[HN Gopher] Apple in 2021
___________________________________________________________________
Apple in 2021
Author : Doubleguitars
Score : 90 points
Date : 2022-02-07 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sixcolors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sixcolors.com)
| barkerja wrote:
| I have to believe that HomeKit has fallen so far to the wayside
| due to their work on Matter. And we can expect something big in
| the near future. Right? Please?
| rodgerd wrote:
| HomeKit's biggest challenge is that so much of the home
| automation market balks at Apple's requirement to be able to
| operate without a cloud service. Can't do surveillance
| capitalism or extort monthly fees or end-of-life product
| arbitrarily if you've got HomeKit branding, so of course that's
| first overboard.
|
| The second problem is that Apple themselves are missing a
| number of functions that are baffling, such as not having
| history for metrics. I can't understand how it's impossible to
| have e.g. a history of temperatures in HomeKit.
| bitdestroyer wrote:
| Here's hoping. In the meantime, I've had a ton of fun making
| small ESP devices that integrate with Homebridge. It's really
| opened up so many possibilities, even beyond the things that
| Homebridge is typically praised for.
| berberous wrote:
| Switch to Home Assistant. It takes a bit to learn and setup,
| but I'm much happier with it.
| [deleted]
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I'd appreciate if Apple keeps the UI/UX as is. It's already
| degraded so much, but changing UI for the sake of fashion might
| be good for business (average users), it sucks for developers and
| people that need a stable OS. You know, "Pros". They've fucked
| with the UI for every generation and instead of refining it, they
| keep chasing trends. These designers are the antithesis of
| everything good design should stand for. Function, clarity,
| robustness, reduction of ambiguity and mainly getting out of the
| way. I don't consider them designers, they're marketers in the
| disguise of designers. I think the term "design" itself has
| degraded in my view. Apple is one leading this movement. It's a
| strange and powerful company with tech x luxury fashion combined
| to reap cash. It does so well. But, I wish it didn't influence
| designers outside of Apple so much. No one has conviction
| anymore.
| deergomoo wrote:
| It didn't used to be this way. Apple software used to be
| functional, intuitive, and _fun_ in a lot of cases.
|
| Things went downhill rapidly when Jony Ive's team took over
| software design. I wasn't a huge fan of the gaudy extreme
| skeuomorphism of the late Forstall era, but at least you could
| tell what was a button. What you could do with a piece of
| software was much clearer.
|
| The current team are insistent that simplicity is when controls
| are hidden behind hover and tap states, or inside overflow
| menus in a toolbar only 5% full.
| dont__panic wrote:
| The "new folder" workflow in Finder is one of the most
| infuriating things I've ever seen in macOS. I swear, they
| used to just have a "new folder" button in the olden days.
| tw600040 wrote:
| They still have a new folder button. I still see it
| quesera wrote:
| Cmd+Shift+N works, when the UI fails.
| kamokujin wrote:
| It was really frustrating till I realized they didn't
| completely remove the button. The icon is just hidden in
| the customise toolbar options.
| davidbarker wrote:
| I actually didn't know there ever used to be a New Folder
| button, but that prompted me to customise the toolbar in
| Finder and I see it as an option (and have now added it).
| [deleted]
| jhickok wrote:
| I just want their native apps to work, and a lot of times I
| find they are busted. No excuse for that.
| deergomoo wrote:
| They don't handle failure well. I'm not sure if this has
| always been the case, but the fact that most have some sort
| of network component now have made it very obvious.
|
| The general lack of visibility into what is actually
| happening is incredibly annoying. Anything that involves
| syncing is in dire need of "stop and start again" button.
| jhickok wrote:
| I actually just found out that you could force a resync
| on the podcasts app on macos by hitting CMD + R and that
| has solved some of the issues I have where I just wait
| around for new episodes to sync (pull down for refresh is
| a nightmare with a trackpad on a mac laptop). But still,
| it's slow (can take 10-20 seconds for a podcast to begin
| playing), buggy (can take a full minute for the title to
| appear in the display after it has already started-- so
| you cannot skip the first 30 seconds of ads), or just
| broken (havent started the app in a while? guess I will
| crash trying to sync all those episodes you missed).
| Really infuriating.
