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I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

morrick.me

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Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#161

Post by simondotau »

smallstepforman wrote: post #149
DanHulton wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, am still rocking the 13 mini, which they made good enough that nothing they've made since has made me wish to upgrade, though the fact that every phone since is Too Damn Big has made me happy I haven't yet. We've got about three years left before these things are unsupported. Three years of hope for them to release _something_ a little smaller than "uncomfortably large."

Also on 13 mini. But my next phone needs a better camera, and the cellular radio reception needs to be better (my 13 mini loses network connection in weak areas faster than my wifes 15 or sons 16 pro does - they stay online, I’m out). I love smaller phones though (hence the 13 mini).

The problem is there aren't enough people buying mini phones to make it worthwhile to Apple. But that's only if they keep a mini around permanently.

However if Apple released a new iPhone mini model every fourth year, I'd wager these would be like a McRib-style smash hit sales event, compressing the comparatively small mini-enthusiast audience into a time-limited buying window. It would also trigger FOMO at a time when many people are increasingly willing to delay upgrades for 5+ years.

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#162

Post by freetime2 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #89

> it’s a company that I feel has lost its alignment with me and other long-time Apple users and customers. When OS X debuted there was a daytime radio talk show in my area called “The Computer Guys.” They capably covered all sorts of computing topics, but were clearly long-time Apple dudes. And they spent weeks complaining about what a disaster OS X was. The Dock was useless and violated Apple’s HIG. The Finder made…

The worst Apple era for me was the butterfly keyboard / touchbar era of Macs. They went too far in the pursuit of thin and light - removing ports, going with a keyboard design that felt bad to type on and was prone malfunction, and the touchbar, which I actually thought sounded cool at first, ended up being much less useful than a row of function keys.

I didn't feel betrayed by Apple, I just decided not to buy a new MacBook until they fixed their keyboard issues. I switched to Linux for a couple of years, and switched back once they released the M1 MacBook Pro. I'm perfectly happy with my Macs (I have 3) now.

I actually really like the current era of Apple where their motto seems to be give people what they want. MacBook Pros with HDMI ports and SD card readers. iPads finally getting viable multi-tasking support and a real mouse cursor (although iPadOS still sucks IMO). The iPhone 17 Pro is slightly thicker than the 16 Pro to allow for a bigger battery. Their storage and memory upgrade prices are still ridiculous, but at least Macs come with a usable 16 GB memory minimum now, and iPhones start with an honestly better-than-I-expected 256 GB storage.

It's not all perfect - especially on the software side. The settings menu on iOS is kind of a cluster. Apple Music has a terrible UX, as does the recent update to Photos. And I haven't tried Tahoe and Liquid Glass yet - but I'm definitely a little concerned.

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#164

Post by snickell »

hedora wrote: post #83
freetime2 wrote: post #76

Regarding the iPhone 17 Pro: > People who have no use for all these pro video recording features shouldn’t waste their money on it. Unless they want a big chunky iPhone with the best camera array and/or have money to burn. I feel like people who “want the best camera array and have money to burn” probably describes a significant percentage of HN readers. I’m honestly pretty excited that they’ve finally put the larger…

The air is too big and clunky from me. Sent from my iPhone 13 mini, which is also Too Damn Big. I’m got above average size human hands, which are too small even for the mini.

On an iPhone 12 mini, wishing I hadn’t upgraded to iOS 26 because now my phone is notably laggy. Word to the wise. I use swiping for input and would consider it now unusable due to extreme lag.

The physical aspect I can’t give up is I can hold the phone with my thumb on the bottom and my middle finger on the top and scroll with my index finger to read. Wish I could buy that capability on a new iPhone, maybe one even slightly smaller.

Time to go find out if there’s even a way to downgrade, oof this is slow.

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#165

Post by killingtime74 »

riffraff wrote: post #146
killingtime74 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've migrated back and forth. Most things are backup to cloud now. Only thing missing was Signal messages last time and I think they now fixed that. Do people still use plain SMS now?

How about photos? Moving from android's Google photo integration to apples icloud photos integration seems.. complicated

I've always been on Google only so that helps a bit. It works to backup on iPhone as well

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#166

Post by killingtime74 »

acoustics wrote: post #142
killingtime74 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've migrated back and forth. Most things are backup to cloud now. Only thing missing was Signal messages last time and I think they now fixed that. Do people still use plain SMS now?

iMessage is extraordinarily popular in the US. Its userbase dwarfs Signal by over an order of magnitude

Ah fair enough. Not as many use it here in Australia

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#167

Post by snickell »

simondotau wrote: post #161
smallstepforman wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also on 13 mini. But my next phone needs a better camera, and the cellular radio reception needs to be better (my 13 mini loses network connection in weak areas faster than my wifes 15 or sons 16 pro does - they stay online, I’m out). I love smaller phones though (hence the 13 mini).

The problem is there aren't enough people buying mini phones to make it worthwhile to Apple. But that's only if they keep a mini around permanently. However if Apple released a new iPhone mini model every fourth year, I'd wager these would be like a McRib-style smash hit sales event, compressing the comparatively small mini-enthusiast audience into a time-limited buying window. It would also trigger FOMO at a time wh…

This is a brilliant idea, I really hope somebody on the iPhone 18 design team reads it. I think there’s a huge pent up demand for a mini model, many of us would pay more for it than the large versions.

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#168

Post by kelnos »

> I found a lot of reactions to these products to be weirdly optimistic. Either I’m becoming more cynical with age and general tech fatigue, or certain people are easily impressed.

I think it's both. There's a loud cadre of Apple fans who will always fawn over whatever comes out of Cupertino, no matter what. That group shifts its membership over time, but they're always there, and they're, well, always loud. Maybe some of us have been a part of that group in the past, or at least perhaps looking at things with less of a critical eye than we do now. But it's normal to shift your attitudes on things, and normal for those rose-colored glasses to fog up after a while.

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#169

Post by CobrastanJorji »

avidiax wrote: post #25
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your other examples, but a best-in-class TV seems like it'd be pretty good for Apple. It's an Apple TV device that's jammed into a television and doesn't come out, plus a premium price. Seems like it'd work out great. And everybody else buys the 'Apple TV 4K' standalone doohickey and plugs it into their regular TV.

Would would buy an Apple Cinema Display if you could buy a color-accurate TV?

Different markets. An Apple Cinema Display is a 32" screen, which is a big monitor but a small television.

Re: I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers

#170

Post by markemer »

daemonologist wrote: post #7

The title is appropriate, in that it feels to me that most of the awe has gone out of these products/keynotes. This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though. Perhaps they can be blamed for failing to introduce exciting products in new categories. I do find that wireless earbuds actually last much longer than the wired variety, despite the non-replaceable batteries. Bac…

Yeah, honestly, smartphones are a very mature category now. Only so much you can do with them. Same with laptops and desktops. Plenty of improvements to be made, but those yearly wow factors are just not coming back.
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