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Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

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Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#121

Post by sumedh »

al_borland wrote: post #71

I will never understand why some companies turn away from some of the core principles that got them to their position. If it’s market pressure, it tells me that Cook doesn’t really believe their future roadmap is good enough for growth, so he needs to hedge with other things that make the product worse. Of course those very things will hurt future growth. That’s how an upward spiral turns downward.

The people who helped them reach that position are probably retired, so the new leadership wants to make more money and leave their own mark.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#122

Post by polyomino »

pzo wrote: post #112

Sadly iPhone sales and revenue saturated like 4 years ago (and the same for Mac, Wearables and iPad [0]). They focus now a lot on growing revenue from services. Which is kind of sad because they have still much room to grow Mac and iPad: - just make iPad more useful and support MacOS - it's not gonna canibalize Mac, they sale each year 2x more iPads than Macs and 12x more iPhones than Macs. - make macbook Pro standar…

They don't put MacOS on iPad because they want MacOS to slowly die and make App Store the only way to install software. This has nothing to do with cannibalizing Mac.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#123

Post by ToucanLoucan »

jiggawatts wrote: post #73
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what Steve added to Apple more than anything was being the biggest asshole in the room who was willing to point at a fellow high-up person and tell them their idea sucked ass, and you may be surprised to read what comes next, I think that's critical to a good product line. There are numerous problems caused by having too many stakeholders, too many cooks in the kitchen if you will, steering your given ship, a…

I’m convinced you can’t have your cake and eat it too. There’s no nice way to call someone’s baby ugly. They’re going to be upset, no matter how delicately you phrase it. Worse still, if you’re too polite, many people won’t “get” the message. “Oh, he just thinks my baby has interesting and unique features.”

> I’m convinced you can’t have your cake and eat it too. There’s no nice way to call someone’s baby ugly. They’re going to be upset, no matter how delicately you phrase it.

I agree in a vacuum, but we're not in a vacuum, we're talking about Steve Jobs. A dude who would semi-regularly send coworkers and subordinates out of rooms in tears, throw shit around the office, and in general make a complete ass of himself.

Like, I agree with you, it's gonna be hard to tell someone their baby is ugly. There's a better way to do it than throwing a stapler at the wall above their head and calling them ugly too.

I don't mean to pick on you in particular but we seriously need to shred this societal idea that visionaries, rockstar devs, auteurs, whatever, have to be anti-social fucking monsters to make whatever they happen to make. It's stupid and it sucks and it excuses tons of abusive behavior. I'm all for making great shit but if you have to hurt people to do it, then I don't think it's worth it at all.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#124

Post by btown »

skhameneh wrote: post #40

The very first thing I saw from Apple that, IMO, Jobs would have vehemently stopped was the two-toned back on the iPhone 5. That said, the iOS 26 release is abysmal. The only redeeming thing for me has been the enhancements to Stage Manager, everything else with the UI/UX is such a mess that every day it seems like I'm discovering something new in the realm of awful design. And this isn't limited to minor nitpicks, t…

I have no doubt that the team behind Liquid Glass had the same noble motivations as the team behind Microsoft's Metro Design Language in 2010.

In a crowded market, making a completely innovative visual identity is often the only option. One hopes that the result is that the words "forward-looking" and "trend-setting" and "loyalty-inspiring" and "inimitable" begin to apply. And if they pull it off, more power to them!

But there's a matter of taste as well as novelty. And while there were many incredible things about Metro, history bears witness to how much Zune and Windows Phone and Windows 8 have become beloved household names in the decade-and-a-half since.

I do think that Jobs would have signed off on the motivation behind Liquid Glass. I do not think he would have signed off on Liquid Glass itself.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#125

Post by jmyeet »

gwd wrote: post #75

> From that point on, Steve would go on to spend lavishly on things that improved the experience, and he would reject—often brutally—any idea that diluted or harmed the experience. ...I’ll go out on a limb and say that uninvited advertising is not normally equated with a better customer experience. YES!!! SOO much of the Apple user experience has degraded due to this. I can't listen to my own music that I bought on t…

I have to rant about search in the App Store.

Pick any app you want and search for it. Ideally it has a pretty unique name and not just a dictionary wod. What will you see? The first result will always be an ad for a completely different app.

