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In terms of providing value to Apple shareholders I think Steve Jobs clearly made the right decision. I terms of providing value to the world at large they sho

In terms of providing value to Apple shareholders I think Steve Jobs clearly made the right decision. I terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. Of course Apple has provided a lot of value to users and the world but much more limited than if everything was hackable and repairable. I guess my point is that I suspect, if you could add up the additional value of an 'open Apple' for every individual, you would end up with a considerably larger amount than the current market cap of Apple. Let's do some math. Apple market cap is $2.4T right now. Let's say a third of the world could use their products in some form, that's $2,4T divided by 2.7B people or $900 per potential user. If I could extend the life of my iPhone by 4 years with repairs I've already recouped "my share". And that's without mentioning any other product or the added value of being able to customize and repurpose old stuff. Of course some of Apple's achievments wouldn't have been possible without their business model, but I think there should be a pressure on companies to open source technology after a certain period of time. It would be to the benefit of society.

traveler01 5y ago
I love how hypocritical these companies are. Environment friendly they say: - Force people to buy a part separately that could easily be included in the box (wasting less packaging in the process). - Force people to replace unnecessary parts when repairing their products (my gfs MacBook broke the screen internally, without applying much strenght to it, and Apple repair solution is to replace the entire top end of the laptop for 600€) - Make stupid expensive for people to repair their products, and almost impossible for third party shops to repair them. And this isn't just Apple, most brands are going the same route. Meanwhile world its sinking in garbage, but shareholders are happy I guess.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Fairphone is the answer here.
  - bnajdecki 5y ago
    Haven't heard about them - good to know!
  - Antipode 5y ago
    I really wish they had US support. They'll work if you can get one, but they don't ship to the US so you have to use a third party re-shipper (both for the phone and for replacement parts). Even then their frequency bands aren't optimized for the US so you're likely to have reception issues.
    - fsflover 5y ago
      Have a look at Librem 5 as an alternative.
- misnome 5y ago
  > Force people to buy a part separately that could easily be included in the box (wasting less packaging in the process). A part that 90% of people probably already own 10 of? Sounds like 10% more packaging and 90% less e-waste? I mean I get the whole "non repairable is bad" argument but Apple stuff has great lifespan and good resale value, thereby being reused instead of junked when upgrading. And they accept devices for recycling, don't they? Of course it could be better, but there are legitimate ways of looking at these things that aren't as unambiguously "Hypocritical" as you are asserting.
  - anothernewdude 5y ago
    Sure, the resale value of broken apple equipment is through the roof.
  - gugagore 5y ago
    What part are you both talking about? Surely you're talking past each other to some degree.
    - jalk 5y ago
      Charger
    - gostsamo 5y ago
      charger
  - chrisweekly 5y ago
    Gluing or soldering what should be user-upgradeable, commodity components in laptops still really bothers me.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      Are you sure they could? I can't imagine how could you possibly fit a connector within my great (and its thinness is a principal component of that greatness) Macbook, and having multiple ways of doing one thing doesn't seem like good business or good for the nature - especially if phones and tablets are the major product of the company.
- NewLogic 5y ago
  Tim is a bean counter at heart and everything Apple has been marketing spin for decades.
  - eitland 5y ago
    > everything Apple has been marketing spin for decades. After using Android since around 2010 getting a midrange iPhone around 18 or so months ago was almost a revelation for me, so no, it is clearly not all marketing spin. (Why? Even on a Note II or S7 Edge something as trivial as opening the camera would have me waiting. On my iPhone XR pressing the camera button brings up the camera more or less instantaneously. And there are also a number of small conveniences that are hard to really pinpoint like actually understanding when it is in my pocket and then not turn on and burn out my battery.)
    - christophilus 5y ago
      It’s been a minute since I used Android, but I definitely felt the same when I switched to the iPhone. I found it a much more refined experience over all. That said, if there was a decent Linux phone, I’d hop on it, warts and all. Pinephone or Librem are getting close.
      - deregulateMed 5y ago
        I wonder if you got a garbage Android. Samsung is the Apple of Android. Big marketing budget, medium quality.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - tsherr 5y ago
      On my ancient and overloaded S8, the camera loads in under a second after double tapping power. Battery lasts all day (and it's 4 years old). Doesn't turn on when it's in my pocket. These anecdotal "I switched to x and its waaay better" things always reek of bias. That a 2017 phone is slower than a 2018 phone is obvious - plus you'd need to reset the s7 to factory defaults for fair(er) comparison. I do support on iPhones (not an Apple employee) and I've never experienced the the vaunted "this is so much better" moment.
- foobar33333 5y ago
  I and everyone I know already has plenty of USB-A and USB-C bricks laying around. The things last forever and build up. So its more like every other company gives you a bit of junk you will not use.
  - eldaisfish 5y ago
    Do apple or any other company offer you a discount for not including cables and chargers with the phones you buy?
    - blowfish721 5y ago
