Putting all this into perspective

[matrix07]

I would like bluetooth to switch from my car to my AirPods without everything going silent 60% of the time

Apple doesn’t own bluetooth.

What you call experiences I think are often gimmicks

For example?

 

[burgerrecords]

For example?

Face emoji or whatever it’s called

and siri for that matter in context of hey google (which is an order of magnitude more accurate and useful for me)

And Live Photo’s which just are a waste of Space
[automerge]1595986070[/automerge]

Apple doesn’t own bluetooth.

I’m aware of that, but I would like if they could implement it in a way that would work.

 

[matrix07]

(which is an order of magnitude more accurate and useful for me)

More relevant for search since Google is all about searching but Siri and Google’s, from 3rd party testing, have more or less the same rating. And for me Siri is so much better than Google‘s since I’m using iPhone (and not using it for searching. I have browser for that. That said a few times I’m using Siri for search it didn’t let me down)

I agree that Memoji is a gimmick but don’t think anyone will buy an iPhone for that. And nothing wrong with having a little fun TBH. Do I use it? Rarely.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

What you call experiences I think are often gimmicks or just literally rebranding a well established technology so people believe they are having some sort of premium experience in ignorance.

Actually there's a sometimes astounding amount of work that goes into Apple's attention to detail with the customer experience. Most people have no idea. FaceID is a great example. While Samsung or whoever just grabbed some off the shelf facial recognition and gave it access to the front camera, Apple developed a special sensor with an IR camera and a projector that needed machine learning to analyse its data quick enough, plus all the security features. Not only did the system have to be accurate and secure, it had to be fast enough to be seamless when you hold your phone up to your face. Apple got an end product that worked, the competition got a hot mess that was a liability, but the Android fanboys got to say they had it first.

The touch screens on early competitors full touch screen smartphones (iPhone knock offs) were absolute garbage. They couldn't draw straight lines. The first iPhones had super accurate touch screens. The haters say that Apple didn't invent anything with the iPhone, just slapped together a bunch of existing tech and took loads of credit via clever marketing BS. But they spent the time writing high quality drivers/software for those touch panels to smooth out the input where the "rivals" just slapped the tech together so they could say they had the same features for half the price.

Apple removed the headphone jack to make sure their phones were waterproof which they always were as soon as Apple claimed they were. The Galaxy phones that supposedly made them look bad by beating them to that feature by years? Nope. Half an inch of water for a few seconds typically enough to kill them dead. (Oh and they eventually dropped the 3.5mm jack too tw)

These things take time, effort and expertise to get right. Not to mention the insight to know that effort is required in the first place and the integrity to do something well instead of just doing it for the sake of a feature list.
These examples don't even cover the exhaustive list for the iPhone. The Mac has years and years worth of other tweaks and touches while MS were the ones cutting software corners and everyone else had feature lists built by accountants and marketing consultants instead of engineers.

Do you imagine your bluetooth issue has been solved by someone else? I'm betting it hasn't. Apple can't get everything right any more than anyone else, but they for sure put more time, effort and thought into a lot more things than their competitors ever have. Those guys are too busy putting time and effort into catching Apple up or trying to beat them to market.

 

[burgerrecords]

I’m not saying Apple is purely a commodity product - I think Apple has done some clever things. I just am cynical

 

[Joelist]

Really it doesn't have anything to do with cynicism either. THe concept that Apple sells experiences is not just marketing - it explains decisions such as their not being bleeding edge all the time. Their concern is that it supporting their total package correctly beats being first to market.

You need to understand here - I am not an Apple fanatic. My All Time Favorite Smartphone was actually my Blackberry Bold. But I got intrigued by Apple's decisons and started investigating to try to understand them. I was blessed to have professional and personal friends who both work at Apple and closely with Apple - they provided the context and when I saw Rene Ritchie put the same point forward it clicked.

 

[Joelist]

Actually there's a sometimes astounding amount of work that goes into Apple's attention to detail with the customer experience. Most people have no idea. FaceID is a great example. While Samsung or whoever just grabbed some off the shelf facial recognition and gave it access to the front camera, Apple developed a special sensor with an IR camera and a projector that needed machine learning to analyse its data quick enough, plus all the security features. Not only did the system have to be accurate and secure, it had to be fast enough to be seamless when you hold your phone up to your face. Apple got an end product that worked, the competition got a hot mess that was a liability, but the Android fanboys got to say they had it first.

The touch screens on early competitors full touch screen smartphones (iPhone knock offs) were absolute garbage. They couldn't draw straight lines. The first iPhones had super accurate touch screens. The haters say that Apple didn't invent anything with the iPhone, just slapped together a bunch of existing tech and took loads of credit via clever marketing BS. But they spent the time writing high quality drivers/software for those touch panels to smooth out the input where the "rivals" just slapped the tech together so they could say they had the same features for half the price.