Google has long dealt with this problem with AdWords and search results. Google still tries to make the exact thing your searching for be the #1 organic result. Yes there are promoted links but they're not as prominent.

The App Store #1 result, which is always an ad, is quite literally half the screen.

I don't know how advertising works on the App STore but I suspect it's a CPM model not a CPC model (like AdWords). So Apple just doesn't care. But I don't think this would ever have happpened in the Steve Jobs era.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#126

Post by ProfessorLayton »

vbezhenar wrote: post #93
gwd wrote: post #75

> From that point on, Steve would go on to spend lavishly on things that improved the experience, and he would reject—often brutally—any idea that diluted or harmed the experience. ...I’ll go out on a limb and say that uninvited advertising is not normally equated with a better customer experience. YES!!! SOO much of the Apple user experience has degraded due to this. I can't listen to my own music that I bought on t…

What do you mean "modern"? I'm using iPhones since 4S and I don't think that Music or iBooks workflow changed, it's largely the same. So probably Steve Jobs was OK with that.

The Music app on iPhones went from simple and usable to an absolute dumpster fire pushing a subscription. Even with a subscription it's incredibly maddening because of the terrible UX and show-stopping bugs (Literally failing at playing music!).

The Library tab is now the last one, with the rest (Which are lazy-loaded and slow!) are pushing content much of which is locked behind a subscription. It's now even worse with iOS 26 since tabs get groups and requires 2 taps to into my own library.

The Music app has been getting worse and worse every year.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#127

Post by cyberax »

torben-friis wrote: post #15

I don’t care about whatever Jobs thought, but honestly I do care about apple forgetting that the walled garden’s walls are tolerated only because the experience inside is better. Their hardware is still amazing, but I’ve had enough issues with software quality and Cook’s penny pinching philosophy that I’ve bought a second hand laptop to explore moving to Linux. So far, the experience is making me question whether my…

> I do care about apple forgetting that the walled garden’s walls are tolerated only because the experience inside is better.

Why would they care if they can just lock the gates and put some barbed wire on top of the walls? What are you going to do, move to Android?

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#128

Post by znpy »

gwd wrote: post #75

> From that point on, Steve would go on to spend lavishly on things that improved the experience, and he would reject—often brutally—any idea that diluted or harmed the experience. ...I’ll go out on a limb and say that uninvited advertising is not normally equated with a better customer experience. YES!!! SOO much of the Apple user experience has degraded due to this. I can't listen to my own music that I bought on t…

This is why you should always pirate digital media, even if you bought it.

A pdf or epub file will never bother you in that way. And if they do, you can edit it and remove that trash.

I always pirate the media i buy and/or the physical books i buy.

Loading pdf documents into GoodNotes (regularly bought) is the quickest way to make them usable (no bullshit, no ads AND i can take… good notes on the pages).

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#129

Post by rhetocj23 »

ndepoel wrote: post #27
duxup wrote: post #3

Ads in Maps and how that contrasts with the customer experience is the message here. I'll be honest, I'm tired of the "steve jobs wouldn't" and "apple dying" articles, they're oh so shrill and tiresome and I think Steve would have changed with the times too ... Steve aside, I find this particular article's observation that ads in maps is a bad customer experience something I can agree with.

Honestly, I think that if Steve Jobs had lived, he would have continued to push the industry in a direction more aligned with his tastes, others would have followed suit, and whatever hot topics we'd be discussing today, they would be very different from the ones we are discussing now.

Correct. This is something that is becoming increasingly apparent with time.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#130

Post by skylurk »

polyomino wrote: post #122
pzo wrote: post #112

Sadly iPhone sales and revenue saturated like 4 years ago (and the same for Mac, Wearables and iPad [0]). They focus now a lot on growing revenue from services. Which is kind of sad because they have still much room to grow Mac and iPad: - just make iPad more useful and support MacOS - it's not gonna canibalize Mac, they sale each year 2x more iPads than Macs and 12x more iPhones than Macs. - make macbook Pro standar…

They don't put MacOS on iPad because they want MacOS to slowly die and make App Store the only way to install software. This has nothing to do with cannibalizing Mac.

You might be right, but if MacOS dies, how will Apple develop for iOS etc?
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