25 ms·

Watching Apple win

85 points by richardburton 15y ago

randall 15y ago
"I’m just so proud of Apple that I’m willing to look foolish saying so." Mission accomplished.
c1sc0 15y ago
This is starting to feel like Microsoft in the 90s or IBM in the 80s. IBM brought a computer in every business. Microsoft took it from the server-room and put it on your desk. Apple took it from your desk and put it in your pocket. They are winning for now, but what goes up must come down.
- ryandvm 15y ago
  Agreed. Apple has come full circle to perfectly embody the image they protested in their classic Super Bowel commercial. Millions of souls mindlessly catapulting birds on their little devices while fed a steady diet of carefully curated media and apps. Rescue us, lady with the sledgehammer...
  - shmerl 15y ago
    Yep, it's ironic how things changed. The big brother in that clip is exactly Apple today. Someone even made a parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVzboF2E2Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVzboF2E2Q
- hazov 15y ago
  After Apple goes down people will create new causal stories to explain why it sucked, just like they created for Microsoft, IBM or even for Apple when it went up.
barranger 15y ago
It's articles like this that basically sum up perfectly why I refuse to discuss anything Apple with people. Don't get me wrong, I like many of the products that Apple make (I'm currently typing this up with a MBP), however the personal connection that people have with Apple is not something I share. For many people there exists a strange bond with Apple where they take any negative comment about one of their products or services as a personal affront against themselves. It's a corporation folks, a wildly successful one, but that's it. It's not your buddy, your soulmate, nor your friend.
- c1sc0 15y ago
  May I suggest that you simply don't understand the value branding? I know it's hard for people like us to understand, but most people can get irrationally attached to products, people, ideologies etc ... just because they had a positive experience once & are being reminded of it ad nauseam.
  - barranger 15y ago
    Oh I fully agree that I don't completely understand value branding, it's just that with Apple it goes to a new level. There was an odd Web video floating around (link escapes me) of an animated customer talking to a sales clerk looking for an iPhone (something about does it have the WiFis) that perfectly describes far too many of the conversations I've had with people about apple products.
    - onemoreact 15y ago
      People often feel the same attachment to their truck / car / boat.
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  It's called marketing. Apple understands branding and marketing; very few other hardware makers do. What's remarkable is that Apple has been using the same playbook for decades now, and nobody else has quite figured it out. It's the Nike playbook (Steve Jobs once said that he learned a lot from Nike's example). Don't market your tech specs; market your lifestyle. Apple's competitors are still running commercials about the dimensions, specifications, and miscellaneous stats of their devices. Such commercials basically announce "Hey consumers, here's a commodity. For the time being, it's slightly differentiated from other, more or less interchangeable commodities by way of some wonky stats you don't understand. Please buy it." Apple commercials, by contrast, show use cases and lifestyles. They use metaphorical and superlative language. That stuff works. It establishes an emotional bond with the consumer. Apple commercials aren't even really about Apple; they're about making consumers feel cool, special, hip, and creative because they use Apple products. It's the ultimate in feel-good messaging. Seriously: watch a Motorola Droid RAZR commercial, then watch an iPhone commercial. The difference is extraordinary.
sdoering 15y ago
A posting like this is (for me) absolutely a reason not to use any of the 37sig-products. Seldom I have seen such a quasi-religious, non-critical hailing of an international cooperation. Working-conditions in china? Who cares? Steve jobs takes over and kills the till then legitimately produced Mac-Clones, because they were technically superior (killing companies is not so good for US-jobs)? Who cares? Ripping of ideas from developers of Apps? Who cares? Well maybe fellow-developers should care. It seems, that as long, as apple is able to whitewash itself in front of its fanboys the will sing in tune as one big choir and hail their spiritual leader Steve, come what may.
- atirip 15y ago
  "Working-conditions in china? Who cares?" Let's start with you. I assume, you wrote that comment on the computer. There's 100% probability that this computer was manufactured in China. So its you. You do not fucking care.
  - freehunter 15y ago
    Are you not using a computer made in China? The problem is not where it was made, the problem is the conditions under which it was manufactured. Unfortunately we as consumers don't have much power or insight into where or how our electronic products are made. One thing we can do is pressure companies to change their suppliers, something Apple has shown they're willing to try at least to some extent.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    I'm not the one that made 13 billion dollars in a single quarter while the 13-year-olds who assembled my product are driven to suicide and are praised in the New York Times for getting up at midnight with a bun and coffee to make up for the poor planning of my design team. Apple sucks. So does every other electronics manufacturer in the world, but Apple sucks more because they're sitting on huge mountains of cash that could reduce the suffering of their workers if they could manage to give a shit about human concerns.
  - code_duck 15y ago
potatolicious 15y ago
