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Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

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Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#321

Post by layer8 »

portaouflop wrote: post #159
gwd wrote: post #75

> From that point on, Steve would go on to spend lavishly on things that improved the experience, and he would reject—often brutally—any idea that diluted or harmed the experience. ...I’ll go out on a limb and say that uninvited advertising is not normally equated with a better customer experience. YES!!! SOO much of the Apple user experience has degraded due to this. I can't listen to my own music that I bought on t…

I haven’t used Apple devices back when they were good so I have always avoided all the built-in Apple bloat/adware. Because I came from Windows this was already my standard assumption - I need to violently throw out all the built-in stuff and replace it with free and good software. It’s funny because that means I never felt the same pain you feel; I just assumed that’s how operating systems are.

That means you also haven’t used Windows back when it was good.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#322

Post by sabellito »

lukan wrote: post #185
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah shame it’s hidden behind 50 pop-under triggers and infectious scam ads. Literally unusable without an ad blocker. (Which you should use anyway but it means they’re not a great choice for Joe user on his unprotected windows pc)

A bit deeper into the scene, there are no ads anymore. And the biggest problem for most people in the west, is rather just using torrents without a VPN will get you lawyers letters quite quickly. But Joe average can use youtube downloader without danger.

Very few countries in Europe have that issue, and afaik no country in the americas.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#323

Post by blibble »

mulmen wrote: post #147
com2kid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft used to have one of the best media players around! Windows used to have built in streaming support from device to device. You could load up music on your personal PC and play it on your home theater through your Xbox360! Windows Media Player was huge, only eclipsed by Winamp at the time. Eventually MS released the Zune app, which was also awesome but lacked many of the WMP features. (But it looked amazing!)…

Microsoft had so many opportunities that they just failed to execute. How did they miss on everything ? Home servers Media streaming Smartphones Touchscreens Tablets They even had media production with MSNBC. All of this was available from Microsoft in the XP era. How did they fail at literally all of it? There has to be a lesson.

they only win when they're able to anti-competitively lock out their competitors by bundling

because their products are universally shit

see: Teams

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#324

Post by layer8 »

etothet wrote: post #258
pzo wrote: post #112

Sadly iPhone sales and revenue saturated like 4 years ago (and the same for Mac, Wearables and iPad [0]). They focus now a lot on growing revenue from services. Which is kind of sad because they have still much room to grow Mac and iPad: - just make iPad more useful and support MacOS - it's not gonna canibalize Mac, they sale each year 2x more iPads than Macs and 12x more iPhones than Macs. - make macbook Pro standar…

A cheaper Mac Mini? $599 for the entry level is a pretty great deal (assuming you view macOS and the ecosystem as a feature and not a bug). Genuine question: is there a comparable Windows machine in a mini desktop form factor at a similar or lower price?

If you just need a desktop for random browsing and run-off-the-mill office work, there are $250-300 mini PCs you can get for that no problem.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#325

Post by codingdave »

> This is how Steve laid out his plan to us at the ad agency when he returned to a nearly bankrupt Apple in the late 1990s. The customer experience was all-important.

Yes, it is a well-known truth that CX drives product success, and if you want to credit Jobs for that, fine.

But referencing back to the 90s because Jobs talked to you directly 25 years ago truly dilutes the message. It is really weird, honestly, to claim that a business strategy from decades ago when Apple was in a completely different reality is some sacrosanct policy that shall never be questioned.

I'm not saying the policy is wrong - I agree with it. So do most product managers I know. But all organizations change over time. Society changes. Tech changes. A viewpoint wherein you have "red lines" that cannot be challenged is short-sighted.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#326

Post by al_borland »

sumedh wrote: post #253
al_borland wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of problems with people like this. Not all marks are worth making. Change for the sake of change or ego is almost always bad. If someone hands me a golden goose I’m not going to enter it in a cock fight. I’d be wise to continue with the golden egg strategy.

I agree but the people who want to climb the corporate ladder usually want to leave their own mark.

This is where the person at the top of the ladder needs to be the voice of reason. Cook has no more rungs on the ladder to step to. He left his mark already with his supply chain skills to get where he is. Apple silicon, watch, and Vision Pro were also released with him at the helm. Does he really need to add pollution of the user space to his resume? That would hurt his legacy, not help it.

Following Jobs was not an easy task, and Apple had done better than most probably expected in a post-Jobs world. It feels like Cook is getting dangerously close to throwing it all away.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#327

Post by layer8 »

NaomiLehman wrote: post #273
pzo wrote: post #112

Sadly iPhone sales and revenue saturated like 4 years ago (and the same for Mac, Wearables and iPad [0]). They focus now a lot on growing revenue from services. Which is kind of sad because they have still much room to grow Mac and iPad: - just make iPad more useful and support MacOS - it's not gonna canibalize Mac, they sale each year 2x more iPads than Macs and 12x more iPhones than Macs. - make macbook Pro standar…

by saturated i think you mean saturated the market. i would argue that almost every person that is their target has in iPhone. https://www.macrumors.com/2025/04/09/teen-iphone-ownership-c...

That’s in the US. Also I’m their target, but given their trajectory I’m increasingly inclined to switch to the other side, and I know that others are too.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#328

Post by amelius »

monitron wrote: post #94
metabagel wrote: post #36

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.

Same reaction here. I think the author certainly crossed a line by using a diffusion model to publish an image of a dead famous person doing something he never did.

Does that somehow invalidate the message of the article?

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#329

Post by solatic »

codingdave wrote: post #325

> This is how Steve laid out his plan to us at the ad agency when he returned to a nearly bankrupt Apple in the late 1990s. The customer experience was all-important. Yes, it is a well-known truth that CX drives product success, and if you want to credit Jobs for that, fine. But referencing back to the 90s because Jobs talked to you directly 25 years ago truly dilutes the message. It is really weird, honestly, to cla…

> Society changes

It's rather disingenuous to claim, in context, that society has changed to enjoy advertisements. Indeed, I would make the argument that society will never, ever, get to the place where we enjoy advertising.

Advertising is like the value-added tax: horrific for everybody involved, and society would have killed it a long time ago for that reason, if it wasn't for how much money it makes.

Re: Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line

#330

Post by asddubs »

metabagel wrote: post #36

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.

I also instantly asked myself if the image was AI and reverse searched it when I saw it.
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