6 ms·

The title is appropriate, in that it feels to me that most of the awe has gone out of these products/keynotes. This is maybe down more to the maturity of the c

The title is appropriate, in that it feels to me that most of the awe has gone out of these products/keynotes. This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though. Perhaps they can be blamed for failing to introduce exciting products in new categories. I do find that wireless earbuds actually last much longer than the wired variety, despite the non-replaceable batteries. Back in the day I went through one or two sets of earbuds a year because the wire failed internally, whereas I've only had two TWS pairs in ~six years (admittedly, it was the battery that became a problem in the first set). There's undoubtedly a lot more e-waste gubbins in each though.

piskov 1y ago
Any decent earbuds have replaceable cables with standard two-pin connectors
- astrange 1y ago
  Not good for exercise, it's heavy and has telephonic effects (walking/running sound transmit through the cable). Also ties you to the audio source. Does anyone actually make wired headphones with ANC?
  - userbinator 1y ago
    Look up "bullet MMCX IEMs". Plenty of options out there for cables too, some far less microphonic than others, and you can wear them over-ear to reduce that effect even more. No ANC but they already isolate sound very well.
avidiax 1y ago
Apple is a hostage of its own marketing. A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout. A convertible Macbook Air with a touch screen? It would be sold out. Neckband-style airpods with all-day battery life? Might not sell out, but would be popular. A best-in-class TV powered by Apple TV? Would probably sell well. But all of these products would cannibalize sales of some other expensive iDevice.
- epistasis 1y ago
  > A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout. The number of people who might actually like this is very tiny. Most of them do product reviews. But their audience is not going to care. Think about your older uncle. Your niece in her 20s who loves to paint and read but doesn't want to replace hardware. That's what most people are like. Those are the people who Jobs focused on impressing and enabling to do things they wouldn't do otherwise. That is the focus that has been lost without Jobs, IMHO, and it's the focus that makes the products better for people who want to get the most out of their products per unit of time invested in learning how to use it.
  - haijo2 1y ago
    spot on
  - ssl-3 1y ago
    I am thinking about my older uncle and my niece in her 20s. They're smart-enough people, and they're quite aware that a modern phone can be very expensive to fix. In particular, I'm thinking that I (a person of reasonable technical skill) would love to help them out by changing the designed-to-be-swapped screen on the phone they dropped instead of them paying someone else to conduct surgery on it.
    - Gigachad 1y ago
      The price of replacing the screen is mostly the part itself. It’s extremely easy for any random shopping center phone store to replace in like 5 minutes. But the part itself costs more than an old phone is even worth.
      - SoftTalker 1y ago
        Every time a family member has had a cracked iPhone screen replaced it has never really worked properly again. It may be easy but it’s apparently not easy to do it well.
alililil 1y ago
> This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though. LiDAR was cool. They could buy Oura and let you write apps with programmable micro LEDs, and that would’ve been cool. If iPhones had Star Wars style holographic projector, that’d be cool. They could just be content with keeping the lights on without unnecessary UX changes that literally no one asked for, and that would be cool. I’m still happy with Apple, but the problem is that they now perceive staying relevant is wasting battery on visuals and making the phone thinner. Those are recycled old-ass ideas. They need to find the new Jony Ives.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
Agree. Revolutionary tech happens, perhaps, once a decade. Apple's though is their own biggest enemy because there is so much gravity for these big roll-outs they have a couple times a year (typically Macs and then Phones+). That's a lot of hyped, flashy events between anything really Earth shattering. Maybe we miss when Apple was boring and new machines just rolled out with little more than a press release and a spread in MacWorld magazine.
markemer 1y ago
Yeah, honestly, smartphones are a very mature category now. Only so much you can do with them. Same with laptops and desktops. Plenty of improvements to be made, but those yearly wow factors are just not coming back.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  Cheap and generous flash storage would make me wow and come back immediately and forget all sins. Somehow they never dangle that though. Blame iCloud drive subscription for perverting incentives I guess. Headphone jack coming back would have me camping outside the store for midnight release.
kjkjadksj 1y ago
Apple has been notoriously crappy with cords. On my old 2012 macbook I went through 5 magsafes that just ablated themselves at the end to the point I'd get an electric shock or it would stop working entirely. Meanwhile the cables on my 30 year old game consoles are still fine while probably seeing more abuse. I'm really curious how this new magsafe cable is going to hold up. It is braided which seems promising, but no strain relief on the cable ends. At least you don't have to throw away the brick anymore when the cable goes.