> "When you hear regular people talk about how much they love their iPhone or iPad, it really hammers home what Apple has done not just for themselves but for anyone trying to create better products and hoping to win markets because of them." As an app developer this rings true to me. Apple certainly has raised the bar, and public expectation, of end-user software. I think back to the late 90s (or even early 00s) and the shite software we'd all put up with, compared to great Android and iOS apps now... It's gratifying for reality to finally match your values as a developer. I get a sick glee when I see WebView-wrapped apps on the App Store get absolutely eviscerated in its reviews and stumble out with a 1.5 star rating. I love that people not only appreciate beautiful design, now, but they practically demand it. It's glorious.
- richardburton 15y ago
  It is like the French with their food compared to the UK with theirs. The French spit bad food out, we just stomach it.
- code_duck 15y ago
  Finally, we're getting out of the quality hole that Microsoft dug for the entire tech industry.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Facile. The Microsoft of the '90s was famous for spending on software quality. They didn't have the design mojo of Apple or Adobe, but still produced extraordinarily well designed software that caught on because of its intrinsic value and not just marketing --- Excel and Word, for instance, were simply good pieces of software. I suspect any narrative that looks at Microsoft as the reason the '90s didn't look like Steve Job's aught's has rose-colored glasses on about the "quality" of (pick any:) Linux desktop software, Nullsoft, Netscape Navigator, NCSA HTTPD, Eudora, Forte FreeAgent. I think the reality has more to do with technology progressing to a point where it's cost effective to build products with high production values --- handheld computers with a BOM in the low hundreds of dollars can do hardware-accelerated OpenGL compositing for a vector-based GUI. That doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to carry the industry forward; they did: they noticed the coming new reality first, and did the best job of capitalizing on it by designing new kinds of products that executed a few core features better than anything could have in the '90s, and so didn't need to crud themselves up with 1,000 extra features to make up for deficits in their core.
loso 15y ago
Sometimes I see programmers, or people in the tech world in general, bash people who go crazy over sports teams. There will probably be more than a few condescending comments about the SuperBowl hype over the next two weeks. I see a post like this as no different. It's someone cheering for their favorite team. I don't really care if people love a certain software/hardware product (even though its annoying when they bash other products to show that love). I just hate that this same community will bash sports fans for the same kind of devotion. For the most part both are harmless even though the devotion may be a little nutty.
- Yhippa 15y ago
  You beat me to it! I agree this read to me like "I rooted for the Patriots when they weren't good and now that they're good I'm glad I stuck with them!" Don't get me wrong I love sports and have teams that I follow but I have to try to divorce myself from the team's performance (especially when they lose). I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have any skin in the game so I cannot influence the outcome. With Apple love I suppose it's a little different since you can go all-in to their ecosystem and provide them with revenue.
- code_duck 15y ago
  The difference is the rather important fact that sports teams, unlike most technology companies, accomplish absolutely nothing useful or productive other than to provide entertainment.
  - mdonahoe 15y ago
    Entertainment has value
    - gvb 15y ago
      ...est ist das Opium des Volkes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
      - 15y ago
ryandvm 15y ago
The most heartwarming part is knowing how much wonderful charity work the most valuable and successful corporation in the world must be engaging in. I mean, sure the old school giants like Exxon, Walmart, Microsoft, et al. give incredible sums of money to charities. Hell, even Goldman Sachs gave over $300 million in 2010. But just imagine how much money the Apple corporation must be contributing...
- brudgers 15y ago
  Well, in fairness, Apple could be criticized for it's recent pursuit of an ebook publishing strategy which will tend to lock teachers' course materials to the iPad via a click through EULA.
- nirvana 15y ago
  I'm tired of seeing these kinds of socialist comments on HN. Apple has done far more to make the world a better place than any corporation I've ever heard of. Far more than any government in history ever has. Far more than any charity every has or ever could. Capitalism benefits people. Every dollar in profit Apple puts in the bank is represented by thousands of dollars of improvement they've done to people's lives. Capitalism is the cure to poverty-- when socialism is tried the countries quickly become hellholes. When capitalism is allowed-- as it was in the US in the past-- the country went from 3rd world to 1st world in a couple generations. India doubled the standard of living of over a billion people in 20 years simply by reducing red tape, allowing a little more capitalism. China has done even better on that score. Apple could burn all its money in a big old bonfire, and it still would have had a more positive impact on the world than Bill Gates charities ever will. (In fact, I suspect Bill Gates charity work is actually making people's lives worse due to misallocation and undermining economies in those regions, combined with bad economics, but I haven't studied it closely enough to be sure.)
guelo 15y ago
