4 ms·

They don't always hit the mark but I sort of miss the times when Apple would innovate more boldly with their devices. Apple Intelligence isn't it - it's just p

by ljm 2y ago

They don't always hit the mark but I sort of miss the times when Apple would innovate more boldly with their devices. Apple Intelligence isn't it - it's just playing catch-up with a market that tries to slap AI onto everything it can think of. The hardware upgrades are always nice but there's nothing 'out there' like a touch bar or even a 'dynamic island'. Just more safe iterations.

madeofpalk 2y ago
What innovation is there from a laptop these days? Apple Silicon chips were the innovation we needed (better performance for better battery). Last time people cried for Apple to innovate they added the touch bar to laptops. Computers (and phones) are a mature product category where I don't want innovation, I just want them to be functional.
- dylan604 2y ago
  And butterfly keyboards. Don’t forget their innovative trash can MacPro. Hockey puck mouse anyone? Apple has an impressive history of missing the mark.
lifefeed 2y ago
It's been a while since they made a bold choice. When I bought an iPhone a couple years ago, even the apple store employee kinda shrugged his shoulders when I asked if the new 14 phone was better, besides the camera, than the cheaper 13.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  The iPhone 14 added emergency satellite connectivity. That seems like a pretty big deal to me?
  - sleepybrett 2y ago
    .. if you are someone that even ventures into areas that lack proper cell coverage. I don't think most people do.
    - alabastervlog 2y ago
      This is me when I go to a state forest 20 minutes away, and about 2.5hrs drive from Manhattan. Anywhere with even a little elevation has abundant cell dead zones.
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      If you live west of the great plains, you will always hit dead zones if you ever leave the city, even on the major interstates you will hit dead zones. This is an incredibly nice feature to have for tens (hundreds?) of millions of people in the just the US, let alone other countries. (this may hold true in the east as well, I don't live there) Extrapolating your personal experience to all use cases is generally a bad idea.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      You can drive from Apple's headquarters to zero bars of cell service in 10 minutes.
- windowsrookie 2y ago
  I bought a 13 Pro Max on launch day and I am still using it today. I have never kept a phone this long in my life. The cameras and performance are still fantastic. The only thing that would be nice is USB-C and USB 3.0 transfer speeds. But that is not enough for me to upgrade.
bananapub 2y ago
what do you mean? they cut prices, improved battery life and improved performance, like they do almost every year. every few years they do something big like a new form factor or a new CPU architecture!
- foobarian 2y ago
  > or a new CPU architecture! Ah maybe RISC-V! Wouldn't that be fun
dmix 2y ago
I don't want innovation on Macbook hardware. It's perfectly good as it is. The only thing I'd want is something that'd make it last even longer like waterproofing the top keyboard layer.
CountHackulus 2y ago
The last time they "innovated" on macbooks we got a touch bar (ignoring M chips). I'm good with incremental improvements if we can avoid those gigantic blunders.
- swat535 2y ago
  Right and I'm not sure consumers are willing to tolerate innovation. I recall the amount of hate touch bar got on HN and everyone asking Apple to revert back to building normal machines (which they did with Macbook Pro).
  - greazy 2y ago
    The issue with the touch bar is that it replaced the F keys which are (at least for me) my most used short cuts. I don't use the track pad gestures, never really got the hang of them. So the F keys were used a lot. They should have added the touch bar, not replacement the F keys with it.
- jmyeet 2y ago
  Don't forget this also came with the awful butterfly keyboard, allegedly to save 0.5mm in thickness. It had terrible reliability, Apple was forced to do replacements and IIRC required a motherboard replacement to actually replace. And why did Apple do all this? To increase the Average Selling Price ("ASP") of Macs. That's literally it. the new M4 Macbook Air for $999 is incredible value and that's what I want the Air to be: a good compromise of power and price. For example, the 12" Macbook made too compromises to be just a little bit thinner.
- ljm 2y ago
  Didn't know it was a blunder until afterwards though right? Hence, innovation. Now you just get risk-averse updates that offer little reason to upgrade from previous models.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 2y ago
  They should do their "touch bar, delete ports, flat keyboard" innovations on a new Macbook Max or Ultra product line and see how it goes. The Air and Pro can stay traditional and keep the HDMI and headphone jacks etc.
bee_rider 2y ago
Apple’s innovation strategy is not to take risky moves. They are more of a fast, competent follower company. Even iPods were a slightly conservative implementation of MP3 players, which were already becoming a thing at the time (you could even get mp3 players with solid state, albeit flash, drives while Apple’s iPods were still spinning rust). Of course iPods became very popular because they put it all in a package that gave it a UX that non-nerds wanted to use. The flash drive style MP3 players… had tiny capacities, they had to be “managed” by the users. iPods, just dump your whole hard drive on the thing. That solid state memory is much better in a mobile device… I mean, my Sandisk player, I’ll give it an A+ on reliability. C- on capacity. Apple always gets a B in every field. Their next thing was supposed to be VR. But nobody could find an application for VR, so Apple’s gimmick of taking something with a perfect idea and making a copy that is almost as good at the thing it does right, but which doesn’t have any massive downsides, didn’t work. They are in a tough spot now, the tech sector seems to have lost its dreamers and so nobody is making these A+/C- devices for them to level out.
- gherkinnn 2y ago
  An odd take. How can you downplay the iPod and then jump over the iPhone? They also got the iPad, Air Pods, Apple Watch, and Face ID just right. Not always as era-defining as the phone, but certainly pushing their own category. Of course, the VR thing is a remarkably well engineered thing nobody needs.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
For me as a professional, that's just fine; I never used the touch bar, but the fingerprint sensor was a great addition. Not worth upgrading for on its own, but a neat upgrade. I think a macbook with a much better front facing camera would be good, teleconferencing is a multiple times a day use case for us. They did an in-between with the system that allows you to use your iphone camera(s) which do support more wide angles, but that doesn't work on my current work laptop as it's locked down and I'd have to lock down my personal iphone as well if I want the two to connect.
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  The touchbar was a downgrade for me. Turns out my fingers go slightly above the key when typing certain symbols that are [shift]+[number key]. It took me a while to figure out why my laptop kept opening a music player seemingly at random a couple times per day, but it was because the touchbar was so sensitive that slightly brushing it was triggering the "play" button. I ended up having to disable almost the whole bar to keep it from happening, just fill it with "blank" zones. I also can't reliably drag-n-drop with force-sensitivity turned on for the touchpad, so there's another "innovation" I have to turn off. I don't even have, like, dexterity issues or a disability or something, but it makes it so damn fiddly that my drag-n-drops drop too early about half the time.
zactato 2y ago
I think the M1 was a pretty huge innovation. It's the first time a laptop felt portable and without compromise. I can get a full day of work out of my laptop without plugging it in. It's pretty wild. Before this laptops were simply things that were small enough that you could carry one from point A to point B, but they were still effectively tethered to a wall and desk for any non-trivial usecases.
mhh__ 2y ago
This is what happens when you put the logistics guy in charge of the whole thing

