Comment by retskrad | Hacker News Reader

Comment by retskrad | Hacker News Reader

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Apple was ahead of the curve and influential in the 2000s, but today, they seem to have run out of steam. They just released a $3500 head VR headset that has no purpose and is searching for a problem to solve and which is DOA for at least 5 more years and they are years behind the others in LLM's, which is literally changing the world akin to the iPhone. The company is so inert that they can't even get the Apple Car out.

Frankly, Apple's current market cap baffles me. While Tim Cook is a competent manager, he doesn't quite match up to Satya Nadella. Satya consistently stays ahead of the curve, reminiscent of Apple's prowess in the 2000s. He dissolved Microsoft's AR/VR division months before the explosion of ChatGPT and LLMs and redirected Microsoft's focus to fully embrace LLMs. Managing a colossal company like Microsoft, it's truly impressive how swiftly he can pivot its direction.

In contrast, Tim Cook appears more like a Sundar Pichai-style CEO, adept at weathering storms and maintaining stability. Investors are taking notice, and that's why Microsoft has not only maintained its position but surpassed a $3 trillion valuation, while Apple has faltered. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia eventually surpasses Apple in value too.

90% of teenagers in the US use iPhones at this point. Under him, AirPods have grown into what could be a wildly successful company completely independent from Apple. They make the best selling watch in the world, and pretty much the only good smartwatch in general. And Apple Silicon laptops have made such an embarrassment out of everything else on the market, that unless you have some specific usecase that requires x86 or Windows compatibility, there's basically no reason to buy anything else.

What else do you want him to do? We haven't had a big innovation in technology since the iPhone, and the iPhone has iterated into what is basically perfect with the current form factor. In the Android world there's folding phones, but materials science hasn't solved the issue where the screens spontaneously develop fractures across the fold line at such a high rate that I wouldn't recommend anyone buy one unless you're fine with the constant risk your phone very well might put itself out of commission and need repairs for no fault of your own.

If the Vision Pro ends up failing, it doesn't suddenly make everyone's iPhone or MacBook or AirPods worse. I really don't understand this mindset.

Tim shipped a few accessories for Steve's creations. I expect you could have pulled that off. The Apple janitorial services manager could have.

Microsoft's comeback in recent years has been very impressive to witness. Although I still can't make the jump to Windows, I'd at least be open to it at some point. Last time I booted a Windows machine, it showed me an ad on startup. Get rid of shit like that and I'll consider it.

If you live in the EEA you'll soon be able to get a de-crapified Windows 11 direct from Microsoft: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/europeans-can-soon-s...

That shit is their bread and butter, though. They will literally never get rid of it, they've spent the past 5 years doubling down on that, and then doubling down on it again.

Their message is clear: if you don't like it, fuck off.

I have to have one Windows machine for certain shit, and while you can get rid of a lot of the ads only once, certain ones, like in-UI ads for Microsoft Teams, just keep coming back like Terminator. There's no way to get rid of them. At best, you can get rid of this specific version of the ad, but they will add a new "different" one in the next OS update.

But Apple is on their six. My kids recently got old enough to need their own accounts on computers, and it is this hellish whack-a-mole with ads for Apple Music.

Even though I think Apple is about as good as we'll ever get from a for-profit corporation, it's still deplorable. You will never not get ads if you cede control of "your" hardware to some corporate jackasses.

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