Is the Magic of Apple Fading or Are We Just Chasing Nostalgia?

[benroberts3]

Let me start by saying this: I am an unapologetic Apple fanatic. I’m talking all in — products, design, marketing, stores, history, the whole ecosystem. If it’s Apple, I’m interested. And if you’re here on MacRumors, I’m guessing you might feel the same way.

But as we approach the end of 2024, I can’t help but ask a question that’s been on my mind for a while:

Is the “Apple magic” gone? Or are we just chasing the nostalgia of the old days?

I’m talking about the era of Steve Jobs’ keynotes, Jonny Ive’s “aluminum unibody” monologues, and Tony Fadell’s iPod magic wheel. The era of “Hello, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” commercials and overnight campouts outside the Apple Store to get your hands on the newest product. Back when seeing someone with a clamshell iBook (shoutout to Elle Woods in Legally Blonde) was like spotting a unicorn in a sea of dull, black, plastic IBMs.

Back then, Apple felt exclusive. It had this it factor — a cultural cachet that was hard to put into words. To own an Apple product was to signal that you got it — that you saw something others didn’t. You weren’t just using a “computer,” you were tapping into an experience, a lifestyle. MacBooks, iPods, and iPhones were cool in a way that was undeniable.

But where do we stand now?

Apple is still a leader in design, functionality, and that coveted hardware-software integration that just works. Their products are arguably better than ever, with the M-series chips blowing minds, AirPods becoming a cultural icon, and the Apple Watch quietly dominating the wearables market. From a technical perspective, you could argue the magic is still there.

But is it cool anymore?

I’m not so sure. Seeing someone with an iPhone 15 Pro doesn’t feel the same as spotting someone with a first-gen iPhone in 2007. AirPods used to be instantly recognizable (and a bit of a flex), but now, every other tech company has its own knockoff version. The “cool factor” that used to come with owning an Apple product feels… commonplace. Ubiquity has its downsides.

Have we reached “Peak Apple” culturally?

Maybe it’s just me being nostalgic, but it feels like Apple is less of a “rebel brand” and more of an industry mainstay — the safe, dominant choice. It’s become expected that people have an iPhone. MacBooks aren’t revolutionary anymore; they’re just good laptops. Nobody’s camping outside stores anymore (well, maybe for an iPhone launch, but even that’s more spectacle than necessity now). And where are the “I’m a Mac” ads of today? Tim Cook doesn’t have the same showmanship as Jobs did, and while Craig Federighi is fun, he’s more “likable uncle” than “cult-like visionary.”

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying Apple is bad. In fact, I think they’re putting out some of the best products they’ve ever made. But the feeling of owning an Apple product is different. It used to feel like you were part of a movement. Now it just feels like… you own a phone.

So, I’m putting it to the MacRumors family:

• Do you think the “Apple magic” is gone?

• Are we just being nostalgic for the Steve Jobs days?

• If you were an Apple fan in the ’80s, ’90s, or early 2000s, do you feel like the “vibe” is different now compared to the era of 2018 and beyond?

• Is it possible for a company this successful to ever feel countercultural again?

I’d love to hear your thoughts — especially if you grew up in the Apple golden years and have watched the shift happen in real-time. Are we living in Apple’s best era yet, or have we lost something intangible along the way?

 

[Abazigal]

I will repost a response I put up a long time ago. It's not all entirely mine, but I kept it because I thought it captured the mood perfectly.

***Begin Long Diatribe***

There's a broader point to be made about the differences between Apple then and now. Whether it should be interpreted as Apple "losing their way" is a matter of perspective.

The simple fact of the matter is that Apple is a fundamentally different company than it used to be. The company can't help it. It's like if you went from paycheck-to-paycheck living, crashing on friend's couches, to a million-dollar a year job. You can claim to be the same person inside, but you're not. When your relationship with your surroundings changes dramatically, that filters down into your core, and it changes you. You can't help it, and you can't control it.

30 years ago, Apple was a company that living on the edge, metaphorically couch surfing. Its existence buoyed by a small population of die-hard fans that looked to it for technology and aesthetic leadership. It had a flock. That was its sustenance. That core group that was willing to follow where it led. Its investor pool was also similar - believers (and a few long-play speculators). You don't hold shares in a company teetering on the edge of non-existence unless you truly believe in it.

