Seriously! This is why it feels like Apple doesn’t really care that much. Their products lack polish, especially the software. And their new features are almost always chasing trends rather than creating them
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Is the Magic of Apple Fading or Are We Just Chasing Nostalgia?
- Thread starter benroberts3
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Gotta love all the armchair product designers who can think of all these revolutionary ideas on a whim 🙄 Bonus points for slandering Tim Cook…
Apple has been innovating left and right, and exciting things are ahead. We’ve been spoiled by living through several major technological revolutions: personal computing, mobile, and now AI. These larger shifts make relatively smaller, incremental improvements less exciting or even not noticeable to an average consumer. Nonetheless, technology continues to rapidly evolve, and there’s going to be brand new product categories / major breakthroughs at Apple, it’s just a matter of time.
Apple has been innovating left and right, and exciting things are ahead. We’ve been spoiled by living through several major technological revolutions: personal computing, mobile, and now AI. These larger shifts make relatively smaller, incremental improvements less exciting or even not noticeable to an average consumer. Nonetheless, technology continues to rapidly evolve, and there’s going to be brand new product categories / major breakthroughs at Apple, it’s just a matter of time.
OP,
I think you are pining over a self-made myth covered in your personally based nostalgia.
1) I think one of the reasons that Apple may have felt ‘exclusive’ to many early buyers, is because of Apple pricing versus income and economic needs of your average consumer. Apple has been special in so many ways over the years not the least of which is excessive Apple price tag.
2) During the early years, the ‘rebels’ were the Apple product and stock buyers, spending large sums of money of early Apple computers for little real world home / business usage. Apple is not a business rebel. It is simply a business with a large iPhone and iPad following (Mac to a lesser extent).
3) The fact that many Apple users view the iPhone as being received as nothing special (compared to other phones) is because of the fact that people outside the Apple world bubble have never really cared what phone someone else uses. To sum up my point, emotional maturity has set in for many Apple users (current and old-timers) and they now realize that that grand feeling of Apply mystique of special, was really nothing more than some Apple people thinking they were better than others because of the Apple tool used, as if said tool made them superior to others without such tools.
4) While Apple hasn’t always hit the mark with sales, product appeal and use, I don’t believe it has lost its way as a business seeking to stay profitable. The lost feeling of the Jobs era is nothing more than an emotional appeal to hold onto the past; one that was never really real to begin with. Apple created a myth sprinkled with hints of truth with so much fanfare over the years, it has allowed them to be one of the wealthiest companies in the world.
5) In regards to technology, I believe the biggest problem Apple faces is the misguided perception and expectations of many Apple loyalists, who have wrapped up their entire self-worth in Apple products. Many of these people are never satisfied with what is and always looking to find fault and blame Apple for new products that are (in their minds) not worthy of upgrading to. These Apple loyalists are often seen as tech chasers. There is nothing wrong with liking nice tools and toys. It is quite another to become disappointed, sad, and angry during product releases, because Apple didn’t do it’s job (in the minds of many here) of keeping them entertained with shiny new object change, even if said object really doesn’t change the person(s) lives, much less practically useful and different in day to day usage. One’s emotional state (read: contentment) should not change like like the Northern Winds often do, just because one’s false expectations and projections placed on Apple didn’t come to fruition, as if Apple had the power and desire to read Apple consumer and grant their each and every wish.
I think you are pining over a self-made myth covered in your personally based nostalgia.
1) I think one of the reasons that Apple may have felt ‘exclusive’ to many early buyers, is because of Apple pricing versus income and economic needs of your average consumer. Apple has been special in so many ways over the years not the least of which is excessive Apple price tag.
2) During the early years, the ‘rebels’ were the Apple product and stock buyers, spending large sums of money of early Apple computers for little real world home / business usage. Apple is not a business rebel. It is simply a business with a large iPhone and iPad following (Mac to a lesser extent).
3) The fact that many Apple users view the iPhone as being received as nothing special (compared to other phones) is because of the fact that people outside the Apple world bubble have never really cared what phone someone else uses. To sum up my point, emotional maturity has set in for many Apple users (current and old-timers) and they now realize that that grand feeling of Apply mystique of special, was really nothing more than some Apple people thinking they were better than others because of the Apple tool used, as if said tool made them superior to others without such tools.
