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

Apple Cancels AirPower Product

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 500 posts

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#381

Post by cageface »

brokencoder wrote: post #275

Apple's management has enacted a policy of not offering competitive compensation for top engineering talent. I've had multiple Apple managers express frustration with the company's inability to attract and retain top talent. I myself got an offer from Apple for less than half what three other top companies offered, and Apple was unwilling to negotiate. This product cancellation and Apple's general product quality dec…

Across the board Apple just seems to be struggling to execute on software. What they do offer is incomplete and buggy and they're falling farther and farther behind on new features. If they're serious about pivoting to being a services company they need to fix this ASAP. There's a deep-seated arrogance at Apple that I think they inherited from Jobs that isn't serving them well now that their competition has gotten its act together.

Just as a thought experiment ask yourself - of the apps you use daily on your iPhone, how many are made by Apple, other than Safari?

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#382

Post by erkmene »

xsmasher wrote: post #372
icedchocolate wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I agree. AirPods really have almost no distinguishing features from other earphones. They’re generally worse. The only “feature” is seeing their charge on your phone, which is a pretty lousy differentiator.

Is there another brand that pauses your music/audiobook when you take them out? If so I'd like to try it; AirPods don't fit my ears well (fall out when I bend forward.) The iCloud pairing and tap-controls are nice, but I guess I could live without them.

Jabra Elite 65t does that and they are absolutely amazing.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#384

Post by clay_the_ripper »

mackey wrote: post #122
minimaxir wrote: post #2

The whole AirPower saga is a weird event in product development. AirPower compatibility was highlighted as a feature in the packaging of the just-released AirPods 2 : https://twitter.com/itsnicolenguyen/status/11106569269650636... There has to be something that caused this abrupt cancellation.

I saw a report on twitter with serial numbers showing build dates of September and November, along with old copyright dates on the boxes on the new AirPods. Combine that with the "Hey Siri" being shown in "Gather Round" video in September, I bet they were hoping to ship the AirPods before the holidays, but were holding out hope that Airpower would work. https://twitter.com/rouven81/status/1110980080170340352 https://…

This is exactly what happened. I was super surprised they didn’t realize AirPods 2 before Christmas, but I guess they figured people would buy gen 1 anyway. Then they release the new airpods in combination with their other launches of the iPads etc when they realized that AirPower wasn’t going to happen. Then they dump AirPower after the release so as to not taint sales of AirPods 2 on launch day.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#385

Post by TylerE »

trashcan wrote: post #351
TylerE wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they? It works fine on the bog-standard industry charger.

That's a fair point if they actually do work fine on other chargers. My experience with previous wireless chargers was that they only actually worked if they were designed for the specific phone (e.g. Pixel 3 XL stand). Lots of going back and forth between charging and not charging and the phone itself getting really hot and not actually charging. I fully accept that maybe my other chargers were cheap and crappy thou…

I've got a basic flat pad I bought from Amazon for like $15 that charges my iPhone XS and my Airpods quite happily.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#386

Post by efrafa »

redfern314 wrote: post #203
ryanmcbride wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always felt it was unnecessary too. A company I worked for a few years ago spent thousands to install wireless charging pads directly into the tables in every meeting room (4 floors worth of rooms). This was before any iphones had wireless charging though, so they also had these wireless charging adapters that plugged into iphones so that they could use them. That means that to charge your phone, you had to plug…

Some Starbucks did this for a while as well, provided adapters for USB micro / Lightning and had chargers at the center of every table. Not sure if they still do.

I saw wireless charging on tables in Starbucks in SF.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#387

Post by eanzenberg »

cageface wrote: post #381
brokencoder wrote: post #275

Apple's management has enacted a policy of not offering competitive compensation for top engineering talent. I've had multiple Apple managers express frustration with the company's inability to attract and retain top talent. I myself got an offer from Apple for less than half what three other top companies offered, and Apple was unwilling to negotiate. This product cancellation and Apple's general product quality dec…

Across the board Apple just seems to be struggling to execute on software. What they do offer is incomplete and buggy and they're falling farther and farther behind on new features. If they're serious about pivoting to being a services company they need to fix this ASAP. There's a deep-seated arrogance at Apple that I think they inherited from Jobs that isn't serving them well now that their competition has gotten it…

Pretty much all of them? On my home screen, music, maps, calendar, photos, camera, wallet, news, reminder, phone, messages, mail and safari. Work fairly great too :). Seems they know what they’re doing by the massive profits they bring in.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#388

Post by acomjean »

kamikaze675 wrote: post #360
acomjean wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mea-culpa announcement "This isn't going to be shipped", is better than stringing it along for months and leaving people in the dark. Your right though, their main problem was announcing it too early. There are probably legal ramifications to this. Back in the day "intelivision" announced a keyboard component for their console in ads. They didn't ship.. It kept slipping. Then the FTC (government) started…

I enjoyed the Intellivison II with the voice synthesis module. I have fond memories of playing B-17 bomber and burgertime.

I did love that console. Football, armor battle, pitfall,burger time etc. The keyboard adapter however wasn’t good for programming. I think it had like 2kb of memory. The keyboard adapter only game “mindstrike” game was pretty fun.

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#389

Post by spondyl »

Apple didn’t say why exactly the product was canceled, but people familiar with its development told Bloomberg News last year that the company faced challenges with the software, overheating and the ability to charge multiple devices on any spot on the mat.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-29/apple-can...

Re: Apple Cancels AirPower Product

#390

Post by pentae »

brokencoder wrote: post #275

Apple's management has enacted a policy of not offering competitive compensation for top engineering talent. I've had multiple Apple managers express frustration with the company's inability to attract and retain top talent. I myself got an offer from Apple for less than half what three other top companies offered, and Apple was unwilling to negotiate. This product cancellation and Apple's general product quality dec…

Tims a miser, which is great for supply chain management but when it filters down into the hiring and the end product, well we're already beginning to see the results of that in the sales numbers.
Post reply on HN