When the vast majority of the population that drives your existence are true believers, it gives you flexibility to bring that population with you as you navigate your challenges. If that population is small, then the small revenue limits your options, but their strong loyalty also lets you do things. You can change technology stacks quickly (OS9 => OSX). You can kill off entire classes of partnerships (clones). The population backs you, because they believe. Back in the late 90s, Mac users held a special pride. It took a certain about of personal conviction to stand the tide against "the default". You suffered, and struggled to be a mac user in the face of lack of software choice, and lack of hardware compatibility.. because it was worth it, and you "were a mac user”.

The proportion of Apple's userbase today that are true believers is far smaller. Likewise for their investor base. The current user base and investor loyalty is not based on conviction, or a personal identity-based affiliation

The current user base and investor loyalty is far more grounded in pragmatic self interest. For this user base, it’s a combination of their understanding of Apple products as “good products” and “cool products”, their understanding of the Apple brand as a trustworthy, fashionable, quality, desirable brand. For investors, it’s the typical investor mix - some mix of growth-oriented investment and revenue-oriented (i.e. dividend-oriented) investment.

This is the kind of loyalty most companies have to work with. It’s not as strong as the kind of identity and conviction-based loyalty that sustained the company through it’s dark days.

The problem is that this new, more pragmatically loyal user base and investor base is also what gives Apple its new identity as the most successful company in the world. If Apple’s product quality takes a stumble, some significant chunk of this user base moves on. If Apple’s brand is perceived as less fashionable than it used to be, or less fashionable than it used to be, some significant chunk of that user base moves on.

The user and investor base isn’t a flock anymore. It can’t “be led” like it used to. The company that could forge ahead with drastic decisions, relatively assured that its user base would follow, cannot make that assumption anymore.

Instead of leading a flock, it now has to cater to an audience. This is a drastically different relationship.

Their relationship with shareholders is likewise different. Back in the 90s, people used to argue that Apple should just cash in the $4 billion they had in the bank, return it to investors, as that would be a bigger value than forging ahead with their products. Apple’s investors could certainly have forced that outcome, but they didn’t. They hung on, through dwindling marketshare and sales numbers, because they believed in the company.

Are the bulk of shareholders today just as likely to stick with them as those core shareholders from yore? If profits start dropping.. is this new shareholder population as willing to just go along with it? Or are they going to start thirstily eyeing those juicy hundreds of billion dollars sitting in the bank? How much would it take for this new population of shareholders to decide “hey, it was a good ride, let’s force the Apple directors to squeeze some of that juice out for us”?

In this new reality, that original core user and investor base.. those true believers.. they don’t matter anymore. They got to enjoy the ride from the start, but now their secluded island has been inundated by a population of visitors that outnumbers them by a couple of orders of magnitude.

This new population sets the tone for what kind of company Apple will be, because they have the power in this new relationship.

Has Apple “lost its way”? Apple has slowly transitioned into a much more traditional company, and its behaviour will start to match those of a traditional company’s behaviour. If you want to consider that as them “losing their way”, then yeah.

I wouldn’t call it “losing their way”, though. Circumstances changed, and the company changed, and that’s just the way she goes.

 

[throAU]

They’re tools to get things done.

As far as the things they can do go, they are faster and more powerful than ever before.

We’re peak apple right now, and i don’t think they’re in decline at all.

 

[organerito]

I never owned a Mac during the Jobs era—I just couldn't. But now, I wouldn't choose anything other than an M-series processor Mac!

 

[theluggage]

But is it cool anymore?

Personal computers and smartphones are "mature" technology these days - exciting new developments aren't coming along so frequently - this years tech mostly does the same thing as last year's tech, 10% faster and with 20% more adverts.

1977: The Apple ][ - keyboard-driven, 8 bit, program it in BASIC...
1984: The Macintosh - GUI, 32-bit internal processor in a completely different class, completely new GUI-based computing paradigm.
vs.
2017: 15" Apple MacBook Pro
2024: 16" Apple MacBook Pro - yay! it's faster and has better battery life but recognisably the same device.

Smartphones hit maturity far more quickly - 2017 gave us the iPhone X which pretty much cemented the current design and brought us that technological marvel - the notch! The current iPhone may be a bit better in every way but, again, if you return from 8 years on a desert island you're not going to be amazed.

...but that's not Apple, thats the entire consumer electronics industry - the last 20 years have been incremental improvements, with nothing like the massive leaps of the 80s and 90s.

