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Comment by _red | Hacker News Reader

Not related to supply chain, but when my current iPhone 6s is paid off I will probably look for 6s Plus. The lack of headphone jack really is a deal killer for me...I have no desire to complicate my life by carrying, charging, and managing multiple pieces of kit.

The "but it makes the iPhone water resistant" is weak argument that even if true, could've had a simple manufacturing solution (ie. no need to have the bore go straight into body of phone where electronics are, have the bore cylinder sealed with only wiring running to logic board).

Tim Cook, much like Steve Balmer, is a brilliant operations guy that can make minute adjustments to product lineup to produce all sorts of incremental once-off sales. However, they both lacked a fundamental "product vision" that resulted in tactical gains and strategic losses. Apple once again needs a product visionary.

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This is where the legend of Steve Jobs is validated. To see the progressive decline in quality of hardware, software, and overall experience leads one to believe that yes indeed it was Jobs responsible for what we came to know as apple quality. It’s sad it’s happenig. Like a slow mo accident. While they’re focused on selling iCloud my phone storage is magically filling up even when I delete gigs of data and load nothing more.

To be honest, I didn't even watch the last product launch. I almost thought it was a mistake when I checked the website later that day and saw both 8 and X iPhones? What a way to confuse your market.

Right now on apple.com you can buy the SE, 6, 7, 8, and X from their website. Talk about a cluttered, friction inducing decision.

Reading your last two statements made me think "Jobs would have never, in a million years, let that happen. Whole teams of people would be fired first."

It's a good lesson to the rest of us.

Wow, I honestly thought that they had killed off several of those products.

And this is likely the reason for the reportedly low sales of the 8. I was surprised when they announced both at the fall event as it seemed obvious the X would cannibalize sales of the 8.

The iPhone is already a expensive premium phone, why bother with incremental changes of the 8 when the cool and shiny X is right around the corner.

It's also strange to me how they offer two new phones with different feature sets. Usually when Apple introduces a new device with a controversial change (e.g. USB-C only on the 2016 MacBook Pro), they don't offer a updated device without that change. It can be perceived as a lack of faith in the new product.

Depends. I had been waiting for the X but it so annoyed me that I went with the 8 instead. I realize that the cannibalization is the narrative and it’s likely more true than not but I can’t be the only one who went 8

This year seems to have been about price increases across the range of products. The iPhone X is more expensive, and a lot more expensive than previous premium iPhones if you get sensible amounts of storage.

The base model of the MacBook Pro is about the same price as the one in 2016, but it has 128GB rather than 256GB of storage. The 256GB model is now a couple hundred dollars more expensive than last years.

Who else is able to increase prices in technology? In spite of the complaints about their products, for people who think they are good enough and don’t think what competitors have to offer is good enough (in terms of frustrations rather than in terms of features/price) there aren’t alternatives, and Apple has a lot of pricing power.

I suspect price segmentation is a big reason for that. Apple's always been competing against a wide range of prices in the Android space.

SE: only small choice, starts at $349

6S: 449 7: 549 8: 699

6S+: 549 7+: 669 8+: 799

So each "normal" size is available at 3 price points. Horace Dediu has talked a lot about price segmentation and umbrellas in the past; this seems like a perfectly reasonable strategy, and I doubt people are all that confused about what they want. Pick a size, pick a price point, buy.

What's friction inducing?

What size phone do I like - 4, 4.7, or 5.5?

How much money do I want to spend?

IDK. Jobs ruled when the iPhone(a very rare opportunity) was emerging, when Apple had a much smaller value. Cook is ruling while the iPhone is maturing and Apple, a huge company, needs to grow.

So it's hard to compare.

Also it's hard to know how much of the iPhone's sucsess is Steve Jobs, and how much of it this is a manufactured legend(and there's no doubt, there is one) - and the iPhone's greatness was due to many great people.And Apple is exceptionally good at hiding those details.

But one part of the legend is true though: he was a visionary - insisting on building a company around good design where a rare few did so. That paid of huge. With the iPod. And the iPod is a very important reason in the success of the iPhone.

> So it's hard to compare.

Not really, because many of us remember the golden age of LCs before everything went downhill.

