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It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision. There’s no purpose to these devices. Sometimes it seems like there’s too much attention to arbitrary details. For exa

It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision. There’s no purpose to these devices. Sometimes it seems like there’s too much attention to arbitrary details. For example, the thinness and speed of the iPad, but to what end? The original iPhone was rather underpowered even at the time for what it tried to do, but it was so crazy focused and the vision of what it would allow you to do so exciting, that you were willing to look past it. It didn’t matter that it didn’t have 3G or the best camera. Now we’re in literally the opposite scenario, devices ridiculously overpowered that we wish we could figure out something to do with. Best chip, best camera, best number to write on the back of the box. Boring. As an aside, I am increasingly certain that the sad truth of the iPad today is that a majority of sales are probably the cheaper models used as Envoy terminals, POS devices, and conference room check-ins. If I count iPad’s I see day to day, it’s incredibly lopsided to these uses. What a waste. With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac. What’s the narrative of the hodge-podge of devices we have now? Vague speeches about “health” and “AR”, always troublingly highly reliant on the hope others will make use of these technologies. Apple used to lead by example, the first party software set the bar for what others should do. Nowadays there’s just the hope that Adobe bringing Photoshop to the iPad will breathe new life into it. Meanwhile, Apple has not released a new flagship app for the iPad since its original release with iWork and Garageband. It’s been 8 years! Apple can’t figure out a single new app that can take our breath away? If they’ve run out of ideas of how this thing can be used, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

