Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple lacks strategic vision

unherd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 200 posts

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#141

Post by astrange »

kllrnohj wrote: post #46
tracerbulletx wrote: post #10

There are a few hiccups, but everyone'e acting like Apple Silicon wasn't one of the most wildly successful overnight improvements in laptops in the last 50 years and that airpods aren't so popular that even Android phone users buy them.

Apple Silicon either followed Microsoft's direction (who pushed for ARM laptops a solid 8 years before M1) or just did a better iteration than Intel at the same time Intel was struggling. Regardless of how you want to frame it, there clearly wasn't any grand innovative strategic vision in play there from Apple. It was just an incremental improvement to long established products with no shortage of equally significant…

There's nothing magic about "ARM" nor is it a single thing. ARMv8 is quite different from ARMv7 and was designed for the purpose of making desktop chips like the M1. But you can make something that good for any ISA if you design it well enough.

ARMv8/v9's main advantages over Intel are in security, not performance.

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#142

Post by v5v3 »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #10

There are a few hiccups, but everyone'e acting like Apple Silicon wasn't one of the most wildly successful overnight improvements in laptops in the last 50 years and that airpods aren't so popular that even Android phone users buy them.

Airpods were many years ago, as was the MacBook pro redesign.

CEOs are judged on today. Past achievements are past achievements and he was paid handsomely for it.

Tim Cook is a money guy. Saving money by reducing per device licensing costs via creating own chips and also now their own modems is a money guys domain.

Hardware and software innovation is another skill.

Tim Cook wasn't appointed on his ability to innovate. But he needs to ensure he has individuals who can do so, and that there aren't layers of management or himself obstructing them.

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#143

Post by astrange »

kllrnohj wrote: post #88
nine_k wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit like saying that an iPhone was not a big deal, phones were becoming smarter by the day, Apple just did a better iteration in 2007 than Nokia and Blackberry. Making an iteration so much better is not something I'd ascribe to luck.

iPhone was a new UI focused around capacitive touchscreens which at the time was itself an entirely new category. What, exactly, did M1 change about anything about using a laptop? Longer battery life? Faster? Okay, same improvements as had been featured for the last 20 years. And it wasn't any thinner, depending on the model line it was substantially thicker even. So what exactly was new about M1 that wasn't just a b…

The change is that it no longer depends on Intel and AMD, and Intel in particular was basically incapable of doing anything at the time. So now they can improve on a yearly basis reliably.

Security is also much improved over the Intel laptops for various obscure and technical reasons.

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#144

Post by astrange »

st3fan wrote: post #95
serjester wrote: post #50

It seems like the company has stagnated and Cook seems to consistently makes questionable decisions - fighting the app store rulings, doubling down on vision pro, focusing on OS redesigns instead of generative AI. Maybe they've just calcified - the youngest person on their board is 63. At the end of the day they haven't had a credible threat in over a decade.

"focusing on OS redesigns instead of generative AI" Apple is like 150.000+ employees. What makes you think they have to choose between OS redesigns and AI. There is probably more than enough talent there to do all the things.

Apple is functionally organized, which means everyone really does have to focus on one thing at a time, because if you can imagine two features needing shared expertise there's often only one set of experts for it.

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#145

Post by ml-anon »

alphazard wrote: post #26
tracerbulletx wrote: post #10

There are a few hiccups, but everyone'e acting like Apple Silicon wasn't one of the most wildly successful overnight improvements in laptops in the last 50 years and that airpods aren't so popular that even Android phone users buy them.

Both of these products could be expected from any well run company. They are both very polished versions of something that already existed. The direction to optimize in was already clear. No one wants to compare Apple to a generic well run company, they want to compare Apple to itself a decade or two ago. Others have said that if Jobs were still alive, AR would be ubiquitous by now, and everyone would have a stylish…

Yeah this is a bonkers take.

AR is vaporware. The form factor sucks, the power requirements to do anything meaningful are too high and there just isn't a compelling use case for most of the population. I'd argue that Vision Pro makes the most sense out of anything, being more work rather than consumer oriented.

AR is a folly. Meta almost tanked themselves by going all in and all they managed were a tech demo.

As for the other point, well ipod and iphone were both just "polished versions of what already existed". Thats kind of what Apple does...very very well. AirPods are bigger than Spotify. Apple Silicon was about optimizing hardware, software and supply chain, its really a thing of beauty how they managed to pull it off and completely disentangle themselves from Intel and Nvidia.

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#146

Post by astrange »

david38 wrote: post #78

Wow. This whole comment section is full of armchair CEOs saying how the iPhone, ARM laptops. tablets, and AirPods are just inevitable outcomes. Yet nobody else was able to do it. Microsoft, for all its power and money, couldn’t make it happen. Samsung+Google have come closest, but even then, Apple dominates the profits.

Sony is the closest company to Apple (and the original inspiration for it), but they can't do anything like it because they have no taste and no internal standards for simplicity.

AirPods in particular really are that good, and compared to them essentially every other audio product is a scam. Japanese companies instead invented something called "hi-res audio" which is just a pledge to only focus on useless features.

(The scam prevention systems like rtings' objective headphone reviews are themselves scams because they don't measure actually useful scenarios.)

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#148

Post by danielscrubs »

IOT_Apprentice wrote: post #130
NewJazz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article addresses Apple's historical late mover advantage strategy, and suggests that Tim Cook doesn't have the same vision that Jobs had to pull those moves off.

Cook isn’t a visionary, he is an ops & logistics guy. He has a major problem with failing at AI and lying last year about “Apple Intelligence”. He needs some fresh blood in software as well. He should just buy something like Claude and lock them in with stock and very high salaries. He should also stop scrimping on integrated memory on the M series. Overpriced memory is a huge issue. And do something about the GPU as…

Buying competency and hoping for the best sounds exactly what an economist would do.

They will probably leave as soon as their manager becomes just the run of the mill babysitter manager with charisma.

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#149

Post by flohofwoe »

daft_pink wrote: post #115
NBJack wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But has Apple Silicon justified the investment? I don't doubt it's good tech, but the market share hasn't necessarily reflected it. In 2024, total shipped units dropped quite a bit. Judging by the available data, I wouldn't use the term "wildly successful" just yet (particularly if we account for pre/post pandemic sales).

I think their problem is that laptops and computers are so well made these days that there is no real need or want to upgrade.

Isn't that true, before I bought my current M1 MBP in 2022, I was on a 2014 13" MBP.

Re: Apple lacks strategic vision

#150

Post by flohofwoe »

NewJazz wrote: post #126
daft_pink wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their problem is that laptops and computers are so well made these days that there is no real need or want to upgrade.

Haven't macs had that reputation for a while?

Yeah, but the ARM Macs offered such an obvious advantage over their Intel predecessors that (I guess) a lot of Mac owners made the switch around the same time.

But today, even the first 2021 M1 MBPs are still very good devices (I still don't feel like I need to upgrade to a more recent model).

What would make me buy a new Mac is a good OLED display. The display in my new Windows laptop is the one component that's better compared to my 2021 MBP.

Post reply on HN