To me watching Apple rake in so much cash just points to how disgusting their pettiness is. A company with almost $100 billion in the bank should not be crushing small publishers by demanding 30% of all their revenues which will add .001% to their bottom line, or suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element. The bigger their profit the more they come across as grossly petty and greedy.
- yardie 15y ago
  A company with almost $100 billion in the bank should not be crushing small publishers by demanding 30% Why shouldn't they? Publishers aren't printing books. Apple does the distribution (electronically) and the payments. This leaves publishers to add what value? Marketing? Editing? or suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element. Stupid to you but it's the little details that make a good design a great one. Apple had their UX employees designing the buttons, getting the scroll velocity right, giving the right amount of bounce to a page change. Those engineers got compensated for their work, now Apple wants to be compensated for its work.
  - huggyface 15y ago
    "Those engineers got compensated for their work, now Apple wants to be compensated for its work." For real? We're discussing the company that just announced the largest non-energy profit in history, right? That has $100 billion in the bank? That is almost certain to continue growing that profit for at least a few years to come? My heart breaks for them. They just want to be compensated.
    - zygen 15y ago
      Is the argument that they have enough money and thus shouldn't make more?
      - huggyface 15y ago
        The argument that it is difficult to hold Apple as a victim when they're rolling in enormous success. But yes, as a society and culture there is a natural disdain for excessive success ($100 billion in cash reserves? That is deeply unsettling), and as a natural course both the government and the courts are going to be less favourable to Apple.
kbutler 15y ago
When Microsoft was dominant, it was eviscerated for the "embrace, extend, extinguish" approach to protecting its monopoly. Apple shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist than Microsoft ever was. Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform. They are also quite adept at "capturing the consumer surplus" using tiered pricing, etc., to maximize their profit. The overreaching terms in developer agreements, very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits, and restrictive shrink-wrap licensing are all efforts to protect and extend their control. TL;DR: Apple is not your friend.
- treenyc 15y ago
  It doesn't matters what one do, but where he is doing it from.
- grecy 15y ago
  >very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits I'm not going to disagree with you, but every time I hear people complain about Apple and patent lawsuits, I recommend the following: Watch the iPhone introduction video on YouTube. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, skip to 3.40 in Part 1, and see the state of affairs, then watch at 4.00 in Part 2 [2]. Listen to the crowd reaction when Steve "Slides to unlock" for the first time in the world. It doesn't matter who you are, or what your background is, nobody had ever seen anything like that before. In my opinion, Apple clearly invented something "brand new" and they are defending the patents that have on that in court. What's wrong with that? I don't think anyone can deny successful smartphones today have almost nothing in common with the phones at 3.40 in Part 1 [1], though they look and behave a hell of a lot like the one shown at 4.00 in Part 2 [2]. 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VTB7Lj_NA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VTB7Lj_NA 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VLb5XdxRm8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VLb5XdxRm8 EDIT: I need to clarify: I'm not just talking about "slide to unlock" being brand new and patentable.. I'm talking about the whole phone..
  - qdog 15y ago
shmerl 15y ago
More important is a battle of open vs closed, DRM and control encumbered vs free. Both MS and Apple are on the dark side of this, so watching the Apple win isn't something that society will benefit from.
- ddagradi 15y ago
  Not to troll, but who's on the light side?
  - shmerl 15y ago
    Those who promote open standards, free software and don't disseminate DRM. Probably you can add to the list those who are against software patents too. Unsurprisingly Apple gets a minus on every of those points.
  - jpadkins 15y ago
    EFF? FSF?
    - shmerl 15y ago
      If I guess correctly, the question above was intending to ask which companies fall under that category. So there are a bunch who promote all or some of those values (my favorite being Mozilla for example). In general open source related companies promote open standards and stand up against software patents and DRM. (On a side note, Apple didn't say anything on the latest development around SOPA/PIPA, simply because Apple is strongly pro DRM and they would probably support these kind of laws willingly).
      - ddagradi 15y ago
        Mozilla - that's a perfect example! Apple and DRM is interesting. They're pretty expressly against it across rich media content. Their video services are crippled with such awful restrictions due to studio pressure. iOS appears DRM heavy to discourage the unrestricted sideloading of apps, which comes with its own set of pitfalls and dangers for the end user (which, as a commenter points out above, fits within their user-focused view of systems). Not that their methods are correct; moreso I think that they've created an interesting ecosystem where DRM is non-invasive to the point of being invisible. Really, it's always reminded me strongly of Steam.
Tichy 15y ago
