Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple’s 2016 in review

chuqui.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 408 posts

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#201

Post by sangnoir »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #154
visakanv wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What Apple needed was another person like Steve, but unfortunately, by letting Steve select that person, they ended up with someone completely unlike Steve. Paul Graham wrote about this back in 2012: "I was talking recently to someone who knew Apple well, and I asked him if the people now running the company would be able to keep creating new things the way Apple had under Steve Jobs. His answer was simply "no." I…

> if Apple's not going to make the next iPad, who is? None of the existing players This is a great pitch for an early-stage fund. Sort of like the kind pg peddles :). (I mostly agree with the analysis, but the bias is worth noting.)

As a customer, I wouldn't buy such a device from a new entrant out of fear of the dreaded "Our amazing journey" blog post when the start up is inevitably shuttered or acquired. The existing players are likely to still exist for the 4+ year device lifetime, which is handy for security updates, warranty and service and replacement purposes.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#202

Post by bangonkeyboard »

Apocryphon wrote: post #164
bangonkeyboard wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What Apple needed was another person like Steve... They had one. Tim fired him.

What makes Forstall so great? If he's truly worthy of that comparison, perhaps Apple should buy him along with Snap; it would be hilarious if Snapchat turned out to be the NeXTSTEP of this generation. Wouldn't Fadell be just as good?

Scott Forstall combined Steve Jobs's sensibilities and obsessive attention to detail with a deep, working background in software engineering. He championed UI usability and responsiveness, spearheaded accessibility initiatives out of care rather than for PR, and led the OS X, iOS, and Safari teams through arguably their best and most reliable years.

Scott Forstall is why the iPhone was the iPhone. Tony Fadell was almost why the iPhone was an iPod.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#203

Post by nicolas_t »

weavie wrote: post #150
nicolas_t wrote: post #114

I went from almost never needing to restart my mac (with Snow Leopard) to having to restart it a couple of times a week with Sierra. The UI just becomes totally unresponsive (the cursor stops moving, the time in the menu bar stops ticking and the spinning wheel stops spinning) and needs a restart. And I don't even have things like SIMBL installed (I used to with snow leopard, not anymore). I just have Karabiner eleme…

I used to get this as well. Disabling Spotlight seemed to fix it.

Yeah but then I wouldn't be able to search my emails with Apple Mail so it's not really a solution either...

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#204

Post by [deleted] »

sangnoir wrote: post #201
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if Apple's not going to make the next iPad, who is? None of the existing players This is a great pitch for an early-stage fund. Sort of like the kind pg peddles :). (I mostly agree with the analysis, but the bias is worth noting.)

As a customer, I wouldn't buy such a device from a new entrant out of fear of the dreaded "Our amazing journey" blog post when the start up is inevitably shuttered or acquired. The existing players are likely to still exist for the 4+ year device lifetime, which is handy for security updates, warranty and service and replacement purposes.

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#205

Post by simonh »

visarga wrote: post #183
visakanv wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What Apple needed was another person like Steve, but unfortunately, by letting Steve select that person, they ended up with someone completely unlike Steve. Paul Graham wrote about this back in 2012: "I was talking recently to someone who knew Apple well, and I asked him if the people now running the company would be able to keep creating new things the way Apple had under Steve Jobs. His answer was simply "no." I…

Apple is not into the next wave. If it were, it would be a powerhouse of deep learning hardware and software. The next wave is going to be robotics and conversational agents. You can't make a new Apple with slightly better laptops and phones any more. If, at least, they developed and opened up Siri in the last few years... but it's dead in the water.

The next wave of what, though? Apple didn't get into search engines, or drones, or netbooks. They're a consumer products company. They make things they can sell. Let Google be Google, Amazon be Amazon and Apple be Apple.

Honestly I wouldn't be concerned if Apple never make a new category defining product in the rest of their existence. Jobs didn't spend his whole life dedicated to discovering new product categories, that's not how things like the iPod and iPhone happened.

Jobs biggest successes were matters of pure opportunism. Take the iphone. He couldn't have created that product in 2004, the hardware technology wasn't up to it. He was presented with a unique opportunity. A high quality OS core, world class developer and design talent, and mobile hardware that was just becoming powerful enough to run a version of that OS core. It doesn't matter how talented or how visionary he was, without those things all coming together at the right time the iPhone wouldn't have been possible.

People expecting Apple to come up with new products like that on some kind of schedule aren't taking into account how contingent these things are. Without the conditions for a new product category to emerge. Without the many different pre-requisite technologies coming together and without Apple having the right resources available to take advantage of them, these things simply won't happen. They couldn't happen, even with Steve Jobs around.