What is LCs ? and can you expand ?

But also, my point is: if you put someone as skilled as Jobs, but without the track record, could he say no to investors wanting growth ? Could he give up such a huge opportunity as wireless ear buds ?

And even if, could he create amazing new features/products out of thin air ? on his own ? when the whole world have learned how be great at design ? IDK.

Your question reveals that you only know the OS X era from Apple. :)

This is a LC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_LC

After Jobs was forced to leave, Apple wandered into creating A/UX, Taligent, Copland, allowing clones and getting ready to close shop.

It was Jobs' return that placed some order into the whole Spindler and Amelio mess.

I still haven't seen any clear evidence of this supposed fall. Everything that people point out is things that Jobs did too before he died. People just have a tendency to forget the warts, and remember all the successes. Even people who are critical of Apple. It's a human bias we all have.. we simplify memories to make them simpler to process.

People always bring up the Magic Mouse 2 for instance. I think it's mainly a misunderstood design. But anyway: do people really think Jobs would have compromised the visual design of the mouse to put a charging port on the front of the mouse, all just to facilitate the 0.1% of time that someone needs to use the mouse while charging it? Have people completely forgotten about the hockey puck mouse, a design where Jobs was willing to give people carpal tunnel syndrome just to have it be totally round and cool looking?

You mention iCloud.. Do you remember MobileMe? A service that failed so spectacularly, under Jobs, that they just scrapped the whole thing and replaced it with iCloud?

Jobs wasn't infallible, but the fact is even if the Hockey Puck mouse was a weird design, it also worked, which is something that Apple has struggled recently to manage with their entire product line.

Jobs also was actively against having multiple phones, specifically because of the confusion it causes in the customer. Apple now sells the SE, the 6s, the 6s Plus, the 7, the 7 Plus, the 8, the 8 Plus, and the X will be available soon. Jobs would've never allowed that, the SE would probably stay because it's a different size, but then it would be the 8, and the X and that's it.

Software quality especially, iCloud especially especially, has become abysmal. We're up to 11.0.3 now for patch releases, 3 patch releases after a major OS update is unheard of for Apple.

And all of those issues isn't even getting into the Mac line which has been brutalized under Cook.

I don't hate Cook, he's a fantastic businessman, but he has no vision whatsoever.

> We're up to 11.0.3 now for patch releases, 3 patch releases after a major OS update is unheard of for Apple.

That’s some revisionist history there! That couldn’t be further from the truth!

First let’s take the obvious contradiction and look at iOS7. There was 7.0.3, 7.0.4, 7.0.5, heck, even 7.0.6!

Pretty much every major release had a X.0.2, so an X.0.3 is not that crazy.

While not a “major OS update” technically, the iOS 4.2 release got patched all the way up to 4.2.10. 10 patch releases, surely that’s when we should’ve said the end was nigh?

While 7.0.X and 4.2.X saw a large number of patch releases, all X.0 and pretty much all X.Y releases had a few patch releases so iOS11 is not an outlier in any way so far.

In reality, bugs will always exist, no matter how good the QA or engineering discipline. Personally, I’d rather see them fix early and often, as long as the patch release doesn’t introduce worse behavior.

That's true, I had forgotten the trainwreck that was iOS 7. I still have scars from trying to learn Autolayout back then.

As to 4.2, that was before my time. Not an excuse, just an explanation.

It’s easy to dismiss iOS 7 has a particularly bad case, but based on the list below it seems you might have a selective memory (no offense, just trying to help fix it)...

10.3.3

10.0.3

9.3.5

9.0.2

8.1.3

8.0.2

7.1.2

7.0.6

6.1.6

6.0.2

As you can see, going back to 6.x days, being at a X.Y.2 or higher patch release is really not that uncommon.

Apple sold three generation of phones during the Jobs era. The carriers sold them On contract at $200 $100, and "free".

Along the same line, the 8, 7, and 6 are the same three generation of phones that Apple sold under the jobs era. The only difference is that the market demanded larger phones but still some people like really small phones (the SE), what are now considered regular size phones (6s,7, and 8) and their "phablet" equivalents.

Also, Jobs was also well aware of the "price umbrella". They are able to get in the midrange market with the perfectly capable 6s line.

