> That's just the spirit of Apple and the place where Steve Jobs wanted it to be.
Eh, there's nothing that points in the direction that Steve Jobs wanted Apple to be computers for the rest of us. Apple was always marketed as expensive and exclusive. Which is ironic because Apple devices are clearly mass products, with design that has little variation over the quite limited product line, and almost zero variation between Apple products owned by people. Somehow Apple made people believe it is hip to own the same thing as everybody else, and feel privileged about it, which defies all logic.
>> There's this idea that people will buy everything Apple does, or that people put down things until Apple does them.
Part of the problem is that Apple / Steve Jobs sometimes helped perpetuate this idea.
Some examples:
* Steve Jobs saying video on an iPod type of device was pointless
* Steve Jobs saying that apps were pointless on the iPhone and that the web apps were good enough
* Apple putting out a TV ad emphasizing that the iPhone had the perfect screen size because your finger could go from end to end
Apple dislikers predictably misinterpret this as Apple taking an ideological position when all Apple is really doing is just trying to control the marketing message on what they think really matters with the current release of a particular product.
>> I use a mbp at this point because it's not Windows.
Precisely the same. I used to be a big fan of the Apple ecosystem. When Jobs said the customer doesn't know what they need, he was usually right... he of course was a gifted visionary. Apple has continued with the same mindset but without the gifted visionary, in some cases with comical decisions e.g., keyboard, touchbar, soldering SSD to logic boards with high failure rates).
Can't we just rustle up a few obscenely rich billionaires to donate a hundred million to develop an OS with a top priority of quality and usability rather than lock in.
> The ironic thing is how much simpler it would have been for Apple to give people what they actually wanted.
This is not how Apple works.
Apple decides what users want and builds that.
If they are right, it's a smashing success. If they are wrong, people still buy it and then convince themselves that this is what they actually wanted.
> I genuinely think Apple wanted this to be relatively unpalatable to the typical consumer.
You’re starting to hit on Apple’s strategy. Build something expensive and impressive, get all the media hype out of it with influencers making content and consumers watching it cause it’s the expensive thing.
Then it comes down in price over 10 years and soon everybody has one, because everyone wants to try to Apple thing they saw so much about years ago.
iPad went exactly the same way, as everyone wrote it off when first introduced as just “a large iPod touch”, and now it’s the defacto leader in the category without anything coming close.
>>>It is really incredible how low Apple has managed to drive people's expectations
You could have stopped there.. The entire Apple Product line is the same way, Is it proof positive that Marketing Drives the world not quality, technology, or anything else.
> Apple (and other manufacturers) have a big interest to not have people feel that their hardware is shitty.
I haven't heard anyone claim Apple does this because they have indigestion or really like the smell of landfills. Of course they have interests.
They are not, however necessarily legitimate interests, or ones that outweigh the interests of those who purchase their devices.
We, as a species, have a lot of history with artifacts we make and trade with one another. And by and large, we've come to the conclusion that if I sell you something, I cease having a legitimate interest in what you do with it.
This notion has been blurred by the need for operating system updates (hammers didn't need those) and the proliferation of "cloud"/OPC services. And now we are trying to find the right balance.
But there's a pretty good bet that abusing trademark law to control a secondary market with what amounts to literally an engineered legal argument is a pretty good indication that Apple is... getting creative, and I think the fact of the matter is that "we" won't put up with that shit long-term. Most humans value their property rights over HugeCo's reputational concerns.
> I think people forget that nobody buys a computer because they want to use a computer.
As in, I am "forgetting" that I am an exact clone of the "the average user", whoever that even is, instead of knowing precisely what I like and respect, and what I don't? Nope.
My first use of an Apple was 1999 when friends asked me to help them get on the internet when their parents were away. Never had used an Apple before, took me like 30 mins, all the while feeling insulted by that one-button mouse that was completely unusable without the modifier key on the keyboard. That was my initial impression -- this has to be a joke -- and everything I saw and used since then just confirmed it. From users not knowing what a file is, to devs constantly having to jump through hoops to keep software running because Apple has some new hoops to jump through.
If it's good enough for you, that's fine. Doesn't change that it's not good enough for me. Training wheels are great for zoning out on auto-pilot, they just suck when you're fully focused and would prefer to be able to make tighter turns.
The average user is getting so exploited and fucked over every single day, that what they think they want because they don't know better doesn't impress me in the least.
> Apple prices are just a tax on people who are bad with computers
That's kind of the beauty of it. You don't have to be good at computers to use Apple devices and get things done. I think people forget that nobody buys a computer because they want to use a computer. They buy one because they want to run Office or GarageBand or Photoshop or Portal etc...
>Funny how they keep sending me marketing emails though.
>This is kind of a weird notion, that Apple doesn't want me as a customer, as I've spent more $ on Apple products in my life than the majority of people.
Maybe that's because Apple is a company and you're 1 in a million? You bought their product so presumably maybe you're interested in what their products are? That you're one of their customers their trying to cater to (when you're actually not)?
>Does this really need to be said? Of course it is! Why would I state someone else's opinion?
Great we established it's an opinion, and not a fact!
>This is a straw man argument. I already mentioned that I preferred Apple under Steve Jobs to Apple under Tim Cook. They're not the same. Jobs said, "the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds." For Tim Cook, though, computers seem more like a bike lock for the mind.
It's not a straw-man unless you want to have a separate argument over what Steve said / didn't say.
>Again, I'm comparing Macs today to Macs literally only 10 years ago. Those products existed. It's historical revisionism to claim that current Apple is exactly the same as past Apple. It's not. Not at all.
So what if they're different today? They've outlined what their products & terms are today just as they had in the past. How are they being a jerk when you can freely agree to or walk away from them?
