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Apple iPhone seems to be doing quite well relative to Amazon’s Fire Phone. Also, Azure is doing surprisingly well relative to AWS despite a late start. Wouldn’t

Apple iPhone seems to be doing quite well relative to Amazon’s Fire Phone. Also, Azure is doing surprisingly well relative to AWS despite a late start. Wouldn’t surprise me if Azure exceeded AWS in the near future. Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design And in the second enterprise.

Osmium 9y ago
> Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design Just design generally, including their website ... anecdotally, so many people I know don't really know that Amazon Prime Video exists, or if it does exist how to find it. Likewise for Music. Apple has this discoverability problem too (Apple Music doesn't have a web UI, it might as well not exist if you can't install iTunes, and then Apple wonders why its social features don't take off). For its devices, Amazon also seems to share Google's general obliviousness, e.g. they just announced an alarm clock with a camera. Who wants a camera pointed at their bed all night? Their Fire Phone pioneered this over-expensive faux-3D UI, which on paper sounds great, but anybody could have said they weren't going to get the development support they needed to really sell it, and most users aren't going to care. Design is more than just veneer, you've got to make stuff that people want... Amazon's current approach seems to be "well if we just sell it cheap enough, we'll get customers."
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > Amazon's current approach seems to be "well if we just sell it cheap enough, we'll get customers." To be fair, there's also a (massive) market for that.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  The iPhone is an Apple Music client. That’s a pretty big installed base. The iPhone music client is not very good. Maybe that’s more of an issue than the lack of web client.
- ams6110 9y ago
  > so many people I know don't really know that Amazon Prime Video exists, or if it does exist how to find it. Likewise for Music. I know these things exist, but I don't use them much even as an Amazon Prime member. Why? Because Prime Video UX is poor compared to Netflix (and Netflix is no great shakes either, but it's better than Amazon), and Music has a pretty poor catalog and again a pretty poor UX.
  - usaphp 9y ago
    Prime video UI is really good on iPads and iPhones. And it has a much better video selection for kids. I wish they release an Apple TV app finally too.
  - Osmium 9y ago
    > and Netflix is no great shakes either And this is mostly because Netflix wants to hide the true extent of their library. Hulu just had a recent, awful re-design too. They cover in-active thumbnails with gradients, you can barely see anything. Apple TV (which I like as among the best) also has a ridiculously unergonomic remote and very confusing UI (do I want to press "menu" or "home"? And now the TV app is 'home' by default, it's even weirder...somehow, even though I know I think how it works, I always seem to press the wrong one.) And no picture-in-picture either, though their processors are plenty fast enough to support it. But their standard built-in TVML-based interfaces are functional, if a little boring, and the UI is responsive. And hey, at least they aren't showing me ads in the UI or tracking what I watch. But still, lots of little problems. So much room for improvement here, by everyone.
    - bhollander823 9y ago
      What do you mean by "Netflix wants to hide the true extent of their library"? Why would they intentionally create a worse user experience?
      - aslkdjaslkdj 9y ago
        Because their library gets smaller and smaller every year especially their library of non-Netflix produced content.
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Apple isn't as awesome as they may once have been. They have made some controversial moves lately (headphone jack, MBPro keyboards, touchbar, The Notch, keeping an iPhone design that's going on 4 years, etc.). Also, the quality of iOS and MacOS has suffered a bit the past couple iterations. Way too buggy out of the gate! I still believe they make great products, just not as great as they have been.

Osmium 9y ago

> Amazon’s weaknesses are in the first case high-end design Just design generally, including their website ... anecdotally, so many people I know don't really know that Amazon Prime Video exists, or if it does exist how to find it. Likewise for Music. Apple has this discoverability problem too (Apple Music doesn't have a web UI, it might as well not exist if you can't install iTunes, and then Apple wonders why its social features don't take off). For its devices, Amazon also seems to share Google's general obliviousness, e.g. they just announced an alarm clock with a camera. Who wants a camera pointed at their bed all night? Their Fire Phone pioneered this over-expensive faux-3D UI, which on paper sounds great, but anybody could have said they weren't going to get the development support they needed to really sell it, and most users aren't going to care. Design is more than just veneer, you've got to make stuff that people want... Amazon's current approach seems to be "well if we just sell it cheap enough, we'll get customers."

throwawayjava 9y ago
> Amazon's current approach seems to be "well if we just sell it cheap enough, we'll get customers." To be fair, there's also a (massive) market for that.
robotresearcher 9y ago
The iPhone is an Apple Music client. That’s a pretty big installed base. The iPhone music client is not very good. Maybe that’s more of an issue than the lack of web client.
ams6110 9y ago
> so many people I know don't really know that Amazon Prime Video exists, or if it does exist how to find it. Likewise for Music. I know these things exist, but I don't use them much even as an Amazon Prime member. Why? Because Prime Video UX is poor compared to Netflix (and Netflix is no great shakes either, but it's better than Amazon), and Music has a pretty poor catalog and again a pretty poor UX.
- usaphp 9y ago
  Prime video UI is really good on iPads and iPhones. And it has a much better video selection for kids. I wish they release an Apple TV app finally too.
- Osmium 9y ago
  > and Netflix is no great shakes either And this is mostly because Netflix wants to hide the true extent of their library. Hulu just had a recent, awful re-design too. They cover in-active thumbnails with gradients, you can barely see anything. Apple TV (which I like as among the best) also has a ridiculously unergonomic remote and very confusing UI (do I want to press "menu" or "home"? And now the TV app is 'home' by default, it's even weirder...somehow, even though I know I think how it works, I always seem to press the wrong one.) And no picture-in-picture either, though their processors are plenty fast enough to support it. But their standard built-in TVML-based interfaces are functional, if a little boring, and the UI is responsive. And hey, at least they aren't showing me ads in the UI or tracking what I watch. But still, lots of little problems. So much room for improvement here, by everyone.
  - bhollander823 9y ago
    What do you mean by "Netflix wants to hide the true extent of their library"? Why would they intentionally create a worse user experience?
    - aslkdjaslkdj 9y ago
      Because their library gets smaller and smaller every year especially their library of non-Netflix produced content.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

Apple isn't as awesome as they may once have been. They have made some controversial moves lately (headphone jack, MBPro keyboards, touchbar, The Notch, keeping an iPhone design that's going on 4 years, etc.). Also, the quality of iOS and MacOS has suffered a bit the past couple iterations. Way too buggy out of the gate! I still believe they make great products, just not as great as they have been.