And don't forget, under Jobs, they went from one model iPod to four - the shuffle, the Nano, the "classic" and the Touch.

Apple can't be king of the mountain forever.

IMHO, the thing that folks are not seeing here is that there's value in "making stuff" in having actual FABS, factories and manufacturing. Apple and other "fab-less" companies have been training their competition for decades now. There will someday be a comeuppance.

Samsung could, at some point in the future, decide to "fire" or at least throttle-down Apple as a customer at the worst possible time. What would you expect if you come to depend on your competitor as a key supplier?

If Apple can be dropped by Samsung at an unexpected time and without months/years of warning, or a huge penalty fee, Apple's lawyers would've failed terribly at writing contacts.

There's no way this hasn't been planned / analysed before with risks understood by both sides.

Samsung has already done this to a couple of competitors before. HTC had to switch to TF-LCD display back in early 2000's when Samsung wasn't able to supply enough OLED. Samsung's dominant share of mobile OLED (as the largest producer and consumer) hasn't really changed much for the past decade, at around 95%. But this all comes down to supply and demand. I doubt Samsung would maliciously shutdown their OLED production just to piss off their #1 customer. After all, who can say no when even their worst enemy comes begging with a wad of cash?

I have my recurring beefs with Apple products, but comments like the parent's (and articles like the one in question) were written year after year while Jobs was alive - every iPod, iPad and iPhone announcement, certainly. Every failure (iTunes has been garbage since 2005) has been depicted as emblematic of the company's direction, the wins dismissed as window dressing.

I also prefer having a plain headphone jack, and it also stops my impulse of buying any model which lacks it: I would have probably already ordered iPhone 8 if it had that jack.

A decision to simply make the already fully working (32-bit) apps not working on iOS 11 made me keeping my current iPhone on iOS 10. Some apps I've paid and which do work simply don't have a 64-bit equivalent. Apple tries to force me to update the iOS with the prompts, with an automatic download of the update, but I still fight. I also see the 11 has battery problems. It took a while for 10 to stop draining it.

The mitigation for battery problems for me is to just manually close all open apps when finished. Obviously this is a workaround but does allow my 6s to get normal iOS10 battery performance.

I've seen huge battery life gains by enabling location services only when absolutely necessary. I can't make it through the day on a single charge if location services are enabled. I've seen the battery go from 85% to 15% in just a couple of hours. Example: enabling location services to get a Lyft to dinner, not looking at the phone again until it's time to go home, and seeing that the battery is almost dead. Disable location services and sometimes I find myself charging every other day.

I think the workaround you propose might have the same effect because you're killing apps that could be using location and network in the background. Not sure how it works these days for apps that can access your location at any time. Do they at least have to be "running" to do that?

turning off bluetooth, and wifi when you aren't actively using them can help too... both will search constantly.

That's a weird correlation to make.

A typical "operations guy" would never remove functionality from a product for forward-looking reasons.

Apple's never been shy about pushing forward and leaving legacy tech behind. If they hadn't made AirPods, I'd be similarly less-than-gruntled, but my AirPods are so much easier to deal with than a wired solution.

In a sense both Jobs and Gates were "visionary" leaders who both had tremendous "operation" #2's to back them up.

In both cases, the No. 2's were natural shoe-ins by the board, and in both cases the operations guys tinkered their way into a mess.

I think it's too soon to compare Ballmer's mess to Cook's mess.

Not when the canaries are singing...

Apple has been beleaguered and/or doomed since 1976.

Similar anecdote: I just replaced my 6S with another 6S, entirely due to it being the latest iPhone with a headphone jack.

I would happily have a slightly thicker iPhone (or non-waterproof, or whatever the reason was) to be able to listen to music for more than a few hours at a time again (among many other daily conveniences that I'd lose by upgrading).

Would have thought the same thing but I now prefer the waterproofness of my 7 to the headphone jack on my 6S.

Despite the glowing reviews from friends it still bothers me that it seems like a push for AirPods though.

That's what OP is saying though. That there is no reason we couldn't have both waterproofness and a headphone jack. Legions of android phones are, of course, examples of this.

I actually thought the same thing, but I absolutely love my AirPods.

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