piskov 1y ago

Any decent earbuds have replaceable cables with standard two-pin connectors

astrange 1y ago
Not good for exercise, it's heavy and has telephonic effects (walking/running sound transmit through the cable). Also ties you to the audio source. Does anyone actually make wired headphones with ANC?
- userbinator 1y ago
  Look up "bullet MMCX IEMs". Plenty of options out there for cables too, some far less microphonic than others, and you can wear them over-ear to reduce that effect even more. No ANC but they already isolate sound very well.

avidiax 1y ago

Apple is a hostage of its own marketing. A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout. A convertible Macbook Air with a touch screen? It would be sold out. Neckband-style airpods with all-day battery life? Might not sell out, but would be popular. A best-in-class TV powered by Apple TV? Would probably sell well. But all of these products would cannibalize sales of some other expensive iDevice.

epistasis 1y ago
> A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout. The number of people who might actually like this is very tiny. Most of them do product reviews. But their audience is not going to care. Think about your older uncle. Your niece in her 20s who loves to paint and read but doesn't want to replace hardware. That's what most people are like. Those are the people who Jobs focused on impressing and enabling to do things they wouldn't do otherwise. That is the focus that has been lost without Jobs, IMHO, and it's the focus that makes the products better for people who want to get the most out of their products per unit of time invested in learning how to use it.
- haijo2 1y ago
  spot on
- ssl-3 1y ago
  I am thinking about my older uncle and my niece in her 20s. They're smart-enough people, and they're quite aware that a modern phone can be very expensive to fix. In particular, I'm thinking that I (a person of reasonable technical skill) would love to help them out by changing the designed-to-be-swapped screen on the phone they dropped instead of them paying someone else to conduct surgery on it.
  - Gigachad 1y ago
    The price of replacing the screen is mostly the part itself. It’s extremely easy for any random shopping center phone store to replace in like 5 minutes. But the part itself costs more than an old phone is even worth.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      Every time a family member has had a cracked iPhone screen replaced it has never really worked properly again. It may be easy but it’s apparently not easy to do it well.

alililil 1y ago

> This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though. LiDAR was cool. They could buy Oura and let you write apps with programmable micro LEDs, and that would’ve been cool. If iPhones had Star Wars style holographic projector, that’d be cool. They could just be content with keeping the lights on without unnecessary UX changes that literally no one asked for, and that would be cool. I’m still happy with Apple, but the problem is that they now perceive staying relevant is wasting battery on visuals and making the phone thinner. Those are recycled old-ass ideas. They need to find the new Jony Ives.

JKCalhoun 1y ago

Agree. Revolutionary tech happens, perhaps, once a decade. Apple's though is their own biggest enemy because there is so much gravity for these big roll-outs they have a couple times a year (typically Macs and then Phones+). That's a lot of hyped, flashy events between anything really Earth shattering. Maybe we miss when Apple was boring and new machines just rolled out with little more than a press release and a spread in MacWorld magazine.

markemer 1y ago

Yeah, honestly, smartphones are a very mature category now. Only so much you can do with them. Same with laptops and desktops. Plenty of improvements to be made, but those yearly wow factors are just not coming back.

kjkjadksj 1y ago
Cheap and generous flash storage would make me wow and come back immediately and forget all sins. Somehow they never dangle that though. Blame iCloud drive subscription for perverting incentives I guess. Headphone jack coming back would have me camping outside the store for midnight release.

kjkjadksj 1y ago

Apple has been notoriously crappy with cords. On my old 2012 macbook I went through 5 magsafes that just ablated themselves at the end to the point I'd get an electric shock or it would stop working entirely. Meanwhile the cables on my 30 year old game consoles are still fine while probably seeing more abuse. I'm really curious how this new magsafe cable is going to hold up. It is braided which seems promising, but no strain relief on the cable ends. At least you don't have to throw away the brick anymore when the cable goes.