>Everybody knows that only poor people have Androids/PCs.
Having worked on several university campuses, I agree with you about Apple promoting themselves as a status symbol, but - I think you might have to run in upper-class or at least urban circles to even notice this difference. I grew up in small town America, where nobody was buying laptop computers the price of a used car. Doctors, lawyers, pretty much everybody I knew as a kid ran Windows. Most people had a traditional desktop tower, whether or not they had a laptop.
The few exceptions tended to be geeks, or people who were devoted to the Apple ecosystem because they had been using Macs since at least the early '90s.
Now that I'm in urban university circles, I'm the only person using Androids / non-Apple PC hardware. Apple really seems to be the "default", and people using other things are doing so for pretty solid technical reasons.
He kind of trashes Steve Jobs in the book basically predicting Steve's hubris will lead to the downfall of Apple. Quote:
But with Steve Jobs, Apple will always attempt to mould
the universe to fit Steve's vision of Apple, and will pay the price again and again and again
Feels like he wrote this just before the IPhone. Another excerpt:
Without Jobs, Apple could never have risen from obscurity to become a world-class brand. But with Steve Jobs, Apple will always attempt to mould the universe to fit Steve's vision of Apple, and will pay the price again and again and again. 'Lesser' companies and men will filch their ideas, connect,connect, connect, and beat Apple at its own game.
Steve Jobs is not a monster. He is an all-American maverick and a world-class marketing genius. But until a man or woman as powerful as he is arrives at Apple (over his dead body), who is determined to break the cycle he has indulged in for so many years, Apple will remain merely an icon of awe. It
will not become a company of the size that truly could (and
should) 'bury' monsters like IBM.
Not quite Nostradamus there but give him credit for trying.
>You directly implied that people are buying Apple products for the logo.
Apple makes kick-ass machines, but I see Macbook Pros everywhere. How many people in the real world need a $2000+ computer? If these people aren't buying it for the logo, what are they buying it for?
Apple has positioned themselves as a lifestyle brand. How can you deny that?
> What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake
In corporate politics that would be a suicide. Only Jobs was powerful enough to make mistakes.
Anyway it is shocking what Apple does now. During Jobs Apple removed product features only used by laggards. Now Apple removes the features used even by pragmatists and early adopters[1]. Do you known how many people moved exclusively to wireless headphones and TH3?
Another surprising thing is ignoring the professionals. They are in minority and it is hard to see them on sales charts. But they are opinion leaders.
Many people overpay for Apple products because they want to look as real professionals. Majority don't care which laptop is the thinnest, they use products used by opinion leadres. With current trend, in 5 years Apple brand might be associated with rich bozos buying gold phones. Just look at the Mercedes S vs Tesla Models S sales in last 2 years.
> The bitterness that flies around whenever Apple comes up around here is almost inexplicable.
or more specifically, not so much inexplicable (as actually I think it is quite predictable), but rather it is just exhausting.
I'm never going to buy a Windows computer. Period. I'm probably never going to switch to Linux either. I don't go around shouting my reasons why I won't, and I think most Apple users behave this way.
But for a certain segment of the non-Apple crowd, yelling consistently about their opinions is an odd recurrence.
> I quite often have buyer impulse when seeing the newest high-end Apple products. Even if I don't like the brand monopoly, even if I find their design language mostly boring and bland, there is often something weirdly appealing in their marketing.
This is an utterly bizarre stance.
I can't possibly imagine buying a product, any product, let alone a $1,000+ product, purely based on their marketing, when you admit that you don't even like the product.
Most people, when marketing convinces them to buy something, aren't really consciously aware of it. Not only are you consciously aware of it, but you acknowledge that you don't like it, and buy it anyways.
> "just look at the miserable relationship failures of Steve Jobs, but their impact on bringing their vision and impact on groups outside of their circle."
I'm sorry but am I the only one that doesn't buy the view that Steve Jobs was this irreplaceable visionary everyone eulogizes him for?
Wouldn't pocket size touch screen computers get invented anyway eventually?
>It’s a tired trope to imagine what Jobs would have done, but when he returned to Apple he saw a myriad of macs and decided that Apple would kill them all and sell 4: a laptop and a desktop in pro and consumer models.
I honestly don't understand how anyone can suggest this is a smart thing to do. The reason Apple did that in the late 90s is because the product line had too many SKUs, but also because Apple was close to bankruptcy. Focusing all your marketing and product development on a few products is a good way to make sure you aren't holding the bag on unsold inventory (part of why Tim Cook is now CEO). Today's Apple is in a fundamentally stronger position and can manage the supply chains for multiple products (and multiple SKUs of them).
Indeed, Steve Jobs later eschewed that consumer/pro grid with the iPod, which had a SKU for every price point.
That's an oversimplification. He was a marketer, true, but he also was fanatically pushing people towards standards higher than anyone else in the industry.
If there was nothing special about Jobs, how can it be Apple came up with the Mac (a somewhat just-right version of the Lisa ideas), with the iPod, the iPhone, computers that actually look good (starting with the bondi-blue iMac, which he had little to do with)? To say he only could sell other people's ideas ignore how many of these people voluntarily worked for someone with the reputation of being an insufferable asshole and pull off miracle after miracle.
> That's just the spirit of Apple and the place where Steve Jobs wanted it to be.
Eh, there's nothing that points in the direction that Steve Jobs wanted Apple to be computers for the rest of us. Apple was always marketed as expensive and exclusive. Which is ironic because Apple devices are clearly mass products, with design that has little variation over the quite limited product line, and almost zero variation between Apple products owned by people. Somehow Apple made people believe it is hip to own the same thing as everybody else, and feel privileged about it, which defies all logic.
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