Ask HN: Has Apple lost it's way? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Has Apple lost it's way?

13 pointsjackallis32 comments

what happened to Apple? what happened to "We'll just build it first and fast and get feedback later. Customers don't know what they want anyway." This is how we go all the awesome prodcuts from them. It seems now they are just chasing their competitors.

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This is such a tired internet trope.

They recently switched their entire product line over to their own silicon resulting in life-changing performance and efficiency improvements. If you're already an apple user, have you forgotten what even the last generation of Intel pros was like? Hot laps, 2 hour battery life, and fans spinning loudly. I have barely heard my fans or felt heat on my M2 Max laptop since I got it. And have the battery life to actually be away from a plug all day. Their software is just good enough. I can't remember the last time the entire OS crashed and had to be rebooted. They manage to freshen up the UI just a little each year with fairly minimal changes that require relearning how to do basic things so often. That's probably why my 75 y/o grandma can text and FaceTime me completely by herself, the phone UI has remained consistent enough she was able to memorize it and use it without help

Even today I'm eyeing a new watch because their materials teams are killing it with Titanium. My old watch is about 4 years old without a discernible scratch on its face.

Apple is making great products, and it's really cool if other companies are catching up, that's what apple needs to compete harder.

> I have barely heard my fans or felt heat on my M2 Max laptop since I got it.

I was just reminded today that my M2 Pro has a fan at all. Ollama went into a loop and the fan started spinning after a couple minutes. It still took me a few more minutes to realise it was spinning though as it's nearly whisper silent!

Can you specify where you think they're chasing their competitors? I ask because it seems to me that's how they've always operated.

There were other computers before the Mac, MP3 players before the iPod, cell phones before the iPhone, tablets before the iPad. They're known for moving into a market segment with their own take on the product.

I agree with this. The main aspect in which they've lost their way in my mind is that their product design choices are intended to appeal to customers only as means to profit, rather than choices that earn profit as a side effect of delighting customers. For example, they've developed this incessant habit of trying to remove basic and often loved features in order to save a buck (ports, headphone jacks, mag-safe cables, glare-free screens, escape keys and other buttons, etc).

> For example, they've developed this incessant habit of trying to remove basic and often loved features in order to save a buck (ports, headphone jacks, mag-safe cables, glare-free screens, escape keys and other buttons, etc).

Half of those are wrong - they reversed the Ives decisions about ports, MagSafe, and the escape key, etc. — and it’s unclear that your personal preferences are as widely shared as you’re claiming. All phone manufacturers have been removing headphone jacks, for example, since it makes them more reliable and the models with headphone jacks didn’t start selling better. I haven’t seen any data supporting that as a major disappointment for customers.

I'm aware that they reversed those decisions, which I see as proof that broad customer dissatisfaction with those choices forced them to walk back those cash grabs. I recognize that these events could be interpreted differently, but that's my read of the situation, and it's certainly my experience as a long time customer.

I could write a manifesto on my hatred of the move from headphone jacks to bluetooth across all device categories. I admit that I'm an outlier here, but regardless I just might have to make time to write up my thoughts on this travesty.

More specifically, their products are designed as showcases to appeal to future Apple customers more so than current ones. They want their products to look good more than work well, if there's a choice to be made. The formula certainly works for increasing sales and adoption. Apple fans are willing product demonstrators, the original influencers.

Apple fame as an innovator was always exaggerated by clever marketing. They always followed competitors and just jumped into a market at the right time with a sometimes refined experience and other times with a lesser experience but being the gorilla they are getting instant marketshare.

"just" ... sure, so easy to do it with that level of skill and success ;)

i think they got greedy with the app store. it _used_ to be "customer experience", now it is "MOOONEEEYYYYYY!!!!!!!!".

see how they reacted to the EU regulation requirements. they just want to keep competition out at every imaginable cost. sensible, from a business perspective, yet from a _users_ perspective not the most agreeable move. i want to have devices again which i actually _own_, not devices i'm "allowed to use" as long as they don't cancel my account.