The thing is: Apple is not your friend. OK, maybe it is dhh's friend, but not Joe Average's friend. As such I just can't see any rational explanation for fawning over Apple. To me it is the equivalent to fawning over the billionaire who buys the playground I used to play in, tears it down and builds apartment buildings in it's place. Yeah, it's cool that they are so successful, but the bottom line is that my playground is gone. Why should I consider that cool? It is their success, not my success. Or maybe they build a theme park in place of the playground and admit me to play there for a regular fee, if I stick to their rules. Also, somehow I still don't believe that Apple will continue to be successful without Steve Jobs. Already I heard rumors that the iPad 3 will be thicker again, presumably because they need more LEDs to light the high resolution display. iBook Author doesn't seem to have made many friends, either.
krelian 15y ago
As someone who used Windows all their life I can appreciate the unified hardware/software/simplicity model that Apple is offering and can easily see how why the average user would prefer it. After reading Steve Jobs biography I am baffled as to why Apple didn't succeed earlier (at the magnitude they are succeeding now). Were their earlier products really just "not there yet" or was it a marketing problem that got solved by the ipod introducing the Apple way to the masses?
- nirvana 15y ago
  The simple answer is that after Jobs brought Scully in, he didn't have the power to do the right thing with the company. But its also the case that people were a lot more ignorant of computers then than they are now. People actually believed that Macs were not as good as windows machines because that's what the teenager at the local computer store told them.
joejohnson 15y ago
It's true, Apple computers are better than almost all of the competition in so many ways. However, as they become the dominant consumer computer manufacturer, I hope they continue to make smart and daring choices to stay ahead. I really like Apple's products, but I'm scared that their ingenuity was a product of being an underdog for so long; hopefully their newfound uber-success won't halt innovation.
- jarcoal 15y ago
  I hope so as well. Something Tim said in the conference call yesterday made me pretty hopeful. He implied that the iPad was cannibalizing their own laptop sales, but that he didn't really care. Apple has done a fantastic job in the past of destroying their cash cows if they feel that have an even more awesome cash cow in the pipeline. This is a mark of a well run business.
nirvana 15y ago
Its interesting that he wrote this post praising Apple, but seems to have missed completely what Apple's guiding principle is. In fact, Apple's guiding principle is almost a secret to hear the way many people talk about them, but it shouldn't be. Apple's guiding principle is to do right by the customer. That's it. For instance: "Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform." If you want to see Apple as evil, its very easy to interpret them doing right by the customer as somehow having nefarious intent. They want to control what apps can be installed simply to keep out malware and porn, so that they can do right by their customers who don't want malware and the parents who don't want porn apps. (They leave Safari open and give it effectively native app capabilities, for people who want to deliver porn. They even do right by that customer, though its a shame that so few people make use of this completely open and unregulated way to install apps on iOS devices. In fact, many people don't seem to know that you can have apps written in javascript, download them from the web, save them on the device and run them offline.) Apple doesn't want to restrict expansion and peripherals. Far from it. For iOS devices they've created an API and a completely reasonable licensing agreement so that you can make your peripherals for iOS to do just about anything you want-- except harm the device. Again, they do right by the customer by having a very vibrant and active peripheral and accessory market-- which they do, and its quite massive-- and they do right by the customer by ensuring these devices work together. Its the same as WiFi or any other branded protocol with a licensing scheme that requires interoperability. As for "controlling the tools used to develop for their platform", that one simply isn't true. Unity Technologies makes a development tool to build 3D games for the platform. Coronoa makes a flash like platform to develop apps for iOS. In both cases, these third party products simply use Xcode for the code signing or compilation steps. I don't see Apple stopping anyone from making tools to develop for their platform, and I certainly can't fault Apple for providing free tools to develop for their platform. Of course, when you're large and successful, you'll naturally attract people who don't like you for whatever reason. But, by definition, doing right by your customer means putting the customer first. That doesn't mean compromising that principle in order to comply with the beliefs of non-customers. This is why Apple doesn't ship Windows as their core operating system, for instance. Apple chose to ship an operating system that is better for their customers, to the continued derision of non-customers who claim that Windows is the industry standard (not, notably, that it is actually better.) It is gratifying to see a company win in the marketplace by sticking to a principle like this.
bwarp 15y ago
I've learned not to trust big corporate IT companies. Apple is one. I've been through the IBM/Sun/Oracle era, the Microsoft era and am now living in the Apple era. It's like a perpetual screwing ground extracting cash however they can. The products look good but aren't and are primarily fad based. It's the same tactics but different medium. The only constant good, trouble free, ground levelling force has been Linux so far which solves problems and gets out of the way.
exolab 15y ago
Bad case of fan-boyism. Go see a doctor. JFTR: I like many Apple products, but come on.

