Apple's Middle Age • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#91

Post by snowwrestler » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #20

jballanc wrote: post #8

Any article that speculates on Apple's future viability in the market would be remiss not to mention Apple's unprecedented cash hoard. Currently, Apple is sitting on $126B in net tangible assets. With 100,000 full-time equivalent employees, that means that Apple could pay every one of their full-time equivalent employees (which, as a reminder, includes a large number of retail employees) an average yearly salary of $…

That's not actually how things unfold when a company gets into trouble. Your scenario is the perfect, idealized, never-happens outcome. We have dozens of historical examples at this point, from elite, massive corporations unraveling: what they basically never do, is the strictly rational idealized scenario. What actually happens is closer to chaos loaded with self-interest and stupidity by management and the board. T…

Apple makes more revenue and far more profits than Amazon, and a much higher percentage of those earnings come from products with AI baked into them--compare the iOS business to the Alexa business.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#92

Post by ltnublet » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 5:59 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #88

macintux wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notch creates a distinctive silhouette for iconography, it vanishes during use. It's certainly not a net loss.

Unless having a notch was their vision (which you are implying, but I highly doubt), they compromised. And as I said, the compromise was much bigger than having a discreet sensor on the back. That you got used to it is irrelevant. People got used to not having control on their own hardware too, doesn't mean anything.

Not who you responded to, but I think that it's clear Apple intended on using the notch as a visually distinct identifier to an onlooker, "This is the new iPhone." Multiple times since I got mine at launch, people have noticed me using it and commented/asked about it. The hardware designers at Apple are clearly smart enough to be able to work out something if they didn't want the notch, but they (and marketing) decided to use the size of the sensor package to their advantage. Without the notch, there's no easy way to distinguish at-a-glance what brand the featureless-slab-of-glass is.

Regarding the second part of your comment ("that you got used to it is irrelevant"), during normal usage the notch doesn't obstruct any content on the screen. The screen real estate was gained by the removal of the bezels on the older models, so there's been an effective increase in vertical resolution despite the notch. In 16:9 content viewed in landscape, the notch is hidden by the black of the OLED, and is not noticeable. There's nothing to get used to other than there being a black notch at the top of the screen when used in portrait mode, which is made less abrasive by apps not normally taking control of the upper-left and -right corners (and so that vertical section would be unused anyway).

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#93

Post by snowwrestler » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

sounds wrote: post #78

As Apple moves into its middle age, the rational move is to become more like the established vertically-integrated companies. * Intel * Samsung * The British East India Company If Apple leadership decides to accept this, they will begin to act like their peers: * Recognize that the smartphone market will not grow like it has in the past. Create and then dominate standards using IP - barrier to competitors that simult…

> Recognize that Apple will not be the "innovator" that it was in the past. (Apple will still innovate, but not home runs every time.)

I don't know where Apple gets this reputation, but they have hardly hit home runs every time. I mean, does no one remember the Newton? Final Cut X? The original Apple TV? The trash can PowerMac? Does anyone think the Touch Bar is a home run?

Which is good, because innovation necessarily means not hitting home runs every time, and Apple knows that. That's why they hoard so much cash, so they can afford to miss sometimes.

I question whether you understand Apple's core business. They can't vertically integrate like old school conglomerates because they don't have anything to integrate. They own very few assets apart from their IP. Intel and Samsung own factories; Apple does not. The East India Company owned land and ships; Apple does not. Amazon owns warehouses and many $billions of inventory... Apple does not.

From an IP perspective they are already vertically integrated, from chip design to UI to services to retail. But then you ding them for that...

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#94

Post by oflannabhra » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #84

oflannabhra wrote: post #46

The most interesting points of the article were this: 1) iPhone unit sales growth has essentially stagnated, because the overall market has reached saturation. 2) Apple has successfully managed to maintain growth in the face of 1) by increasing revenue per device (ASP). I think the question of "What does Apple do, now?" is a hugely important one. However, I disagree with the author that the only reasonable approach A…

>I don't see Apple deciding to not create a product that attempts to answer that question. It's funny you say this and then bring up AR. Apple has been ignoring VR and AR for a few years now. Sure they released an SDK but it felt like a box they had to check more than an attempt to innovate.

Apple is focused on products, and is only interested in technologies as they can be leveraged into products.

>Apple has been ignoring VR and AR for a few years now.

I strongly disagree with your assessment of ARKit. However, Apple has indeed ignored AR and VR from a _product perspective_ because right now, the technologies cannot be leveraged into compelling consumer products.

From a _technology perspective_ I think Apple has very much not ignored AR.There is a lot pointing to the fact they are pursuing it, including Tim Cook’s own words, and the existence of ARKit in the first place.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#95

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

jasonsync wrote: post #19

Apple’s growth is almost entirely inwardly-focused when it comes to its user-base: higher prices, more services, and more devices I find myself increasingly stuck in an Apple 2011 - 2013 universe. For starters Apple has not yet provided a viable upgrade for my primary desktop machine: a 2011 Mac Mini (2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 with 8 GB ram and SSD). The specs on the current 2018 Mac Mini lineup are considerable…

> iTunes + iCloud (perhaps user error, not sure) somehow deleted all of my ripped MP3s from along time ago

I heard stories that Apple Music or iTunes (I don’t remember which one) would scan your local library to see what you owned, add the songs to your Apple account and delete the local files to save space. See [1] (the title is misleading, you can still lose access to your music as explained by the article itself).