      Apple lowered the price on the new 20W charger to $19 instead of $29 as for the old 18W charger, not a huge amount. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/13/apple-selling-20w-usb-c-power-adapter/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/13/apple-selling-20w-usb-c...
    - foobar33333 5y ago
      Yes, they ask you if you need one at the time of purchase and if you don't ask for one you don't pay the $19 for one. Trying to account for what the original BoM would have been with one in the box is an impossible effort and not very useful. At the end of the day all you need to do is decide if the value provided by the product matches the price the company sells it at. If not, don't buy it. For me the brick adds no extra value so I don't have to account for it. If I needed the brick and the extra $19 pushed me over the edge to not worth it then I would consider another phone.
- antris 5y ago
  It's a bit disingenuous to lay blame on companies for hypocrisy, when they have to play by the system set up by politicians. Capitalism doesn't give you any extra points for being sustainable. If anything, it can interfere or be in direct opposition to making profits. You win at capitalism by making profits. A non-sustainable competitor will eat you, if you start worrying about the environment too much. So greenwashing is the way to go for most companies, in order to avoid boycotts, and people are ready to believe it because these problems are complex and people don't want to think that the stuff they buy are hurting the environment. This is a very foreseeable result, given the incentives. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Demand change from the politicians.
  - syshum 5y ago
    >>Don't hate the player, hate the game. No, that is a stupid saying and people need to stop using. Unethical actions are unethical even if the "game" allows for it. >> Demand change from the politicians. No again, the solution to this problem is not some authoritarian government response, or even (which is implied by your indirect blame of capitalism for all the problems in the world) socialist economic model >Capitalism doesn't give you any extra points for being sustainable. Capitalism does not care about about sustainability or non-sustainable , non-sustainable companies are NOT givin a "competitive advantage" by capitalism. In reality is current government regulations like provide non-sustainable companies with that advantage in the form of liability shields, and various other government programs written by big business for big business to ensure the status quo You appeal to government authority is as misplaced as your blame of capitalism for all the problems
    - antris 5y ago
      >Unethical actions are unethical even if the "game" allows for it. Nobody says what Apple is doing is ethical, at least I sure didn't. The point is, the problem runs deeper than one company. The system has an incentive structure where companies benefit by doing as Apple does. It's like blaming a ball for rolling down a hill. If you don't want the ball to roll, go play on a level field. >You appeal to government authority You make this sound like I'm for some kind of dictatorship. I firmly believe in a government democratically elected by the people. Even if the system is capitalist in nature, it should always be subservient to the will of the people. The governments should be tied to the will and interest of the people. Especially in the US it seems that the government acts for the corporate special interests. In that case, the solution is more democracy, not less. >non-sustainable companies are NOT givin a "competitive advantage" by capitalism So why are all the big companies ruining our climate then? What's the explanation? Random chance?
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  "Hypocritical" seems like the wrong word to describe caring about multiple things that are sometimes incompatible.
  - traveler01 5y ago
    I don't think they care about the environment at all. It's plain marketing as all others LGBT things they "support". It goes well with the consumer so obviously they act as they supported those causes. Only thing companies want it's profit. It's wrong? No. But don't think they care about anything else.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  I could tell it was bullshit by the sheer length of this page: https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/
- Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
  At least rest of us can be less hypocritical, If we have decided to call out companies for their lackluster climate action then contributing to the e-waste disaster by selling blackboxes should be on the list.
qaq 5y ago
this assumes "open Apple" would have actually survived
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  How was Apple hurt by the openness of the Apple II?
willyt 5y ago
The catch is that in this hypothetical scenario most people would have had to decide that they wanted a big clunky hackable computer for apple to have been successful enough to have all this money... Judging by what people chose to buy, this doesn't seem to be the case. Personally, I buy raspberry pis for hacking and an iPhone for reliable, secure and frictionless pocket internet. YMMV
- wila 5y ago
  Repairable does not equate to "big clunky".
  - 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
    Arguments like these are used pretty often to defend the practices of corporations and it implies that manufacturers would have to adapt their devices to make them repairable. It is also false for the majority of cases. Reasons many devices are not repairable include: DRM built into parts to prevent replacements, no repair manuals (see Thinkpads compared to macbooks). Also measures to prevent people from flashing the firmware or updating the software once a company decides to drop support despite the hardware being still functional, or easy to put back up to speed by changing a battery. Forcing companies to stop these anti-consumer strategies has 0 impact on the designs while making electronics far more repairable. I find the "right to repair will make my devices big and ugly and appeasing to the evil tinkerers and hackers" angle really dishonest.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I’m pro-repair (and a regular purchaser of 18-36 month old iPhones and 2-4 year old [often just off-lease] computers). Even given that, I don’t see how “end users must be able to change batteries in a practical way” would not negatively impact the quality of the iPhone I’m holding in my hand right now. From a water-resistance standpoint alone, I think my phone would suffer in at least one dimension that matters to me. (It’s an Xs Max and yes, I bought used, confident that the water resistance was intact. If I sold it now, the next buyer has that same assurance.) Phones get wet at some low (but not insignificant) rate; it’s hard to avoid that across the entire population.
