Tim Cook is running out of ideas
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Stop egregiously upcharging on RAM and storage.
Allow full sideloading. Hide it away in deep place with warnings so normal people don’t use it, but let us nerds have it.
Stop charging $100 for developer accounts.
Release your dev tools so people can build apps for iOS using computers that aren’t Macs. Also, full XCode on iOS itself so you can make iOS apps on iOS.
A Mac Pro with an M4 Ultra AND NVidia GPUs. All other consumer computers will bow down.
Get the Rosetta team to make something similar to Valve’s Proton to actually get the games running on Mac once and for all.
Repairability and upgradability, for real. No ridiculous tools. Stop with the parts pairing. etc.
MacOS and iOS have lots of bugs that are weird edge cases and are not getting fixed. They don’t affect many users, but they strongly impact the users that experience them. Those many bugs add up to a lot of users.
Real intelligent human support for advanced support issues. The real genius bar for us nerds who need it.
Fix the documentation. You like to brag about being best in the world at so many things. Why isn’t your documentation best in the world?
Let Apple Watches work without iPhones. Better yet, let them work with Android phones. Better yet, let iPhones work well with smart watches that aren’t Apple Watches.
I could go on, but I think that’s enough.
It also means hobby programmers are much less likely to get started with developing for iPhones because for most of them it'll be a (at least) $100/year loss.
Everything will be a loss; it’s a hobby. If you are doing it to profit then it’s a side gig or an actual job.
What kind of hobby can you pick up for less than $100? You can’t even take up hiking or walking without spending that much on shoes and socks.
So, android development, for one. Also Windows development. And Linux development. Web development, too. Pretty much any platform other than Apple.
And I suppose we should just ignore those who live in poorer countries, right?
But to frame this, again, as some steep expense that prices out young talent is very weird.
Developing for android or Linux is not free. You need to have a lot of resources already to get started here, too. In fact there is an argument here that if you want to test on any variety of supported android or Linux hardware you can easily spend a ton of money here too, far more than the limited number of apple configurations
I started coding on the Commodore 64 and that was a massive expense for my family. I suspect at 13 years old you had a lot of resources at your disposal also.
Again, it’s fine to say that a developer account is not worth $100 for you personally. But let be real about it. Nothing is free.
> Developing for android or Linux is not free. You need to have a lot of resources already to get started here, too
It absolutely is, if you already have the device, which can be a hand-me-down from a parent or sibling like it was in my case.
> But let be real about it. Nothing is free
It's an objective fact that other platforms do not have this barrier in place. It is a fact that Apple is the special one here, demanding a repeated payment that is significantly higher than the one-off payment of their direct competitor ($100/year vs $20 one time, and that $20 is only necessary if you want to use their store).
You can stick your head in the sand all you want, but that doesn't change the facts.
By the way, that app of mine? Wound up making me $5k which was huge for a young child, and Google made $800. Easy money for them. Apple, of course, got nothing because of their barriers. And I never would've gotten the chance at all if Google had had similar policies in place.
You can publish an extension to the Chrome Web Store for a one time fee of 5$ (and you don't need XCode or a Mac to do it). You can build a website behind a login wall using social sign in via oAuth for free without building a homegrown authentication system (rather than paying 100$ a year for Sign in with Apple which doesn't even adhere to the oAuth spec properly).
It’s low-effort for Apple and has some hassle reducing benefits for them.
They have recently been forced by the EU to offer some, supposedly, more amicable programs. I haven't looked into the details of those, because fuck em.
Similarly developing Mac software on PCs makes no sense logistically or practically. Why would Apple want software in the market which had never been run on real Apple hardware? Why would a developer want to write for a platform they aren’t on.
This “make Macs into PCs” thing never dies. Mac diehards stay with the platform, even when they are slower or more expensive, because they aren’t PCs.
Have you never heard of cross platform development before? It's bizarre how far behind the times Apple users are, but I guess if you never leave the bubble...
Make the Apple Watch weather compilations update more often. Especially UV which could be the difference between being outside with our without sunscreen (and thus potential skin cancer).
Apple Watch Audiobooks should support the audiobooks I bought DRM-free.
> I could go on, but I think that’s enough.
All of those are "bad" ideas. Capitalism isn't actually about building better products for the customers, it's about making more money for the owners. Sometimes an extremely competitive environment can bring those things into alignment, but that requires a strong, active government to maintain.
However, cutthroat competition reduces the resources available to each competitor, so it's not all good.
