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You nailed it so well in this comment, I have been pointing out this from when they launched Apple Music.

The classic excuse which people hide behind is "but they don't have a monopoly". Sure, they don't have a monopoly in precise terms. But the power they have to push products in new verticals is just unfair to the competition as they can't compete on equal terms.

Jabra's parent company in total earns less than 10% of what Apple earns selling just Airpods. It would be really sad if we lose iconic companies like Bose to these "want to own everything" tech giants.

Sidenote: This downvoting pattern on critical comments on any threads related to Apple has been absurd for quite some time. Somehow we have entered into a territory where say a company like FB always is upto no good for most here but the opposite is true for Apple.

Interesting. I haven’t used greasemonkey in years, but was considering looking at it to filter out Apple threads. One week it’s all valiant Epic and fervent downvoting of those questioning the viability of the lawsuit, to a next week everyone agreeing with the judges surly review of the case.

Looking at the top Apple threads for the last month, it hardly looks like HN is some positivity echo chamber:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...

Bose used to be a gorilla in IP and was happy to sue Beats as soon as Apple announced they were buying it. Highly probable any settlement may have included carrying their products for some period of time.

> Bose used to be a gorilla in IP and was happy to sue Beats as soon as Apple announced they were buying it

Maybe they saw the writing on the wall and chose that path to fight on.

> Highly probable any settlement may have included carrying their products for some period of time.

Apple would have sold Bose products just for the retail cut they can get. They are considered premium and for a lot of categories Apple didn't have competitors till now, so it was better to just sell products like Bose for the retail cut.

Apple AirPods wouldn’t have sold so well if the existing Bluetooth headphone space wasn’t such trash. AirPods isn’t a great example because the product was so much better than anything else out there in the same category (ear buds).

Maybe a better example would have been Apple Music?

I am not a fan of earpod form factor at all but Jabra's wireless earphones are rated better by many sites like Wirecutter and at least I find the sound quality of Jabra much better.

Even if Jabra is better, how many people discover Jabra as they cycle through a bunch of pretty bad options?

It's kind of like suggesting that Lenovo's T14s (I picked it at random) laptop is better and cheaper than a Macbook, so why would anyone a Macbook: People still have to wade through the X1 series, the P series, the rest of the T series, the X series, the Yoga series, the E series, the L series, the 11e series, just to find that one Macbook-killer. Or they can just go to apple.com and buy a laptop and be done with it. Except in this case, it's bluetooth earbuds.

Isn't that the point we are making here? This would eventually lead to a handful of companies dominating so many major markets.

Jabra, Spotify are not competing with Apple on just merit. Apple has the advantage of pushing Airpods, Apple Music on their Macbook/iPhone customers because they have the cash and branding space on a red carpet for them.

Apple is successful because they make good products. I'm extremely satisfied with Apple Music, my iPhone, and my Airpods Pro. So are almost all of my friends who use them.

We all want to blame a boogeyman for all of our problems. There are plenty of alternatives available to Apple Music, the iphone, and the airpods. How many brands make wireless earbuds? how many phones? and Spotify, Amazon Music, Google, etc, all offer competing music streaming services.

Apple certainly leverages many advantages is has, so does every other company. That doesn't make it monopolistic.

Wait until you hear about General Electric and their subdivisions - their massive market dominance made them so competitive it allowed them to shrink quite a bit so many of these are past tense. They made lightbulbs, generators, appliances, aviation electronics, healthcare and have their own finance and research wing. They never came anywhere close in scope to GE. Seriously why the massively different standard for "tech giants"?

The only thing I can say is calm down. Electronics hardware manufacturing company makes electronics isn't anti-trust, it isn't even news.

Bose is indeed an iconic company. That said, as a long-time bose user their products are deteriorating in obvious ways. As a heavy traveller (pre-crisis) my first pair of quietcomfort headphones were fantastic. They were so far ahead of anything else I had ever owned that when in a jetlagged state a sadly left them behind when departing a plane I had no hesitation in immediately buying another. These lasted a quarter of the time I had the original pair before the pads became uncomfortable, split and I replaced them. Still a pretty good pair of headphones but the second time the pads fell apart I decided that it was time to relegate these headphones to "backup" status and upgrade to wireless.