philliphaydon 5y ago
> I terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. In theory yes, but it also could have tanked Apple resulting in Jobs/Woz going elsewhere and Apple never becoming what it's become, never pushing Mobile, Music, thinner / better quality laptops, etc. I think in the ideal world we would have a balance between Job's vision and Woz's vision. Having that highly profitable company but the hackable open world. (if that makes sense)
- christophilus 5y ago
  We don’t know what we would have had. I could imagine Apple having solved the aesthetics while also keeping it hackable. My guess is they’d have come up with a LEGO-like approach to internals, using crazy materials science to find some way to get the blocks thin and strong.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I can just as easily imagine Apple failing to remain an independent going concern through some of its trough periods in the inevitable cycles that companies go through. As a user and an engineer, I’m 100% Woz, but I think Woz without Jobs probably doesn’t give us the Apple of today (just as much as the converse is also true).
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    ...so like the 2019 Mac Pro?
- elevaet 5y ago
  The move towards mobile, music, thinner seems an inevitable progression in this vein of technology - analogous to transistor miniaturization that occurs no matter who the players are. The build quality is something we have to credit Apple for though, not to be taken for granted. It does seem like there's a sweet spot in a balance towards Woz's vision of hackability.
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
> Of course some of Apple's achievments wouldn't have been possible without their business model It's better to be more fine grained here. Apple's highest profits wouldn't be possible without creating walled gardens. It's entirely possible, though, that their gains would diminish very little if they hadn't made the decision to glue everything and make their after-2012 computing devices non-upgradeable.
nathancahill 5y ago
"For a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
wheresmycraisin 5y ago
> Let's say a third of the world could use their products in some form Third of California, maybe. The world? I don't think so.
tinus_hn 5y ago
> In terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. Wozniak would have gotten them nowhere, especially in no position to create products worth opening up.
II2II 5y ago
> I terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. As a personality, I like Wozniak more. If I ever had a chance to meet Jobs and Wozniak in person, I suspect that I would find Wozniak to be a much better person than Jobs. That being said, I think that Jobs provided much more value to the world. Wozniak's chief contribution to the world is the Apple II. It is a wonderful computer with fun stories behind its development, but the computer industry would have gone on without it. Apple's early years are culturally significant since it was one of the few success stories that wasn't corporate (in contrast to the Commodore PET and Tandy TRS-80), but that story is probably the most significant part about the company. Contrast that to Jobs. As a minimum, the Apple II and Macintosh can be contributed to him. Without his drive, the Apple II would likely be remembered as one of the multitude of personal computers that didn't make it in the marketplace. Without his drive, the GUI as a consumer product would have been set back years and would probably have looked very different. As expensive as the original Macintosh was, it was far less expensive than many of its contemporaries. As crude as the original Macintosh user interface was, it did provide a model for later products. Perhaps his antagonistic attitude towards user serviceability takes away from that, but it isn't all that different from how appliances were treated in the mid-1980's. Edit: expanded a couple of sentences for clarity.
binarybanana 5y ago
Screw Apple, but the only time I was glad my phone came with a cable was when the phone had an USB-C port. I have more than enough cables in place anywhere I need. I also don't see the need for another fucking USB charger. Seriously, I have way too many already and don't know what to do with them other than throw away. Also the earphones that often come in the package are worse than useless. I'd be very happy if phones and other devices didn't include already ubiquitous extra stuff. It creates more extra waste than the extra packaging for something you buy only once, anyway. It's different if you buy a printer because you need it to be plugged in and replugging cables behind the desk would be a hassle, but phones only use the cable for charging (sometimes data) and don't need it to be usable. So if you have a cable and a charger that will work for any other phone just as well, just not at the same time if you have multiple. If you have incompatible plugs there are adapters, too. At least for micro USB to USB-C, which I use instead of buying more new cables. Dunno if you can do that with the connector iPhones use. If not, fuck them, but Apple is right that bundling too much crap is a waste, even if they really just wanted to decrease their costs. Ironically, those two things actually mean the same thing! Or at least they should if all externalities were factored in. So they definitely did the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons. But that's capitalism and at least the incentive points in the right direction.

