.

Honestly the new iPhone's main design - the screen occupying most of the front - is a continuation of something Samsung took mainstream in the S6 Edge, S7 and S8. I love iOS and the iPhone but I do feel things slowing down.

Being pessimistic isn't the problem in and of itself...at least not if you're willing to have a reasonable discussion around the topic and back up your views in some respectable manner. There are entirely valid reasons why you may not like Apple's ethos, Apple's products, or even just specific decisions Apple has made in the past.

It's the blind rage and almost meme-like pessimism that always seems to surround big Apple events that I'm talking about though. It's in part because people just love being angry, in part because people like the "wars" and taking sides, and in part because the media absolutely loves to get clicks by perpetuating the outrage. It's almost the perfect tsunami of emotions when you consider that Apple is immensely popular and has been on top for a long time which in and of itself amplifies everything.

I mean you can go back and look at the MacRumors forum threads for every single Apple keynote in the past two decades - no joke - and you'll find hilariously consistent discussion patterns. It's to the point where you can make a very accurate bingo game about the topic of people's outrage without even knowing what the announcements are.

You just gotta ride it out and wait for things to settle to have any real discussion.

Packed with stuff maybe, but utterly boring and conventional.

I'd trade all these announcements for just one that's actually innovative and a sign that Apple is back to being about innovating rather than milking ten year old franchises.

Here's to hoping that the highlight will not be a new iPad, iPhone or a laptop.

Except innovation doesn't work like you're suggesting it does. Real innovation takes an insanely long time to manifest and it comes in waves. It often builds on top of stuff that's incredibly familiar to us and doesn't look like innovation except in retrospect.

Even the iPhone falls into this category.

I like to contextualize the concept of innovation with the "S" curve: https://osmoticinnovation.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/tech-c...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com