I decided to get a bose pair even though I had reservations. They were ok - the sound quality was not as good as either of the previous wired pairs, but I figured that was the price you pay for the convenience of bluetooth wireless. They worked well until like my first pair I left them on a plane.

OK no more bose - I bought a pair of Sennheisers. For the first month these were fantastic and half the cost of bose. I liked them so much when my wife wanted headphones I bought her an identical pair. Then one day they just decided they would no longer pair with my bluetooth devices. No idea why, no way of fixing them and when I looked online lots of other people have had the same problem and end up sending them back to Sennheiser and getting a replacement pair. I can't be bothered to do this so I go back to bose.

My latest pair of bose QC headphones are by far the worst. The audio quality is worse than any previous pair of bose headphones I've owned, and the microphone is so poorly placed that I've given up using them for calls - whenever I did this in the past I ended up spending half the call explaining to the other person that I didn't need to speak up - I was already talking unreasonably loudly it was just that the microphone didn't work properly.

Headphones seem to be going through the "tornado" phase right now where demand is soaring and quality is plummetting. The way for Bose to distinguish itself would be to go back to making good noise-cancelling headphones (which it used to do very well) but I think it is most likely they will follow the race to the bottom and get crushed by larger competitors.

As a long-time fan of Bose headphones at the moment I won't be sad to see them disappear.

I actually have no problem with them being a 1-3, I just dont understand why they had to do 4 and 5.

Music was understandable given there are no Streaming Music alternative other than Spotify. ( But Apple Music still sucks after so many years, and barely caught on to Spotify ). But Making Apple Originals? Pouring Billions into it?

And Apple Card? Yes I think Banking and Finance will be there soon. If they have some sort of Apple Cash will minimal cash balance that doesn't require as much regulation as a bank, they will start with a potential 1 Billion customers. And then you have insurance, investment options....

Apple Music is mostly a holdover from the decade of the iPod and iTunes Music Store. They already had a strong market position and it would have been capitalist suicide to abandon it wholesale. I don't agree that it sucks compared to Spotify, but it does cater to a different audience, preferring curation over algorithms.

Apple TV+ is indeed a curious one. Personally I think it's as simple as being a placeholder to allow Apple to make strategic choices in future, if they ever choose to compete aggressively with Netflix, Amazon etc.

I think the real weird one is finance. While Apple Pay is obvious, Apple Card is not. Banking is desperate for technological upheaval but many fintech start-ups are already doing a good job of this—at least in some countries like the UK.

I’m not trying to be an annoying nitpick, you bring up good points and I have just a few observations...

Apple Music curation. Has anyone been impressed by this? I found maybe 2-3 songs I didn’t already know about, over the course of at least a year. I was never impressed, even SiriusXM has more variety and relevancy. I think they blew the chance to really do something great.

AppleTV+ makes me feel fatigued. Yes to being a “curious one.”

Apple Card seems to me like Apple’s version of a co-branded airline card. As much as I like to dunk on Apple these days (I used to be a huge fan), Apple Card is something they executed really well on. I’d like to give props to the Apple Pay/Card team. I think they’re doing a great job here and have a solid foundation for wherever they take this. That said I have a hard time imagining using Apple for all my transactions and balances, especially with the callous way they seem to behave lately. But you never know.

Not an annoying nitpick at all. Different perspectives are enlightening.

No, I haven’t been impressed by Apple Music curation. But I haven’t been impressed with Spotify recommendations either. I dare say that the best approach will require equal parts algorithm and curation.

As for Apple Card, that probably makes more sense in the USA where having many credit cards under different guises is commonplace. In Australia, store cards are relatively uncommon; I would suspect that a majority of people only have cards issued by their bank of choice.

The Apple Card isn’t really what’s classically called a store card to me (along the line of a Kohl’s or Sears card). To me, it’s more similar to a top tier airline rewards/cash back card.

Well Apple Music didn't start with human curation. It started with the magic "next song" algorithm from the original Beats. [1] ( Which I am still pissed off about ). Basically the whole Apple Music, still as it is today is designed around Discovery. ( Edit: You can tell by its UI design evolution over the years, how it subtly changes. No Bookmark artist button, no back button.. etc ) Whether it was the original "Next Song", or curated playlist, or Beats Radio. Apple wants people to discover new music. ( Which is actually a noble Goal ) The problem is large percentage of people dont discover Music on Apple Music, it was mostly though other media, offline playing ( where Shazam comes in ) or people just want to listen to old music. In that what people want is a Distribution Point.

