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He's ignoring a rather large elephant in the room: iOS is the most locked down OS in history. That's going to keep two kinds of people from ever moving to it a

by api 10y ago

He's ignoring a rather large elephant in the room: iOS is the most locked down OS in history. That's going to keep two kinds of people from ever moving to it as their primary computing device: people who care about freedom, and power users who care about versatility and complex work flows. The latter includes most developers. You just can't do that stuff on iOS. You can barely even run your own apps on it. I suppose you could push a model where all the interesting stuff lives in the cloud or headless metal servers and the iOS device is a portable terminal with apps and the Web as sophisticated terminal emulations more or less. Think of an app or a big JS site as a giant analog of a VT macro. I see PC sales declining and then leveling off after having lost most casual and low end users to tablets and mobile.

maxwell 10y ago
Agree on all points. iOS is limited by the inability to develop iOS apps on iOS devices, because software not hardware. (Same for Android of course.) Swift Playgrounds suggests they're moving in that direction, but it looks like a very far cry from Xcode. Hardware-wise, the iPad Pro, new MacBook, and new MBP seem to be closing in on convergence to an "iPadBook" (too bad the iBooks app means no resurrection of the iBook brand...), i.e. dual screen iPad. When I first typed on a new MB, I got the feeling the flat keys were partly preparing people to transition to touchscreen typing. The touchbar is another step in that direction. Something a bit like this feels inevitable: https://bencollier.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/20101021-075628.jpg https://bencollier.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/20101021-0... Software-wise, macOS and iOS still seem far apart though. But I'm no Mac or iOS developer. Hell, at this point I basically only use iOS for testing my company's apps before a release. (Funny that the reasons I went to, and have stayed on, Android this year have zero to do with software, i.e. USB-C, fingerprint sensor on the back, and Project Fi. All the apps I want are on both platforms, and I would never develop for either.)
adventurer 10y ago
He's missing the big picture, in my mind. Pc sales may be in decline but aside from a few quarters, Apple has sold more macs by more than 6 times it did when it plateaued ten years ago. Sales have been on a steady incline because they were always selling miniscule amounts compared to the other cheap brands on the market. There was almost no where to go but up. It's not milking anything.
heisenbit 10y ago
Productive work - unlike consumption - is based on the file metaphor. Not well supported on iOS. The workplace runs on written conversations and that means keyboards are required. The high road leads to no good place. Apple has been there in the past. SGI and many other bodies are laying rotting left and right. Prices for PC are declining and in any case there is already a significant and probably unsustainable gap. Macs have 4 cost drivers that Apple can tackle to ensure they keep growing their market share: - Manufacturing - Intel - Apple margins - Mac features Compromising manufacturing would damage the brand. Intel is somewhat kept in check by the threat of Ax (and fighting back by providing more function/lock-in around the CPU) but ultimately an Ax processor may be attractive. Apple margins are something to consider both from appropriateness for the market and as a stop-gap measure. Providing a low feature Mac may be another and imho the most promising one. A 12-13'' laptop aimed at the basic educational need and simple business use case market priced around $1000. Not much CPU/GPU but enough battery to last a day.
- api 10y ago
  This is a great point. Keep am eye on the "Raspberry Pi clamshell case" type laptops. These are truly disruptive. A much higher end version of this could be interesting. I'd consider an Octacore A64 with 8-16GB RAM and 4K or better display.

by api 10y ago

maxwell 10y ago

Agree on all points. iOS is limited by the inability to develop iOS apps on iOS devices, because software not hardware. (Same for Android of course.) Swift Playgrounds suggests they're moving in that direction, but it looks like a very far cry from Xcode. Hardware-wise, the iPad Pro, new MacBook, and new MBP seem to be closing in on convergence to an "iPadBook" (too bad the iBooks app means no resurrection of the iBook brand...), i.e. dual screen iPad. When I first typed on a new MB, I got the feeling the flat keys were partly preparing people to transition to touchscreen typing. The touchbar is another step in that direction. Something a bit like this feels inevitable: https://bencollier.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/20101021-075628.jpg https://bencollier.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/20101021-0... Software-wise, macOS and iOS still seem far apart though. But I'm no Mac or iOS developer. Hell, at this point I basically only use iOS for testing my company's apps before a release. (Funny that the reasons I went to, and have stayed on, Android this year have zero to do with software, i.e. USB-C, fingerprint sensor on the back, and Project Fi. All the apps I want are on both platforms, and I would never develop for either.)

adventurer 10y ago

He's missing the big picture, in my mind. Pc sales may be in decline but aside from a few quarters, Apple has sold more macs by more than 6 times it did when it plateaued ten years ago. Sales have been on a steady incline because they were always selling miniscule amounts compared to the other cheap brands on the market. There was almost no where to go but up. It's not milking anything.

heisenbit 10y ago

Productive work - unlike consumption - is based on the file metaphor. Not well supported on iOS. The workplace runs on written conversations and that means keyboards are required. The high road leads to no good place. Apple has been there in the past. SGI and many other bodies are laying rotting left and right. Prices for PC are declining and in any case there is already a significant and probably unsustainable gap. Macs have 4 cost drivers that Apple can tackle to ensure they keep growing their market share: - Manufacturing - Intel - Apple margins - Mac features Compromising manufacturing would damage the brand. Intel is somewhat kept in check by the threat of Ax (and fighting back by providing more function/lock-in around the CPU) but ultimately an Ax processor may be attractive. Apple margins are something to consider both from appropriateness for the market and as a stop-gap measure. Providing a low feature Mac may be another and imho the most promising one. A 12-13'' laptop aimed at the basic educational need and simple business use case market priced around $1000. Not much CPU/GPU but enough battery to last a day.

api 10y ago
This is a great point. Keep am eye on the "Raspberry Pi clamshell case" type laptops. These are truly disruptive. A much higher end version of this could be interesting. I'd consider an Octacore A64 with 8-16GB RAM and 4K or better display.