| egypturnash wrote:
| ugh yes, also a "sync right now" button
| [deleted]
| dont__panic wrote:
| Agreed. When I think of good (Apple) design, I think of the
| 2012-2015 first generation retina MacBook Pros -- a slight
| refinement of the previous era, thinning the chassis when
| possible, upgrading ports, improving the screen, but largely
| preserving the best elements of the old design. There were some
| losses -- the sleep indicator light, the battery LEDs,
| ethernet, maybe some of the reliability of the Magsafe 1
| connection -- but I would say that they largely improved on an
| existing design. Similar with OS X releases in that time
| period, Apple largely iterated on the existing Snow Leopard-ish
| design instead of blowing things up with fancy new designs.
|
| Funnily enough, I remember many, many tech reviewers in 2014,
| 2015 criticizing the MacBook Pro for that "ancient" design. And
| Apple eventually gave in and redesigned both the laptops (yuck)
| and OS X (maybe even more yuck). UI/UX is tricky, I think,
| because in an industry where folks move around every couple of
| years to maximize their salaries, people aren't rewarded for
| being good, iterative stewards of an existing system. Instead,
| they change jobs, someone new comes in, and they try to make a
| name for themselves by redesigning everything through a big
| bang redesign. And then they move on a couple years later, and
| then someone else comes in and redesigns... etc. etc.
|
| Sidenote: Holy cow, this also explains why the government sucks
| so much.
| synthmeat wrote:
| Would batteries in the bands be A Really Bad Idea?(tm)
| jhickok wrote:
| I love the new Apple Silicon Macs, and the transition for me has
| been pretty easy.
|
| I can't imagine anything interesting happening to the watch that
| doesn't include a big increase to battery life. I don't want any
| other feature except a battery that can make it a full day.
|
| Apple software has seemingly regressed every year recently.
| Native apps like Music and Podcasts, the only two I would
| regularly use, have become so bugged that I had to move to other
| options. Every time I take a look and see if they are working
| again, they are buggy messes that I have to constantly wrestle
| with.
| benrapscallion wrote:
| A camera would be nice.
| TillE wrote:
| The new Watch health features that have been rumored for the
| coming years (blood pressure, etc) would be genuinely life-
| changing for a ton of people.
|
| I don't have any particular interest in a smart watch - even if
| you gave me one for free, I doubt I'd bother wearing it. But if
| it's also a fully-featured health monitor? Yeah, absolutely.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > I don't want any other feature except a battery that can make
| it a full day.
|
| I'm waiting for them to add glucose monitoring into it
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _I don 't want any other feature except a battery that can
| make it a full day._
|
| I thought the Series 7 could make it a full day? My wife has a
| S6 and makes it about 36 hours with her normal usage (which is
| admittedly quite light).
|
| For me, it's not a watch if it has to be charged every day or
| two. I need 4+ days of battery life so that I don't have to
| bring another charger on every overnight/weekend trip.
| jhickok wrote:
| I have not had that experience with the Series 7, but my S6
| would not make it thru a full day ever if I used it for less
| than an hour of Apple Fitness (paired with an iPad or
| standalone on a run).
| wwarek wrote:
| My Mi Band 6 from Xiaomi easily lives ~30 days on one charge
| if used less (eg. no constant heart tracking, no PAI) and ~7
| days with all tracking enabled (sleep, oxygen, heart rate,
| 1-2 workouts a day). With a third party app instead of Xiaomi
| "Mi Fit", I belive also all the data stays with me.
|
| That makes me wonder - what does Apple Watch do that Mi Band
| doesn't that makes the time on battery so much different? I
| guess screen size and GPS during workout (Mi Band uses phone
| GPS), but other than that? (I'm not sure what other features
| it has, might be comparing apples to oranges, no pun
| intended)
| kaba0 wrote:
| Without knowing much about mi band, my guess would be
| embedded vs general purpose CPU's energy consumption.
| brimble wrote:
| Same way Garmin does it, I'd expect: specs and
| restrictions that would make your average web or
| iOS/Android developer cry and declare it's impossible to
| develop useful software for.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Reading reviews on Amazon, it makes it sound like it's not
| the best on privacy. Do you experience this?