4) While Apple hasn’t always hit the mark with sales, product appeal and use, I don’t believe it has lost its way as a business seeking to stay profitable. The lost feeling of the Jobs era is nothing more than an emotional appeal to hold onto the past; one that was never really real to begin with. Apple created a myth sprinkled with hints of truth with so much fanfare over the years, it has allowed them to be one of the wealthiest companies in the world.
5) In regards to technology, I believe the biggest problem Apple faces is the misguided perception and expectations of many Apple loyalists, who have wrapped up their entire self-worth in Apple products. Many of these people are never satisfied with what is and always looking to find fault and blame Apple for new products that are (in their minds) not worthy of upgrading to. These Apple loyalists are often seen as tech chasers. There is nothing wrong with liking nice tools and toys. It is quite another to become disappointed, sad, and angry during product releases, because Apple didn’t do it’s job (in the minds of many here) of keeping them entertained with shiny new object change, even if said object really doesn’t change the person(s) lives, much less practically useful and different in day to day usage. One’s emotional state (read: contentment) should not change like like the Northern Winds often do, just because one’s false expectations and projections placed on Apple didn’t come to fruition, as if Apple had the power and desire to read Apple consumer and grant their each and every wish.
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Writing Tools for the win
Apple, once a company sustained by a loyal following, has evolved into a more traditional, successful corporation. This shift in identity, driven by a pragmatic user base and investor loyalty, necessitates a different approach, requiring Apple to cater to its audience rather than lead a flock. While this change may be perceived as a loss of direction, it is a natural evolution influenced by Apple’s growing success and mainstream appeal.
Apple, once a company sustained by a loyal following, has evolved into a more traditional, successful corporation. This shift in identity, driven by a pragmatic user base and investor loyalty, necessitates a different approach, requiring Apple to cater to its audience rather than lead a flock. While this change may be perceived as a loss of direction, it is a natural evolution influenced by Apple’s growing success and mainstream appeal.
I started to get into the Apple ecosystem in 2011, which I suppose was around the time when Apple started entering mainstream. It started with the 27" iMac, then the iPhone 4s, iPad 3 and 11" MBA. I am not sure if this is a new initiative under Tim Cook, or had always been the plan all along, but Apple would go on to integrate their products more tightly with one another, and I happened to be in a position to benefit from a lot of their "innovation" in that a lot of them was in line with how I worked and lived.
In 2013, the Apple TV allowed me to mirror my iPad without needing a wifi connection, which was incredible for me as a teacher who had previously gone as far as to install his own router in the classroom. The iPad Pro in 2016 brought support for the Apple Pencil, which massively improved the way in which I annotated on pdf files. I would also get an Apple Watch and AirPods during this time. Apple Silicon in 2020 has been a massive improvement in terms of performance and battery life, and 8gb ram still goes strong for me. I have AirTags in my bag, I have HomePods in the house, I upgraded to the M4 iPad Pro and series 10 Apple Watch this year as well, and while I don't plan to get a vision pro anytime soon, I am excited to see how Apple continues to improve on it over time.
Is it boring? Perhaps, but as I hit 40 this year, I realise that I don't really need my tech gadgets to result in multi-orgasmic thrill rides every time I use them. I don't need cheap gimmicks, and I am not interested in being anyone's beta tester. I just need my stuff to work reliably every time and solve very real issues that I encounter both at work and at home and in this regard, Apple products continue to work well for me. I am still teaching with my iPad in the classroom (all the way from 2012!). I am in no hurry to upgrade my 13 pro max, and it still works great and receives software updates and has apps that aren't available on Android.
In my opinion, Apple started by going against the establishment, and then went on to be so popular that it ultimately replaced said establishment and the new normal. Every revolution in the history of the world has become like this. The funny thing is that I don't really mind this new state of affairs, where rebels eventually turn into part of the system or become the system itself. Possibly because my Apple products do work great for it, which just validates my decision to go all-in right from the start.
It's not just that Apple has changed - WE have all changed too.
Perhaps you used to think Rubik's cubes were cool 30 years ago but you probably don't feel that way now.
