Live data from Hacker News

John Ternus to become Apple CEO

apple.com

471–480 of 1001 posts

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#471
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see this argument, it comes across as lazy. iPhone (and smartphones in general) are a mature product, so of course it'll be iterative. But you can't compare the camera from the first few iPhones to the latest ones. I certainly didn't expect, when the first iPhone launched, that the camera on an iPhone would replace my dedicated camera for 90% of my use cases.

You make a good point, but at the same time, things are a bit stale if you look outside the Apple and Samsung bubbles. For example, a Vivo X300 Ultra or Xiaomi 17 Ultra. Much better cameras, larger batteries, 90-100W charging, etc.

Those examples are still iterative.

OP is alluding to the fact that Apple hasn't created industry changing categories like the iPhone.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#472

Is the loyalty represented by the golden trophy transferrable? Or is it tied to each CEO, like Applecare+?

I believe these bribes/flatteries mostly confer a single-use benefit. Things like golden trophies seem to buy a victory in that moment, but they seem to have little relevance on decisions made even a month later, regardless of who gifted it and whether they're still at the helm.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#473
post #244
post #90

His letter (at the top of Apple's web site) is moving: https://www.apple.com/community-letter-from-tim/ I understand Tim is a logistics genius and Ternus is a hardware genius, and that we all want better software and policy from Apple, but I'm glad that there seems to be good people at the head of one of the biggest and most consequential companies, and further that they seem to care about being good people. As far a…

I honestly don't know. tim@apple.com is unavailable for quite some time now (since I tried a few years ago), while lisasu@amd.com still works around that time frame.

I'm really curious how he manages to read through so many emails every day.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#474
post #90

His letter (at the top of Apple's web site) is moving: https://www.apple.com/community-letter-from-tim/ I understand Tim is a logistics genius and Ternus is a hardware genius, and that we all want better software and policy from Apple, but I'm glad that there seems to be good people at the head of one of the biggest and most consequential companies, and further that they seem to care about being good people. As far a…

> I understand Tim is a logistics genius and Ternus is a hardware genius, and that we all want better software and policy from Apple

While I agree with all these points, I'd still rather see a hardware guru leading Apple rather than a software-focused leader. The state of software zeitgeist has gotten fairly poor, and the types of formal and thorough "Acceptance Testing" that are common in hardware are more likely to produce great experiences for users than whatever most software leaders are doing today.

Before anyone mentions how all hardware groups seem to produce god-awful software (IoT, vehicles, etc)...I agree, though I have generally attributed this to a lack of budget and vision. I don't expect those two things to be an issue at Apple, but I could be surprised.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#475

I think Tim Cook took Steve Job's vision and really took it to the moon. If you think about the last 15 years, Apple has really become the biggest possible version of itself without losing its values. Tech in general has changed quite a bit though. I don't know how Steve Jobs would have reacted to AI, and I don't know where tech itself would be if Jobs were still around. But I do think the next evolution is due and y…

Steve Jobs existed in an era where he could show us new technology when new technology brought a sense of joy and amazement; whereas due to a multitude of factors, new technology no longer causes such emotions for a substantial portion of people.

Agreed - once the ad-based profit model took off that no longer became possible.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#476
post #426

I think Tim Cook took Steve Job's vision and really took it to the moon. If you think about the last 15 years, Apple has really become the biggest possible version of itself without losing its values. Tech in general has changed quite a bit though. I don't know how Steve Jobs would have reacted to AI, and I don't know where tech itself would be if Jobs were still around. But I do think the next evolution is due and y…

> I think Tim Cook took Steve Job's vision and really took it to the moon. I vehemently disagree with this. I think Cook's logistics and business-focused goals are, if not diametrically opposed to Job's product obsession, at the very least orthogonal to it. Almost everything about Apple the product, over the past 15 years, has either coasted (e.g. stayed at par with the rest of the industry) or gotten worse. The one…

Except we can’t discount the fact that Jobs chose Cook as his successor. So there’s something Jobs clearly saw there, past being “diametrically opposed” to Jobs’ product obsession. Maybe Jobs felt there were enough product people.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#477

I’m curious Ternus’ views on services and the heavy hand Cook has had with them. I’d like to see Apple chill out a bit. Have them, but stop pestering users with in-OS ads and notifications to sign up. It’s been very off putting and cheapens the platform.

They should charge for it. If you buy the 'iPhone Max' for $1500, you get ads, and if you buy the 'iPhone Max ad-free' for $3800, you don't get any ads in the app store, apple maps, apple news, or the various other apple services you use on only that one device. Similarly, you need to buy the ad-free edition of the iPad to not get ads there, and the ad-free version of the macbook for no ads there, and each of them ca…

They'd have to have an iron will to not do what every other leading platform has done, which is to:

- Gradually "make the line go up" by ramping up ad volume until the product is terrible (thereby ruining Apple's reputation among the 50-90% of users who aren't paying the ad-free prices).

- Periodically nerfing the premium ad-free tiers and putting ads into tiers that were previously ad-free.

- Purposefully making the lower tiers worse and worse in order to squeeze out marginal increases in conversion rates to the premium tiers.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#478
post #338

I hope Ternus can turn this ship. Apple wasted the last 5 years without any significant innovation/revolution or even without significant evolution. No groundbreaking change from iphone 12 pro in current iphone 17 pro. Before we had many groundbreaking features that redefined how you use smarphone: - gps - flashlight (yes everybody with flashlight in the pocket!) - front selfie camera + video calls - compass + accele…

Don't forget about the Apple Car. 100% of that failed, and Tim spent a decade on it. Quite a bit of attention on here, but it seems we've quickly forgotten all about it since it was never seen.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=apple+car

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#480
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know. tim@apple.com is unavailable for quite some time now (since I tried a few years ago), while lisasu@amd.com still works around that time frame.

It's always been tcook@ - and it will get looked at by someone at least

Yes! Can confirm. I emailed him in March 2020 after my 16-day old MacBook Pro had a logic board failure resulting in endless kernel panics. It was just past the return date so I couldn’t just return it and get a new one, so my local Apple Store had sent it in for repair. Then covid hit and everything shut down, so they couldn’t get it fixed and sent back either.

I had emailed with an explanation of what had occurred, and asked if I could get a refund so that I could just purchase a replacement. Within two hours of sending my email, an assistant from his office called me to arrange sending me a replacement. I was really impressed. I honestly figured I would just have to wait until the repair depot opened again, because I didn’t think I would hear back about my email.

Then a month or so later I got a call from the repair depot asking what address I’d like my repaired laptop sent to, since it was supposed to be sent back to the store for pickup (but stores were closed.) So I guess the right hand knoweth not what the left hand doeth in that case, because the person on the phone from repairs was pretty confused when I said no thanks.

Post reply on HN