[1] https://www.macworld.com/article/3066789/streaming-media/app...

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#96

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 6:51 PM UTC

makecheck wrote: post #75

adventured wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not actually how things unfold when a company gets into trouble. Your scenario is the perfect, idealized, never-happens outcome. We have dozens of historical examples at this point, from elite, massive corporations unraveling: what they basically never do, is the strictly rational idealized scenario. What actually happens is closer to chaos loaded with self-interest and stupidity by management and the board. T…

If you look back just a few years, Apple has responded multiple times to saturated markets by introducing new product classes. We don’t have iPods anymore for instance, now we have watches (even though at one point you could have argued that the music player market was full too). If phones really do start to lose steam, Apple should have plenty of opportunity to create a new interesting product.

And yet Amazon introduced Alexa before Apple did.

Alexa (Applexa?) could have been a natural Apple product. HomePod is clearly a catch-up, and not a particularly interesting one given that Alexa has already moved to built-in screens, and creating an AI home-hub in a variety of form factors, both big and small, is a trivial update now.

Alexa gives consumers utility/service computing without all the tragic time-wasting updater/installer/management nonsense forced on them by desktops, laptops, and (to a smaller extent) tablets and apps.

Cook's Apple has missed the point of this, which is the subtle but huge difference between consumer utility computing and content and hardware consumption computing.

Jobs was a genius at making everything fit together, and I suspect he was reaching for a utility strategy. The iPhone and iPad were the first generation of utility devices, while Siri was a first gen utility service. They were wildly impressive for their time, but still limited by elements of desktop legacy thinking - which is why we have to wait while apps launch and close, instead of just being able to do whatever we want to do.

Cook sells SKUs, not synergies or utility. I see no evidence that Apple is able to think of the future with a unified vision that doesn't involve selling things - even if those things are music and video content units - enhanced by some very constrained AI.

Right now Amazon is more of a synergy company than Apple. The aim seems to be total domination of retail, but there's going to be some overlap in services and in hardware too, and Amazon seem better placed culturally to innovate in ways that win that race.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#97

Post by endemic » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #42

I really like stratechery, but I don’t get this post. Example Instead, I think the order goes like this: Customer owns an iPhone Customer subscribes to Apple Music because it is installed by default on their iPhone As an Apple Music subscriber, customer only has one choice in smart speakers: HomePod (and to make the decision to spend more money palatable, Apple pushes sound quality), from which Apple makes a profit W…

Vendor lock-in is real.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#98

Post by endemic » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

symlinkk wrote: post #18

The author seems to praise the vendor lock-in that Apple imposes upon its customers as being a good business move and a sign that Apple has "matured", without really offering any hard facts to back it up. I'm going to offer an opinion of my own without any facts to back it up. Vendor lock-in may be successful in the short term, but interoperability is successful in the long-term. The internet would have never took of…

> Android is weak in a lot of areas but at least they got this part right.

Try using an AOSP ROM without Google Play Services.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#99

Post by makecheck » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #96

makecheck wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look back just a few years, Apple has responded multiple times to saturated markets by introducing new product classes. We don’t have iPods anymore for instance, now we have watches (even though at one point you could have argued that the music player market was full too). If phones really do start to lose steam, Apple should have plenty of opportunity to create a new interesting product.

And yet Amazon introduced Alexa before Apple did. Alexa (Applexa?) could have been a natural Apple product. HomePod is clearly a catch-up, and not a particularly interesting one given that Alexa has already moved to built-in screens, and creating an AI home-hub in a variety of form factors, both big and small, is a trivial update now. Alexa gives consumers utility/service computing without all the tragic time-wasting…

The iPod was a catch-up product in a crowded music player market. The iPhone was a phone in a world of massive, dominating phone makers. Heck, the Apple II was a computer in an IBM-dominated world.

Apple is not “first” that often so who cares if they didn’t make an Alexa before anyone else?

Instead, Apple tries to get it “right” (and sometimes they still don’t but that is their strategy nonetheless).

Alexa has plenty of flaws. It is functional but not intelligent.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#100

Post by lobster_johnson » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

jasonsync wrote: post #19

Apple’s growth is almost entirely inwardly-focused when it comes to its user-base: higher prices, more services, and more devices I find myself increasingly stuck in an Apple 2011 - 2013 universe. For starters Apple has not yet provided a viable upgrade for my primary desktop machine: a 2011 Mac Mini (2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 with 8 GB ram and SSD). The specs on the current 2018 Mac Mini lineup are considerable…

> Apple TV collecting dust. Replaced by an Android TV due to not making it easy to play all file formats.

The previous Apple TV incarnations were not great, but the current Apple TV is fantastic.

If you need to access your own media, you can run an app such as Plex, Kodi or several of the other alternatives. I've only used Plex, which covers all of my needs.

With the current streaming offerings I'm increasingly less dependent on BitTorrent. Amazon Prime became available last year, but I especially appreciate niche players like FilmStruck (which has a small but rotating subset of the Criterion Collection) and Fandor.