Or you used to marvel at the jump in graphics from PS1 to PS2, but now you actually have to look to notice the difference between PS4 and PS5.
There's a name for this phenomenon: hedonistic adaptation.
Our expectations rise with whatever improvements and gains we experience.
We are more cynical, harder to surprise, and our demands are WAY up.
Back then, we were so easy to delight.
Steve Jobs could spend several minutes in a keynote on a single tiny feature inside one app (like a font picker) and we were all gushing about how amazing it was.
So yes, Apple has changed, but so have we.
Perhaps you used to think Rubik's cubes were cool 30 years ago but you probably don't feel that way now.
Or you used to marvel at the jump in graphics from PS1 to PS2, but now you actually have to look to notice the difference between PS4 and PS5.
There's a name for this phenomenon: hedonistic adaptation.
Our expectations rise with whatever improvements and gains we experience.
We are more cynical, harder to surprise, and our demands are WAY up.
Back then, we were so easy to delight.
Steve Jobs could spend several minutes in a keynote on a single tiny feature inside one app (like a font picker) and we were all gushing about how amazing it was.
So yes, Apple has changed, but so have we.
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Apples idea of bells and whistles lately has changed. Many are not something you will remember or will rarely use. Why even waste the time
Apple needs to give the customers what they want, such as Underscreen Touch ID or a foldable iPhone etc
Apple needs to give the customers what they want, such as Underscreen Touch ID or a foldable iPhone etc
As Apple fans we have to accept the old truth that Christmas morning has been and gone and now its boxing day afternoon. The days of phones being exciting products for any manufacturer are long gone. You only have to look at the way gimmicky folding phones are described as the future and how manufacturers turned to the rear of the device, the bit you never see because its in your hands or a case as a differentiator. Imagine going to a car showroom and all they had was a catalogue of rear bumper shots.
I have a deep fondness for Jobs-Ive Apple. That whole era is iconic. But I feel we are forgetting that Apple were never a nostalgia brand. It's always about looking for the next thing, and that is exactly what they are doing.
There's hints of the past there. The design of the newer MacBooks does echo the mid 2000s slightly chunky design. It's a subtle reverb of that era.
There's hints of the past there. The design of the newer MacBooks does echo the mid 2000s slightly chunky design. It's a subtle reverb of that era.
I feel that the ‘magic’ is a matter of perspective, and very difficult to define. It will mean something different to each generation who has grown up with a different-looking company in Apple.
Case in point: I say this as someone who first took an interest in Apple computers in the late 90s, and that interest was likely sparked because of a defining attribute that lessened slowly over time, which was that Apple products were so different to the rest of the market 'back in the day'. I cannot overstate this enough; to be an Apple user was to be virtually an outcast.
When the original iMac G3 came out, it literally stood out like a dog’s business in the middle of my college library because of how it looked. I knew of Macs and Apple, but before starting my graphic art studies, the platform had always been mysterious to me and associated with creative people, my uncle being one of them.
I chuckle when I think back to a comment my mum made one day; "Uncle George is popping round soon, you can have a good talk about Macs with him!". So innocent and telling of the time.
This is about 1998 and most people would still say ‘Mac’s are weird’, but eventually the audience beyond the typical creative crowd began to increase once the iPod was released. From my recollection, I feel that more people just started to take Apple seriously as a company that designed high quality and quirky products, which often reflected the personalities of the users. Apple was at the forefront of not just cool industrial design, but the 'digital hub' for growing digital media.
What Apple was doing at this important point was novel - they foresaw the rise of digital media and made the Mac the centre of it, with iPod of the offshoot.
In the case of MP3 players, the market exploded quickly and there were many alternatives, but people bought into the iPod because Apple became a lifestyle company. Its products and marketing transcended demographics, which is why I think the iPod advert with the colourful siholletes of people dancing and white EarPod wires has become so iconic and downright genius.
If we are talking about 'magic', then for me this period exemplifies it perfectly for a few key reasons:
- Competition had not yet caught up with Apple's approach to putting user experiences at the forefront of product strategies.
- Apple still had a CEO who was a visionary, who let products speak for themselves.
- The world we lived in simply had more meaningful, lasting innovation that would go on to significantly impact the way we live today.