bsder 8y ago
> Now we’re in literally the opposite scenario, devices ridiculously overpowered that we wish we could figure out something to do with. Wrong. We know exactly what we want to do with these devices. However, Apple won't allow us to do those things. A friend of mine bought an iPad Pro before going on vacation so that he wouldn't need to bring his laptop. He wanted to upload/download his photos from his camera, share them to other people, do some light photo editing, hunt down tourist sites, book train tickets, etc. He had nothing but problems. My 2015 Macbook Pro? No issues at all. The iPad Pro went back and now he's back on his laptop.
baddox 8y ago
Why does everyone write this stuff with such absolutism? There’s no purpose to these devices? I have 2 iPad Pros, one I use every day to consume content like twitter, hacker news, and YouTube. The other I use approximately weekly to play and record music (connected to a digital piano). Are there even reports that iPad pros aren’t selling well? I think they are the best computers ever made.
- tolmasky 8y ago
  Yes. Sales plateaued a while ago (and I think even decreased?). Here’s some data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269915/global-apple-ipad-sales-since-q3-2010/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/269915/global-apple-ipad... Seoarately, I think many people cannot afford a device that starts at $800 just for Twitter, YouTube, and Hacker News.
  - Keres 8y ago
    Especially when their current device runs Twitter,YouTube and Hacker News just fine.
  - graeme 8y ago
    Those are ipad sales, not ipad pro sales. Within the ipad market we don't really know how the ipad pros are doing. The sales peak you refer to predates the ipad pro.
    - Damogran6 8y ago
      The current 'pleb' ipad is $329 and does an awesome job being a twitter appliance. I'm only slightly annoyed as it was half the price I paid for my iPad Air 2 2-3 years ago.
  - baddox 8y ago
    That an iPad Pro is too expensive for most people is a perfectly reasonable argument, much stronger than "the iPad Pro has no purpose."
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
k9s9 8y ago
Thats what happens when you put the metric maximizing corporate robots in charge. They keep things running hyper efficiently for no sane reason, other than the fact that it is the only thing they know to do. After the iPhone 4 or 5 it's been going no where vision wise.
martijn_himself 8y ago
I couldn't agree more. The other, perhaps equally worrying thing is that the App Store is becoming a graveyard of abandoned and unsupported (as in not running on newer versions of iOS) apps drowned out by apps and games designed to fleece (vulnerable) people. Instead of curating the store and promoting quality apps and games Apple is actively promoting the 'evil' apps. Apple should be working with apps and games publishers on other platforms to port their successful titles to iOS- instead Apple is only interested in taking their 'cut'.
benj111 8y ago
"It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision." Right, it's all iterative. Where's the next $100Bn product? The only genuinely new product that Cook has brought to market is the iwatch (although they seem to have been working on self driving cars)
yesenadam 8y ago
With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac. Well yeah, they were both imagined (and the Mac, more than imagined - most of the parts invented/built) in the early 70s at Xerox PARC, Jobs heard about/saw them there. Sorry, maybe you know that, but it didn't sound like it.
scarface74 8y ago
With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac. Jobs just wanted the software engineers to blow up the iPhone interface for the iPad. The fact that the original iPad had any affordances for the larger screen was because of engineers’ push back. Unfortunately, the only sources I have are interviews from Nitin Ganatra, who was over some of the iPad apps at the time, from the Debug podcast. Apple has not released a new flagship app for the iPad since its original release with iWork and Garageband. In its whole 40 year existence, Apple has usually just made barely passable apps and let third parties produce the high end apps. The exceptions were the original Apple // version of AppleWorks, ClarisWorks and maybe FileMaker. Edit: Corrected spelling.
- sumedh 8y ago
  > Nitin Ginatra Its Nitin Ganatra
scarface74 8y ago
It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision. There’s no purpose to these devices. Sometimes it seems like there’s too much attention to arbitrary details. For example, the thinness and speed of the iPad, but to what end? There is a purpose to every device that Apple makes and I would dare say that they are doing it more successfully than any other business when you define “success” by profitability: - the iPhone - no other manufacturer is making significant money on mobile phones except for Samsung and estimates are that even they make around a fifth of what Apple makes. The “vision” of the iPhone hasn’t changed. It’s a pocket computer and a good camera. - iPad: the high end Android tablet market is dead. The PC 2n1 market is doing okay when it comes to volume but profitable it’s not. The non Pro iPad is a consumption device mostly, but the two largest software companies - Microsoft and Adobe are taking the iPhone very seriously and just because it isn’t great for developing, it’s becoming a lot better for other Pro users. - the Apple Watch - I don’t need it but it’s better in execution than any other smart watch and it’s allowing people to leave their phone at home and of course health and fitness. - AppleTV: Unlike the Roku (and I have three Roku TVs), they make money the old fashion way - I give Apple money and they give me a box with much better performance than any other settop box without trying to monetize me with ads and without a remote with buttons that go to the highest bidder - unlike one of Roku remotes that have a hard coded button to RDio. - Mac: a well built computer that I can open up without it looking like a NASCAR car with stickers and crap wars. HomePod: I got nothing....

bsder 8y ago

> Now we’re in literally the opposite scenario, devices ridiculously overpowered that we wish we could figure out something to do with. Wrong. We know exactly what we want to do with these devices. However, Apple won't allow us to do those things. A friend of mine bought an iPad Pro before going on vacation so that he wouldn't need to bring his laptop. He wanted to upload/download his photos from his camera, share them to other people, do some light photo editing, hunt down tourist sites, book train tickets, etc. He had nothing but problems. My 2015 Macbook Pro? No issues at all. The iPad Pro went back and now he's back on his laptop.

baddox 8y ago

Why does everyone write this stuff with such absolutism? There’s no purpose to these devices? I have 2 iPad Pros, one I use every day to consume content like twitter, hacker news, and YouTube. The other I use approximately weekly to play and record music (connected to a digital piano). Are there even reports that iPad pros aren’t selling well? I think they are the best computers ever made.