|
| > _If you don't agree to let them sell your information,
| then every single time you connect your watch to the phone,
| it automatically transfers you to settings on your phone
| because it wants you to alter them so they can sell your
| information._
| bladegash wrote:
| My series 7 easily makes it a full day, closer to two days.
| It also charges really quickly. I put it on the charger for
| about 30 mins to an hour in the morning while reading emails
| and it's done.
| jhickok wrote:
| Really? I may make it thru one day if I am using it
| moderately (mostly apple fitness).
| azinman2 wrote:
| I have a feeling these things are heavily related to both
| WiFi (congestion/protocol/support for sleep &
| awake/distance to AP) and cellular (if enabled), in
| addition to other usage (like Bluetooth, including
| distance to host phone). This is also (educated)
| speculation.
| Lammy wrote:
| Also device age. My Series 3 originally lasted about a
| day and a half but is under a full day now with a couple
| years of cycles on the battery.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Well of course battery age, but the GPs were talking
| about the latest watch, so I assumed it was more about
| battery life from the start.
|
| From what I understand, impact of radio on battery life
| is very real but often invisible / not thought about.
| Cellular really can chew through battery when the base
| stations are far away.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| IMO battery age is still part of the discussion when
| talking about the shiny new model. If I buy a Series 7,
| two years from now it's going to be two years old. That
| seems obvious but people seem to gloss right over it.
|
| When the AirPods first came out there were a lot of
| reviews saying "Battery life is about 5 hours, this is
| just barely acceptable but it's not a problem."
|
| And then two years later the same authors were writing
| articles complaining that their AirPod battery life has
| gotten unacceptably short as if they'd never owned
| anything with a non-removable battery before and had no
| idea it was going to happen.
| foobarian wrote:
| This. The battery life on my phone, which I typically
| just leave laying around my desk, just about doubled
| after I switched providers. I used to have almost no
| signal with the previous provider, going up to 2-3 bars
| with the new one. I'm sure the modem was pushing maximum
| tx power trying to stay associated (and it would
| typically alternate between minimum signal and no
| coverage states).
|
| Maybe I should have bought a signal booster for my office
| instead. I got one for my car because I would
| consistently drop calls in one spot; with the booster I
| had 5 bars the whole commute. Before COVID, anyway.
| bladegash wrote:
| Yep, mine is pretty much solely on Wifi and is only about
| a year old, so that may be why. I really don't use it for
| anything other than just health tracking and when I drive
| with maps and such. So I'm sure usage, age, and
| connectivity all come into play, but it's definitely
| capable or going over a day.
| concinds wrote:
| My 3 year old Series 4 dies before 8pm, if it's fully
| charged at 7am, and with absolutely no use except
| standby. Some are still using Series 0s (with light use),
| but Apple Watches are disposable electronics by any
| reasonable definition, especially with battery
| replacements that cost as much as a new one.
| comprev wrote:
| Terrible battery life on the Apple watches is the only thing
| preventing me from getting one (and I'm already fully invested
| in the Apple ecosystem - iphone, ipad, macbook air, hackintosh
| desktop).
|
| My comparison my Polar V800, which has been in constant use
| since 2017, can last over a month on a single charge! It tracks
| my movement during day and detects sleep through lack of
| movement.
|
| Under heavy use - GPS, heart rate, pedal cadence and wheel
| speed sensors all at the same time - it can last 5-6hrs.
|
| Outstanding piece of kit :-)
| dilap wrote:
| I don't think it'll ever happen, but it would be amazing if the
| opened up 3rd-party watch faces. For a watch, the watch-face is
| really the analog of the app, and it's a shame we're just
| limited to the built-in stuff.
| jhickok wrote:
| Agreed, and given that I would be fine paying a few books for
| a watch face that seems like easy money Apple.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I can't imagine anything interesting happening to the watch
| that doesn't include a big increase to battery life. I don't
| want any other feature except a battery that can make it a full
| day.
|
| I have to ask: What are you doing with your Apple Watch that
| drains the battery so fast?
|
| I've never been able to drain my Watch battery anywhere near
| that fast, even with the always-on screen still enabled.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I work out every day using the Workouts app. I often bike or
| run outdoors so during a workout GPS, Bluetooth and the heart
| monitor are all active. At night I use the AutoSleep app to
| track sleep. I charge the watch just before sleep.