Consider too Apple's industrial design, whilst admittedly not as environmentally friendly as today, used a range of materials that helped to create iconic products which were unique to Apple. And Mac OS X was so much more advanced than Windows XP and even Vista that the user experiences were clearly defined, one knew that one platform was so much more advanced than the other. The cheesegrater Power Mac and Mac Pro, in particular, defined a shortly lived era in which Apple dominated creative content in all manner of studios.
Today, we are living in a very different world. The competition has emulated much of what made Apple so great, so there are less differentiators in the market. Innovation as we knew it, which impacted society in long-lasting ways, has very much stifled (this isn't to say innovation no longer exists, but the impact it has is very different).
And, I have to say it, Tim Cook just isn't Steve Jobs. Tim Cook has been a tremendous CEO and the numbers speak for themselves, but this has come at a cost of Apple losing some of the identity that made it, well, 'uniquely Apple'. Cook has transformed Apple with his own political and societal agendas, which he means to be progressive and, though I hate the phrase, 'woke', but has ended up becoming monotonous, strategic, uninspiring and frankly in many instances demeaning.
Industrial design is difficult to discuss because, with the move to more environmentally friendly processes, products have become standardised in their design. But Apple didn't help itself by not investing in areas that, with more effort, they could have impacted more - especially their workstations and software (Aperture? Final Cut X?).
Their products continue to be excellent in many cases, but the experience as a whole lacks magic because we are no longer in an age were Apple - and its users - were in the minority. We were the rebels, and I'm proud of it.
Case in point: I say this as someone who first took an interest in Apple computers in the late 90s, and that interest was likely sparked because of a defining attribute that lessened slowly over time, which was that Apple products were so different to the rest of the market 'back in the day'. I cannot overstate this enough; to be an Apple user was to be virtually an outcast.
When the original iMac G3 came out, it literally stood out like a dog’s business in the middle of my college library because of how it looked. I knew of Macs and Apple, but before starting my graphic art studies, the platform had always been mysterious to me and associated with creative people, my uncle being one of them.
I chuckle when I think back to a comment my mum made one day; "Uncle George is popping round soon, you can have a good talk about Macs with him!". So innocent and telling of the time.
This is about 1998 and most people would still say ‘Mac’s are weird’, but eventually the audience beyond the typical creative crowd began to increase once the iPod was released. From my recollection, I feel that more people just started to take Apple seriously as a company that designed high quality and quirky products, which often reflected the personalities of the users. Apple was at the forefront of not just cool industrial design, but the 'digital hub' for growing digital media.
What Apple was doing at this important point was novel - they foresaw the rise of digital media and made the Mac the centre of it, with iPod of the offshoot.
In the case of MP3 players, the market exploded quickly and there were many alternatives, but people bought into the iPod because Apple became a lifestyle company. Its products and marketing transcended demographics, which is why I think the iPod advert with the colourful siholletes of people dancing and white EarPod wires has become so iconic and downright genius.
If we are talking about 'magic', then for me this period exemplifies it perfectly for a few key reasons:
- Competition had not yet caught up with Apple's approach to putting user experiences at the forefront of product strategies.
- Apple still had a CEO who was a visionary, who let products speak for themselves.
- The world we lived in simply had more meaningful, lasting innovation that would go on to significantly impact the way we live today.
Consider too Apple's industrial design, whilst admittedly not as environmentally friendly as today, used a range of materials that helped to create iconic products which were unique to Apple. And Mac OS X was so much more advanced than Windows XP and even Vista that the user experiences were clearly defined, one knew that one platform was so much more advanced than the other. The cheesegrater Power Mac and Mac Pro, in particular, defined a shortly lived era in which Apple dominated creative content in all manner of studios.
Today, we are living in a very different world. The competition has emulated much of what made Apple so great, so there are less differentiators in the market. Innovation as we knew it, which impacted society in long-lasting ways, has very much stifled (this isn't to say innovation no longer exists, but the impact it has is very different).