Personally, I wonder if the best model would be: extreme cutthroat competition to get the initial product evolved, then once a winner arises, then have highly regulated monopoly maintaining a standardize platform (and then forced to implement the kinds of requirements you outlined)
Of course, the devil is very much in the details.
I just upgraded my phone and I have to buy a whole new set of chargers.
However, this strategy has turned Apple into a rent-seeking company that must continuously expand subscription services, while locking down the devices and giving themselves a preferential treatment, to avoid competitors undercutting Apple's high prices. This motivates Apple to obstruct integrations with 3rd party services instead of giving their users choice and good UX.
If Apple didn't try to maximize services revenue, they could have run AppStore with merely a healthy margin, rather than a duopoly fee that keeps alienating developers. There would not be a messy battle with Epic, and the EU could not justify a major intervention.
For me, as an indie developer - I love that Apple takes care of many things for me on the App Store side. I am ok with sharing my revenue with them. I hate the App Store for other reasons, but not the 15-30% share.
Apple became too big. Other companies will sue them for one reason or another. Whatever they do - other companies will sue them.
It's the Kafkaesque app review process and the inversion of power between platform holders and third-party developers.
I remember a time when I sold my software directly to users over the web. It certainly didn't cost me 15% of my revenue to process payments and refunds, but I'm actually fine paying Apple a few extra percent to cake care of that internationally.
Back in those days, the prevailing wisdom was that platforms competed for third-party devs in order to make their platforms useful for their users and increase market share. If you read the arguments around the new EU rules for platforms, there's a lot of talk about the platform holders' "rights" to "monetize their IP" or similar language. Apple says it. Google says it. Gruber and other influencers parrot it. I hate it.
Developing the OS isn't free, but the revenue from end users more than pays for it. Developing the developer tools isn't free, but the $99/year revenue from developers more than pays for it. Combined, they probably more than pay for development and hosting of the App Store.
I get that Apple has no shortage of people wanting to develop for their platform, so they don't need to compete for third-party developers anymore. I don't like it, but I understand it.
I just wish they wouldn't try to rent-seek on top of it. I wish app review weren't so complicated, self-serving, inconsistent, and useless. Apple likes to publish statistics on how many fraud apps they keep off the App Store, but in my opinion, it still has far too much trash and scam apps to argue that app review works well for anyone but Apple.
The cut is 15-30% of revenue, rather than profit, so for lower-margin businesses Apple's cut can be larger than their own profits.
And I care as a user, because developers aren't subsidizing Apple – this fee is ultimately paid by me, and I don't have much choice outside the Google-Apple duopoly.
It's great that you like it. It wouldn't be an issue if it was optional. Then the people who like it could have it and the people who don't could go somewhere else and get what they want. Nobody is trying to take away your cheese.
The Vision Pro is the first "new" product that Apple has released and I fear it's been hamstrung by Apple's desire to tightly control the ecosystem. It's possible that Vision Pro could be amazing for games (a proven VR market) but Apple won't open up the hardware/software enough to port existing apps.
I like all of my current Apple devices, but I'm not naïeve enough to believe that fact of today will stay true forever.
You forgot all about the Apple Watch?
Not to diminish that though, but the Watch is again another product of Cook and it's so obvious. It's been the same product for years and years and years. Sure, getting a little more refined, but there is no risk being taken at Apple and "innovation" only comes when proceeding by resounding failure and outcry from their most loyal customers (butterfly keyboards/no ports/mac pro/etc).
The saving grace of the iPhone is that it's been a guaranteed refresh every single year that customers can always be led by the nose that maybe they didn't like this year's version, but there's always next year!
What is today's new tech? AI. Is Apple a leader in AI? No. What I expect from Apple is to create tools utilizing AI allowing people to more easily manage their tasks, schedules, and health. I also expect Apple to create tools using AI to aid creatives in their work. That's in alignment with Apple's identity.
I guess I disagree. Custom silicon, running a local AI (no network or network agency) in your pocket would be a game changer. Apple has to move fast to catch up on the software, but they own the hardware already, can design the AI-forward silicon.
But it would probably require at least a 10x increase in on-device compute/memory resources to achieve that, unless they can pull off an efficiency miracle (1.58bit models?).
> "For years, it has been clear that there is no next iPhone." Now that Apple has failed to deliver a big step forward with the Vision Pro or Apple Car, its retreat into AI suggests it's chasing trends to keep up interest as it struggles to chart a defining next step.
and also:
> The drawbacks of Cook's divestment from product design and development are now becoming clearer.
While Cook is no Ballmer, his time is reminiscent of many other companies that slowly lose touch with product design and tend towards their brand as an end-all-be-all answer.