tolmasky 8y ago
Yes. Sales plateaued a while ago (and I think even decreased?). Here’s some data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269915/global-apple-ipad-sales-since-q3-2010/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/269915/global-apple-ipad... Seoarately, I think many people cannot afford a device that starts at $800 just for Twitter, YouTube, and Hacker News.
- Keres 8y ago
  Especially when their current device runs Twitter,YouTube and Hacker News just fine.
- graeme 8y ago
  Those are ipad sales, not ipad pro sales. Within the ipad market we don't really know how the ipad pros are doing. The sales peak you refer to predates the ipad pro.
  - Damogran6 8y ago
    The current 'pleb' ipad is $329 and does an awesome job being a twitter appliance. I'm only slightly annoyed as it was half the price I paid for my iPad Air 2 2-3 years ago.
- baddox 8y ago
  That an iPad Pro is too expensive for most people is a perfectly reasonable argument, much stronger than "the iPad Pro has no purpose."
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

k9s9 8y ago

Thats what happens when you put the metric maximizing corporate robots in charge. They keep things running hyper efficiently for no sane reason, other than the fact that it is the only thing they know to do. After the iPhone 4 or 5 it's been going no where vision wise.

martijn_himself 8y ago

I couldn't agree more. The other, perhaps equally worrying thing is that the App Store is becoming a graveyard of abandoned and unsupported (as in not running on newer versions of iOS) apps drowned out by apps and games designed to fleece (vulnerable) people. Instead of curating the store and promoting quality apps and games Apple is actively promoting the 'evil' apps. Apple should be working with apps and games publishers on other platforms to port their successful titles to iOS- instead Apple is only interested in taking their 'cut'.

benj111 8y ago

"It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision." Right, it's all iterative. Where's the next $100Bn product? The only genuinely new product that Cook has brought to market is the iwatch (although they seem to have been working on self driving cars)

yesenadam 8y ago

scarface74 8y ago

With Steve, you could draw a straight line from the original Mac to the iPad. You could see one relentless mission to tame unusable hardware into a friendly machine through software. You could imagine Steve wanting something like an iPad even with the original Mac. Jobs just wanted the software engineers to blow up the iPhone interface for the iPad. The fact that the original iPad had any affordances for the larger screen was because of engineers’ push back. Unfortunately, the only sources I have are interviews from Nitin Ganatra, who was over some of the iPad apps at the time, from the Debug podcast. Apple has not released a new flagship app for the iPad since its original release with iWork and Garageband. In its whole 40 year existence, Apple has usually just made barely passable apps and let third parties produce the high end apps. The exceptions were the original Apple // version of AppleWorks, ClarisWorks and maybe FileMaker. Edit: Corrected spelling.

sumedh 8y ago
> Nitin Ginatra Its Nitin Ganatra

scarface74 8y ago

It’s not attention to detail, it’s vision. There’s no purpose to these devices. Sometimes it seems like there’s too much attention to arbitrary details. For example, the thinness and speed of the iPad, but to what end? There is a purpose to every device that Apple makes and I would dare say that they are doing it more successfully than any other business when you define “success” by profitability: - the iPhone - no other manufacturer is making significant money on mobile phones except for Samsung and estimates are that even they make around a fifth of what Apple makes. The “vision” of the iPhone hasn’t changed. It’s a pocket computer and a good camera. - iPad: the high end Android tablet market is dead. The PC 2n1 market is doing okay when it comes to volume but profitable it’s not. The non Pro iPad is a consumption device mostly, but the two largest software companies - Microsoft and Adobe are taking the iPhone very seriously and just because it isn’t great for developing, it’s becoming a lot better for other Pro users. - the Apple Watch - I don’t need it but it’s better in execution than any other smart watch and it’s allowing people to leave their phone at home and of course health and fitness. - AppleTV: Unlike the Roku (and I have three Roku TVs), they make money the old fashion way - I give Apple money and they give me a box with much better performance than any other settop box without trying to monetize me with ads and without a remote with buttons that go to the highest bidder - unlike one of Roku remotes that have a hard coded button to RDio. - Mac: a well built computer that I can open up without it looking like a NASCAR car with stickers and crap wars. HomePod: I got nothing....