And, I have to say it, Tim Cook just isn't Steve Jobs. Tim Cook has been a tremendous CEO and the numbers speak for themselves, but this has come at a cost of Apple losing some of the identity that made it, well, 'uniquely Apple'. Cook has transformed Apple with his own political and societal agendas, which he means to be progressive and, though I hate the phrase, 'woke', but has ended up becoming monotonous, strategic, uninspiring and frankly in many instances demeaning.
Industrial design is difficult to discuss because, with the move to more environmentally friendly processes, products have become standardised in their design. But Apple didn't help itself by not investing in areas that, with more effort, they could have impacted more - especially their workstations and software (Aperture? Final Cut X?).
Their products continue to be excellent in many cases, but the experience as a whole lacks magic because we are no longer in an age were Apple - and its users - were in the minority. We were the rebels, and I'm proud of it.
Personally, the G4 12" MBP was my starting point.
I survived my ignorance when £3000 of Windows Desktop could not.
I ran my business from it with a storage and RAM upgrade for four years.
I don't think I added any software other than PS..
My usage was virtually continuous/faultless and comprehensive - almost all the included apps (except stocks) were in use at one time or another and I rarely need help from Apple.
Obviously I am now much older/slower and retired; my present machine (16" MBP m3) is by far the most complete computing tool I have ever used (Most Pro types since original 12").
With an external "Archive of >4TB and two third party apps (Fast Raw Viewer and Affinity2) I can see no reason why the extra demands in my field (photography) in 2024/5 would require me - working today - to need any other computing tool.
Although a lot of superfluous software is now included (only to me) it in no way detracts from the basic, reliable workhorse the Pro lines been for me since day one.
Simply put, it still just works but in today's circumstances.
The only thing I would like to see (as mentioned some time ago on this thread) is a software pause for the OS and a house cleaning job done to clean/streamline /stabilise it. I feel all the 3rd party stuff would benefit and the Apple Silicon would truly be able to seperate itself from the pack.
AI has come too soon and present OS is just too heavy to make the most of it.
Apple has not gone backwards but will be perceived that way unless the OS is given real "Snow Leopard" strip down and rebuild.
I survived my ignorance when £3000 of Windows Desktop could not.
I ran my business from it with a storage and RAM upgrade for four years.
I don't think I added any software other than PS..
My usage was virtually continuous/faultless and comprehensive - almost all the included apps (except stocks) were in use at one time or another and I rarely need help from Apple.
Obviously I am now much older/slower and retired; my present machine (16" MBP m3) is by far the most complete computing tool I have ever used (Most Pro types since original 12").
With an external "Archive of >4TB and two third party apps (Fast Raw Viewer and Affinity2) I can see no reason why the extra demands in my field (photography) in 2024/5 would require me - working today - to need any other computing tool.
Although a lot of superfluous software is now included (only to me) it in no way detracts from the basic, reliable workhorse the Pro lines been for me since day one.
Simply put, it still just works but in today's circumstances.
The only thing I would like to see (as mentioned some time ago on this thread) is a software pause for the OS and a house cleaning job done to clean/streamline /stabilise it. I feel all the 3rd party stuff would benefit and the Apple Silicon would truly be able to seperate itself from the pack.
AI has come too soon and present OS is just too heavy to make the most of it.
Apple has not gone backwards but will be perceived that way unless the OS is given real "Snow Leopard" strip down and rebuild.
If wishes were fishes ….
I really hope Apple does something major that grabs the consumers attention and passion. Based on the last few years, it may be a while, if ever.
Jobs seemed to be really good at spotting the "faster horses" phenomenon and selling people what they needed rather than what they wanted. iPhone was a great example of that: you need to get used to touchscreen for everything and we are not going to add a keyboard, stylus, jog-wheel and joystick (as per many pre-iPhone smartphones and the original Android concept).
That may be where the current management may need to accept that they need to stop pretending that they are Jobs.
OK, so, I've used Macs since the early 90s, and went pretty much all-Mac in 2006, but I still use an Android phone - and part of that is that I don't see the current iPhone as anything special. iPhone is always on the shortlist, but somehow never makes it to the top because ~meh.
Note that I did get an iPod Touch and got an iPad when they first came out, so I'm making an informed decision in terms of UI - and, yes, iOS is slicker and more consistent, but not enough - for me - to justify the price and limited choice. There are also a bunch of Android features - particularly widgets and UI customisation - which took a long time to be adopted by iOS.