traveler01 5y ago

I love how hypocritical these companies are. Environment friendly they say: - Force people to buy a part separately that could easily be included in the box (wasting less packaging in the process). - Force people to replace unnecessary parts when repairing their products (my gfs MacBook broke the screen internally, without applying much strenght to it, and Apple repair solution is to replace the entire top end of the laptop for 600€) - Make stupid expensive for people to repair their products, and almost impossible for third party shops to repair them. And this isn't just Apple, most brands are going the same route. Meanwhile world its sinking in garbage, but shareholders are happy I guess.

fsflover 5y ago
Fairphone is the answer here.
- bnajdecki 5y ago
  Haven't heard about them - good to know!
- Antipode 5y ago
  I really wish they had US support. They'll work if you can get one, but they don't ship to the US so you have to use a third party re-shipper (both for the phone and for replacement parts). Even then their frequency bands aren't optimized for the US so you're likely to have reception issues.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    Have a look at Librem 5 as an alternative.
misnome 5y ago
> Force people to buy a part separately that could easily be included in the box (wasting less packaging in the process). A part that 90% of people probably already own 10 of? Sounds like 10% more packaging and 90% less e-waste? I mean I get the whole "non repairable is bad" argument but Apple stuff has great lifespan and good resale value, thereby being reused instead of junked when upgrading. And they accept devices for recycling, don't they? Of course it could be better, but there are legitimate ways of looking at these things that aren't as unambiguously "Hypocritical" as you are asserting.
- anothernewdude 5y ago
  Sure, the resale value of broken apple equipment is through the roof.
- gugagore 5y ago
  What part are you both talking about? Surely you're talking past each other to some degree.
  - jalk 5y ago
    Charger
  - gostsamo 5y ago
    charger
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  Gluing or soldering what should be user-upgradeable, commodity components in laptops still really bothers me.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    Are you sure they could? I can't imagine how could you possibly fit a connector within my great (and its thinness is a principal component of that greatness) Macbook, and having multiple ways of doing one thing doesn't seem like good business or good for the nature - especially if phones and tablets are the major product of the company.
NewLogic 5y ago
Tim is a bean counter at heart and everything Apple has been marketing spin for decades.
- eitland 5y ago
  > everything Apple has been marketing spin for decades. After using Android since around 2010 getting a midrange iPhone around 18 or so months ago was almost a revelation for me, so no, it is clearly not all marketing spin. (Why? Even on a Note II or S7 Edge something as trivial as opening the camera would have me waiting. On my iPhone XR pressing the camera button brings up the camera more or less instantaneously. And there are also a number of small conveniences that are hard to really pinpoint like actually understanding when it is in my pocket and then not turn on and burn out my battery.)
  - christophilus 5y ago
    It’s been a minute since I used Android, but I definitely felt the same when I switched to the iPhone. I found it a much more refined experience over all. That said, if there was a decent Linux phone, I’d hop on it, warts and all. Pinephone or Librem are getting close.
    - deregulateMed 5y ago
      I wonder if you got a garbage Android. Samsung is the Apple of Android. Big marketing budget, medium quality.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - tsherr 5y ago
    On my ancient and overloaded S8, the camera loads in under a second after double tapping power. Battery lasts all day (and it's 4 years old). Doesn't turn on when it's in my pocket. These anecdotal "I switched to x and its waaay better" things always reek of bias. That a 2017 phone is slower than a 2018 phone is obvious - plus you'd need to reset the s7 to factory defaults for fair(er) comparison. I do support on iPhones (not an Apple employee) and I've never experienced the the vaunted "this is so much better" moment.
foobar33333 5y ago
I and everyone I know already has plenty of USB-A and USB-C bricks laying around. The things last forever and build up. So its more like every other company gives you a bit of junk you will not use.
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  Do apple or any other company offer you a discount for not including cables and chargers with the phones you buy?