So, we've got Apple Vision and the like... that Apple seems to see as the next big thing, but which ultimately is just incrementally evolving Virtual Reality, the idea of which has been around for years (even Half Life: Alyx was 4 years ago...) I don't thing Apple's - er - vision of VR/AR as a tool for day-to-day work is going to come to anything while you have to cosplay as Cyclops to use it - the sort of "smart contact lenses" or even "smart glasses" the size and weight of regular sunglasses that you could use for 12 hours a day are still sci-fi for the moment.

Then of course the "new sexy" feature is "AI" and... well, this is not a place for an anti-AI rant, but it actually leaves me cold. It's clever, and may turn out to be extremely important (or it may die a death once it starts getting trained on its own output...) but... at the moment, seems to be causing more problems than it solves, and rather than being "cool" it's more of a worry, especially with the "emperor's new clothes" attitude that the industry is showing towards "AI" systems that manifestly don't work, and the danger of flooding the world with AI-generated error-filled dross... Sorry, but I really, really don't want AI summarising my emails for me with the current potential for getting it seriously wrong.

...not that some broader aspects of "AI" haven't been quietly improving - things like text recognition, speech recognition, face recognition, language translation now seem to work pretty smoothly - which is great practically but in terms of "cool" these techs had their initial "wow" moment many years ago.

TLNR, I think that for anybody who lived through, or has studied, the 80s and 90s, current tech progress is slow to deliver "cool" new concepts (even if progress is still happening), is repeating mistakes of the past with new tech, and tainted by cynicism that has replaced some of the optimism of the past.

 

[Kotsos81]

The products nowadays are obviously better than ever, it is just that the era is different - everything happens "faster", everything is "bigger", and at the same time there is a plethora of choices, variants, alternatives... There is no time or space for us to digest and appreciate the improvements, let alone no much "spacing" in the market itself as a whole for "product differentiation" and "uniqueness": we have seen it all and every product is just a variation of successful recipes with the latest advancement as an add-on.

If you looking for the "wow" factor, it is still there, but not so obvious as it used to be IMHO.

 

[throAU]

If you looking for the "wow" factor, it is still there, but not so obvious as it used to be IMHO.

Anyone still on an intel Macbook, is in for a "wow" when they upgrade, even if it is to a 5 year old (in 2025) M1.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

• Nostalgia Apple seemed more focused on incredible products & delighting customers above all else.
• Modern Apple seems entirely focused on "another record quarter" & delighting shareholders above all else.

Which is best? Ask yourself this: are you more customer or shareholder?

What is "magic?" It might have been magic to be just as money focused back then but being much better at disguising it via the so-called RDF. Or perhaps the magic was not deception but driven by actually prioritizing delighting customers first and shareholders got theirs as a byproduct of happier customers buying more (what a concept!). Now it's reversed.

Are we chasing nostalgia? Some of us long for:

• "just works" Apple we think we recall
• a "Snow Leopard" (just bug squashing & refinements) year or two, instead of the annual parade of new-new-new and then buggy-buggy-buggy through many point upgrades.
• more customer utility where we could optionally buy the base and upgrade crucial parts at much more competitive rates instead of grappling with trying to strike some kind of ideal balance and feeling robbed when comparing Apple upgrade pricing vs. market upgrade pricing.
• simple choices in the product mix vs. multiple versions of everything (though this one just doesn't fit a company so much larger than the relatively tiny Apple back in the day, where as little as ONE of something might be all they could handle).
• flexibility such as the completely unique, high-value benefit of being able to utilize full macOS and full Windows inside of ONE case... vs. leaning on ARM Windows for the latter or going back to buying computers that may be needed (PC) vs. computers that are wanted (Mac). After about 15 years of only Mac, I now own a PC again (because ARM Windows emulation is not full Windows, and app needs trump app wants).
• a genuine "one more thing" surprise instead of the same things in slightly different sizes & colors or slightly faster speeds.

IMO: for 5-7 years now, Apple is basically drunk on the experience of reporting the "another record quarter" (no longer a) surprise.... and the striving to keep doing that little show drives them to make ever-more nickel & diming decisions that traditional Apple probably would not make... because it didn't seem to be entirely about shareholders back in the day (or old Apple was better at disguising the greed plays most of the time). Through a consumer lens, it's the corporate reporting version of "thinner" seemingly clung to for much too long that- just like the relentless cracks at "thinner"- the benefit no longer seems to fit the sacrifices being made for it.