By the time the iPhone 5 was expected I was ready to switch - smartphones were becoming more "essential" and I was ready to maybe invest a bit more. Then the iPhone 5 (the first iPhone to be completely developed under the guidance of Tim Cook - Wikipedia) actually came out... with a weird tall, skinny screen that nobody asked for vs. the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with it's huge screen that made it vastly more usable for web browsing and maps (the stylus was a bit of a gimmick but you didn't have to use it). This was also when Apple pushed out their new Apple Maps several years before it caught up with Google, which didn't help.
Now I've got a Pixel 7a - which (when I bought it) was a slightly thicker, more plasticky, take on the higher-end Pixel 7 released a few months before - with a slightly lower-end camera and display, but otherwise the same, or newer, tech (and there's a new a-series out every year, likewise based on the flagship) - which is what I want and expect from an "economy" phone, rather than Apple's offering of a 2-year-old iPhone SE.
Actually, they're about due for a comeback...
...true, but it's not just the tech, it's about what you can do with it that you couldn't do before.
The first truly first-person 3D game that let you run freely around and shoot things in realtime* was a jaw-dropper. Every FPS since then has been an incremental improvement, until modern games make Wolfenstein etc. look laughably primitive - but we haven't really had anything to equal that first jump from 2D/isometric/frame-by-frame to 3D.
As I've said already - video playback and editing is another good example. The first time you played/edited watchable video at all on a personal computer is never going to be topped by moving from 4k to 8k or shaving 50% off the export-to-ProRes time. Revolutions like the first time you could dial in to the Internet from your home computer, or the first time you had an always-on broadband link - are always going to overshadow the switch from WiFi 4 to WiFi 6.
Apple Silicon is a really commendable achievement - that has visibly disrupted the industry - but at the end of the day your M4 MacBook Pro is no more than a somewhat faster, more battery-efficient replacement for your i7 MacBook Pro from a few years ago. C.f., say, the PowerBook 100 series from the early 90s (and something Jobs can't take credit for!) which was a case of "What?! I can have a practical, portable Mac?!" (and IMHO the first really viable desktop replacement laptop on any platform - there were earlier laptops but the PB100/140/170 clamshell design, the set-back keyboard, the central trackball and the large TFT LCD display basically defined the modern laptop). I guess everybody had a point where laptops suddenly became viable for their workflow, but I remember by 2010 I was using a laptop as my daily driver - including light development and some video work, and it wasn't particularly remarkable when a video producer came to our workplace with a MacBook Pro to tweak the editing of an educational video we were developing. 14 years later, that would be feasible with 4k rather than 1080p - nice, but not revolutionary.
* Argue amongst yourself whether it was Wolfenstein or something earlier - personally I'd go with Quake because the world was truly 3D instead of a 2D maze, making it far more immersive. Even if you argue for something like Battlezone or Elite (I'd say they were different genres/experiences) they had an initial "wow" factor the first time you saw them (or the first time you could do that on a home computer) which hasn't been matched by subsequent refinements. There's also a certain point of graphical sophistication.well-crafted gameplay beyond which the Mk1 human imagination takes over and fills in the details - Elite achieved that big time.
No, this is still the case , in fact Apple was never more expensive than it is today. It used to also be better. But not anymore. Now in many regards it is stagnant not a leader.
It is not special today. It used to be amazingly special before, and people would like up to see it. I lived thru this.
The world has changed. Before, everyone else was so much worse. Today, apple is the stagnant one.
No, no. Apple WAS indeed so much better then the competition. back then - iphone was a device that a timetraveler brought back to the past. They were objectively a couple years ahead - even Steve said so in a Keynote.
Have they? It seems more like they are playing "catch-up" left and right. They're behind the curve on AI. They can't manage a laptop with an OLED display while almost every PC laptop maker has beautiful OLED models with work-day long battery life. Everywhere you look, Apple is working on some tech that everyone else already has. I'll give you that Apple Silicon is their greatest recent achievement but that's only one trophy on a rather large mantle. So many things Apple could do that people want, but...every year just a new, slightly faster chip in a same-looking box.