  - blowfish721 5y ago
    Apple lowered the price on the new 20W charger to $19 instead of $29 as for the old 18W charger, not a huge amount. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/13/apple-selling-20w-usb-c-power-adapter/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/13/apple-selling-20w-usb-c...
  - foobar33333 5y ago
    Yes, they ask you if you need one at the time of purchase and if you don't ask for one you don't pay the $19 for one. Trying to account for what the original BoM would have been with one in the box is an impossible effort and not very useful. At the end of the day all you need to do is decide if the value provided by the product matches the price the company sells it at. If not, don't buy it. For me the brick adds no extra value so I don't have to account for it. If I needed the brick and the extra $19 pushed me over the edge to not worth it then I would consider another phone.
antris 5y ago
It's a bit disingenuous to lay blame on companies for hypocrisy, when they have to play by the system set up by politicians. Capitalism doesn't give you any extra points for being sustainable. If anything, it can interfere or be in direct opposition to making profits. You win at capitalism by making profits. A non-sustainable competitor will eat you, if you start worrying about the environment too much. So greenwashing is the way to go for most companies, in order to avoid boycotts, and people are ready to believe it because these problems are complex and people don't want to think that the stuff they buy are hurting the environment. This is a very foreseeable result, given the incentives. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Demand change from the politicians.
- syshum 5y ago
  >>Don't hate the player, hate the game. No, that is a stupid saying and people need to stop using. Unethical actions are unethical even if the "game" allows for it. >> Demand change from the politicians. No again, the solution to this problem is not some authoritarian government response, or even (which is implied by your indirect blame of capitalism for all the problems in the world) socialist economic model >Capitalism doesn't give you any extra points for being sustainable. Capitalism does not care about about sustainability or non-sustainable , non-sustainable companies are NOT givin a "competitive advantage" by capitalism. In reality is current government regulations like provide non-sustainable companies with that advantage in the form of liability shields, and various other government programs written by big business for big business to ensure the status quo You appeal to government authority is as misplaced as your blame of capitalism for all the problems
  - antris 5y ago
    >Unethical actions are unethical even if the "game" allows for it. Nobody says what Apple is doing is ethical, at least I sure didn't. The point is, the problem runs deeper than one company. The system has an incentive structure where companies benefit by doing as Apple does. It's like blaming a ball for rolling down a hill. If you don't want the ball to roll, go play on a level field. >You appeal to government authority You make this sound like I'm for some kind of dictatorship. I firmly believe in a government democratically elected by the people. Even if the system is capitalist in nature, it should always be subservient to the will of the people. The governments should be tied to the will and interest of the people. Especially in the US it seems that the government acts for the corporate special interests. In that case, the solution is more democracy, not less. >non-sustainable companies are NOT givin a "competitive advantage" by capitalism So why are all the big companies ruining our climate then? What's the explanation? Random chance?
GavinMcG 5y ago
"Hypocritical" seems like the wrong word to describe caring about multiple things that are sometimes incompatible.
- traveler01 5y ago
  I don't think they care about the environment at all. It's plain marketing as all others LGBT things they "support". It goes well with the consumer so obviously they act as they supported those causes. Only thing companies want it's profit. It's wrong? No. But don't think they care about anything else.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I could tell it was bullshit by the sheer length of this page: https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/
Abishek_Muthian 5y ago
At least rest of us can be less hypocritical, If we have decided to call out companies for their lackluster climate action then contributing to the e-waste disaster by selling blackboxes should be on the list.