by ljm 2y ago

madeofpalk 2y ago

What innovation is there from a laptop these days? Apple Silicon chips were the innovation we needed (better performance for better battery). Last time people cried for Apple to innovate they added the touch bar to laptops. Computers (and phones) are a mature product category where I don't want innovation, I just want them to be functional.

dylan604 2y ago
And butterfly keyboards. Don’t forget their innovative trash can MacPro. Hockey puck mouse anyone? Apple has an impressive history of missing the mark.

lifefeed 2y ago

It's been a while since they made a bold choice. When I bought an iPhone a couple years ago, even the apple store employee kinda shrugged his shoulders when I asked if the new 14 phone was better, besides the camera, than the cheaper 13.

dghlsakjg 2y ago
The iPhone 14 added emergency satellite connectivity. That seems like a pretty big deal to me?
- sleepybrett 2y ago
  .. if you are someone that even ventures into areas that lack proper cell coverage. I don't think most people do.
  - alabastervlog 2y ago
    This is me when I go to a state forest 20 minutes away, and about 2.5hrs drive from Manhattan. Anywhere with even a little elevation has abundant cell dead zones.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    If you live west of the great plains, you will always hit dead zones if you ever leave the city, even on the major interstates you will hit dead zones. This is an incredibly nice feature to have for tens (hundreds?) of millions of people in the just the US, let alone other countries. (this may hold true in the east as well, I don't live there) Extrapolating your personal experience to all use cases is generally a bad idea.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    You can drive from Apple's headquarters to zero bars of cell service in 10 minutes.
windowsrookie 2y ago
I bought a 13 Pro Max on launch day and I am still using it today. I have never kept a phone this long in my life. The cameras and performance are still fantastic. The only thing that would be nice is USB-C and USB 3.0 transfer speeds. But that is not enough for me to upgrade.

bananapub 2y ago

what do you mean? they cut prices, improved battery life and improved performance, like they do almost every year. every few years they do something big like a new form factor or a new CPU architecture!

foobarian 2y ago
> or a new CPU architecture! Ah maybe RISC-V! Wouldn't that be fun

dmix 2y ago

I don't want innovation on Macbook hardware. It's perfectly good as it is. The only thing I'd want is something that'd make it last even longer like waterproofing the top keyboard layer.

