Apple's Middle Age • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#101

Post by ascagnel_ » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

username223 wrote: post #32

scarface74 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If Apple bought a mobile carrier it would be competing with its customers. Most phones are sold through carriers - meaning the carriers are buying iPhones not the end user. Besides, Apple sells phones worldwide. What would be the benefit of just buying a carrier in the US? Netflix made a similar calculation years ago. Netflix actually created what is now the Roku, but decided to spin it off to a separate company…

> What would be the benefit of just buying a carrier in the US? Buying a carrier would indeed be a bad move, both for competing with customers and maintaining a lot of infrastructure, but I could see Apple becoming an MVNO. Wireless companies are right down there with Comcast and the airlines in terms of customer satisfaction, so I would guess there are plenty of people willing to pay a bit more for a less hostile ca…

Isn't that what Apple kind of did with its Virgin Mobile deal?

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#102

Post by jballanc » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #20

jballanc wrote: post #8

Any article that speculates on Apple's future viability in the market would be remiss not to mention Apple's unprecedented cash hoard. Currently, Apple is sitting on $126B in net tangible assets. With 100,000 full-time equivalent employees, that means that Apple could pay every one of their full-time equivalent employees (which, as a reminder, includes a large number of retail employees) an average yearly salary of $…

That's not actually how things unfold when a company gets into trouble. Your scenario is the perfect, idealized, never-happens outcome. We have dozens of historical examples at this point, from elite, massive corporations unraveling: what they basically never do, is the strictly rational idealized scenario. What actually happens is closer to chaos loaded with self-interest and stupidity by management and the board. T…

I'd be inclined to give more weight to your argument, but you've conveniently left off the part where Apple has used debt to buy back shares primarily because so much of their cash horde is held overseas due to the US's wonderfully archaic tax code...which has just been overhauled. I fully expect 2019 to see Apple re-repatriating large sums in order to pay down that debt.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#103

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 8:55 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #63

scarface74 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of a "longer term" view is needed than 40+ years? Apple has used this strategy since day one.

That is not at all true. That was certainly not the philosophy on the very successful Apple II series. And it was not how Apple operated in the non-Jobs Mac years in the late 80s and early 90s. And it's not how they operated for the early part of the 2000s when Apple went on a major open source / standards binge: adopting the standard Intel/PCI architecture, using Unix as the foundation of their OS, open sourcing the…

Apple announced support for PCI in 1993 with their original PPC road map. The first gen of PPC Macs were Nubus for backwards compatibility but the second gen in 1995 were PCI. Apple allowed third party Mac clone makers to make hybrid Nubus/PPC Macs.

The first generation iPod was FireWire not USB and always had a proprietary file system for actually adding music and forced you to use either iTunes or MusicMatch (Windows) to add music.

Apple is no different than Googke or Microsoft. They use open source when it suits them but none of the major companies outsource their Crown Jewels.

But even if you go back to 1984, all of the other computer makers that made non generic clones are out of business except for Apple. So that's still 35+ years of Apple going thier own way.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#104

Post by jasonsync » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

lobster_johnson wrote: post #100

jasonsync wrote: post #19

Apple’s growth is almost entirely inwardly-focused when it comes to its user-base: higher prices, more services, and more devices I find myself increasingly stuck in an Apple 2011 - 2013 universe. For starters Apple has not yet provided a viable upgrade for my primary desktop machine: a 2011 Mac Mini (2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 with 8 GB ram and SSD). The specs on the current 2018 Mac Mini lineup are considerable…

> Apple TV collecting dust. Replaced by an Android TV due to not making it easy to play all file formats. The previous Apple TV incarnations were not great, but the current Apple TV is fantastic. If you need to access your own media, you can run an app such as Plex, Kodi or several of the other alternatives. I've only used Plex, which covers all of my needs. With the current streaming offerings I'm increasingly less…

Yes, I used Plex for a couple of years, but it was not really "standalone" ... I had to have a media server (my Mac Mini) running constantly. I looked into Kodi on the AppleTV but it was not trivial to install.

Overall it was easier to just purchase an Android TV device (Nvidia Shield).

I too find that Netflix, a few niche players and the odd movie rental from Google Play covers virtually all of my needs, but there's always something that comes up (someone brings some USB stick over or whatever) which Apple TV doesn't support.

It's odd that Google can develop a TV platform that supports all file formats easily, multiple players etc. and with Apple you still have to jump through hoops to play a file ...

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#105

Post by sounds » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #93

sounds wrote: post #78

As Apple moves into its middle age, the rational move is to become more like the established vertically-integrated companies. * Intel * Samsung * The British East India Company If Apple leadership decides to accept this, they will begin to act like their peers: * Recognize that the smartphone market will not grow like it has in the past. Create and then dominate standards using IP - barrier to competitors that simult…

> Recognize that Apple will not be the "innovator" that it was in the past. (Apple will still innovate, but not home runs every time.) I don't know where Apple gets this reputation, but they have hardly hit home runs every time. I mean, does no one remember the Newton? Final Cut X? The original Apple TV? The trash can PowerMac? Does anyone think the Touch Bar is a home run? Which is good, because innovation necessari…

Absolutely - Apple is vertically integrated as much as they need to be.

They don't need to own Foxconn or Samsung. It doesn't give them any advantage, and threatening to drop a supplier gives them leverage.

