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> The recent releases (MacBook Pro Retina, Mountain Lion, rumored iPhone 5, iOS6) haven't thrilled me at all and I have been looking forward to the MBPR and iPh

> The recent releases (MacBook Pro Retina, Mountain Lion, rumored iPhone 5, iOS6) haven't thrilled me at all and I have been looking forward to the MBPR and iPhone5 for a long time. All of these have been released so recently (less than a year since Jobs passed away) that it's likely he played a large part in their design. Further, you're talking about (1) a 15" laptop that beats almost everything else on the market, (2) a minor version bump of OS X, and (3 & 4) two products that haven't been released yet. I'm as interested in Apple, post-Jobs as everyone else, but the arguments I've seen so far look too forced. The true test will occur over the next 2-3 years--not just the last 9 months. EDIT: I like snowwrestler's point: this is all "hindsight bias." EDIT 2: I've fallen into this trap myself at some points, especially with some of these commercials. But these are just single data points. We shouldn't fall into the trap of overemphasizing single data points.

taligent 14y ago
Exactly. This is what makes this all so hilarious. Steve Jobs said himself that he was directly involved in the next 2-3 years worth of upcoming products. So "this would never have happened under Steve Jobs" can partly be blamed on him.
- radley 14y ago
  Steve wasn't just the inspiration. He was also the guy who was more than willing to say "WTF is this? We can't release THAT! Fix IT!!" Without that you've got the contentment of the collective.
  - achompas 14y ago
    Sure, but we've also got anecdotes where he'd curmudgeonly agree with the collective after lots of pushback from them. I'm of the opinion that people assign too much importance to Jobs' final decisions. He created a design-oriented culture at Apple and guided Apple to the Dieter Rams style. But do we really think that, after >10 years working together, Jony Ive would approve of something that Jobs would hate? Does anyone doubt Ive's design decisions at this point?
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      Ive doesn't sign off on Software. When you look at the MBP as an example, the hardware is great, the release software was buggy (most of it fixed with ML though).
  - jasonlotito 14y ago
    > "WTF is this? We can't release THAT! Fix IT!!" But he was also the guy that missed in that regard multiple times as well. Sure, he might have stopped a lot from going wrong, but the stuff he didn't say "No" to quickly became a blight on the company.
    - mikecane 14y ago
      >>>but the stuff he didn't say "No" to quickly became a blight on the company. Ping.
      - josephlord 14y ago
        Never used it and it seems to have completely failed in the market but I don't see the harm it has done the company. Anyone got any better examples? FCP seems closer to a possibility that could have been avoided just by keeping the existing product on the price list in parallel for those that really do require it's features until the new version is fully fleshed out.
        beedogs 14y ago
        Newton, Lisa, AppleTV, Thunderbolt
        demallien 14y ago
        Newton and Lisa were not projects under Jobs' control - Newton was Scully's baby, and Jobs created the Macintosh team precisely because he thought the Lisa was the wrong solution. AppleTV sells more units than xBox at the moment, hardly something that harms the company. Thunderbolt is a bit too young to see if it is going to pan out or not, but considering that it has the support of Intel, I would be happy to bet on it in the long term.
        yardie 14y ago
        Newton - was under a different CEO. He killed it because the tech just wasn't there yet. Lisa - was the precursor to the Mac. It was beta but everything you see in a Mac was in Lisa. AppleTV - STBs are really, really hard. I think this is the last gasp for TV. AppleTV just makes it useful again when the world is moving to watching things on a laptop/tablet. Thunderbolt - fantastic piece of tech probably has longer legs than eSata, which it is supposed to replace.
- Florin_Andrei 14y ago
  Sure, but towards the end he was pretty sick, so I would assume quite a few bloopers may have escaped his attention.
- astrodust 14y ago
  Given the evidence in the new Samsung court case, with the 2010 iPad being worked on in 2002. That means there's still at least another eight years of pipeline that's yet to hit the public.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  Of course, Jobs would have spent the year before he died blasted out of his mind on very strong medications and analgesics.
kokey 14y ago
I think the next big product or two (iPhone 5, or the 'other thing' that is possibly a TV) is what will prove whether Apple will stay strongly in the running or fade away as quickly as it did when Jobs was pushed out of the company. I personally think it'll be good for a while longer than that, but the company will need to find new leadership focus after that.

taligent 14y ago

Exactly. This is what makes this all so hilarious. Steve Jobs said himself that he was directly involved in the next 2-3 years worth of upcoming products. So "this would never have happened under Steve Jobs" can partly be blamed on him.

radley 14y ago
Steve wasn't just the inspiration. He was also the guy who was more than willing to say "WTF is this? We can't release THAT! Fix IT!!" Without that you've got the contentment of the collective.
- achompas 14y ago
  Sure, but we've also got anecdotes where he'd curmudgeonly agree with the collective after lots of pushback from them. I'm of the opinion that people assign too much importance to Jobs' final decisions. He created a design-oriented culture at Apple and guided Apple to the Dieter Rams style. But do we really think that, after >10 years working together, Jony Ive would approve of something that Jobs would hate? Does anyone doubt Ive's design decisions at this point?
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    Ive doesn't sign off on Software. When you look at the MBP as an example, the hardware is great, the release software was buggy (most of it fixed with ML though).
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  > "WTF is this? We can't release THAT! Fix IT!!" But he was also the guy that missed in that regard multiple times as well. Sure, he might have stopped a lot from going wrong, but the stuff he didn't say "No" to quickly became a blight on the company.
  - mikecane 14y ago
    >>>but the stuff he didn't say "No" to quickly became a blight on the company. Ping.
    - josephlord 14y ago
      Never used it and it seems to have completely failed in the market but I don't see the harm it has done the company. Anyone got any better examples? FCP seems closer to a possibility that could have been avoided just by keeping the existing product on the price list in parallel for those that really do require it's features until the new version is fully fleshed out.
      - beedogs 14y ago
        Newton, Lisa, AppleTV, Thunderbolt
        demallien 14y ago
        Newton and Lisa were not projects under Jobs' control - Newton was Scully's baby, and Jobs created the Macintosh team precisely because he thought the Lisa was the wrong solution. AppleTV sells more units than xBox at the moment, hardly something that harms the company. Thunderbolt is a bit too young to see if it is going to pan out or not, but considering that it has the support of Intel, I would be happy to bet on it in the long term.
        yardie 14y ago
        Newton - was under a different CEO. He killed it because the tech just wasn't there yet. Lisa - was the precursor to the Mac. It was beta but everything you see in a Mac was in Lisa. AppleTV - STBs are really, really hard. I think this is the last gasp for TV. AppleTV just makes it useful again when the world is moving to watching things on a laptop/tablet. Thunderbolt - fantastic piece of tech probably has longer legs than eSata, which it is supposed to replace.
Florin_Andrei 14y ago
Sure, but towards the end he was pretty sick, so I would assume quite a few bloopers may have escaped his attention.
astrodust 14y ago
Given the evidence in the new Samsung court case, with the 2010 iPad being worked on in 2002. That means there's still at least another eight years of pipeline that's yet to hit the public.
CamperBob2 14y ago
Of course, Jobs would have spent the year before he died blasted out of his mind on very strong medications and analgesics.

kokey 14y ago

I think the next big product or two (iPhone 5, or the 'other thing' that is possibly a TV) is what will prove whether Apple will stay strongly in the running or fade away as quickly as it did when Jobs was pushed out of the company. I personally think it'll be good for a while longer than that, but the company will need to find new leadership focus after that.