There are inevitable periods of drought in the tech-consumer space. And if you think Apple should just "invent a thing" ... they've never really done that.
Looking at things as widespread as even the iPad in the last 10 years, it’s really been services rather than devices. Netflix, Uber, food delivery, etc. You could make an argument for wireless earbuds, bud Apple does pretty well with AirPods. They tried with VR and electric cars - the former remains niche and the latter failed.
Some people seem to miss that Apple has been a really, really good integrator of technologies into their products. Their innovation edge is in polishing existing technologies into a more cohesive and complete whole.
The early Macs lifted GUIs into a useful computer, blatantly stealing tech from Xerox PARC and polishing it.
The iPod was the polished version of MP3 players, those existed much earlier than when the iPod released but the iPod was a very ergonomic solution.
The iPhone polished touchscreen interfaces, and the experience of navigating the web on a phone, all of that existed previously, they just made it better.
The polish has value, it made a lot of tech quite useful in the mainstream and the focus on the experience of using them is what always gave Apple an edge.
They don't make the most tinkerable/power-user friendly devices and that's not their business, as much as we like to complain about that on HN and other geeky places, the real users of Apple devices don't care about that aspect if the experience works really well for them.
I actually much prefer to have my Apple TV and just plug into new screens if I swap them, there are pretty decent panels in the market that I don't think I'd ever purchase an Apple-branded TV just for the sake of having an embedded tvOS in it.
Might be I'm a special case but I haven't touched the TV remote in many years, I turn it on through whatever device I'm using and when I switch the device off my TV switches off as well.
There are some obvious consumer products with very ropey user interfaces, which are already invented, where Apple could have had a big impact:
1. Games consoles. Microsoft is giving up on the Xbox, even, so the field is open for more competition. It's well within Apple's bailiwick, being just a specialized locked down computer.
2. Televisions. Actual TVs, not the Apple TV set top box.
3. eBook readers. The ones with eInk displays that last a super long time.
4. Kitchen equipment. There seems to be an unwritten rule that all kitchen equipment must have terrible user interfaces.
5. Heck they could have another go at the workstation/laptop market. It's not like MacOS is the last word in workstation design.
6. Printers/copiers. They all suck. Yes I know Apple used to do these and got out due to lack of focus, but they didn't have the same culture around quality in the 90s.
7. The web. Yeah, the app store is sort of a parallel non-web ecosystem but not really.
"Apple desperately needs its Next Big Thing"
From the HN Guidelines -
Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
Only problem is who polices the police?
The url literally says
"apple-tim-cook-running-out-of-ideas"
The iPhone (and iPad Mini) obviously subsume the Newton --- so folks have a small pocketable device with them almost constantly.
The larger iPad works well for convenient media consumption, and with a keyboard and Apple Pencil, works as a sketchpad/notepad/creative device (and can be paired w/ a Mac via Sidecar) --- so folks have a medium-size device for a bag or coffee table readily available.
The Mac is available in multiple form-factors, from small portable suited for a bag/Starbucks/airplane seat table to small/inexpensive or large/powerful for a desk.
For larger media access there's the Apple TV.
Virtual reality à la the Apple Vision Pro is one lacunae --- but really needs software support, and a form-factor comfortable enough for folks to wear for lengthy timeframes, making the Apple Pencil suited to replace the Newton's stylus might be another.
I wish that they would standardize on sizes/proportions and connector types/locations so that accessories could be carried forward and only upgraded when they wear out.
We don't know. It's just that they're not likely to come out of Apple during Cook's reign.
Their Lenovo Yogabook 9i seems especially promising, and I hope it will create a new product category in-between tablets and laptops --- I'd've bought one if it had a Wacom EMR stylus, and really hope that Samsung will make a competitor w/ an S-Pen (which is Wacom EMR).
Not sure why you're expecting anything different from Apple today.
What Apple does do is take these new technologies and make them easy to use by the mass market consumers and create powerful tools for creatives to use. THAT is Apple's raison d'être and has always been.
Yes, but I move that Cook wouldn't recognize what product to polish to Apple standards even if it hit him on the head...
We blamed Ive for the emoji keyboard mbpros, but it looks like it wasn't him, or wasn't just him. Now they're bragging that the M4 ipad pro is "the thinnest ever". New bendgate perhaps? They don't realize that some things people hated about their laptops they will hate about portables too?
In the mean time, the OS gets dumbed down on the deskop side and does not grow up on the portable side.
Lucky for them, windows is getting even worse with every release and linux on the desktop is wandering aimlessly in circles.