85 points by richardburton 15y ago

"I’m just so proud of Apple that I’m willing to look foolish saying so." Mission accomplished.

c1sc0 15y ago

This is starting to feel like Microsoft in the 90s or IBM in the 80s. IBM brought a computer in every business. Microsoft took it from the server-room and put it on your desk. Apple took it from your desk and put it in your pocket. They are winning for now, but what goes up must come down.

ryandvm 15y ago
Agreed. Apple has come full circle to perfectly embody the image they protested in their classic Super Bowel commercial. Millions of souls mindlessly catapulting birds on their little devices while fed a steady diet of carefully curated media and apps. Rescue us, lady with the sledgehammer...
- shmerl 15y ago
  Yep, it's ironic how things changed. The big brother in that clip is exactly Apple today. Someone even made a parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVzboF2E2Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVzboF2E2Q
hazov 15y ago
After Apple goes down people will create new causal stories to explain why it sucked, just like they created for Microsoft, IBM or even for Apple when it went up.

barranger 15y ago

It's articles like this that basically sum up perfectly why I refuse to discuss anything Apple with people. Don't get me wrong, I like many of the products that Apple make (I'm currently typing this up with a MBP), however the personal connection that people have with Apple is not something I share. For many people there exists a strange bond with Apple where they take any negative comment about one of their products or services as a personal affront against themselves. It's a corporation folks, a wildly successful one, but that's it. It's not your buddy, your soulmate, nor your friend.

c1sc0 15y ago
May I suggest that you simply don't understand the value branding? I know it's hard for people like us to understand, but most people can get irrationally attached to products, people, ideologies etc ... just because they had a positive experience once & are being reminded of it ad nauseam.
- barranger 15y ago
  Oh I fully agree that I don't completely understand value branding, it's just that with Apple it goes to a new level. There was an odd Web video floating around (link escapes me) of an animated customer talking to a sales clerk looking for an iPhone (something about does it have the WiFis) that perfectly describes far too many of the conversations I've had with people about apple products.
  - onemoreact 15y ago
    People often feel the same attachment to their truck / car / boat.
jonnathanson 15y ago
It's called marketing. Apple understands branding and marketing; very few other hardware makers do. What's remarkable is that Apple has been using the same playbook for decades now, and nobody else has quite figured it out. It's the Nike playbook (Steve Jobs once said that he learned a lot from Nike's example). Don't market your tech specs; market your lifestyle. Apple's competitors are still running commercials about the dimensions, specifications, and miscellaneous stats of their devices. Such commercials basically announce "Hey consumers, here's a commodity. For the time being, it's slightly differentiated from other, more or less interchangeable commodities by way of some wonky stats you don't understand. Please buy it." Apple commercials, by contrast, show use cases and lifestyles. They use metaphorical and superlative language. That stuff works. It establishes an emotional bond with the consumer. Apple commercials aren't even really about Apple; they're about making consumers feel cool, special, hip, and creative because they use Apple products. It's the ultimate in feel-good messaging. Seriously: watch a Motorola Droid RAZR commercial, then watch an iPhone commercial. The difference is extraordinary.

sdoering 15y ago

A posting like this is (for me) absolutely a reason not to use any of the 37sig-products. Seldom I have seen such a quasi-religious, non-critical hailing of an international cooperation. Working-conditions in china? Who cares? Steve jobs takes over and kills the till then legitimately produced Mac-Clones, because they were technically superior (killing companies is not so good for US-jobs)? Who cares? Ripping of ideas from developers of Apps? Who cares? Well maybe fellow-developers should care. It seems, that as long, as apple is able to whitewash itself in front of its fanboys the will sing in tune as one big choir and hail their spiritual leader Steve, come what may.

atirip 15y ago
"Working-conditions in china? Who cares?" Let's start with you. I assume, you wrote that comment on the computer. There's 100% probability that this computer was manufactured in China. So its you. You do not fucking care.
- freehunter 15y ago
  Are you not using a computer made in China? The problem is not where it was made, the problem is the conditions under which it was manufactured. Unfortunately we as consumers don't have much power or insight into where or how our electronic products are made. One thing we can do is pressure companies to change their suppliers, something Apple has shown they're willing to try at least to some extent.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  I'm not the one that made 13 billion dollars in a single quarter while the 13-year-olds who assembled my product are driven to suicide and are praised in the New York Times for getting up at midnight with a bun and coffee to make up for the poor planning of my design team. Apple sucks. So does every other electronics manufacturer in the world, but Apple sucks more because they're sitting on huge mountains of cash that could reduce the suffering of their workers if they could manage to give a shit about human concerns.
- code_duck 15y ago