|
| I get the 10% low battery notification a few times a week.
| Reubachi wrote:
| I'm sure you have gone through 1 or 2, but you should get
| another one and if it performs similarly, return the
| second, chargeback the first.
|
| My 7 year old Samsung Gear watch gets around 2 days with
| minimal use (IE workdays). On average hiking/running day,
| it will still have 25-45 percent after maximum use from
| like 7 AM to 6 PM. I have also: -ran it over -lost it on
| trail for 2+ days in rain/sleet -Sanded it tomatte, then
| back to shiny after....accidents -showered with it for
| years.
|
| I cannot believe an apple watch does what you're describing
| without being a dud.
| beanjuiceII wrote:
| my wife has same issues with her apple watch and she is
| pretty active. she charges it constantly now
| macintux wrote:
| You don't charge in the mornings as well? Charging both
| before and after sleep is the common pattern I've read when
| using it for sleep tracking.
| valarauko wrote:
| I use the watch to track sleep as well as daily workouts
| - popping it on the charger while showering in the
| morning & for a few minutes at night while I get ready
| for bed seems to do the trick.
| hellomyguys wrote:
| This seems a bit bizarre to me. Rate products on a scale of 1-5?
| What is that actually measuring? Perception?
| pohl wrote:
| It's a common practice in survey design.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale
| hellomyguys wrote:
| I think a Likert scale is actually different than how they're
| surveying respondents in the article linked by the OP.
|
| From Wikipedia: "A Likert item is simply a statement that the
| respondent is asked to evaluate by giving it a quantitative
| value on any kind of subjective or objective dimension, with
| level of agreement/disagreement being the dimension most
| commonly used...
|
| The format of a typical five-level Likert item, for example,
| could be:
|
| Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree
| Strongly agree"
|
| This is much different than "Give a number 1-5 to iPhone."
| pohl wrote:
| How do you know? I couldn't find any example questions in
| the article.
| hellomyguys wrote:
| "They were prompted with 12 different Apple-related
| subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5
| and optionally provide text commentary per category"
| pohl wrote:
| I did see that. That phrasing doesn't really tell us.
| hellomyguys wrote:
| I wrote:
|
| "This is much different than "Give a number 1-5 to
| iPhone.""
|
| They wrote:
|
| "They were prompted with 12 different Apple-related
| subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5
| and optionally provide text commentary per category"
|
| So, unless they are not being explicit about their survey
| question, which imo would make little sense, especially
| if it is a traditional Likert scale which is used in
| context of a question, it does tell us that.
|
| Regardless, my point is that the survey trying to
| quantify a score is much less valuable than the
| qualitative points in the article.
| carlycue wrote:
| What is Apple doing with the iPad division? The Mac spanked the
| iPad in 2021 and the recent earnings showed that.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| That seems to be a conscious decision on the part of Apple.
| They also live in the real world, where getting parts is
| getting harder. So in order to not having to squeeze iPhone and
| Mac sales they squeezed the iPad ones. We bought our Mum an
| iPad. Was supposed to be for Christmas but delivery was mid
| January >4 weeks. Try buying one now: 5-6 weeks.
|
| iPhones you'll get tomorrow. Macs in two weeks. That's an
| intentional decision.
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| I think that has more to do with 2020/2021 being unusually good
| years for the Mac in particular. Computers in general have been
| selling well due to the pandemic, and the hype surrounding the
| move to ARM generated a lot of sales. Anecdotally I know a
| number of people who upgraded laptops earlier than they
| otherwise would have due to rave reviews of the M1.
| perardi wrote:
| There are apologists who will insist you can do real work on an
| iPad--if you get the iPad Pro, and the keyboard case.
|
| Which ends up being about as expensive and about the same size
| as a MacBook Air. And for any work that requires any sort of
| interface density, or complete access to the file system, or
| fast I/O, or...I'd way rather have a Mac.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| I like iOS better than macOS. Has pen input. The Pro has TB3,
| granted 1 port but better than the 2015 MacBook. Most of it's
| problems are completely artificial limitations placed there
| by Apple. If they just loosened those I'd pick the iPad every
| time. It's a more flexible form factor held back by software
| to avoid cutting into Mac and App Store revenue.
