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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

#191

Post by al_borland »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #80
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 thing that you're missing here is that Cook is gonna get roasted if he doesn't take every opportunity to maximize growth. That means the future roadmap as written PLUS ads in maps and other decisions like that. There's no such thing as enough.

Not having ads was the thing that separated Apple from Google. Apple was winning by selling hardware with software that didn’t need ads to support the business model. Ads just feel greedy, especially when they are still charging a premium price on many things. How tolerant will people be of high prices when the resulting product feels cheap? This is a race to the bottom, which was a race Jobs was unwilling to compete in.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#192

Post by amelius »

portaouflop wrote: post #163
amelius wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An iPhone is a vending machine in your pocket. (owned and operated by Apple, and __you__ paid for it.)

I disagree. You can disable all the apps—in fact never use _any_ app if you can avoid it altogether. Apps are inherently bad, and the web version is always better. It didn’t have to be like this, but here we are. I often go weeks without opening any app but the browser on my phone.

Good for you, but if you never buy from the vending machine that doesn't mean it's not a vending machine.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#193

Post by mrandish »

gwd wrote: post #105
vbezhenar wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Um, no? Apple Music wasn't even a thing in the iPhone 4S timeframe. You used to buy music in the iTunes Store, and play it in the music player app. It used to be if you clicked the App Store, and you had apps to update, it would take you to the "Update" tab immediately. Then they changed it to take you to the main page, and you had to click the "Update" tab. Then they changed the updates to be under your account; so…

> If I honestly thought Android would be any different

I haven't used an iOS device for over a decade so I'm not familiar with exactly how it may be different now - but it sounds quite different. Here's how I use media on Android. All files are DRM-free generic formats (MP3, FLAC, EPUB) organized in folders on a removable 512GB micro SD card which auto-syncs between my desktop, laptop, Android tablet, phone and a generic cloud backup folder with SyncThing. I don't subscribe to any media service (and never have).

My music library/player is PowerAmp, my ebook reader is the open source KOReader and my podcast app is Podcast Addict. None of them has a store and they are all free (although I did upgrade to the plus version of PowerAmp to support the developer). They all get regular updates, are highly customizable and have every feature I want or can imagine wanting. My browser is Android Firefox with uBlock Origin so I don't see any ads and for YouTube I side-loaded Revanced Extended from the open F-Droid store, which is a clone of the YouTube app with no ads and all dark patterns removed. I also run a side-loaded open-source DNS-level ad blocker for the occasional social media app.

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 20 that still works great (I did replace the original battery last year which took ~20 mins). I'm using a five year old phone not because I'm cost conscious, I'd happily pay >$1,500 for a new phone and I keep looking at new models every year but never see anything that would be a noticeable improvement for my usage. Really... I swear I'm NOT trying to be @SimpleLife or minimalist/retro, I have a significant yearly budget for discretionary toys, but some years I struggle to spend it all because I'm also allergic to things that are constantly low-grade annoying or that I can't customize to my prefs. I just refuse to adopt anything that wants to own me instead of me owning it.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#194

Post by com2kid »

mulmen wrote: post #147
com2kid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft used to have one of the best media players around! Windows used to have built in streaming support from device to device. You could load up music on your personal PC and play it on your home theater through your Xbox360! Windows Media Player was huge, only eclipsed by Winamp at the time. Eventually MS released the Zune app, which was also awesome but lacked many of the WMP features. (But it looked amazing!)…

Microsoft had so many opportunities that they just failed to execute. How did they miss on everything ? Home servers Media streaming Smartphones Touchscreens Tablets They even had media production with MSNBC. All of this was available from Microsoft in the XP era. How did they fail at literally all of it? There has to be a lesson.

I call it the first mover disadvantage!

(I was there first hand to witness it again and again!)

Bill Gates is terrifyingly smart. He sees trends decades ahead. But knowing something is coming (smart TVs) does you no good without timing.

You build a first gen product, accrue mountains of legacy tech debt in the process (being first is hard! There is no one else to learn lessons from!) and then a competitor comes along and makes a V2 when the market is more ready and they can implement it better than you because they can learn from everything you did wrong (possibly also hiring half your team away).