That's an interesting take on the man who brought the Apple Watch to market and oversaw the development of Apple Silicon. While Steve Jobs certainly brought the iPad to market, it has been under Tim Cook's leadership that it has evolved into what it is today.
Tim Cook understands hardware and he understand markets. What I'd argue that has suffered under his leadership is software. Sure, the OSs are doing fine, despite what you think, but tools like iWork, iLife, Logic Pro, and Final Cut Pro have been lagging and their cloud strategy appears to be haphazard. But hardware? Tim Cook is all over that!
Apple Silicon was a cost cutting measure. Cook does know how to do vertical integration well, I'll give him that. Wanna talk about how ram/storage upgrades are priced now that you can't go to 3rd parties?
The Apple Watch was started by Jobs, according to other posters in this HN discussion.
> While Steve Jobs certainly brought the iPad to market, it has been under Tim Cook's leadership that it has evolved into what it is today.
What is it today? I own the cheapest iPad possible and I keep it on my nightstand for content consumption in bed. If you're not a graphic artist/musician/video editor, it's useless for any other kind of creative work. Unless you add an external keyboard and stuff and then a macbook is cheaper.
I set up a python ... ide? ... on the ipad once. Still don't know how i get my work out of it so I'm not using it.
That's been the case since 2012? Old news, old news. Since Jobs died in 2011, it's very likely it had Jobs' seal of approval. Speaking of Jobs dying in 2011, the Apple Watch was brought out in 2015. It's highly unlikely that it was a gleam in Jobs' eye, and if it was, it was only a notional idea. Cook is the man that developed the Apple Watch, not Jobs.
> If you're not a graphic artist/musician/video editor, it's useless for any other kind of creative work.
You forgot photographer, writer, and journalist. Even so, I'd argue the iPad is a purpose-built computing device and not a general-purpose computing device.
How the hell can you write large quantities of text on that?
By tripling is price with the fancy keyboard?
The iPad screen ratio makes it a horrible device for media consumption compared to 16:9 or 16:10 tablets. However, that same screen ratio is also what makes it great for application and web browsing usage.
If your main tablet usage is watching video, the iPad is a poor choice.
I'd rather ask what does exist today that Apple can also do but they don't yet? iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods etc. All these things existed before, they weren't new things on the market.
Very rarely has Apple truly been the first to a market, their strategy has always been to see an upcoming technology and... well make it good. (not always the first time, but still).
Smartphones, tablets, smart watches, even AR. Sure the price is insane but you can't ignore just how polished it is compared to a lot of what is out there. Apple was not the first to any of these, but when they came out with theirs they redefined expectations.
Before anyone says AI, AI isn't a product. It's a feature.
I really hate that we see the Vision Pro being considered a Flop. It feels like from the beginning Apple knew where this device geared towards and that it was not going to be a mass market device. But it gets it out the door so people can start playing with it while the hardware catches up with the software. And like the Apple Watch, they can see what customers actually want and refocus their software efforts.
The fact is, Apple's products are the best they have been. The Apple silicone continues to be regarded as the best out there. The new iPad is getting rave reviews, even if iPad OS may be holding it back a bit. Apple TV+ keeps putting out amazing shows.
I just don't buy this article, it feels like we are in a weird quiet period in tech. There are a lot of things that could be done, but we just don't have the hardware to really back it up for things like AR and other wearables. But in the meantime we will just be doing a bunch of AI features.
Also, if we are going to call the Car a "flop" but then criticize them for not finding a new product. You don't get it both ways. Same with the Vision Pro.
These things are nice to have, but no one is going to go by a new iPad pro because it's 0.5mm thinner and 20g lighter. As far as power, normies aren't even approaching the limits.
You're right, but these aren't products designed in isolation—the engineering required to make devices thinner and lighter is used in both iPhones and iPads... and then can be utilized in new products like the Apple Vision, where it is currently too large and too heavy.
If we want to dramatize a bit, Tim is basically the guy who made Steve Jobs dreams possible.
A new product, even as vertically integrated as Apple likes them to be, requires huge numbers of parts and suppliers and Tim basically made it possible for Apple to sell great products using mostly their suppliers money and risk.
I'm sure Steve knew all of this and Apple didn't needed another "Steve" with big ideas and all the attached risk, by 2011 Apple was already a huge and stable company with great products and solid business. Probably ego was a big part too but bringing a guy like Tim Cook was a logical move.
He is Apple's version of Sundar Pichai, he manages and makes numbers go up, sure he's not a robot but it's by design.
