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Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

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Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#51

Post by parasubvert »

beachwood23 wrote: post #29
sabertoothed wrote: post #27

I found that keynote terribly disappointing and uninspired. I had really hoped for Apple that they show something new and innovative - instead of two smaller versions of existing products. EDIT: I did not mean that in an Apple-bashing way. But I wonder what Elon Musk would come up with if he had time and - let's say - 100 billion USD at his disposal.

I agree. There was little sign of the old Apple Arrogance that paved new product lines and pushed tech forward. Instead, the presentation explicitly mentioned several times that they only released these products because "customers asked for them." As Steve Jobs famously said, "customers don't know what they want." This change of motivation in their product development is a significant one.

Steve Jobs never said that, or at least it's easily to misinterpret. Here's what he said:

"But in the end, for something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." (Businessweek, 1998)

The point is that Apple is VERY concerned about what customers want, and listen to customers, and usually achieves that through an engine of incremental improvement once the product is out there. They just don't believe in a focus-group approach to new products.

Secondly, the current internet meme is that Apple needs to slow down and make their products more stable. Yet we still want our innovation "drug hit" from their announcements. This is hard to balance.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#52

Post by jgrahamc »

sabertoothed wrote: post #27

I found that keynote terribly disappointing and uninspired. I had really hoped for Apple that they show something new and innovative - instead of two smaller versions of existing products. EDIT: I did not mean that in an Apple-bashing way. But I wonder what Elon Musk would come up with if he had time and - let's say - 100 billion USD at his disposal.

Well, I, at least found it great, because I am walking around with a dying iPhone 5 unwilling to 'upgrade' to an iPhone 6 despite all the features because it's simply two large for me to use in the way I want (i.e. one-handed). And I've tried with my SO's iPhone 6s.

So, the iPhone SE is great for Apple because they are about to extract $$$ from me.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#54

Post by epicureanideal »

swombat wrote: post #31
JonCox wrote: post #28

No updated MacBook Pro? That's annoying. I was rather hoping for a small refresh to include the new Skylake processors, it's certainly due one: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

Yeah, dammit! I would basically have bought an MBPR 15" right away if they'd released one....

I was literally planning to order one as soon as it became available on apple.com, but oh well...

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#55

Post by riscy »

jonpaine wrote: post #47
riscy wrote: post #40

I cringed every time they kept trying to emphasize the night hue mode as if it is innovative... they explicitly removed two apps from the store that added the feature in the past just to try and profit from an old idea.

A big part of Apple's product appeal is the ecosystem, and a big part of the ecosystem is that amazing features simply work, and work well. They don't have to be configured or hunted for. Taken a step further, the problems some of these new features solve don't even have to be fully apparent to the user. To that end, Apple improves their ecosystem by making good features standard. Tim Cook mentioned that there were 1…

> Apple improves their ecosystem by making good features standard.

Only if you buy their latest devices. Case in point: I just updated to iOS 9.3 for the hue feature and I come to find out (by the fine print on their website) that it's not available for iPhone 5 users for no reason other than to force upgrades.

If they handled the Flux app situation fairly I wouldn't need to buy a new phone for such a simple but important feature.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#56

Post by JonCox »

epicureanideal wrote: post #54
swombat wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, dammit! I would basically have bought an MBPR 15" right away if they'd released one....

I was literally planning to order one as soon as it became available on apple.com, but oh well...

That's exactly what I was going to do. Only reason I even had the keynote on tbh.

Am changing jobs and will be using my own laptop from now on, but guess I'll have to dust off eek a bit of life out of my aging MacBook Air - as I resent spending that much money on a laptop with year old hardware.

