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Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

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Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#51

Post by SomeHacker44 »

bloorp wrote: post #35

Two months ago, Apple announced an ECG sensor for your wrist. A year before that, they announced face detection for the purposes of identity with enough accuracy that it can be used for financial transactions. Also, AirPods are incredible. I'm not saying Apple has a monopoly on invention, but to say they 'used to be an inventor'? That's weird.

Personally, I find FaceID to be vastly inferior to TouchID for many of my regular use cases.

Perhaps the worst one is that you cannot easily unlock your phone while it lays on a conference room table to see the contents of a message. You need to picking it up and point it at your face. Likewise when using the phone while it is in a stand/holder.

The one and only benefit I found is during the winter, it is easier to unlock the phone with gloves on.

Both of them are terrible for security.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#52

Post by Nokinside »

This is partly the reason why Berkshire Hathaway is now the largest owner of Apple stock. They believe that Apple has a 'moat' they can use to defend their position. It think they are correct.

What can always happen is that they fail to see change coming and drop the ball like Nokia did. They had incredible moat in multiple areas: manufacturing, supply chain, technology and scale. They were able to produce high quality phones with the same cost as cheap brands and pocketed the difference in profits but they didn't see the revolution coming.

The future of Apple's growth is pivot to services and rent from platform.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#54

Post by jshevek »

rhacker wrote: post #19
ilovecaching wrote: post #13

Eh... I mean Google's entire business model is to essentially rent you out services in exchange for your personal information. Also, I contend that Apple's "invention" has been to repackage computing in a premium package. Smart phones, music players, tablets all existed before Steve flashed them on stage, he just made you want to use them by making them sexy and cool, which wasn't that hard, because the early days of…

I don't think something like the iphone specifically existed before its debut, but I could be wrong.

Which characteristics do you consider distinctive? I think of capacitive touch with no keyboard, but such phones did exist. Costs for those kinds of screens had been coming down before the iphone launched. It was obvious we'd see more capacitive screen phones before the iphone launch, though Apple certainly accelerated it.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#55

Post by Reason077 »

reacharavindh wrote: post #33

May be people are disappointed with innovation in iPhones compared to previous years' or for the last few years, but every time I use my AirPods, I can't but feel good about the innovation it took to make it as easy to use and comfortable. * If I open the case near my phone, it automatically pairs and shoes battery levels. * They sound decent for earbuds (not in-ear plugs which I hate) * Lasts reasonable amount of ti…

Part of the problem with the Mac is that Intel has been slow to make progress. Particularly when it comes to faster low-power chips, Moore's Law has been failing us for some time now.

How long till Apple start putting their A-series chips in Macs?

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#57

Post by adpirz »

raverbashing wrote: post #45

Do you know what really worries me about Apple now? So, when SJ came back to Apple, he reorganized their (then at the time) computer lines into more streamlined ones. Something like (I might get some of the names wrong), into consumer/pro and portable/desktop iBook/Powerbook, iMac/Powermac Now look at their line now What the F is an iPhone XR? Is the XS "better" than the X or not? Why are there 2 iPad Pros? Is an iPa…

A few quick thoughts:

>What the F is an iPhone XR? Is the XS "better" than the X or not?

Somewhat agree about the XR, though I guess the idea is it's one less than an S, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say their "S" naming scheme has been consistent since it was introduced after the iPhone 4.

> Why are there 2 iPad Pros?

Steve once said netbooks were dead, then released a laptop in exactly that form factor (11 in MBA). Clearly there was market demand for it, and I assume their must be demand for both sizes here as well.

> Is an iPad 4 better than an iPad?

Agree here, they've changed this particular convention a lot, but looks like we're settling on Pro and base.

> Not to mention the dongles, USB-C mess, etc

Very much agree here. I really, really hope dongle hell will be a short lived phenomenon and USB-C adoption in peripherals and the rest of the industry picks up. Apple has been right about big bets like this before, so hopefully here too, but right now, it is definitely a mess.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#58

Post by Green_man »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #48
izzydata wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those terrible things would be fine if people stopped buying them. You vote for what you want with money and if people are willing to buy terrible things then they will continue making it.

People aren't buying terrible things, they're buying the best thing available to them. Edit: Samsung/Microsoft/Google are free to come up with their own ecosystem and quality hardware devices that don't have the drawbacks that Apple's do. But for some reason they don't.

edit: Apple isn't the best choice. (previously: I think it's increasingly obvious that for everyone except osx stans, it's not the best choice available)

and it hasn't been for a long time. Apple was at their peak imo with the MacBook pro a generation or two back. They took out the disk drive (everyone said that was radical, but hadn't used it in years) and worked with the single piece of aluminum. Nowadays, that's not just familiar, it's pedestrian. There's plenty of options in the PC world that have that. What has apple done since? Removed magsafe and usb a??? Made the worst laptop keyboard to be on a flagship in memory?

It used to be that Apple was the only place you could get great design, a phenomenal screen, and good battery life in the same package. But other manufacturers (especially Dell, Lenovo, and Microsoft) have seriously stepped up.

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#59

Post by mikestew »

Yeah, that's a click-baity headline; but they're not wrong. There's a shift from the "line up at dawn for the new Apple Dingus" to an arguably more stable "tic-toc" upgrade cycle, with hopefully some Apple Music and iCloud subscriptions thrown in. That's where I'm at right now. Both of us are still on iPhone 6s. I have an iPad from last year that I expect to last a few more. Hers is the generation prior, and will get replaced when iOS no longer supports it (or I upgrade). Newest Mac is from 2012. Now, part of it is "good enough". The new phones aren't so outstanding as to warrant an upgrade, the 6s does the jobs we need just fine. Part of it is "there's nothing to buy"; see: laptops. But Apple still gets money for Apple Music, iCloud, and whatever we get off iTunes.

But as for the click-bait headline, we both just bought our first Apple Watches, the Series 4. Strap one of those puppies on your wrist for a day and talk to me about "used to be an inventor". (Side note: AAPL might not have sold us phones for a while, but they did "invent" a watch that we'd buy. They still got our hardware money.)

Re: Apple Used to Be an Inventor. Now It’s Mainly a Landlord

#60

Post by georgeecollins »

This is completely unfair! It is not that the pace of innovation at Apple has slowed down, it is that the success of their innovative products is dwarfed by their legacy business. The Apple watch would be a game changer in terms of revenue for Apple circa 2003 (when it was presumably innovative). It is still an excellent and innovative product, like AirPods.
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