potatolicious 15y ago

> "When you hear regular people talk about how much they love their iPhone or iPad, it really hammers home what Apple has done not just for themselves but for anyone trying to create better products and hoping to win markets because of them." As an app developer this rings true to me. Apple certainly has raised the bar, and public expectation, of end-user software. I think back to the late 90s (or even early 00s) and the shite software we'd all put up with, compared to great Android and iOS apps now... It's gratifying for reality to finally match your values as a developer. I get a sick glee when I see WebView-wrapped apps on the App Store get absolutely eviscerated in its reviews and stumble out with a 1.5 star rating. I love that people not only appreciate beautiful design, now, but they practically demand it. It's glorious.

richardburton 15y ago
It is like the French with their food compared to the UK with theirs. The French spit bad food out, we just stomach it.
code_duck 15y ago
Finally, we're getting out of the quality hole that Microsoft dug for the entire tech industry.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Facile. The Microsoft of the '90s was famous for spending on software quality. They didn't have the design mojo of Apple or Adobe, but still produced extraordinarily well designed software that caught on because of its intrinsic value and not just marketing --- Excel and Word, for instance, were simply good pieces of software. I suspect any narrative that looks at Microsoft as the reason the '90s didn't look like Steve Job's aught's has rose-colored glasses on about the "quality" of (pick any:) Linux desktop software, Nullsoft, Netscape Navigator, NCSA HTTPD, Eudora, Forte FreeAgent. I think the reality has more to do with technology progressing to a point where it's cost effective to build products with high production values --- handheld computers with a BOM in the low hundreds of dollars can do hardware-accelerated OpenGL compositing for a vector-based GUI. That doesn't mean Apple didn't do something to carry the industry forward; they did: they noticed the coming new reality first, and did the best job of capitalizing on it by designing new kinds of products that executed a few core features better than anything could have in the '90s, and so didn't need to crud themselves up with 1,000 extra features to make up for deficits in their core.

loso 15y ago

Sometimes I see programmers, or people in the tech world in general, bash people who go crazy over sports teams. There will probably be more than a few condescending comments about the SuperBowl hype over the next two weeks. I see a post like this as no different. It's someone cheering for their favorite team. I don't really care if people love a certain software/hardware product (even though its annoying when they bash other products to show that love). I just hate that this same community will bash sports fans for the same kind of devotion. For the most part both are harmless even though the devotion may be a little nutty.

Yhippa 15y ago
You beat me to it! I agree this read to me like "I rooted for the Patriots when they weren't good and now that they're good I'm glad I stuck with them!" Don't get me wrong I love sports and have teams that I follow but I have to try to divorce myself from the team's performance (especially when they lose). I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have any skin in the game so I cannot influence the outcome. With Apple love I suppose it's a little different since you can go all-in to their ecosystem and provide them with revenue.
code_duck 15y ago
The difference is the rather important fact that sports teams, unlike most technology companies, accomplish absolutely nothing useful or productive other than to provide entertainment.
- mdonahoe 15y ago
  Entertainment has value
  - gvb 15y ago
    ...est ist das Opium des Volkes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
    - 15y ago

ryandvm 15y ago

The most heartwarming part is knowing how much wonderful charity work the most valuable and successful corporation in the world must be engaging in. I mean, sure the old school giants like Exxon, Walmart, Microsoft, et al. give incredible sums of money to charities. Hell, even Goldman Sachs gave over $300 million in 2010. But just imagine how much money the Apple corporation must be contributing...

brudgers 15y ago
Well, in fairness, Apple could be criticized for it's recent pursuit of an ebook publishing strategy which will tend to lock teachers' course materials to the iPad via a click through EULA.
nirvana 15y ago
I'm tired of seeing these kinds of socialist comments on HN. Apple has done far more to make the world a better place than any corporation I've ever heard of. Far more than any government in history ever has. Far more than any charity every has or ever could. Capitalism benefits people. Every dollar in profit Apple puts in the bank is represented by thousands of dollars of improvement they've done to people's lives. Capitalism is the cure to poverty-- when socialism is tried the countries quickly become hellholes. When capitalism is allowed-- as it was in the US in the past-- the country went from 3rd world to 1st world in a couple generations. India doubled the standard of living of over a billion people in 20 years simply by reducing red tape, allowing a little more capitalism. China has done even better on that score. Apple could burn all its money in a big old bonfire, and it still would have had a more positive impact on the world than Bill Gates charities ever will. (In fact, I suspect Bill Gates charity work is actually making people's lives worse due to misallocation and undermining economies in those regions, combined with bad economics, but I haven't studied it closely enough to be sure.)

