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

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#31

Post by bell-cot » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:34 PM UTC

> What would Steve Jobs do?

> ... I was in the room when Steve was presented with an eerily similar “opportunity.” ... 1999-ish ... Lee Clow and I were invited to a hastily scheduled meeting with Steve and his top lieutenants. The topic was building advertising into the Mac system software. ...

Not that I like ads, but - Late 90's Apple, fresh out of a near-death experience, is an extremely different context from today's Apple, with it's 12-digit annual profits and #4 spot on the Fortune 500 list.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#32

Post by AlexandrB » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:35 PM UTC

FrankWilhoit wrote: post #9

Jobs's focus on the customer experience was useless because he judged the customer by himself. "Be like me and you will have a good experience" is not clever marketing; it is abuse.

Saying it's abuse is quite the overstatement. It's certainly opinionated design.

Contrasted to Microsoft's philosophy where no one is allowed to have a good experience, it's a breath of fresh air.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#33

Post by bamboozled » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:36 PM UTC

If I see ads in their proprietary software, I’m done as a customer.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#34

Post by sjm » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:36 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #12

Is that AI Steve Jobs in the header image? Pretty uncanny and takes away from the article.

Yes. Pretty hypocritical for an article about "crossing red lines" to use AI slop for an image of a real person. Very disrespectful.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#35

Post by jabwd » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:37 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…

Yeah for me it has been degrading ever since the Settings app became an upsell app. I'm sorry I came here to change a setting not dismiss a notification on your latest failed service thing that requires 20,- a month.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#36

Post by metabagel » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:38 PM UTC

I ran a reverse image search on the image of Steve Jobs, and couldn't come up with anything, so it does appear that it might be AI generated, which I don't approve of.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#37

Post by dkdcio » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:39 PM UTC

Noumenon72 wrote: post #17

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.

There are lots of good experiences from ads in maps: - I search for "restaurants" and someone is having a special - A trampoline park opens near me, I'd like it to catch my eye - I've been googling chocolates recently, so populate the map with chocolate shops - Maybe I'm bored as a car passenger and watching the map screen so my attention is free anyway

genuinely the worst opinion I’ve seen on HackerNews

there are such better ways to enable these experiences without introducing the zero-sum, scam-inducing, corporate fuckery game that making it a pay-to-win ad-driven experience gives you

I’m also concerned that boredom makes you want to see ads

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#38

Post by xp84 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:40 PM UTC

joshgachnang wrote: post #24

Noumenon72 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of good experiences from ads in maps: - I search for "restaurants" and someone is having a special - A trampoline park opens near me, I'd like it to catch my eye - I've been googling chocolates recently, so populate the map with chocolate shops - Maybe I'm bored as a car passenger and watching the map screen so my attention is free anyway

The 1st and 3rd are better served by Apple choosing the best result rather than who's paid for an ad.

I do agree with you in theory, though their 'attempts' at this kind of thing are comical if not absurd (witness the organic search results in the App Store).

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#39

Post by amatecha » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:40 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #12

Is that AI Steve Jobs in the header image? Pretty uncanny and takes away from the article.

Yeah especially since it probably wouldn't take long to scrub through some WWDC presentations of his to find him holding up his hands like that (or a gesture of comparable meaning)

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#40

Post by skhameneh » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:42 PM UTC

The very first thing I saw from Apple that, IMO, Jobs would have vehemently stopped was the two-toned back on the iPhone 5.

That said, the iOS 26 release is abysmal. The only redeeming thing for me has been the enhancements to Stage Manager, everything else with the UI/UX is such a mess that every day it seems like I'm discovering something new in the realm of awful design. And this isn't limited to minor nitpicks, there are major CTAs that are essentially "black on black" and practically not visible below 50% screen brightness and not acceptably visible at max brightness. Just last night I noticed the browser tabs will render full color content behind the text. It's so bad I've been considering cataloging screenshots and writing about it, because some of it's laughably bad.