CountHackulus 2y ago

The last time they "innovated" on macbooks we got a touch bar (ignoring M chips). I'm good with incremental improvements if we can avoid those gigantic blunders.

swat535 2y ago
Right and I'm not sure consumers are willing to tolerate innovation. I recall the amount of hate touch bar got on HN and everyone asking Apple to revert back to building normal machines (which they did with Macbook Pro).
- greazy 2y ago
  The issue with the touch bar is that it replaced the F keys which are (at least for me) my most used short cuts. I don't use the track pad gestures, never really got the hang of them. So the F keys were used a lot. They should have added the touch bar, not replacement the F keys with it.
jmyeet 2y ago
Don't forget this also came with the awful butterfly keyboard, allegedly to save 0.5mm in thickness. It had terrible reliability, Apple was forced to do replacements and IIRC required a motherboard replacement to actually replace. And why did Apple do all this? To increase the Average Selling Price ("ASP") of Macs. That's literally it. the new M4 Macbook Air for $999 is incredible value and that's what I want the Air to be: a good compromise of power and price. For example, the 12" Macbook made too compromises to be just a little bit thinner.
ljm 2y ago
Didn't know it was a blunder until afterwards though right? Hence, innovation. Now you just get risk-averse updates that offer little reason to upgrade from previous models.
DwnVoteHoneyPot 2y ago
They should do their "touch bar, delete ports, flat keyboard" innovations on a new Macbook Max or Ultra product line and see how it goes. The Air and Pro can stay traditional and keep the HDMI and headphone jacks etc.

bee_rider 2y ago

Apple’s innovation strategy is not to take risky moves. They are more of a fast, competent follower company. Even iPods were a slightly conservative implementation of MP3 players, which were already becoming a thing at the time (you could even get mp3 players with solid state, albeit flash, drives while Apple’s iPods were still spinning rust). Of course iPods became very popular because they put it all in a package that gave it a UX that non-nerds wanted to use. The flash drive style MP3 players… had tiny capacities, they had to be “managed” by the users. iPods, just dump your whole hard drive on the thing. That solid state memory is much better in a mobile device… I mean, my Sandisk player, I’ll give it an A+ on reliability. C- on capacity. Apple always gets a B in every field. Their next thing was supposed to be VR. But nobody could find an application for VR, so Apple’s gimmick of taking something with a perfect idea and making a copy that is almost as good at the thing it does right, but which doesn’t have any massive downsides, didn’t work. They are in a tough spot now, the tech sector seems to have lost its dreamers and so nobody is making these A+/C- devices for them to level out.

gherkinnn 2y ago
An odd take. How can you downplay the iPod and then jump over the iPhone? They also got the iPad, Air Pods, Apple Watch, and Face ID just right. Not always as era-defining as the phone, but certainly pushing their own category. Of course, the VR thing is a remarkably well engineered thing nobody needs.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

For me as a professional, that's just fine; I never used the touch bar, but the fingerprint sensor was a great addition. Not worth upgrading for on its own, but a neat upgrade. I think a macbook with a much better front facing camera would be good, teleconferencing is a multiple times a day use case for us. They did an in-between with the system that allows you to use your iphone camera(s) which do support more wide angles, but that doesn't work on my current work laptop as it's locked down and I'd have to lock down my personal iphone as well if I want the two to connect.

alabastervlog 2y ago
The touchbar was a downgrade for me. Turns out my fingers go slightly above the key when typing certain symbols that are [shift]+[number key]. It took me a while to figure out why my laptop kept opening a music player seemingly at random a couple times per day, but it was because the touchbar was so sensitive that slightly brushing it was triggering the "play" button. I ended up having to disable almost the whole bar to keep it from happening, just fill it with "blank" zones. I also can't reliably drag-n-drop with force-sensitivity turned on for the touchpad, so there's another "innovation" I have to turn off. I don't even have, like, dexterity issues or a disability or something, but it makes it so damn fiddly that my drag-n-drops drop too early about half the time.

zactato 2y ago

I think the M1 was a pretty huge innovation. It's the first time a laptop felt portable and without compromise. I can get a full day of work out of my laptop without plugging it in. It's pretty wild. Before this laptops were simply things that were small enough that you could carry one from point A to point B, but they were still effectively tethered to a wall and desk for any non-trivial usecases.

mhh__ 2y ago

This is what happens when you put the logistics guy in charge of the whole thing