The constant nickel and dimming and "mistakes" like the Apple Silicon DTK where developers paid ~$500 to test their apps on Apple Silicon before the official M1 launch with the agreement of them sending back the hardware when Apple tells them to and then Apple only returned $200 out of the 500 to them.
Yes Apple backtracked after all the noise, but this "incident" is all you need to know about Tim Cook.
Instead, their role should be to cultivate many people having ideas, and a healthy process for filtering for the best ones.
A single person is simply inferior in terms of brain power compared to a collective.
Calling the Apple Vision Pro a "major flop" seems bizarrely premature if you consider it to be the beach head presumably it's meant as. If they can't shift version 2 or 3, then sure.
Complaining about cutting the Apple Car after praising Jobs for cutting off ideas that didn't pan out is weird.
A lot of Apple devices are as much a fashion accessory as a useful tool. So, why not have lots of them that you can use interchangeably. They half went there with the iwatch, mac/ios integration. And now with the VR goggles. But they are still separate things. Apple has been focusing on selling people just 1 phone.
Changing that requires two things:
1) Multi modality of the end user experience: users should be able to access the same software and data on any (Apple) device they own. And possibly even temporarily on devices owned by others. (tv in your hotel, car integration in a rental car, etc.).
2) Diversifying the product range to have devices optimized for different use cases, usages, and environments such that users might want to own several of them.
A useful side effect of this is that losing or breaking a device becomes less of a disaster because you can just pick up any of your other devices and continue.
Robot dogs; J.F Sabastian's toy soldiers greeting you at the door; carers, cooks, maids, bodyguards, pleasure models, personal trainers...
Engineers can enjoy making robots without ridiculous constrains like "thinnest/lightest ever" or VR contraptions that most people can't stand after 10 minutes. It will be great.
We need to face the fact Apple has become the Toyota of computing and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
At the same time, there is probably some place for a change of strategy if they did want to be awe inspiring to the masses still and not just dependable. If Apple wants to keep bringing awe inspiring consumer products out, they can’t just be late to make technology products non technical, they need to be investing and releasing new technology earlier. Their historic influence on the industry means new technology today takes being consumer ready seriously from the start.
But let's say from 2015 to today, what new groundbreaking or innovative consumer product was launched? I can only count Chat GPT. Stadia was innovative but failed. Self-driving cars are a thing but there are not yet for prime time.
Apple should experiment with the magic of getting rid of opaque magic and help make powerful, easy to user apps that non-developer users can modify themselves by investing in the hard design work of empowering users.
Help users see what is meaningful and help them make meaning.
Maybe they should ask Woz what to do more!
What are the gaps in education and ability?
Why is it so hard to share data and make apps?
Too much of a good thing can be bad. They need to unwall their garden.
And so on.
Apple Pay is a big money maker.
The latter can lose it all on a bad financial decision, and probably has ideas for what they could do if only they could double or 10x or 100x the money, so risks can be worthwhile.
The billionaire will keep getting richer beyond human comprehension even if they just put the entire fortune into treasury bonds. 4% interest on $1B is objectively so much money that you shouldn't bother trying to get more if there's anything else in your life that you'd rather spend time on. (Of course a lot of billionaires get there because the single one thing they want in life is to make money and see the number grow, but Cook doesn't seem that way.)
All said, if I had as little as 200k in my bank account, I would start investing less time on getting more money and more time and money on getting more health. From my very personal point of view, a person who has millions on their name and who is still working for more money has a bit of a death wish.
> But other than the Apple Watch, which was already in the works before Jobs' death, there have been no earth-shattering product launches.
Unless the iMac was designed and built in a year, this feels like the writer is being dishonest and sloppy in attempt to make reality match their narrative.
The case design is what made the iMac so striking, it didn't really contain anything much new. On a technical level, what set it apart was a newer processor, the G3, (which debuted in the Power Macintosh line in '97) and USB on the motherboard. They had an existing line of beige all-in-ones (e.g. Performa 5200) that the iMac was very much an iterative improvement on.
The most talked about feature at the time was probably the colorful plastics and lack of a floppy drive, and neither of which I'd say are year-long engineering efforts. Except for the fact that Apple was allegedly six months away from going out of business before Jobs returned and slashed operating costs, it's not entirely unlikely that a consumer Mac with comparable internals would have come out as the Performa G3 or whatever in much the same timeframe.
An Apple phone marketed towards kids. Has email, music, iMessage/SMS, phone, maps, FindMy.
No web. No apps. A smart phone form factor with dumb phone features.