qaq 5y ago

this assumes "open Apple" would have actually survived

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
How was Apple hurt by the openness of the Apple II?

willyt 5y ago

The catch is that in this hypothetical scenario most people would have had to decide that they wanted a big clunky hackable computer for apple to have been successful enough to have all this money... Judging by what people chose to buy, this doesn't seem to be the case. Personally, I buy raspberry pis for hacking and an iPhone for reliable, secure and frictionless pocket internet. YMMV

wila 5y ago
Repairable does not equate to "big clunky".
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
  Arguments like these are used pretty often to defend the practices of corporations and it implies that manufacturers would have to adapt their devices to make them repairable. It is also false for the majority of cases. Reasons many devices are not repairable include: DRM built into parts to prevent replacements, no repair manuals (see Thinkpads compared to macbooks). Also measures to prevent people from flashing the firmware or updating the software once a company decides to drop support despite the hardware being still functional, or easy to put back up to speed by changing a battery. Forcing companies to stop these anti-consumer strategies has 0 impact on the designs while making electronics far more repairable. I find the "right to repair will make my devices big and ugly and appeasing to the evil tinkerers and hackers" angle really dishonest.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I’m pro-repair (and a regular purchaser of 18-36 month old iPhones and 2-4 year old [often just off-lease] computers). Even given that, I don’t see how “end users must be able to change batteries in a practical way” would not negatively impact the quality of the iPhone I’m holding in my hand right now. From a water-resistance standpoint alone, I think my phone would suffer in at least one dimension that matters to me. (It’s an Xs Max and yes, I bought used, confident that the water resistance was intact. If I sold it now, the next buyer has that same assurance.) Phones get wet at some low (but not insignificant) rate; it’s hard to avoid that across the entire population.