guelo 15y ago

To me watching Apple rake in so much cash just points to how disgusting their pettiness is. A company with almost $100 billion in the bank should not be crushing small publishers by demanding 30% of all their revenues which will add .001% to their bottom line, or suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element. The bigger their profit the more they come across as grossly petty and greedy.

yardie 15y ago
A company with almost $100 billion in the bank should not be crushing small publishers by demanding 30% Why shouldn't they? Publishers aren't printing books. Apple does the distribution (electronically) and the payments. This leaves publishers to add what value? Marketing? Editing? or suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element. Stupid to you but it's the little details that make a good design a great one. Apple had their UX employees designing the buttons, getting the scroll velocity right, giving the right amount of bounce to a page change. Those engineers got compensated for their work, now Apple wants to be compensated for its work.
- huggyface 15y ago
  "Those engineers got compensated for their work, now Apple wants to be compensated for its work." For real? We're discussing the company that just announced the largest non-energy profit in history, right? That has $100 billion in the bank? That is almost certain to continue growing that profit for at least a few years to come? My heart breaks for them. They just want to be compensated.
  - zygen 15y ago
    Is the argument that they have enough money and thus shouldn't make more?
    - huggyface 15y ago
      The argument that it is difficult to hold Apple as a victim when they're rolling in enormous success. But yes, as a society and culture there is a natural disdain for excessive success ($100 billion in cash reserves? That is deeply unsettling), and as a natural course both the government and the courts are going to be less favourable to Apple.

kbutler 15y ago

When Microsoft was dominant, it was eviscerated for the "embrace, extend, extinguish" approach to protecting its monopoly. Apple shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist than Microsoft ever was. Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform. They are also quite adept at "capturing the consumer surplus" using tiered pricing, etc., to maximize their profit. The overreaching terms in developer agreements, very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits, and restrictive shrink-wrap licensing are all efforts to protect and extend their control. TL;DR: Apple is not your friend.

treenyc 15y ago
It doesn't matters what one do, but where he is doing it from.
grecy 15y ago
>very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits I'm not going to disagree with you, but every time I hear people complain about Apple and patent lawsuits, I recommend the following: Watch the iPhone introduction video on YouTube. If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, skip to 3.40 in Part 1, and see the state of affairs, then watch at 4.00 in Part 2 [2]. Listen to the crowd reaction when Steve "Slides to unlock" for the first time in the world. It doesn't matter who you are, or what your background is, nobody had ever seen anything like that before. In my opinion, Apple clearly invented something "brand new" and they are defending the patents that have on that in court. What's wrong with that? I don't think anyone can deny successful smartphones today have almost nothing in common with the phones at 3.40 in Part 1 [1], though they look and behave a hell of a lot like the one shown at 4.00 in Part 2 [2]. 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VTB7Lj_NA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VTB7Lj_NA 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VLb5XdxRm8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VLb5XdxRm8 EDIT: I need to clarify: I'm not just talking about "slide to unlock" being brand new and patentable.. I'm talking about the whole phone..
- qdog 15y ago

shmerl 15y ago

More important is a battle of open vs closed, DRM and control encumbered vs free. Both MS and Apple are on the dark side of this, so watching the Apple win isn't something that society will benefit from.

ddagradi 15y ago
Not to troll, but who's on the light side?
- shmerl 15y ago
  Those who promote open standards, free software and don't disseminate DRM. Probably you can add to the list those who are against software patents too. Unsurprisingly Apple gets a minus on every of those points.
- jpadkins 15y ago
  EFF? FSF?
  - shmerl 15y ago
    If I guess correctly, the question above was intending to ask which companies fall under that category. So there are a bunch who promote all or some of those values (my favorite being Mozilla for example). In general open source related companies promote open standards and stand up against software patents and DRM. (On a side note, Apple didn't say anything on the latest development around SOPA/PIPA, simply because Apple is strongly pro DRM and they would probably support these kind of laws willingly).
    - ddagradi 15y ago
      Mozilla - that's a perfect example! Apple and DRM is interesting. They're pretty expressly against it across rich media content. Their video services are crippled with such awful restrictions due to studio pressure. iOS appears DRM heavy to discourage the unrestricted sideloading of apps, which comes with its own set of pitfalls and dangers for the end user (which, as a commenter points out above, fits within their user-focused view of systems). Not that their methods are correct; moreso I think that they've created an interesting ecosystem where DRM is non-invasive to the point of being invisible. Really, it's always reminded me strongly of Steam.