10 years ago, my household was Apple everything and I wouldn't even consider alternatives. In the last 5+ years, that has evolved into giving much thought to alternatives and embracing them. Why? Most of it revolves around value perception... and taking offense at relentless efforts to delight shareholders at customer expense. The "premium" has fattened and the engineering has evolved much more extras being available only from Apple... at ever-growing Apple margin. For example, I'm offended when I compare Apple RAM & SSD pricing to market rates for the same (I have always tolerated some Apple Premium but 3X-5X premium is too much. This is one of many examples that has actually derailed new Mac purchases on its own). Ugly words like "exploit" seem to fit some decisions.

Everyone has their "enough is enough" moments. And goodwill is not a bottomless well to be endlessly burned. It seemed- whether true or not- that old Apple was better at striking a good balance at pleasing shareholders AND customers... always leaning to the latter (or just seeming to do so). Now one of those groups seems to rarely be thrown a bone. I didn't name which but I bet the one I was thinking of jumped into your mind as you read the line. If so, that's pretty sad when contrasted against the halo'd Apple we can recall so fondly.

If there is anything to this, is there anything modern Apple can do about it? Of course. Investing in consumer goodwill is as easy as investing in maximizing shareholder ROI. Some choices can be made to throw consumers more bones instead of almost aways favoring maximizing ROI. More value for the money can drive more sales... which then benefits shareholders too. It's mostly about choices & decisions... where sometimes delighting customers is made more important than harvesting every possible nickel. It seems Apple could use a better ear(s) to their customers vs. (seemingly) measuring all by whether "another record quarter" is realized.

 

[EdwardC]

Been on a Mac since the Power PC, System 7 days. It was fun and different back then. We had the Atlanta Mac Users Group as a local “club” and subscribed to Mac World. It was just a very exciting time and yes the clones came out and things got real crappy for a few years (Skully). Then Jobs came back and the rest is history. A great era for sure. Things are actually pretty incredible now but users such as me really can’t use the horse power these new machines have but it’s cool to be sitting on the potential they offer. Things are pretty good…..Still.

 

[tonywalker23]

been here for over 20 years in this forums. have owned quite a bit over the years. amazing how great the tech is…

but nothing will ever replace the beauty of an Aqua interface or the excitement of a Jobs keynote.

 

[holmesf]

Apple has only ever really been "cool" from around 1998 to 2011.

1998 marked the start of the company's turnaround with iMac, Mac OS X, iPod, etc. The digital hub strategy helped people be creative. Software like boot camp left you free to use your computer however you wanted. People chose Mac OS X even when they were free to boot Windows because for the first time Mac OS was actually more stable, more secure, and a better user experience.

But by 2012 Apple stopped selling Mac OS X as a product. They followed iOS success with App Store model to give the software away for free so that they could use it to sell other services to the consumer. This ended software innovation at Apple because customers no longer had to be persuaded to upgrade by being given improvements to usability or performance. Instead, Apple would degrade user experience with each update to persuade customers to buy new hardware where it would once again run acceptably.

The conversion marked the completion of Apple's total transformation from hardware and software company to services company. They stopped being about letting consumers be free to be creative and started being about a locked-down ecosystem where they could collect fees on every dollar that passed through it. They became the most valuable company in the world by market cap. They became the very big brother they rebelled against.

Apple was never cool again. Very good hardware and software. Very impressive instance of vertical integration. But not cool.

 

[smirking]

We’re peak apple right now, and i don’t think they’re in decline at all.

Absolutely concur. I'm always befuddled when people proclaim the Steve Jobs era the good ol' days. They were the good ol' days in the sense that it's like when you're a teenager and you think you're gonna set the world on fire, but you actually have little more than ambition and attitude.

The products of that era were always interesting, but not always in a good way. The products were sometimes more interesting than they were reliable.

What was considered success for Apple back then was just being influential and to punch above the weight of a niche electronics manufacturer. Now the bar for success is when Apple is able to shift the electronics industry exactly as it intended and in the way it intended.

And this isn't a knock on Steve Jobs. Apple very much has him and the icons he brought along to thank for where it is today. Steve Jobs never lived to see the good ol' days he helped bring into reality.

