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Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2021-04-28, 18:02

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
I think the departure of a certain person/mindset had as much to do with that as anything. The pride (arrogance?) that prevents folks from copping to a bad idea/design is strong.
Yeah.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
I just don't know if they'd consider anything other than four Thunderbolt ports a "goof". And if they put on HDMI and an SD, then you're going to get a thousand users come out of the woodwork demanding even more niche, specialized ports for their profession/workflow.
I mean… would you?

My rMBP has MagSafe, Thunderbolt, USB-A, headphones, HDMI, SD. There were people who complained with that generation that it doesn't have Ethernet and FireWire, but my impression is they were much fewer than the amount of complaints we get today.

Anyway, I think I personally don't care that much. I would be quite embarrassed and annoyed if the "I forgot this one doesn't have HDMI" thing ever happens to me, but beyond that? Meh.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
I just think Apple can eliminate any "pick and choose" hassles and make it easy. It'll be a small annoyance to some, but everything Apple does is a small annoyance to somebody, somewhere. This is the kind of thing that Steve would get up on stage and sell as a good thing, somehow. And for those who weren't convinced, he just wouldn't give a shit.

I kinda miss that part of Apple sometimes. Nobody's standing up there making me want to sell body parts to buy anything.
Isn't that literally what Schiller did with "courage"? People like to pan him for that, but I think he's right. It's exactly the kind of move Steve would've made. It's a tradeoff, yes, but a bold one.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
That hasn't been the case in, literally, a decade now. They lost their master showman and the Great Convincer, and nobody's even come close to filling that role. There really was an element of "you gotta have this, and you know you do...even if you can't fully state why just yet" that is absolutely missing from Tim & Co. You can't learn or practice that sort of thing, for sure. You just have it or you don't, and that's what I've come to miss more than anything. It's just stuff now. Good stuff, even great at times. But none of it has meant much to me because it didn't have that carnival barker in a turtleneck doing all he could to make it look like something you couldn't be without.
I think it's also that the videos are now so perfectionist and overproduced that, while somewhat pleasant to watch, they don't really feel very personal. Steve was far more subdued about it.

Some presenters are better at this than others, to be sure. For example, no offense to her, but the woman who introduced Apple One in fall just shouldn't have. Partially because she sounded very I Am Corporate America Here To Sell You A Corporate Product. Bow Before Me, Consumer. But also partially because doing all that in a segment that was about a minute long is just silly. Introduce the person, have her say three sentences, then have her walk away again? How distracting. And then lastly, because, right before her, there was a presenter who did a fine job, and the topics overlapped, too — the Fitness+ guy should've simply mentioned it as a footnote. Just all-around an unforced error.

Steve was the other extreme; virtually everything was presented by him. And in part, that made sense: he was good at it (fun fact). But I'm not sure it would've scaled, and I'm also not sure "our one and only presenter is a white dude" is a good look in 2021.

I think what needs to happen is that whoever coaches these speakers needs to take a bit more of a look at Steve's style. Fewer superlatives. Less focus on specs. More of a personal story. Tell the audience why this shit sandwich is great, actually, and why the audience already knows it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
Another thing I remember, years back, when Apple would actually include a few useful adapters in the box of their notebooks? This might've even been the PowerBook G4 days, but I remember that some basic little white plastic adaptors/dongles would be in the box.
Yup. Well into the Intel era. Not sure my 2014 MBP still did, but I think my 2006 and maybe my 2010 included a few adapters.

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Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
While that goes against everything Apple seems to stand for now, it would be cool if they just tossed in an HDMI and card slot dongle. Design something, in-house, that is a card slot, HDMI, USB A(?) and include it in 14" and 16" MacBook Pro packaging. A "meet halfway" gesture, if nothing else. Still isn't perfect and ideal, but if they decide not to go back to those things built into the sides of the machines, there's wiggle room to consider.
Yup.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
The reason they're sitting on $959,345,435,349,544,440,359,449,345,334,532,237 is because they don't give shit away. They're not in the friend-making business.
Well, at this point, they'd also argue that it's an environmental concern.
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