Apple removed the headphone jack to make sure their phones were waterproof which they always were as soon as Apple claimed they were. The Galaxy phones that supposedly made them look bad by beating them to that feature by years? Nope. Half an inch of water for a few seconds typically enough to kill them dead. (Oh and they eventually dropped the 3.5mm jack too tw)

These things take time, effort and expertise to get right. Not to mention the insight to know that effort is required in the first place and the integrity to do something well instead of just doing it for the sake of a feature list.
These examples don't even cover the exhaustive list for the iPhone. The Mac has years and years worth of other tweaks and touches while MS were the ones cutting software corners and everyone else had feature lists built by accountants and marketing consultants instead of engineers.

Do you imagine your bluetooth issue has been solved by someone else? I'm betting it hasn't. Apple can't get everything right any more than anyone else, but they for sure put more time, effort and thought into a lot more things than their competitors ever have. Those guys are too busy putting time and effort into catching Apple up or trying to beat them to market.

There is another excellent example of what you speak of - Apple's implementation of OLED on iPhones like the X and XS. Other prior implementations of this while vivid had a bluish tint and an annoying visual effect from the PenTile matrix. Apple took a lot of time and money to engineer their panel controllers and drivers and tune the displays themselves to yield much more natural colors and smooth lines and transitions without the PenTile effect.

 

[jinnyman]

The point is you need to understand how Apple thinks in order to understand their decisions. They sell experiences not a piece of silicon or a display or things like that. To them, if their Mac experience has the OS butter smooth with nice, tight security (because they emphasize privacy as part of their experience) and your programs run nice and fast and smooth and your games don't stutter and run well then they are successful. HOW they get there is less important than getting there.

Well after all their fiasco with nVidia, I can hardly believe Apple is more about getting there than how they get there.

 

[Joelist]

Well for one thing that was nVidia's fault more than anyones. And Apple has obviously had the Apple Silicon shift planned for a while so the relationship was always going to end. And yes this situation is an example of Apple being more about getting there than how you get there. nVidia was not providing what they wanted for their user experiences so they went to AMD. While not as flashy as the nVidia latest it provided what they needed.

 

[leman]

I believe that one big reason for conflict with Nvidia is their parasitic CUDA. Apple doesn’t want CUDA in their platform, they want you to use Metal. This alone would be a good reason to ban Nvidia, even if it’s painful.

 

[Boil]

I believe that one big reason for conflict with Nvidia is their parasitic CUDA. Apple doesn’t want CUDA in their platform, they want you to use Metal. This alone would be a good reason to ban Nvidia, even if it’s painful.

Which, IMHO, is fine. Apple wants Metal so they can control everything from soup to nuts, thereby ensuring a better overall user experience; whether a basic beeyotch Internet user or a coder sequestered in their gran's basement & in desperate need of vitamin D, or a wanna-be 3d hack in search of the best the cult of the mac has to offer...!?! ;^p

 

[leman]

Which, IMHO, is fine. Apple wants Metal so they can control everything from soup to nuts, thereby ensuring a better overall user experience; whether a basic beeyotch Internet user or a coder sequestered in their gran's basement & in desperate need of vitamin D, or a wanna-be 3d hack in search of the best the cult of the mac has to offer...!?! ;^p

That’s also what I think. For me, OS-specific APIs are fine, after all, you are targeting the platform and have to deal with its particularities anyway. Vendor lock across different platform, especially one that destroys competition? Not so much.

The obvious loser is the scientific community, but I think the path forward is to have tools with multiple backends. Vendor-specific APIs are always going to be more perform any than a common abstraction.

 

[jsamuels]

No, no we don't.



What you fail to realize about language is that it really doesn't have an independent existence that goes beyond that people use it. If everyone used the word "up" to mean what we understand to be "down", then that's what it would mean. There is no "wrong" use of language, merely popular and impopular. Likewise, if the new Macs are popularly referred to as ARM Macs, then that's what they are. That's how language works. Signifiers and signifieds.

From a technical perspective, I can understand the concern you have, but it is actually irrelevant. The layman/end user/consumer does not know or care about any of the things that you are saying. ARM Mac is just an innocent colloquial term, and at this point it is looking likely to stay. You'll just have to learn to get used to it.

So, if Ford names a car MUSTANG and everyone calls it ROCK, Ford should rename to call it ROCK? Names and labels are important beyond language usage and adoption. Just ask Xerox.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

So, if Ford names a car MUSTANG and everyone calls it ROCK, Ford should rename to call it ROCK? Names and labels are important beyond language usage and adoption. Just ask Xerox.

Ford doesn't have to do anything beyond understand that when someone says "rock" they mean "Mustang".