 

[throAU]

Absolutely concur. I'm always befuddled when people proclaim the Steve Jobs era the good ol' days. They were the good ol' days in the sense that it's like when you're a teenager and you think you're gonna set the world on fire, but you actually have little more than ambition and attitude.

Yeah, Steve could definitely do a keynote, and I think he was a visionary, but in terms of the product stack today I honestly don't think it would be much different if he was around. I'm sure Apple are still executing the plan that he would have been involved in back in 2011.

People like to claim "Steve would never have done this!" constantly, but for the most part, he totally would have. The glasses are very rose-tinted and I'm not sure why Tim gets so much hate.

The iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc. are the best products we've ever had, and they're so far ahead of the PC equivalents.

 

[holmesf]

We’re peak apple right now, and i don’t think they’re in decline at all.

Apple is leading the world in chip design and hardware / software integration leading to best-in-class class design, performance, battery life, and stability.

Their products are also less interesting than they've ever been. More incremental. More play-it-safe. Designed more to retain market share than claim it. Released at a well defined and predictable cadence. Released with headlining software features completely absent. Always leaving out one or more hardware features just to make sure next year's model has one more minor incremental improvement left in the tank.

These two things can both be true.

 

[smirking]

People like to claim "Steve would never have done this!" constantly, but for the most part, he totally would have. The glasses are very rose-tinted and I'm not sure why Tim gets so much hate.

Exactly. Steve Jobs didn't install Tim Cook just because he thought it'd be a fun thing to try. Likely, what we're seeing now is more like what Apple would have looked like under Steve Jobs still at the helm than not. It's also entirely possible that had Steve Jobs lived, he would have installed Tim Cook anyway and stepped back (or left entirely) so he could go do other things.

 

[smirking]

Their products are also less interesting than they've ever been. More incremental. More play-it-safe.

I don't think it's fair to say they just play it safe. They may have a lower tolerance for risk than they did before, but a company playing it safe doesn't break with Intel processors to roll their own Silicon chips.

People only count risks that succeed as proof of daring and innovation, but one of the necessary byproducts of attempting to innovate is massive failure. Most people may count the butterfly keyboard as proof that Apple can't innovate, but that's totally the wrong way to look at a failed product. They failed spectacularly, but they failed spectacularly because they took a big risk.

Same goes for the Apple Car. It was a huge risk followed by a huge failure that might have ruined Apple had their dominance in the smartphone industry hadn't continued. There was no guarantee that Apple was going to go on to become the most valuable company in the world when it started that project in 2014. Had Apple not continued in their dominance, the consequences of such a massive roll of the dice would have been severe.

 

[jahutch2]

I think it’s not an Apple thing, it’s technology in general. The late 20th century and early 2000s were characterized by several related technological revolutions all driven by the development and then steady improvement of the semiconductor. First, the early personal computer revolution (read Fire in the Valley — what a cool time to be alive and involved in something like that), then the internet revolution, then the smartphone revolution. I wasn’t around as an adult in the fire in the valley days, but I do remember our first Tandy computer, then a 386 with something like 2 MB RAM and an 80 MB hard drive. I remember building a 486 DX 66Mhz as a kid. I remember dialing into prodigy and AOL. I remember my first PowerPC Performa Mac.

There was some magic to all of this because these weren’t just new products they were new product categories no one could have imagined. Ditto with the first BlackBerry (the real first smartphone in my book) then Apple perfecting it with the iPhone.

Now, computers, the internet, smartphones — they are all as commonplace as a refrigerator. Sure, they improve and are better than ever, but they aren’t surprising or magic anymore. Add to that the fact that these things are good enough that the improvements aren’t particularly meaningful for most users even over a several year period, and yeah — where we are is great but not really exciting.

And again — all of the revolutions I mentioned were driven by semiconductors. So to me, what we need for that excitement, is the next semiconductor moment. AI, even setting aside all the negatives, isn’t that, at most, it’s not a new product it’s just a new capability for existing products, at least in the consumer space. Is the next big thing quantum? Maybe, though I’m not sure I’m convinced that’ll be in mainstream consumer products in my lifetime.

Leaps of the type the semiconductor represents aren’t all that common in human history — will there be another one in our lifetimes, who knows, but it’s cool to have lived through some of the early days regardless! I feel like for gen Zers forward, they look at things like smartphones with about as much “awe” as my dad looks at a ballpoint pen.