philliphaydon 5y ago

> I terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. In theory yes, but it also could have tanked Apple resulting in Jobs/Woz going elsewhere and Apple never becoming what it's become, never pushing Mobile, Music, thinner / better quality laptops, etc. I think in the ideal world we would have a balance between Job's vision and Woz's vision. Having that highly profitable company but the hackable open world. (if that makes sense)

christophilus 5y ago
We don’t know what we would have had. I could imagine Apple having solved the aesthetics while also keeping it hackable. My guess is they’d have come up with a LEGO-like approach to internals, using crazy materials science to find some way to get the blocks thin and strong.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I can just as easily imagine Apple failing to remain an independent going concern through some of its trough periods in the inevitable cycles that companies go through. As a user and an engineer, I’m 100% Woz, but I think Woz without Jobs probably doesn’t give us the Apple of today (just as much as the converse is also true).
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  ...so like the 2019 Mac Pro?
elevaet 5y ago
The move towards mobile, music, thinner seems an inevitable progression in this vein of technology - analogous to transistor miniaturization that occurs no matter who the players are. The build quality is something we have to credit Apple for though, not to be taken for granted. It does seem like there's a sweet spot in a balance towards Woz's vision of hackability.
- philliphaydon 5y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago

> Of course some of Apple's achievments wouldn't have been possible without their business model It's better to be more fine grained here. Apple's highest profits wouldn't be possible without creating walled gardens. It's entirely possible, though, that their gains would diminish very little if they hadn't made the decision to glue everything and make their after-2012 computing devices non-upgradeable.

nathancahill 5y ago

"For a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."

wheresmycraisin 5y ago

> Let's say a third of the world could use their products in some form Third of California, maybe. The world? I don't think so.

tinus_hn 5y ago

> In terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. Wozniak would have gotten them nowhere, especially in no position to create products worth opening up.

II2II 5y ago

> I terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. As a personality, I like Wozniak more. If I ever had a chance to meet Jobs and Wozniak in person, I suspect that I would find Wozniak to be a much better person than Jobs. That being said, I think that Jobs provided much more value to the world. Wozniak's chief contribution to the world is the Apple II. It is a wonderful computer with fun stories behind its development, but the computer industry would have gone on without it. Apple's early years are culturally significant since it was one of the few success stories that wasn't corporate (in contrast to the Commodore PET and Tandy TRS-80), but that story is probably the most significant part about the company. Contrast that to Jobs. As a minimum, the Apple II and Macintosh can be contributed to him. Without his drive, the Apple II would likely be remembered as one of the multitude of personal computers that didn't make it in the marketplace. Without his drive, the GUI as a consumer product would have been set back years and would probably have looked very different. As expensive as the original Macintosh was, it was far less expensive than many of its contemporaries. As crude as the original Macintosh user interface was, it did provide a model for later products. Perhaps his antagonistic attitude towards user serviceability takes away from that, but it isn't all that different from how appliances were treated in the mid-1980's. Edit: expanded a couple of sentences for clarity.

binarybanana 5y ago

Screw Apple, but the only time I was glad my phone came with a cable was when the phone had an USB-C port. I have more than enough cables in place anywhere I need. I also don't see the need for another fucking USB charger. Seriously, I have way too many already and don't know what to do with them other than throw away. Also the earphones that often come in the package are worse than useless. I'd be very happy if phones and other devices didn't include already ubiquitous extra stuff. It creates more extra waste than the extra packaging for something you buy only once, anyway. It's different if you buy a printer because you need it to be plugged in and replugging cables behind the desk would be a hassle, but phones only use the cable for charging (sometimes data) and don't need it to be usable. So if you have a cable and a charger that will work for any other phone just as well, just not at the same time if you have multiple. If you have incompatible plugs there are adapters, too. At least for micro USB to USB-C, which I use instead of buying more new cables. Dunno if you can do that with the connector iPhones use. If not, fuck them, but Apple is right that bundling too much crap is a waste, even if they really just wanted to decrease their costs. Ironically, those two things actually mean the same thing! Or at least they should if all externalities were factored in. So they definitely did the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons. But that's capitalism and at least the incentive points in the right direction.