Apple's iPhone launches no longer excite
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
This is just garbage. Some people should stop complaining so much - the same qualities they praised Apple for yesterday they slam them for the next.
It points out that this is a requested op-ed piece and not a normal BBC article. The author of this piece is the guy who writes the fake Steve Jobs blog "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs". I wouldn't start condemning the BBC just yet.
I think the Passbook alone could create a surge in new Apps. Here's an article about just that: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2012/09/04/apples-ios-6-passbo...
The latter point is the reason why I switched from iOS to Android a while ago, it becomes boring to use an iPhone, no novelty, no surprise. It works, is probably more reliable and stable than Android, but it is damn boring, and surprise/excitement are what matter for me.
What you could blame ICS for was that the user interface was not always as smooth as it should have been, but JB has fixed the issue with Triple Buffering, and VSYNC (the famous project butter) and now Android just looks and feels great. Give it a try if you have the occasion.
> it becomes boring to use an iPhone, no novelty, no surprise
Apple will always face this sort of criticism because:
1. Geeks do want novelty/surprises/the ability to tinker. 2. Geeks are a minority of customers in the real world. 3. Geeks are a majority in those who are vocal online.
A lot of people I know won't use an iPhone because it's "closed" or, back before the 4, because it didn't have a dual core processor. Meanwhile, millions of people who for years craved stability, reliability and simple UX design continue to buy, use and love iPhones every year.
Lyons is a troll. We should be above feeding trolls on HN.
Interactive Lockscreen: seems like a miss. People with jailbroken iPhones or who have installed certain hacky third-party apps (eg, an app called "Lock Screen Weather") get an interactive lockscreen - otherwise the only thing from Apple that seems vaguely related is the "swipe up for photos" shortcut.
Social Network: Apple added "twitter integration" with iOS5, but you wouldn't notice that unless you use twitter. If you do, the main thing that changed was that you no longer have to log into twitter explicitly all the time, and there is a "tweet" option added to various app panels. It's not a particularly significant feature and it's questionable whether "copied from Android" is a fair characterization.
Of course, one could say the same thing about many of the things Apple is suing over.
I don't think it's questionable at all that Samsung copied its "trade dress" from Apple, just as it had earlier copied from Blackberry. Or that they explicitly copied lots of specific features from Apple.
(Though I agree that we might be better off with less protection against that sort of copying. The world would not be a better place if McDonald's had been able to patent the idea of a drive-through window (or buy the patent for it from someone else) and then charge all other fast-food restaurants an arbitrary fee to license the patent portfolio.)
Going from 0 to iPhone 1 was a huge advancement. It would be nice to see half of that again. Each new iPhone comes out with one or two gimmicks, and an iOS update that'll run on the last version anyway.
Saying that; I'll still be replacing my 4 with a 5 at this event. And I'll still continue buying Apple products. Not trying to suggest we boycott them, but I am feeling like they're not showing their innovation qualities.
I do disagree with the Samsung point. I think their case was beyond fair.
Whether the new iPhone sucks or rocks will have been mostly under Jobs leadership. He's not been dead a year yet. Lead time for product development is a tad longer than that.
We've not seen the post-Jobs Apple yet.
Ubuntu seems to perform better than OSX though:
Mature products are just that—mature products.
But, if Ubuntu works for you, don't let the opinion of one random guy on HN change your mind. Just consider yourself fortunate to find something you like and can use.
This is a problem for a company that, like Apple, has used its own marketing to predicate its worth on being hip, new, exciting, and "innovative."
I don't mean they "invented" those (there were tablets / mp3 players / app stores, etc before). I mean they made them _matter_ (as in, going from nearly bankrupt to largest company on earth matter).
Meanwhile all of their rivals did, absolutely squat. At best, they introduced me-too products in the same space (myriads of iPod "killers", iPad like tablets, app stores, etc).
Maybe Amazon is an exception, they did introduce the Kindle, which is a category of its own, and it got its own copycats (Barnes and Noble, etc). Still, rather small compared.
Meanwhile all of their rivals did, absolutely squat.
It's not that their rivals weren't trying (Maemo and Openmoko were definitely interesting), Apple just beat them at what they did best -- making it all fit together, and convincing people they needed it.
True, they could have played the "we're getting copied verbatim" card better, and only sue for relevant very technical patents.
I also had a hope that some policies will change for the better under Cook, but I'm not so sure.
They could also just not sue. They could win their case in the court of public opinion. After all, they are the marketing experts.
They just make cool stuff people want to buy. Most of the "marketing" is grassroots.
What exactly is the "brilliant marketing" they do? Make some good tv ads and being secretive before launch? It would hardly be a benefit to be secretive if people don't care about the end product in the first place. In fact, being secretive is the anti-marketing.
In my country we didn't even have any of their TV or billboard ads (and we still don't), and yet everybody knows the brand and lusted over/buyed the products.
MS, on the other hand, spends tons for advertising, promotion, special events and the like.
Apple's MO seems to be to iterate over prototypes until they get something they're happy with, then release it and give it minor updates as it matures. The only two products I can think of that buck this trend are the iPod and iPhone, and the rapid changes in the former were simply the result of massive miniaturization of the requisite technologies, and the emergence of capacitive touch screens.
Would people be going on about how boring they were if Steve Jobs were around? I doubt it.
The biggest problem Apple faces right now is that people expect them to lose their magic now that Steve Jobs is gone. Then as they watch Apple confirmation bias sets in and articles like this are written.
Apple is pretty well equipped to continue leading the tech sector, but this perception people have is going to be a major problem.
If the rumors were exciting, people wouldn't be able to contain themselves with excitement for the actual launch.
I wonder if Apple should introduce an abo model, that automatically sends their new products to their fans (charging their credit cards).
It's a suspense thing - if you know what they are going to show the presentation gets boring. "Back in the days" it was exciting when there was one more thing. Now you already know what it is.
But again - I am not blaming anybody for this. I could just stay away from all rumor sites if I wanted to have that feeling again ;)
Why would people be excited for the announcement of something they already know. And if you're talking about the release date of the product, people still line up outside apple stores for days ahead of time when new devices come out.
> Blaming it on the others again (copy cats, spies, and so on...)?
How is saying that you're "doubling down on security" blaming others? Note that Tim Cook said this in response to the question "What have you changed? What's different?"
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/16/3246378/samsung-galaxy-not...
10 million is of course not iPhone-big, but then again, this is just one phone in Samsung's lineup. And it is more than Nokia has sold all their Lumias, for instance.
If the rumors are true, though, the iP5 will definitely be too tiny.
Funny he should mention that. Little known fact: at microsoft R&D expenditures are really technical evangelism expenditures. Whenever you legitimately complain online that vista sucks / metro sucks and someone else calls you an idiot, that's microsoft's "R&D" money hard at work.
So plugging in the numbers for Apple you get $928 million in R&D for the quarter, while Google spent $1.4 billion.
Less spent in R&D? Yes, but spending almost $1 billion per quarter in R&D is hardly paltry.