 

[cjsuk]

Stuff is just simply done.

Rather than buying stuff because it has some new innovation that can improve something in our lives, it's pretty much at the pinnacle at the moment. You can tell because everything is fast, cheap, reliable and does everything we need and most of the innovations are transient ******** and experiments that fail. Everyone is getting off the hype cycle now which is what the deflated feeling is.

So instead of obsessively buying things it's about time we obsessively use them instead.

 

[Sami13496]

Don’t know about that but what I will say that using Apple products for me is so much more pleasing than for example Lenovo Windows combo that I have to use at work. It’s like night and day. Whenever I use my Mac after work it feels like magic. So they are doing something right, I guess.

 

[Le0M]

And what if it's us, that have changed?

It seems to me that most people's lifestyles are getting more and more out of control, with less and less time used to focus on the simple things life offers.

I think we are distracted to the point that even if something beautiful was in front of our nose, we wouldn't see it.
And I also think that's exactly how it is.

 

[sunapple]

Apple as an organisation is Steve Job's greatest product. It's the people and the culture inside that beautiful campus. He personally put it in place the way it is now. The original spirit still lives on despite having changed by having become mainstream. I am curious what comes after the people who were appointed by Jobs have all left, many years down the line.

 

[brofkand]

Apples best days are behind them, without dramatic changes. They haven’t written good software in years. And none of their hardware designs are fresh or innovative. They seem to only be able to do one thing well at a time right now, and currently they’ve chosen silicon.

 

[Grey Area]

We are all twenty years older now - chances are we have different perceptions of what is "cool", whether consumer products (which Apple always was) can be "cool" or "make us cool", and whether "being cool" matters at all. Stuff like that tends to feel more important at a younger age.

And that goes both ways. "...cool in a way that was undeniable" - back in the day I thought Apple stuff was so lame: the embarrassing white accessories, the bland roundness everywhere, the cringeworthy advertising, that boring old man Jobs and his tedious presentations. Today, I don't care - if it works well I'm happy.

 

[Audentia]

Let me start by saying this: I am an unapologetic Apple fanatic. I’m talking all in — products, design, marketing, stores, history, the whole ecosystem. If it’s Apple, I’m interested. And if you’re here on MacRumors, I’m guessing you might feel the same way.

But as we approach the end of 2024, I can’t help but ask a question that’s been on my mind for a while:

Is the “Apple magic” gone? Or are we just chasing the nostalgia of the old days?

I’m talking about the era of Steve Jobs’ keynotes, Jonny Ive’s “aluminum unibody” monologues, and Tony Fadell’s iPod magic wheel. The era of “Hello, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” commercials and overnight campouts outside the Apple Store to get your hands on the newest product. Back when seeing someone with a clamshell iBook (shoutout to Elle Woods in Legally Blonde) was like spotting a unicorn in a sea of dull, black, plastic IBMs.

Back then, Apple felt exclusive. It had this it factor — a cultural cachet that was hard to put into words. To own an Apple product was to signal that you got it — that you saw something others didn’t. You weren’t just using a “computer,” you were tapping into an experience, a lifestyle. MacBooks, iPods, and iPhones were cool in a way that was undeniable.

But where do we stand now?

Apple is still a leader in design, functionality, and that coveted hardware-software integration that just works. Their products are arguably better than ever, with the M-series chips blowing minds, AirPods becoming a cultural icon, and the Apple Watch quietly dominating the wearables market. From a technical perspective, you could argue the magic is still there.

But is it cool anymore?

I’m not so sure. Seeing someone with an iPhone 15 Pro doesn’t feel the same as spotting someone with a first-gen iPhone in 2007. AirPods used to be instantly recognizable (and a bit of a flex), but now, every other tech company has its own knockoff version. The “cool factor” that used to come with owning an Apple product feels… commonplace. Ubiquity has its downsides.

Have we reached “Peak Apple” culturally?

Maybe it’s just me being nostalgic, but it feels like Apple is less of a “rebel brand” and more of an industry mainstay — the safe, dominant choice. It’s become expected that people have an iPhone. MacBooks aren’t revolutionary anymore; they’re just good laptops. Nobody’s camping outside stores anymore (well, maybe for an iPhone launch, but even that’s more spectacle than necessity now). And where are the “I’m a Mac” ads of today? Tim Cook doesn’t have the same showmanship as Jobs did, and while Craig Federighi is fun, he’s more “likable uncle” than “cult-like visionary.”