They are now too big to experiment and fail with any product line. And don’t know if the majority of their shareholders will agree on that model anyway. I mean they still have lacklustre products, but the appetite for risk isn’t there. The only thing they are betting money on in the last decade is poor software quality.

Steve Jobs. Let’s be honest the dude was eccentric and “cool” to the people who bought apple products.

Apple is just a ginormous megacorp now. Not even just a megacorp.

Like, yeah the MacBooks are nice and the phones work well enough. But can I be honest? They’re not that cool.

All these mega corporations know they are in the enshittification phase. That’s why all the products are bland. There is no soul at all. All the marketing is woke and cringe (I’m a brown dude btw) and doesn’t even reflect reality let’s be honest unless you’re in some Truman show headspace.

What happened to the translucent back covers on a Mac? Why aren’t there different colors that are actually appealing? You guys remember the iPod and its various colors right?

What happened to the silhouettes of people dancing while enjoying an apple product instead of weird looking people in some dystopian cyberpunk looking ads that do nothing to evoke wonder or awe.

Sorry but that’s my view on it. Maybe I’m off base I don’t give a f. All I know is I’m not impressed. I just hold apple stocks because they’re a monopoly now. Not because I buy their latest products.

My theory is that apple is trying to market to Asians (Indians and Chinese especially) where the culture is not individualistic. I’m Asian myself and it’s noticeable in our cultures at a high level. It’s all conformity and stay in your lane! type of mentality.

I miss the 90s and early 2000s when American companies made products for Americans. They extruded individuality and people all over the world did look up to that level of coolness. Now it’s all just hues of gray and boring.

This is the most interesting theory I read on the state of tech lately, and it makes perfect sense.

> What happened to the translucent back covers on a Mac? Why aren’t there different colors that are actually appealing? You guys remember the iPod and its various colors right?

This is excellent. Those things were bizarre but incredibly cool. Apple went from whimsy to faux luxury, losing their soul in the process.

I still use a lot of their products though as I still find them highly superior to the (also whimsy-less) alternatives.

Picked up a m1 mac mini on sale when the m2s came out, and its been a great desktop, runs dual monitors, runs linux in a vm, and the font rendering is amazing to use. It even runs world of warcraft. For a basic daily use PC its a fine machine.

But for windows NUCs, the amd ones are coming down in price and can do pc gaming.

Laptop wise, unless you needs osx, you can get a nice fully loaded gaming laptop much cheaper than a mac pro. But if you need OSX, that mac pros are damn fast and nice to use.

Too bad the apple watch didnt have android support, fitbits are just not as good.

> font rendering

Apple’s strong suit is this kind of attention to detail. You may not like their UI but they know how to make it look beautiful. The attention to detail on fonts etc is amazing.

It's what happens when any company gets big enough and starts monitoring competitors vs. innovating. I love working for startups that get bigger and bigger, but this eventually happens. It sucks the fun out of working there.

> what happened to " We'll just build it first and fast and get feedback later. Customers don't know what they want anyway."

Doesn't that describe the Vision Pro, which just released a few weeks ago?

I got the impression that the Vision Pro was less well-baked than previous forays into existing fields, like the iPod -- but maybe I'm wrong as I have not tried it myself, and am only parroting what I've read

It’s a very tough space to enter but compare it to the iPhone 1 which launched with no App Store, no GPS, 2G instead of 3G, etc. because the pricing was just too hard to hit with those features at the time.

They're in their "Balmer era". They'll emerge one day when they find their Satya. Their boring and often agonizing existence will continue until then.

I certainly hope not. Microsoft under Satya has turned Windows into blatant spyware/adware.

Moving to 100% RISC processors seems pretty significant.

They’re arm, no?

arm = acorn RISC machines -> advanced RISC machines

I guess it depends on what you expect. IMHO, they still make the best OS for personal computers. And Apple Silicon is pretty awesome too.

Oh boy, do "Apple doesn't care about REAL PROS" next! What a nostalgia rush!

Sega Does What Nintendon't!

They got big, don't need to be first anymore. Late mover advantage.

They have historically rarely been first at anything

They have like the best processors ever. Literally leading.

Simple: Tim cook is apple's Steve ballmer https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2017/02/15/tim-cook...

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