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Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2016-11-22, 14:02

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
People like to say that Steve jobs simplified Apple to just four products but that is missing the entire point of what he did. He created a lifestyle and ecosystem around those four products that was almost entirely Apple
No, it wasn't.

This is Steve's Digital Hub slide. The Mac at the center. Other devices as satellites. Two portable music players, a still camera, a video camera, a PDA, and a DVD player. If the iPod had existed, two of these six products would have been replaced by one of Apple's. But if you're going down that argument, they shouldn't have killed QuickTake, because that would've replaced another. Nor the Newton — another. Heck, they even used to make a set-top box.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
and focused on solutions and not necessarily the specific specs and features of the products.
Sure, absolutely. But Apple does continue with their "our products don't compete on spec sheets" strategy. Heck, if they did, frankly, they wouldn't be very competitive at all. They compete on customer experience. We can mock about how Tim keeps saying "customer sat", but that's no accident, and that's no bean-counting at all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
Software (iLife and iwork and OS X), routers, displays, cables, MP3 player, then a phone, internet services, an Apple TV to play the same content from all those devices on your own tv. It was incredibly cohesive and progressed together as a whole. As the iPhone became a run away success and after Jobs passed it seems as if all of those pieces are being run and managed and judged indepdent from each other and apple no longer sees and values the indirect benefits of developing amazing consumer and professional software, or the value in having a beautiful apple display next to their beautiful laptops, even if the margins are smaller than they want. Or see less integration with a wifi router and a time machine backup.
I can see some merit to this argument, but again, much of it was true in the Jobs era as well. Today, people complain that if you want a macOS laptop with 32 GB of RAM, well, tough. And this is indeed relevant to me — I sure hope they have one on offer by the time I'm due. But ten years ago, if you wanted an iPod with a larger capacity drive? Better ask Archos or Creative instead. Or how about a sub-$2,000 tower desktop computer? Sorry, no problem pre-Steve (Performa 6000 series), but Steve didn't want you having one of those.

So there was always a compromise: either you were willing to buy into the Apple ecosystem, which severely limited your options, but came with better integration. Or, if you relied on certain products Apple wasn't willing to offer, then dude, you were getting a Dell. Apple wasn't everything to everyone then and it isn't now.

They're offering features like Continuity now. They're continuing to figure out how macOS and iOS have different personalities — Siri, for instance, isn't just a port, but offers Mac-specific features that make sense on the platform.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
Plus, it's not like you can possibly make the argument that Tim Cook values simplicity. Look at the product line up these days and their refusal and or inability to commit to things...
I do worry about that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
the MacBook Pro lineup is ridiculous. The non touch bar model should never have existed and then they are too scared to leave any $100 price point untouched so they keep two year old models mixed in the lineup without any price cut but also remove the ability to upgrade them similar as before.
That'll pass. But yes, I think Steve would have edited this better. He'd rather have killed some of these products a little prematurely than end up with such a confusing stopgap lineup.
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