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Why the hell are they entering this grubby, grubby industry? They leave money on the table all the time - they have banged on for years about their whole philos

Why the hell are they entering this grubby, grubby industry? They leave money on the table all the time - they have banged on for years about their whole philosophy of saying No to a thousand things for everything they say Yes to - why have they said yes to this? Aside from a handful of RPIs, my entire family uses Apple gear. But for the first time in 2 decades, I'm wondering what a platform change might look like. Considering my investment in Apple gear, even getting me to the "only looking" phase is pretty remarkable.

p0pcult 4y ago
"If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies that have no conception of a good product versus a bad product." -Steve Jobs
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  Yeah - I didn't want to invoke the Ghost of Steve but ... why stop with your storefront? Why not start slapping Candy Crush Saga stickers on the front of iPhones? But unlike other products, this advertising will provide zero value to Apple customers. We already pay full price for our gear. We pay for Apple One. Unlike most other companies where advertising offsets the sticker price of things, advertising at Apple does not benefit us in any way. For me, being free of advertising is a key benefit of participating in the Apple ecosystem, and one that I assign a significant financial value to. I absolutely hate it.
- onemoresoop 4y ago
  Apple is still better than the competition in many ways but cracks started appearing. This quote from Steve Jobs is spot on at this time when Apple has become so big that they can't focus on creating a good product anymore because the money is too good. I don't wish to see this but I'm wondering if things were to go the bad direction for Apple, how long would the inertia of good apple of Steve Jobs vision would last. Probably something like a decade if not more...
swaggalicious 4y ago
You mistake "they" referring to Apple with Steve Jobs. Yes it's cliche. That doesn't make it wrong. Steve Jobs was responsible for keeping Apple pure. I really feel like an inflection point in human history will be Steve Jobs dying in 2011, right after releasing revolutionary products (iPhone and iPad), but not being able to be around to steer the ship and be the voice of reason and ethics as the products became more influential. Steve Jobs once said (in the D8 interview I believe) that apps which defamed people were not allowed on the App Store. I wonder how he would feel about social media today, Twitter in particular. He would have had the courage, power, and conviction to fight against some of the things happening today, in terms of widespread outrage culture, slandering and libel, cancel culture, etc. I guess we'll never know.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  Not to deride your comment, but > Steve Jobs > the voice of reason and ethics Honestly, I never expected to see that in one sentence.
  - romanovcode 4y ago
    Context matters, he might be a terrible person to work under but he clearly was the voice of reason for Apple. Just remember how he said that Apple is not interested in games. It was somewhat of a shocker since they would lose so much clients because of that but look where we are now. The Apple Arcade and other pathetic attempts just proves how right he was. Why enter a market where your results will be laughably bad? It is pathetic how they present "Lara Croft Tomb Raider" which is 4+ year old game benchmarks in 2022 on 1080p 60fps and 4k 30fps as if it's somehow good. And remember the cringe moment where they presented Touch Bar with some DJ? Jesus...
    - interpol_p 4y ago
      To be fair, Apple Arcade is pretty good. Great, even. And Apple keeps it completely pure — no ads, no in-app purchases, and some really great games They may not be publishing games for hardcode gamers, but there are some great indie titles, and it's the only place on the App Store I let my kids have free reign to download what they like, knowing that they will never see an ad or be lured into some grindy game mechanic to tempt them into an in-app purchase
macintux 4y ago
Unfortunately Apple's in a tough spot. Their gear is too good: I'm on year 4 with my Watch, my iPad is 3 or 4 years old, and the only reason I upgrade my iPhone every couple of years is for the camera. And there just aren't that many Android users willing to switch. Dividends and stock buybacks are keeping their shareholders happy, but at some point they need a growth story, and the iPhone set an incredible bar to hurdle. (I'm not defending their ad business, to be clear, but it's hardly shocking that they're trying to find something to bring in new revenue.)
chaostheory 4y ago
If only they could make even more money from video games. Too bad Apple hates video games and they only tolerate them now since it’s a sizable chunk of revenue. Yet it still feels that they have yet to make a large enough bet / investment on games.

p0pcult 4y ago

"If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies that have no conception of a good product versus a bad product." -Steve Jobs

doctor_eval 4y ago
Yeah - I didn't want to invoke the Ghost of Steve but ... why stop with your storefront? Why not start slapping Candy Crush Saga stickers on the front of iPhones? But unlike other products, this advertising will provide zero value to Apple customers. We already pay full price for our gear. We pay for Apple One. Unlike most other companies where advertising offsets the sticker price of things, advertising at Apple does not benefit us in any way. For me, being free of advertising is a key benefit of participating in the Apple ecosystem, and one that I assign a significant financial value to. I absolutely hate it.
onemoresoop 4y ago
Apple is still better than the competition in many ways but cracks started appearing. This quote from Steve Jobs is spot on at this time when Apple has become so big that they can't focus on creating a good product anymore because the money is too good. I don't wish to see this but I'm wondering if things were to go the bad direction for Apple, how long would the inertia of good apple of Steve Jobs vision would last. Probably something like a decade if not more...

swaggalicious 4y ago

You mistake "they" referring to Apple with Steve Jobs. Yes it's cliche. That doesn't make it wrong. Steve Jobs was responsible for keeping Apple pure. I really feel like an inflection point in human history will be Steve Jobs dying in 2011, right after releasing revolutionary products (iPhone and iPad), but not being able to be around to steer the ship and be the voice of reason and ethics as the products became more influential. Steve Jobs once said (in the D8 interview I believe) that apps which defamed people were not allowed on the App Store. I wonder how he would feel about social media today, Twitter in particular. He would have had the courage, power, and conviction to fight against some of the things happening today, in terms of widespread outrage culture, slandering and libel, cancel culture, etc. I guess we'll never know.

deafpolygon 4y ago
Not to deride your comment, but > Steve Jobs > the voice of reason and ethics Honestly, I never expected to see that in one sentence.
- romanovcode 4y ago
  Context matters, he might be a terrible person to work under but he clearly was the voice of reason for Apple. Just remember how he said that Apple is not interested in games. It was somewhat of a shocker since they would lose so much clients because of that but look where we are now. The Apple Arcade and other pathetic attempts just proves how right he was. Why enter a market where your results will be laughably bad? It is pathetic how they present "Lara Croft Tomb Raider" which is 4+ year old game benchmarks in 2022 on 1080p 60fps and 4k 30fps as if it's somehow good. And remember the cringe moment where they presented Touch Bar with some DJ? Jesus...
  - interpol_p 4y ago
    To be fair, Apple Arcade is pretty good. Great, even. And Apple keeps it completely pure — no ads, no in-app purchases, and some really great games They may not be publishing games for hardcode gamers, but there are some great indie titles, and it's the only place on the App Store I let my kids have free reign to download what they like, knowing that they will never see an ad or be lured into some grindy game mechanic to tempt them into an in-app purchase

macintux 4y ago

Unfortunately Apple's in a tough spot. Their gear is too good: I'm on year 4 with my Watch, my iPad is 3 or 4 years old, and the only reason I upgrade my iPhone every couple of years is for the camera. And there just aren't that many Android users willing to switch. Dividends and stock buybacks are keeping their shareholders happy, but at some point they need a growth story, and the iPhone set an incredible bar to hurdle. (I'm not defending their ad business, to be clear, but it's hardly shocking that they're trying to find something to bring in new revenue.)

chaostheory 4y ago

If only they could make even more money from video games. Too bad Apple hates video games and they only tolerate them now since it’s a sizable chunk of revenue. Yet it still feels that they have yet to make a large enough bet / investment on games.