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> I was certain that Apple would lose its way and start diluting their products/brand. In a sense, they are diluting their products. Remember the apocryphal s

> I was certain that Apple would lose its way and start diluting their products/brand. In a sense, they are diluting their products. Remember the apocryphal story that when Jobs came back to Apple, he split a whiteboard into four quadrants and listed just one product in each? Now Apple has several dozen products. And each category is anywhere from 1 to 4 different products often with differences so minor as to not make any sense (iPhone 12 Pro vs iPhone 12 Pro Max, the difference is slight size increase and cameras, that's it; or iPhone 12 Pro vs iPhone 12; there are four different iPads; etc.) Apple looks like it's trying to cover every niche, and often does that semi-satisfactorily. Slightly tangential: they've completely dropped the ball on MacOS software side: there hasn't been a good software release from them literally for years. The only exception is the new Messages in BigSur, and they spent untold hours in close collaboration with the Catalyst team to make it work. Almost every other new first-party app from Apple on MacOS for years has been an unmitigated disaster that has never seen a designer in a vicinity and that breaks any version of Apple's own HIG guidelines. That said, it could've been much much much worse. So, count our blessings :)

kergonath 6y ago
> Remember the apocryphal story that when Jobs came back to Apple, he split a whiteboard into four quadrants and listed just one product in each? He showed that during keynotes (I remember he used that to unveil the first iBook). The situation then was a bit different, though. Apple needed to be much more focused and had fewer resources to throw at new devices. They also needed a clean break from the past and could not start from scratch 10 different product lines. But Jobs himself did away with the 2x2 matrix, for example with the eMac and the Cube. The 12’’, 15’’, and 17’’ PowerBooks used the same name, but the differences were more significant than between the various iPhones 12.
scarface74 6y ago
Jobs also cane back to a dying company that needed to focus.

kergonath 6y ago

> Remember the apocryphal story that when Jobs came back to Apple, he split a whiteboard into four quadrants and listed just one product in each? He showed that during keynotes (I remember he used that to unveil the first iBook). The situation then was a bit different, though. Apple needed to be much more focused and had fewer resources to throw at new devices. They also needed a clean break from the past and could not start from scratch 10 different product lines. But Jobs himself did away with the 2x2 matrix, for example with the eMac and the Cube. The 12’’, 15’’, and 17’’ PowerBooks used the same name, but the differences were more significant than between the various iPhones 12.

scarface74 6y ago

Jobs also cane back to a dying company that needed to focus.