Apple doesn't give enough of a crap to pay anyone to post anything here, and the spelling is paid.
I really despise responses like yours. It's just low-effort and attacking the messenger, while completely invalidating anything they have to say without having to respond.
I'm not sure where it would happen...? The cellphone market is mature and boring now, not (completely) because of what companies are doing, but because it's commodity tech that everyone has had for years now and don't really care about what's new. AR/VR is niche, and will always ne niche. Computers have been good enough for the average user pushing a decade...my home desktop, for example, is a Dell 660s, running Windows 10 and was released in 2013.
Face it, computers and cellphones are just not the exciting and hot items they used to be...and you know what? That's just fine.
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Their OLED displays are best on market, their MBP screens are top of the line and more accurate and brighter than most of these OLED PC laptops. Their chips are way ahead. Thier audio tim is also among the best on the market. They also make the most advanced VR set.
Tandem OLED on this year's iPad Pro shows that Apple is not dragging their feet when it comes to introducing OLED screens on larger devices that are intended to be left on for extended periods of time. They could slap a standard OLED display on a MBP and call it a day, and maybe Apple knows something we don't (that maybe they won't stand the test of time, especially on a laptop that will be used for 8-10 hours a day, 6-7 years on average).
Singapore consumer watchdog sees doubling of complaints about lines on phone screens
Almost all reports to the Consumer Association of Singapore were to do with Samsung phones.
I also suspect that part of the issue is that Apple as a company has a reputation to upkeep, which means that they typically won't be the first to adopt some shiny new tech on the market, for fear that it may have some downside that isn't readily apparent. They also need years to work out their supply chain, in part due to the vast volumes of product that they ship, and sometimes, the simple reason why iPhones only got OLED screens in 2020 is because that was the earliest that Samsung could supply that many displays, in the quality that Apple wanted, and that's not factoring in the years of negotiation both parties likely had behind the scenes. And I say this as someone who is seeing a lot of Samsung phones with green lines on the display, a well-known defect that said company is apparently refusing to take responsibility for.
It never was. Computers and phones are not cool. We "ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that [we] still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea." They are devices that perform tasks, i.e. appliances. No one should think they are cool for buying the most expensive toaster oven. No one should slander people who buy a budget air fryer. They are just things.
"You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your ***** khakis."
When that was written, digital watches were so power-hungry that the display had to stay switched off, showing a blank, black screen, or the batteries would have run out within a day or two. You had to press a button to light up the display which meant that you suddenly needed two hands to see the time... Amazingly primitive indeed.
A few years later, LCD watches arrived with always-on displays that could run for years on one battery.
40 plus years later, smart watches are so sophisticated that... oh, wait...
I can't wait for the day when technocrats and the promise of technology to solve all human problems just fall to the wayside because the concept is totally bankrupt. Like the podcast title, "Tech Won't Save Us" , social scientists have long argued and known that the promise of technology is one that is overblown most often to bolster and boost the profits of the managerial and capitalist elites.
Apple's making some of their best hardware ever and the software is broadly going in a good direction too. Apple is hamstrung by their need to increase shareholder value leading them down paths that are toxic to a good experience for those who develop on their platforms and - more importantly - those who use their products though they may not always know it is Apple's fault for their displeasure.
This is another thing that I don’t think people really take into account when they talk about the greatness of his presentations.
I went back and watched the original iPad introduction the other day, and it’s fantastic. It holds up beautifully, of course, like most of his keynotes do.
But what does he spend the most time on? How to use the most basic of functions that these days no one even thinks about.
He spends a good five minutes talking about how to open and reply to an email, because that’s something that tons of people at that time may have never done or may have only done on an XP machine instead of a thin and light little simple tablet.
At this point, Apple doesn’t really need to do this at all, even when they introduced the Vision Pro what did they spend, 20 seconds on the Email function?
Steve’s biggest contribution is bringing computers and then later the Internet into billions of lives that it otherwise wouldn’t have.
But now that everyone has the Internet in everything, there really isn’t much more new to show, no matter how revolutionary the technology is.
There needs to be an Internet sized revolution in technology and that just… Isn’t happening yet. Maybe it will but even if it does, Apple will not be alone.