On the plus side Apple did just save me from spending £2,000 ;)

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#57

Post by jonpaine »

riscy wrote: post #55
jonpaine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of Apple's product appeal is the ecosystem, and a big part of the ecosystem is that amazing features simply work, and work well. They don't have to be configured or hunted for. Taken a step further, the problems some of these new features solve don't even have to be fully apparent to the user. To that end, Apple improves their ecosystem by making good features standard. Tim Cook mentioned that there were 1…

> Apple improves their ecosystem by making good features standard. Only if you buy their latest devices. Case in point: I just updated to iOS 9.3 for the hue feature and I come to find out (by the fine print on their website) that it's not available for iPhone 5 users for no reason other than to force upgrades. If they handled the Flux app situation fairly I wouldn't need to buy a new phone for such a simple but impo…

I don't disagree with you. I'm not being an Apple apologist, just commenting why from their viewpoint it makes sense to bring the very best features into the fold of standard, native, functionality.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#58

Post by imglorp »

beachwood23 wrote: post #29
sabertoothed wrote: post #27

I found that keynote terribly disappointing and uninspired. I had really hoped for Apple that they show something new and innovative - instead of two smaller versions of existing products. EDIT: I did not mean that in an Apple-bashing way. But I wonder what Elon Musk would come up with if he had time and - let's say - 100 billion USD at his disposal.

I agree. There was little sign of the old Apple Arrogance that paved new product lines and pushed tech forward. Instead, the presentation explicitly mentioned several times that they only released these products because "customers asked for them." As Steve Jobs famously said, "customers don't know what they want." This change of motivation in their product development is a significant one.

> As Steve Jobs famously said, "customers don't know what they want." This change of motivation in their product development is a significant one.

I wonder... What visionary, long term, skunkworks projects did Steve initiate into the pipeline before he fell ill? It should be safe to assume there were a number of secret exploratory rods into the fire, if the end of his career there was similar to the rest of it. Some should be emerging from dev right around now.

Where are they now and why aren't we seeing them? Did Steve run out of ideas? Or did they all get mothballed in favor of safer alternatives?

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#59

Post by masklinn »

emdowling wrote: post #46
masklinn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH a great way to reduce waste is to make products repairable and upgradable, which is something Apple keeps moving away from, especially on popular products.

Not really. The products aren't upgradable or repairable by the end user, but as they demonstrated today, they are upgradeable (to brand new things like solar panels) and repairable by Apple themselves. I for one hate the idea of an end-user upgradeable smart phone. That sounds like a minefield of driver issues and the like that I just don't want. Its why I moved away from Windows in the first place. I think it makes…

> Not really.

Yes really.

> The products aren't upgradable or repairable by the end user

See? Yes really indeed.

> as they demonstrated today, they are upgradeable (to brand new things like solar panels) and repairable by Apple themselves.

Recycling is neither upgrading nor repairing.

> I for one hate the idea of an end-user upgradeable smart phone. That sounds like a minefield of driver issues and the like that I just don't want. Its why I moved away from Windows in the first place.

I'm not talking changing GPU (which doesn't really make sense on a laptop let alone a cell phone), I'm talking about soldered RAM and non-standard SSD connectors on laptops, and heavily glued batteries behind tons of odd screws on both phones and laptops. No drivers involved, and the ability to increase device lifespan by years.

> I think it makes a great deal of sense to consolidate the upgrades and repairs

Again, recycling is not upgrading or repairing, it's taking waste and re-making into product, that requires more materials and energy than not having to do that and being able to keep using the product in the first place.

> they can do it far more efficiently at scale.

That makes literally no sense. Recycling, even at scale, can't be more efficient than not making product into waste in the first place. You can't recover as much matter and energy as was put into building the product to start with unless you've found a way around everything we know of thermodynamics, and if you have what are you commenting on internet forums for? You've basically solved all the world's problem!

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#60

Post by tostitos1979 »

JonCox wrote: post #56
epicureanideal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was literally planning to order one as soon as it became available on apple.com, but oh well...

That's exactly what I was going to do. Only reason I even had the keynote on tbh. Am changing jobs and will be using my own laptop from now on, but guess I'll have to dust off eek a bit of life out of my aging MacBook Air - as I resent spending that much money on a laptop with year old hardware. On the plus side Apple did just save me from spending £2,000 ;)

Haha ... me too! 2010 Macbook Pro that I've upgraded piecemeal. It is starting to act flakey so need to upgrade soon. It is surprising how long Apple is doing to do the Skylake update.
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