They do engineer capacity shortages to slow down their competitors. From 2011 [1], to 2014 [2], to 2017 [3].

I put "innovator" in quotes for exactly the same reason. Apple "innovates" as much as they need to, such as branding it #courage to omit the headphone jack.

If I "dinged" them, I don't see it. I predicted their future strategy, with the caveat that it might take them years to begin executing on it.

Apple's earnings calls are the most obvious signal that their "core business" is what all the chatter is about. Apple knows they can't ride iPhone and iPhone alone forever.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-11-03/apples-su...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2014/09/05/apple-dominating-shipping-...

[3] https://9to5mac.com/2017/05/30/nintendo-switch-components-ap...

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#106

Post by PascLeRasc » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

jasonsync wrote: post #19

Apple’s growth is almost entirely inwardly-focused when it comes to its user-base: higher prices, more services, and more devices I find myself increasingly stuck in an Apple 2011 - 2013 universe. For starters Apple has not yet provided a viable upgrade for my primary desktop machine: a 2011 Mac Mini (2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 with 8 GB ram and SSD). The specs on the current 2018 Mac Mini lineup are considerable…

That time period does seem to be the peak of Apple's design innovation. I love my iPhone SE and I'd highly recommend it to you if you need an upgrade.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#107

Post by specialist » Tue, Feb 06, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #93

sounds wrote: post #78

As Apple moves into its middle age, the rational move is to become more like the established vertically-integrated companies. * Intel * Samsung * The British East India Company If Apple leadership decides to accept this, they will begin to act like their peers: * Recognize that the smartphone market will not grow like it has in the past. Create and then dominate standards using IP - barrier to competitors that simult…

> Recognize that Apple will not be the "innovator" that it was in the past. (Apple will still innovate, but not home runs every time.) I don't know where Apple gets this reputation, but they have hardly hit home runs every time. I mean, does no one remember the Newton? Final Cut X? The original Apple TV? The trash can PowerMac? Does anyone think the Touch Bar is a home run? Which is good, because innovation necessari…

Apple Watch Series 3 is roughly equivalent to the original iPhone. It's a weird blindspot for all the Apple critics.

Best as I can tell, Apple is 2 - 3 years ahead of everyone else.

--

My singular and persistent disappointment remains iCloud. I still want seamless sync and handoff and backup and unlimited storage... That just works. That doesn't require me to do tech supp for my family members.

It's getting incrementally better, but isn't quite the whole enchilada yet.

No one has cracked the ubiquitous computing nut, so maybe it's just a hard problem.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#108

Post by arvinsim » Tue, Feb 06, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

logiclion wrote: post #58

everdev wrote: post #6

My Windows devices since 97 were consistent top of the line and rarely lasted more than 2 years before they slowed to an unbearable speed. In 2012 I switched to Mac and still use the same MacBook Pro which still runs as quick as it did 6 years ago. It was a huge investment at the time but turned out to be cheaper than the 4+ Windows machine I likely would have cycled through not to mention the boot time and performan…

I think the performance improvements have drastically changed due to the adoption of SSDs in Apple's line up. The Macbook Pros in the early 2012 started to incorporate them around that time. Windows laptops took awhile to catch up starting with 'ultrabooks'

Which makes it baffling why they still have spinning disks in their Mac lineup.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#109

Post by techdragon » Tue, Feb 06, 2018, 2:26 AM UTC

eastWestMath wrote: post #29

jasonsync wrote: post #19

Apple’s growth is almost entirely inwardly-focused when it comes to its user-base: higher prices, more services, and more devices I find myself increasingly stuck in an Apple 2011 - 2013 universe. For starters Apple has not yet provided a viable upgrade for my primary desktop machine: a 2011 Mac Mini (2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 with 8 GB ram and SSD). The specs on the current 2018 Mac Mini lineup are considerable…

I just looked on the Apple store app and you can get a Mac mini with a 3.0ghz dual core i7 and 16 gb of ram.

The Mac mini at one point had a quad core option. It actually had the maximum spec option reduced some time ago. The current Mac mini is less powerful than one you could buy several years ago.

Re: Apple's Middle Age

#110

Post by dingo_bat » Tue, Feb 06, 2018, 3:45 AM UTC

ltnublet wrote: post #92

dingo_bat wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless having a notch was their vision (which you are implying, but I highly doubt), they compromised. And as I said, the compromise was much bigger than having a discreet sensor on the back. That you got used to it is irrelevant. People got used to not having control on their own hardware too, doesn't mean anything.

Not who you responded to, but I think that it's clear Apple intended on using the notch as a visually distinct identifier to an onlooker, "This is the new iPhone." Multiple times since I got mine at launch, people have noticed me using it and commented/asked about it. The hardware designers at Apple are clearly smart enough to be able to work out something if they didn't want the notch, but they (and marketing) decid…

> The hardware designers at Apple are clearly smart enough to be able to work out something if they didn't want the notch

I don't think it's clear. Do you have anything to support this assumption? I haven't seen an iphone that is bezel-less without any encroaching notch. They haven't yet been able to eliminate the camera bump, either. This is basic stuff. Don't have crappy cut-out on the screen, don't have protruding camera from the back. Also, even with thew notch, the side bezels aren't nearly as thin as they are on competitor phones.

Pretty clear that they weren't able to reach a design they truly wanted.