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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

#441

Post by coldtea »

amelius wrote: post #350
alexey-salmin wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

> 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". I agree with you and this theory sounds like moving goalposts. First people claimed that the free market will always give the consumer what they want. Then this turned out to be not true (we even have a term, enshittification), and now people come up with a more "refined" theory. Why would i…

>First people claimed that the free market will always give the consumer what they want.

That was maybe true at the time of Adam Smith for something like chocolates or bags of cheaper rice, or shirts and socks and bricks.

For things that take tens of billions to design, code for, build, and support, like smartphones and their OSes, there are just a few players (only two that mater for smartphone OSes), and there are huge barriers to entry even ignoring any rules and regulations you have to adhere to, but even more so with those in mind too.

So you get what the players give you, and that's it.

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

#442

Post by nottorp »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #380
nottorp wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locking down the OS so you can't install or uninstall functionality at all is not simplicity.

It is if Grandma keeps downloading scams and installing them.

You mean there are no scams in the famous "we're protecting you from all those internet evil guys by charging you app subscriptions" app stores?

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

#443

Post by coldtea »

AlexandrB wrote: post #387
amelius wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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". I agree with you and this theory sounds like moving goalposts. First people claimed that the free market will always give the consumer what they want. Then this turned out to be not true (we even have a term, enshittification), and now people come up with a more "refined" theory. Why would i…

> First people claimed that the free market will always give the consumer what they want. Enshittification does give consumers what they want: free stuff. People will deny it up and down and claim they would pay for non-enshittified Facebook, for example. But how many people actually would pay a subscription to use a Facebook style service? Enough to build sustain a company of Meta's size? Probably not. How many peop…

>Enshittification does give consumers what they want: free stuff

Nope. Enshittifition happens to paid stuff just as well, including stuff you pay more (including when inflation adjusted) from what you paid before.

It's about futher increasing the profit margins, whether it's a paid product or not, not about affording to give something for free.

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

#444

Post by coldtea »

wazoox wrote: post #383
8fingerlouie wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tbf, the Finder is still crap (if only it would be nearly as good as Windows Explorer was in its heyday I would probably use it more) I have the exact opposite opinion. I loathe Windows Explorer, and relatively simply stuff like presenting a tree view is apparently some weird magic trick that only Apple has figured out how to do. Browsing SMB shares (or any other networked storage) is one shortcut away (cmd+k), and…

on my Mac, the finder systematically fails to display the most recent downloaded files, or files synchronized through Nextcloud, under "recent files". For some reason, it always displays some random selection of recently used files. It's completely useless. In fact, I look for recent files using "find" in the terminal. At least this work. On my Linux laptop, Nautilus (Gnome) displays exactly the last files in the rig…

>or files synchronized through Nextcloud, under "recent files"

Are those created/updated with the current date when they sync, or with the date they have on the host system?

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

#445

Post by acdha »

dingnuts wrote: post #439
makingstuffs wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save your loyalty for people that matter in your actual life. There isn’t a single business in existence that cares about you. Even companies in the business of keeping you alive will only do so while doing so makes them a profit. I say this as the example of the local handyman is one where you will matter more. It’s a human relationship with a real person not a fake relationship with one person and a spreadsheet

spoken like someone who has never been a regular at a small business. there are all kinds of benefits when you get to know the guy who owns you favorite pizza shop for instance

I think the key aspect here is scale: if the person making the decision knows the people affected, you usually see a pattern of different results than without that human connection. Large companies tend to be bad both from isolation and because the frontline people increasingly are not allowed to make decisions or consulted or even known by the people who are.

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

#446

Post by amelius »

coldtea wrote: post #443
AlexandrB wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First people claimed that the free market will always give the consumer what they want. Enshittification does give consumers what they want: free stuff. People will deny it up and down and claim they would pay for non-enshittified Facebook, for example. But how many people actually would pay a subscription to use a Facebook style service? Enough to build sustain a company of Meta's size? Probably not. How many peop…

> Enshittification does give consumers what they want: free stuff Nope. Enshittifition happens to paid stuff just as well, including stuff you pay more (including when inflation adjusted) from what you paid before. It's about futher increasing the profit margins, whether it's a paid product or not, not about affording to give something for free.

Yes. And it's also about strategic lock-in.

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

#447

Post by abruzzi »

bitwize wrote: post #81
astrange wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't really always phones outside until they switched to OLED because you couldn't see the screens in sunlight. They were still popular though.

I wish transflective LCDs were a thing on phones.

Its kind of funny--my GPS's LCD screen gets /more/ readable in sunlight.

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

#449

Post by starky »

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…

>I personally don’t consider the iPhone 17 Pro to be too big or chunky. I’m generally happy to sacrifice an extra millimeter of thickness for better battery life, and enjoy the usability of larger screen sizes.

The difference in people's opinions about this are interesting. I've got larger than average hands (e.g. XL rubber gloves are a tight fit) and don't understand how normal people can handle large phones. I just moved from a 6.7" to a 6.2" phone and can't overstate how much more comfortable it is to handle the smaller phone.

It is unfortunate that phone manufacturers make the same phones as each other and that there is practically no variability on the market.

>I’m at a point in my life where spending $1100 on a new iPhone every few years isn’t going to break the bank

I hate this statement. I don't care if I can afford an expensive device if it doesn't provide the value over the lifetime of the product. Why do phones that only last 2-3 years cost as much as my laptop that can last longer than that and do so much more?

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

#450

Post by codyb »

dwayne_dibley wrote: post #320
simondotau wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 what I'm banking on. I really want a new mini next year.

If anyone from Apple is reading this and wants more support for another mini model, here I am. Rocking a 13 mini for personal use and a 12 mini for work, no plans to upgrade until another mini comes out or these die in which case I will consider all options (although, will happily upgrade to another Mini should one come out).
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