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Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2018-05-14, 14:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by spotcatbug View Post
I guess the awesome innovation stops when a company is on top. They don't want to rock the boat too much. The status quo is basically what they want. After all, the status quo is them being number one, raking in all the dough. But, somehow, I think Steve Jobs would have kept Apple interesting. His objective had always been about world-changing technology, not profit-making (that was just an inevitable side effect.)
I think iOS/Android have democratized computers quite a bit more compared to the 90s. The status quo on Windows was that people were afraid to try out software. What if it breaks the computer? What if it slows down? What if there are security issues? What if, after uninstalling (if you can figure out at all how to do it), it leaves crap behind? The sandboxing model solves pretty much all of that. Instead, there are new risks now — privacy, for instance. And on that, I actually think Tim Cook has a decent chance: both because it's in his business interest (it makes for a good USP compared to Google and Facebook, and it's financially viable because their business model is, by and large, selling hardware, not selling data), and because he has a personal stake in it.

There are also worries that today's Apple isn't particularly good at making leapfrog products. The Watch arguably launched prematurely; they pretty much didn't quite know which of its features would garner interest, so they threw a random assortment of stuff in there. And even today, it's a bit lacking in terms of a killer app. (I do wear one. But it's arguably not quite worth its price tag, yet. Even at 4.x.) Similarly, the Apple TV, even after its umpteenth iteration, still hasn't quite become a platform.

Then there's quality worries, but this one's quite hard to pinpoint. Was quality really that great under Steve? Early Mac OS X was plagued in performance issues, and we overlooked some of the more obvious quality issues because it was young, and it was the future. Not sure about this.

Lastly, the Mac. I think there's some VPs who still care a lot about it — Phil, especially. There's also some who have apparently moved on; Jony comes to mind the most. (In fact, he seems so bored of it all maybe he should leave and make room for the new.) That leaves us with some decent Mac stuff like the iMac Pro, but also a lot of half-baked stuff like the current MacBook Pro, some truly puzzling stuff like the MacBook line-up (why are the MacBook Air, the MacBook, and the MacBook without Touch Bar simultaneously "current" products? The most charitable reading here is that Intel screwed Apple over and they were too optimistic in how quickly the MacBook's performance would scale up), and lastly some inexcusable, inexplicable stuff like letting the Mac mini linger.

I'm sure there are technological considerations we cannot know about in detail from the outside looking in. Maybe they overestimated how well their frameworks would work together across the platforms, and thought some stuff would be further along by now. As an example, maybe Files was really not planned to ship much earlier than iOS 11, and maybe Finder was really supposed to be replaced by a common Files/Finder codebase by now. Maybe Photos for Mac was meant to be more powerful by now, but they ran into quality issues. Maybe they have had internal working prototypes of streaming iOS widgets to the Mac's notification center long ago, but they're not there yet. It's hard to say.

Or maybe they need a product czar who sees these things, and don't currently have one.

I think "Apple has become complacent" is too simple a narrative, but there's also quite a few aspects about Apple that, from my armchair point of view, they could easily improve upon. Was the MacBook Pro butterfly keyboard a result of hubris? OK. It happens. Cut your losses, backtrack, move on. Do it. Stop waiting year after year. Do you not want to sell a low-end headless Mac? Fine. Kill the Mac mini. Be honest about it. Or update it. Make a decision.

…make a decision.

Quote:
Originally Posted by spotcatbug View Post
Even though, as CEO, profit is supposed to be your only motive.
That's a popular refrain, but there's no law (philosophical or otherwise) that really says so.
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