The received wisdom seem to be that SJ simply willed new products into existence and that somehow Apple should still be doing the same thing. That's magical thinking. But what they should be doing is developing their technologies and assets and applying them to new products and new problems. If that leads them into new product categories, all the better.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#206

Post by pzh »

quasse wrote: post #6

The day Apple makes a power cord that doesn't have a cable sheath with the consistency and durability of silly putty is the day I will recognize them as back on track. It's a small detail, but the power cord is the one part of the computer that users have no choice but to interact with every day and they've been ignoring the problems with them for the better part of half a decade. Every Mac at work either has detache…

I've come to the conclusion that the problems with the power cord are mosty due to its design rather than any abuse or user action.

The second layer of wiring that twists around the core wire is going only in one direction (a simple helix as opposed to a double criss-crossing helix like coax cable). Hence, if you twist the cable in the opposite direction, the helix becomes undone. I suspect that causes pressure on the white plastic insulation, and also leads to some electrical issues that increase resistance, produce heat, and causes the white plastic insulation to become yellow/burnt and to start disintegrating.

The funny thing is that you can abuse the cable in any way or you can be extra careful, but the only thing that will matter is in what direction you coil it. If you don't travel a lot and don't touch it, you're unlikely to notice any problems for years.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#207

Post by pzh »

flukus wrote: post #76
lobster_johnson wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just patch the cable with some electrical tape? Buying an entire charger just because the cable is fraying seems excessive.

You really expect a mac user to value function over form?

It's not about function over form. It's more about whether you want to risk damaging a $3000 piece of equipment, because you're too cheap to replace a $100 charger.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#208

Post by thr0waway1239 »

sangnoir wrote: post #201
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if Apple's not going to make the next iPad, who is? None of the existing players This is a great pitch for an early-stage fund. Sort of like the kind pg peddles :). (I mostly agree with the analysis, but the bias is worth noting.)

As a customer, I wouldn't buy such a device from a new entrant out of fear of the dreaded "Our amazing journey" blog post when the start up is inevitably shuttered or acquired. The existing players are likely to still exist for the 4+ year device lifetime, which is handy for security updates, warranty and service and replacement purposes.

Although it would be helpful to remember that:

1. The big companies also shutter projects. Minus the "amazing journey" blog post. Their announcements usually have the tone of "Thanks for being part of the gigantic data collection experiment although you wouldn't quite know that yet. Here, take this gratuitous 6 month window to take your data out and then go f yourselves."

2. The security updates, warranty and service and replacement etc also involves occasionally bricking perfectly running systems (ala Windows 10), so it is hardly a comforting thought.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#209

Post by ekianjo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #79
ekianjo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? The key take out here is "faster", so asking questions is not necessarily irrelevant, instead of focusing on making one's horses shinier or more economical. You need to find out what problem to fix.

> The key take out here is "faster" Even that part is mostly wrong. A fast horse can run more than 40MPH which about all you can expect from a car in a city. The main reason most people don't own a horse isn't that a car is faster. Users ask for things that are obvious. No kidding faster is better. Can we have it cheaper and more reliable too? If you ask most people in 1870 how to improve those aspects of a horse the…

> Even that part is mostly wrong. A fast horse can run more than 40MPH which about all you can expect from a car in a city. The main reason most people don't own a horse isn't that a car is faster.

Only on flat ground. Make a horse go uphill for a while and he will soon stop if carrying anything. A car, even an ancient one, not so much.

Add to that that cars can maintain a sustained speed as long as they have fuel, and of course cars are much faster than horses all things considered, and of course this is one of the reasons of their adoption - you can get much farther with a car than with a horse in the same amount of time, and it needs less maintenance as well.

Re: Apple’s 2016 in review

#210

Post by icantdrive55 »

sangnoir wrote: post #195
sjwright wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed Jobs himself described computers as like trucks (large ute/pickup), whereas most people only need a regular car.[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfJ3QxJYsw8

Jobs was a salesman. He said a lot of stuff - and not all of it stood up to scrutiny. He said no one would use phablets and called them the 'Hummers' of phones - this was back when a 5-inch phones were considered huge. He also denigrated 7-inch tablets by saying users would need to file-down their fingers to use them (and yet iPhone users could comfortably use 3.5-inch screens). Apple proceeded to profitably venture…

He was also a gadget guy, who loved computers, has a deep appreciation for music, and from a humble backround.

Yea--he said a few things, but less than a lot of CEOs. He was so much more than a Salesman.

I will never forget some of his last thoughts.

This one always haunted me, 'Tim is not a gadget guy, and that was my only concern.'

Steve won me over to Apple. I never thought I would be that guy.

As it stands now, I doubt I would buy a new Apple Product ever again.

Post reply on HN