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying Apple is bad. In fact, I think they’re putting out some of the best products they’ve ever made. But the feeling of owning an Apple product is different. It used to feel like you were part of a movement. Now it just feels like… you own a phone.

So, I’m putting it to the MacRumors family:

• Do you think the “Apple magic” is gone?

• Are we just being nostalgic for the Steve Jobs days?

• If you were an Apple fan in the ’80s, ’90s, or early 2000s, do you feel like the “vibe” is different now compared to the era of 2018 and beyond?

• Is it possible for a company this successful to ever feel countercultural again?

I’d love to hear your thoughts — especially if you grew up in the Apple golden years and have watched the shift happen in real-time. Are we living in Apple’s best era yet, or have we lost something intangible along the way?

I am totally with you. Long time apple fan, share holder, and I worked there for a time.

TLDR: Its still good, but no longer great. Definitely not as cool as it once was.

To be counter cultural, you actually have to do things drastically good for people and the environment / world in a way other companies don't do... and well.. Apple is not that anymore. There was a time when the Mac Pro would smoke the pants of ANY pc and still be priced competitively, now its like, well it has good performance in this one specific workload, but here, lets double the price.

The iPod, iPhone, were real meaningful cultural change agents. The Apple Watch, TV+, Siri, AirPods, are not. They're not bad, they're just ok. Meanwhile Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence are the most dissapointing Apple products since Apple Maps. Seriously, I don't know what Apple leadership is thinking marketing both so heavily when they're clearly not ready, both are a complete embarrassment (and I was stoked for both before their launch, I really wanted to love both of them). Jobs would have fired teams, or delayed launching them, its amazingly out of touch.

I recently sold a significant portion of my shares (not trading advice, bla blah, just sharing my opinion)

Tesla is making iRobot a reality, SpaceX put internet in the farthest corners of earth, Anthropic and others are changing the way every knowledge worker does their job, meanwhile bean counters at Apple are like, yeah, one more 48mp camera should be enough, and nah, what's wrong with our RAM or SSD pricing?

Its completely arrogant, complacent, and out of touch. They are due for massive disruption, and the AI companies are gonna give it to them. Apple Silicon is the only seriously impressive thing Apple has done this decade, otherwise it's pretty lackluster, while continuing with hostile pricing and App Store policies so tone deaf the EU had to tear it from their fingers one at a time.

My prediction: with the disappointment of Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence, Apple is due for a rude wake up call similar to what Microsoft experienced under the end of Balmer's reign.

 

[shadowboi]

Now it just feels like… you own a phone.

Basically this pretty much sums it up.
It is now just a phone. A good phone made by American company, still assembled in China but has operating system developed in California.

Apple’s Marketing efforts made it 3$ trillion company, maybe this “mass market” H&Mesque style of appeal did the job or maybe people just got tired of always slow Android smartphones and constantly degrading Windows experience. If one asked me would I use MacOS vs Windows 7 15 years ago I would go with W7, but now I am afraid of thoughts of ditching my Monterey laptop and switching to Windows 11. But at around the same time, choosing generic Android phone vs an iPhone 4,5 or 6… well it is obvious the choice was iPhone.

Nowadays whats holding me there is fast OS, AirDrop, FaceTime and plenty of 3rd party apps that work as expected. It is just… a stable phone.

Nokia and Sony Ericsson used to be like that back in the days before the 2007 iPhone which wasn’t good tbh – noAF 2MP camera, no front facing camera, slow 2G network, no expandable storage, limited OS, Bluetooth couldn’t send and receive files etc. But people were into that not because of features but due to sense of innovation – you could touch the screen and get a response! No keys, no arrows, just the pure multitouch experience. Apple wasn’t first into that but they definitely showed something that worked for most people.

As a result in 10 years it evolved into something usable, something cultural. And I cannot really think what could change in next 10 years, probably we will still be having same boring large slates that just make the basic functions we expect. Maybe the whole market reached the maximum in terms of innovation, there is nothing more left to innovate in all these touchscreen slates.

Maybe we all should just appreciate real life more than some tech stuff that we try to buy to make ourselves more happy than usual. I honestly stopped being happy about new iPhones after I got my second one – 6s. Switching to Android doesn’t make me happier either. Then maybe there are other things in life to be interested in😃