Live data from Hacker News

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

morrick.me

301–310 of 606 posts

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

#301

> 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…

> And a text terminal? Like DOS?? Who the hell is ever going to want to use that on a Mac?

Why complain about something you don't need to use if you don't want to?

What's great about the commandline? Scriptability, automation, configurability, composability, the easy re-running of complex commands with a small tweak, access Unix commandline tools that have been fined tuned over decades.

And to compare the terminal to DOS is not to understand the gulf in quality between them.

> Who the hell is ever going to want to use that on a Mac?

Developers & scientists. They are people too :-)

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

#302

> 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…

>> 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 all the same mistakes as Windows did. And a text terminal? Like DOS?? Who the hell is ever going to want to use that on a Mac?

I kind of see it differently. That is, Apple did in fact lose the alignment with the Classic MacOS fans but Apple did it on purpose. Objectively, by 2001 standards MacOS sucked and you wouldn't want to align with people who think otherwise. As the result Apple broke out of a small stagnating niche and won a big market.

This is different from today's situation where it feels like Apple breaks the alignment not on purpose and not by innovation but rather just slowly drifts out.

There's a theory in the comments that they want to align with "people who want the best camera array and have money to burn". This could be true but even then it doesn't look like a good strategy to win a big market long-term. More like a retreat back into a small niche that may stagnate in the future, like "people who want the best publishing software and have money to burn".

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

#303
I swear we get these articles every single year. I tried to read this but it lost me pretty quickly. Apparently the 'sob stories' where Apple Watch is shown to have literally saved peoples lives are just a 'marketing tactic'. And AirPods, arguable the most widely popular and innovative product in Apple's recent history is 'wasteful'. Given the popularity of the Watch and AirPods it seems like it's the author that has lost alignment with society and now Apple losing it's alignment with him.

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

#304

Honest question from someone with no hardware knowledge: How technically possible and commercially feasible would it be to make these huge lenses and camera components removable? For example, imagine if Apple made a phone with no built-in camera, where the camera is instead a separate magnetic component that you attach to the phone only when you want to use it.

I mean just look at the repairable phones with hot-swappable components. It's massive and not very.

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

#305

Or course. Case in point, iPads don't have headphone jacks. While these devices are very capable of audio production, that's a joke while using Bluetooth. But that's not Apple's concern. Airpods sell billions of dollars worth every year. Every other phone manufacturer said ooh, cool and instead of getting pro level audio in my 1000$ Android phone I have to settle for Bluetooth which still hasn't caught up. Airpods, a…

You can use any USB C device that supports the industry standard USB c audio profiles.

It's just annoying to have to carry a USB Dongle for something that should be built in.

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

#306

> 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…

> HIG

Thing is, the Human Interface Guidelines were a sort of contract with the user, and the same goes for the ethos or culture or principles a big company has, if any. So in a sense they do have a connection with customers, via "community", if they choose to do so (and choose to be sincere about it instead of faking). I mean a business can be bigger than a local handyman and still go down the friendly path, for years potentially, until it decides that the friendly strategy was wasteful and streamlines it away.

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

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crap about Finder?

For me, the keyboard (in)accessibility is the biggest issue. On Windows I got used to navigating Explorer completely with the keyboard — this was a LONG time ago, I have no idea of the current state. On macOS, it's just impossible (or, at the very least (but I doubt), impractical). Other issues: - the fact that you cannot cut and paste files - dragging files from one folder to another can be unreliable/error-prone, p…

> - the fact that you cannot cut and paste files

Back in time I also complained about this, but do you know that if you copy (CMD+C) then do CMD+ALT+V, then copy&paste becomes cut&paste ?

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

#308

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#309

> 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…

>> 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 ma…

> Objectively, by 2001 standards MacOS sucked and you wouldn't want to align with people who think otherwise.

I see, so like "Don't think different"?

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

#310

Honest question from someone with no hardware knowledge: How technically possible and commercially feasible would it be to make these huge lenses and camera components removable? For example, imagine if Apple made a phone with no built-in camera, where the camera is instead a separate magnetic component that you attach to the phone only when you want to use it.

You must be young!

We have had modular phones already, and I wish I bought one for posterity. Time travel back to 2016 and get yourself an LG G5. There was also Google's 'Project Ara'.

Whilst you are in your time machine, pick up one of Amazon's smartphones with a 3D display and stereo cameras (or did they have four?).

It all made sense in theory, but we went the other way, to make it so that not even the battery could be swapped out.

I am no Apple fan boy, however, my hunch is that they know their customers and that the iPhone Air is perfect for people that want to show how high status they are primarily by taking photos that are exclusively of themselves. Programmers in basements are not the customer for these gadgets.

A particularly genius move of the new iPhones is the square image sensor, which is what you want if your life has to be documented on Instagram.

Image, and status, is never about practicality, it is all about peacocking, and there is nothing wrong with taking money from those that want to peacock.

Post reply on HN