Timing is equally important as product. Making a smart TV before widespread broadband adoption? Before streaming video had a flood of high quality content? Oops.

Real Player was doing streaming video in the 90s! Everyone knew it was the future, it was obviously the future! The future is now and the majority of video is streaming from a server somewhere!

Great idea, but ouch that timing. (That said, founders got rich anyway, and real video was a necessary step to where we are now!)

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#195

Post by al_borland »

sumedh wrote: post #121
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.

I have a lot of problems with people like this. Not all marks are worth making. Change for the sake of change or ego is almost always bad.

If someone hands me a golden goose I’m not going to enter it in a cock fight. I’d be wise to continue with the golden egg strategy.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#196

Post by 93po »

Jnr wrote: post #190
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah shame it’s hidden behind 50 pop-under triggers and infectious scam ads. Literally unusable without an ad blocker. (Which you should use anyway but it means they’re not a great choice for Joe user on his unprotected windows pc)

There is https://github.com/Prowlarr/Prowlarr

yep: seedbox + this + jeyllfin = unlimited streaming of anything i want for $15/month. no ads, no terrible app UIs, no autoplaying previews, no content getting removed, not having 4 different streaming subscriptions that are hard to cancel, no fuckery at all.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#197

Post by kmac_ »

portaouflop wrote: post #159
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 haven’t used Apple devices back when they were good so I have always avoided all the built-in Apple bloat/adware. Because I came from Windows this was already my standard assumption - I need to violently throw out all the built-in stuff and replace it with free and good software. It’s funny because that means I never felt the same pain you feel; I just assumed that’s how operating systems are.

As a Linux user, I feel like a different breed here: I'm pretty sure the software I'll be using 10 years from now will be pretty much the same, and I'm happy about that.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#198

Post by miiiiiike »

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 spent a few hours trying to debug some fixed position issues with my JS/CSS code recently.Found out that iOS Safari fundamentally broke fixed positioning. How do you break `position: fixed`?

Apple devs are constantly attacking people on Twitter for complaining about Safari bugs but the front-end workflow is a waterfall because of Safari. You get your code working in every other browser and then rewrite it to work around all of the Safari issues.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#199

Post by aucisson_masque »

I don't think apple executives understand what made apple so successful.

Or maybe I'm out of touch ? I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

But to me, i buy apple because this a premium device that is well thought out and doesn't make me waste time on advertisement, dark pattern and other bullshit i don't have the time nor the will to care about.

I ditched windows for macos after the candy crush saga in start menu and just the overall philosophy of windows 10. For instance, not being able to decide if I want to update and when.

I ditched Android because Google made me loose so much time with their ad riddled services, and their app professionalism is abysmal. It constantly change, no user interface is the same,...

For all these reasons I bought expensive apple devices and I tolerated the many bugs, often having to restart my iphone once every day.

Now if you're going to monetize me just as the other and make me waste my time fiddling around on apple maps checking if one thing is an ad or something I actually want to see, I'll just buy the cheapest thing I can get.

There is no reason to pay premium for the same quality.

But that's just me, maybe they know something I don't. Brand fidelity, especially in the USA is strong, people don't want to be that guy who has an Android ? iPhone are status symbols in China ?

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#200

Post by mulmen »

com2kid wrote: post #194
mulmen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had so many opportunities that they just failed to execute. How did they miss on everything ? Home servers Media streaming Smartphones Touchscreens Tablets They even had media production with MSNBC. All of this was available from Microsoft in the XP era. How did they fail at literally all of it? There has to be a lesson.

I call it the first mover disadvantage! (I was there first hand to witness it again and again!) Bill Gates is terrifyingly smart. He sees trends decades ahead. But knowing something is coming (smart TVs) does you no good without timing. You build a first gen product, accrue mountains of legacy tech debt in the process (being first is hard! There is no one else to learn lessons from!) and then a competitor comes along…

So what’s the lesson for future business leaders? Someone has to be first. What can a first mover do to get to that second generation product?
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