Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#371

Post by CWuestefeld » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #362

CWuestefeld wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that PlexAmp, backed by Plex Media Server, is the pinnacle of music discovery, within whatever you've got in your library. I've got that serving an enormous library that I've compiled through my whole life, but there's no reason (well, other than legalities) you couldn't feed this through the *arrs. The discovery algorithm works based on fundamental metadata, additional data pulled from Last.fm (e.g.,…

I'm pretty sure that it's not really "discovery" if you had to have already found and downloaded the thing you're "discovering".

I guess that gets to what each of us means by "discovery". I think you're talking about the existence of a given artist/track. But for me, with a sufficiently large library, it can be difficult to remember what you have, and what would go well in a given context. So PlexAmp's "discovery" helps me to navigate through that large library to find and re-experience stuff I'd forgotten about or overlooked.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#372

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

kmac_ wrote: post #197

portaouflop wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I'm pretty sure the software I'll be using 10 years from now will be pretty much the same

It will be better, in ways I can't predict. But almost every detail of the interaction will improve somehow. But probably no big changes on the more mature parts.

Oh, and it will have one infuriating thing that people keep doing wrong because everybody insists it's the right way. I'll lose some small functionality for disabling it.

That's how it has ever been.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#373

Post by lowbloodsugar » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

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.

Google maps is better, except for the ads. If Apple Maps gets ads, I’ll just switch to Google. So weird that Apple wouldn’t comprehend that privacy (which requires no ads) is their moat.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#374

Post by trippsydrippsy » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

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Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#375

Post by Xiol » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #304

Hammershaft wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will AI change this situation? I don't catch your drift.

Briefly, with an example: instead of going through menus looking for the option you need, you can just tell the AI (with a voice command) what you want to do. At that point it does not matter who has the nicest menus. Advanced users are already seeing this. You don't need HandBrake anymore. You can just use ffmpeg directly and ChatGPT will tell you the command line arguments.

> you can just tell the AI (with a voice command) what you want to do

I would rather stop using computers all together.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#376

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

solatic wrote: post #329

codingdave wrote: post #325

> This is how Steve laid out his plan to us at the ad agency when he returned to a nearly bankrupt Apple in the late 1990s. The customer experience was all-important. Yes, it is a well-known truth that CX drives product success, and if you want to credit Jobs for that, fine. But referencing back to the 90s because Jobs talked to you directly 25 years ago truly dilutes the message. It is really weird, honestly, to cla…

> Society changes It's rather disingenuous to claim, in context, that society has changed to enjoy advertisements. Indeed, I would make the argument that society will never , ever , get to the place where we enjoy advertising. Advertising is like the value-added tax: horrific for everybody involved, and society would have killed it a long time ago for that reason, if it wasn't for how much money it makes.

VAT is great, society worked a lot towards inventing it, and most countries are still trying hard to adopt some version of it while people entrenched in power resist the change.

Ads can be done right too, and have been done right plenty of times. If you want to nitpick the GP, do not create such a glass ceiling.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#377

Post by beej71 » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:51 PM UTC

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 also don't care what Jobs would have thought, but I do refuse to use forced advertising products, so...

Related to your second paragraph, I have a 2017 MBP that just end-of-lifed so we're gonna try Linux on that.

And the M line is fast. A pretty good computer for the money. That said, I hear getting Linux running on those platforms is troublesome and may be a path that Apple is actively fighting against. And if I can't install Linux, that makes the computer premature landfill fodder which pisses me off.

I love the Framework concept, but you'll pay for the privilege. Not sure what's next for me.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#378

Post by czl » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:52 PM UTC

staplers wrote: post #101

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 very much doubt the execs understand how much they're damaging the brand for that little bit of extra revenue. Our entire societal system is based on increasing revenue (due to inflation). Until we measure, define, and value experience in nominal terms through data, most leaders won't care because it will remain an estimate against hard data.

> Our entire societal system is based on increasing revenue (due to inflation).

Yes that is capitalism however if inflation cuts value of money in half and in the same time your revenue doubles, did you actually double your revenue? Do you even need to change your service or product to justify raising prices when the currency is being devalued? For both these questions there is a strong case that the answer is no.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#379

Post by immibis » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

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…

Perhaps Tim Cook, like many of us, now believes users are so accustomed to the walled garden they won't think to question the existence of anything outside the wall.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#380

Post by iamtedd » Sat, Nov 08, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

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.

That's a very, very expensive browser.