For English Speaking Countries Apple Music seems to be doing OK for that curation and Discovery. Especially in US. Elsewhere the same formula hasn't worked at all. [2]

Consider Apple has 1 Billion iPhone users, compared to 2.5B Android ( Excluding China ), with App Spending power 4 times the average of Android users. And Apple Music, after 5 years, with it being default on iOS ecosystem, still does not have half the paying users as Spotify is saying something.

That is not to say Spotify is perfect ( Far from it ).

Note: But it didn't matter much because Music Streaming Services is a Net Zero Profit Margin Business.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/beats-curated-music-service-headin...

[2] https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-mus...

> Apple TV+ is indeed a curious one.

It makes the Apple One bundles seem larger than they actually are.

Pandora is still around and is still superior as a radio station, they just don’t have the variety Spotify does but their algorithm is better

I mean the answer to all of these and more is having lots of cash needing investment vehicles that do better than just passively investing it in the market. None of these companies are menacingly laughing in board rooms, they’re just seeing other companies prove markets for them and betting that they can compete.

If you want to get that first party integration/advantage these companies are happy to partner with you, but you have to have a product that can’t be replicated with 5 devs, a PM, and a Domino’s gift card. And don’t expect to charge a premium, if you try to ask for any more than a sliver above cost the numbers work out in favor of building it in-house.

So you're saying Sonos'/Bose's efforts are trivial? Audio is a solved problem for five people and a pizza?

What isn't?

I mean, Apple is building a Hollywood studio. That's insane.

I get the feeling nothing is safe. If Apple wants to do it, they'll do it. Same for Amazon.

Those are the spoils of developing a product that has transformed many, many aspects of basically everyone's lives and cut out many, many middlemen.

It's also a characteristic of software, with its near zero marginal costs allowing a small number of people to obviate and dominate entire fields.

I'm not sure I follow your point. Of course technologies mature and opportunities dry up. The people that do technology (e.g. us here?) need to move on for greener pastures. Audio had a lot of problems to solve as digital signal processing rolled out... 20 years ago. Now, it seems very hard to come up with a product that can make good margins. An alternative would be a field like computer security, where people throw money at you do to stuff you learned as an undergrad in college.

Seems like this is the same calculation everyone needs to make when planning or evaluating startup ideas. I'm always curious to hear about the current unsolved technology areas are (other than poorly-defined concepts "data science" and "A.I", that is).

You’re putting words in my mouth. I just made a general statement about what it takes to get a partnership with a med-large tech company where there are strong cultural biases toward build over buy.

I have no idea if Sonos’ products are trivial or not. If they’re just off-the-shelf-ish audio equipment and good software then maybe.

Bose definitely not because their R&D work is legendary. Hence why Apple bought them.

The movie studio thing isn’t as doom as you’re thinking. It’s just Apple writing checks and getting put their name on stuff. This isn’t Apple disrupting Hollywood or anything, they just need exclusive content for Apple TV+.

> Bose definitely not because their R&D work is legendary.

Is it? I've always found Bose sound quality to be objectively bad compared to other brands at similar prices.

They're not absolutely bad, just bad in terms of sound-quality-for-dollar. By a lot. Compared to e.g. Edifier or Klipsch (for speakers) or Beyerdynamic (for headphones) which fall around the same price ballpark as many popular Bose products but IMO sound way better.

Bose's position is something like Apple. They're not the best perf per cost brand but some people prefer them. (Please exclude iPhone SE)

Maybe this is a good thing?

Companies that have developed the ability to do things well enter new industries and raise the bar.

Also it weakens them in their core industries if they take their eye off the ball, giving more opportunities in their core industry.

Apple is applying the suite strategy to the consumer device/services market. Each new market results in a new product integrated into its suite. Individual products don’t have to be best in class since part of the value is in the integration, part of the advantage is in distribution, etc...

Hey, don't worry, big companies will be way easier to nationalize. Then we will have an apple store on every block!