Tichy 15y ago

The thing is: Apple is not your friend. OK, maybe it is dhh's friend, but not Joe Average's friend. As such I just can't see any rational explanation for fawning over Apple. To me it is the equivalent to fawning over the billionaire who buys the playground I used to play in, tears it down and builds apartment buildings in it's place. Yeah, it's cool that they are so successful, but the bottom line is that my playground is gone. Why should I consider that cool? It is their success, not my success. Or maybe they build a theme park in place of the playground and admit me to play there for a regular fee, if I stick to their rules. Also, somehow I still don't believe that Apple will continue to be successful without Steve Jobs. Already I heard rumors that the iPad 3 will be thicker again, presumably because they need more LEDs to light the high resolution display. iBook Author doesn't seem to have made many friends, either.

krelian 15y ago

As someone who used Windows all their life I can appreciate the unified hardware/software/simplicity model that Apple is offering and can easily see how why the average user would prefer it. After reading Steve Jobs biography I am baffled as to why Apple didn't succeed earlier (at the magnitude they are succeeding now). Were their earlier products really just "not there yet" or was it a marketing problem that got solved by the ipod introducing the Apple way to the masses?

nirvana 15y ago
The simple answer is that after Jobs brought Scully in, he didn't have the power to do the right thing with the company. But its also the case that people were a lot more ignorant of computers then than they are now. People actually believed that Macs were not as good as windows machines because that's what the teenager at the local computer store told them.

joejohnson 15y ago

It's true, Apple computers are better than almost all of the competition in so many ways. However, as they become the dominant consumer computer manufacturer, I hope they continue to make smart and daring choices to stay ahead. I really like Apple's products, but I'm scared that their ingenuity was a product of being an underdog for so long; hopefully their newfound uber-success won't halt innovation.

jarcoal 15y ago
I hope so as well. Something Tim said in the conference call yesterday made me pretty hopeful. He implied that the iPad was cannibalizing their own laptop sales, but that he didn't really care. Apple has done a fantastic job in the past of destroying their cash cows if they feel that have an even more awesome cash cow in the pipeline. This is a mark of a well run business.

nirvana 15y ago

Its interesting that he wrote this post praising Apple, but seems to have missed completely what Apple's guiding principle is. In fact, Apple's guiding principle is almost a secret to hear the way many people talk about them, but it shouldn't be. Apple's guiding principle is to do right by the customer. That's it. For instance: "Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform." If you want to see Apple as evil, its very easy to interpret them doing right by the customer as somehow having nefarious intent. They want to control what apps can be installed simply to keep out malware and porn, so that they can do right by their customers who don't want malware and the parents who don't want porn apps. (They leave Safari open and give it effectively native app capabilities, for people who want to deliver porn. They even do right by that customer, though its a shame that so few people make use of this completely open and unregulated way to install apps on iOS devices. In fact, many people don't seem to know that you can have apps written in javascript, download them from the web, save them on the device and run them offline.) Apple doesn't want to restrict expansion and peripherals. Far from it. For iOS devices they've created an API and a completely reasonable licensing agreement so that you can make your peripherals for iOS to do just about anything you want-- except harm the device. Again, they do right by the customer by having a very vibrant and active peripheral and accessory market-- which they do, and its quite massive-- and they do right by the customer by ensuring these devices work together. Its the same as WiFi or any other branded protocol with a licensing scheme that requires interoperability. As for "controlling the tools used to develop for their platform", that one simply isn't true. Unity Technologies makes a development tool to build 3D games for the platform. Coronoa makes a flash like platform to develop apps for iOS. In both cases, these third party products simply use Xcode for the code signing or compilation steps. I don't see Apple stopping anyone from making tools to develop for their platform, and I certainly can't fault Apple for providing free tools to develop for their platform. Of course, when you're large and successful, you'll naturally attract people who don't like you for whatever reason. But, by definition, doing right by your customer means putting the customer first. That doesn't mean compromising that principle in order to comply with the beliefs of non-customers. This is why Apple doesn't ship Windows as their core operating system, for instance. Apple chose to ship an operating system that is better for their customers, to the continued derision of non-customers who claim that Windows is the industry standard (not, notably, that it is actually better.) It is gratifying to see a company win in the marketplace by sticking to a principle like this.

bwarp 15y ago

I've learned not to trust big corporate IT companies. Apple is one. I've been through the IBM/Sun/Oracle era, the Microsoft era and am now living in the Apple era. It's like a perpetual screwing ground extracting cash however they can. The products look good but aren't and are primarily fad based. It's the same tactics but different medium. The only constant good, trouble free, ground levelling force has been Linux so far which solves problems and gets out of the way.

exolab 15y ago

Bad case of fan-boyism. Go see a doctor. JFTR: I like many Apple products, but come on.