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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

I love Apple but I’m frustrated for a few reasons.

1. I’m sick of charging everything constantly. I feel like my phone, AirPods, laptop and watch batteries are always needing too much attention. I would prefer larger devices with bigger batteries.

2. The screens for these devices are too fragile. The devices are beautiful, but require ugly cases or regular, expensive repairs.

3. There are too many missing devices in Apple’s ecosystem. A pro computer under $3k. A TV. A smart speaker that isn’t crippled. Smart home devices that don’t suck. Apple should stop trying to compete (poorly) with Netflix and should focus on their ecosystem of devices and services.

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Agreed, and that’s the issue I have with the cash pile. They should be trying and failing quickly at a number of things, big things, including the small items you raised. Take a guy like Elon, give him a 500bn in cash and see what happens. The world would change in a big way.

Capital should be either sunk hugely into the R&D to change the world or should be returned to shareholders to better allocate it.

That said, These guys aren’t playing the game 1 qtr at a time. Not even a year at a time. They play the 100+ year game and likely they don’t see this money as “big”.

I'd love to see Apple do some serious work on the battery side. If anyone's equipped to do it, it is (though I'm less certain of this after the "sapphire" debacle). You wouldn't believe how hard it is to actually get new battery tech to market: I've probably seen a dozen start-ups pitch technologies that could substantially improve capacity, longevity, safety, size, weight, manufacturing cost, or a combination of the above. None have yet succeeded at scale.

> They should be trying and failing quickly at a number of things, big things, including the small items you raised.

That seems very antithetical to Apple's fundamental approach to product design. Sure, they have some first-generation stinkers, but I think it's fair to say Apple tends to err on the side of waiting until they can release something to their standards.

Apple does seem to have a massive "hidden" set of R&D projects. I bet all the items the GP mentioned are in some phase of development. Famously the iPad was actually in development before the iphone! I suspect their culture of secrecy prevents internal accountability unless the particular project has internal visibility with execs.

Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

For your second point, there was a recent article about Corning's next generation Gorilla Glass Victus. Survives more drops and drops from higher distances. Corning is the supplier for the Apple for glass and so this could be improving in the next generation.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/23/corning-debuts-next-gen-goril...

I just wish it wasn't such a smudge/finger print magnet.

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