| jessriedel wrote:
| To be clear, you can absolutely do real work if your work is
| natively done with a stylus, e.g., illustrating or pen-and-
| paper math. These are of course uncommon.
| leviathant wrote:
| I was a pretty staunch opponent of the iPad for a very long
| time. Tablets were clearly a consumption device, and I've
| always disliked Apple's penchant for proprietary connectors.
|
| However, things have shifted enough that on the
| artistic/creative front, the iPad is actually a really nice
| thing to have. When the iPad Air 4 (I think? The iPad
| ecosystem has terrible nomenclature) came out, it not only
| had a USB-C connector, but worked with the Apple Pencil 2. I
| did something I thought I'd never do - I bought an iPad.
|
| There are music & synthesizer apps that only make sense on a
| tablet, and they can talk with other music apps on the iPad
| pretty seamlessly too these days. And with the Apple Pencil
| 2, it's like a magic art pad. I've been sketching and drawing
| and 'painting' like I haven't done in 20 years.
|
| And I can charge it with the same cable that charges my Pixel
| 6, my work-issued Macbook pro, or my wife's Thinkpad's power
| supply.
|
| It certainly took long enough, but I no longer think that
| iPads are pure consumption devices.
|
| Now... would I try to use it the way I use a laptop? Oh, hell
| no.
| gurkendoktor wrote:
| > I was a pretty staunch opponent of the iPad for a very
| long time. Tablets were clearly a consumption device
|
| I have no doubt that the iPad is great at the things you
| list in your post, and I wish I had any skills that would
| justify buying an Apple Pencil.
|
| However, I don't understand why Apple and we on HN are so
| focused on making the iPad "more" than a consumption
| device. What's wrong with consumption?
|
| If I were to buy another iPad, it'd be for reading PDFs
| (terrible on e-book readers), for listening to podcasts and
| audiobooks, or to let my children play an educational game
| sometimes. But Apple keeps investing in productivity
| features while their Books app seems moribund at times
| (widget please?), their Podcasts app is an ongoing
| disaster, and they still don't have a read-only guest mode
| for children or friends. iPadOS has gotten so "pro" that
| buying an iPad for grandparents is not the no-brainer it
| used to be, either.
|
| For all the derision that iPads get for being couch potato
| devices, I wish they were better at being that.
| code51 wrote:
| Apple Pencil might be the most fragile product Apple ever
| produced. It's like a ticking time bomb. Its battery is
| doomed to die any second.
| PrancingPony wrote:
| I just don't think too many people buy tablets. It has its
| niche, but sales aren't as high as I guess they could be?
| mgh2 wrote:
| Was hoping for a more quantitative approach, not qualitative
| opinions. The sample size of the 1st graph (56) lost my interest.
|
| I guess these comments somehow paint the overall media sentiment
| on the brand and consequently the stock. Nonetheless, meaningful
| discussions can result still.
| baby-yoda wrote:
| just my humble opinion - i believe aapl has crossed the threshold
| into the territory which steve jobs famously described as the
| hallmark of the Scully era[0] - their endless pursuit for revenue
| has pushed sales and marketing people to the front of the line
| and product people operate in their shadows.
|
| of course in a company as big and wide ranging as aapl, there are
| so many competing priorities and things to focus on but, IMO, tim
| cook is a real life paperclip maximizer. early on in his tenure
| there was some criticism that he was a "bean counter" and would
| ruin things cause he wasn't Steve, but rather than cutting costs
| as a traditional beancounter type would, he has been ruthless in
| pursuing what works to continue the endless revenue climb.
|
| there are certainly many things they could work on but choose not
| to, or could do better, but when you're in Cook's position and
| you are the preeminent Elephant (far larger and less capable of
| dance than Gerstner could have ever imagined), you have no choice
| but for changes in direction to be slow but large in magnitude.
|
| and at such a massive scale, while aapl could stumble out a new
| product/service and vacuum up tens of $millions, there are fewer
| and fewer opportunities which will clear their IRR. Taking some
| liberties interpreting here, but hence why they feel the need to
| extract value from App Store payments, turn a blind eye to scam
| apps, Google as default $earch, etc; their gravitational pull is
| so powerful that, as a proper paperclip maximizer, they would be
| derelict of responsibility by not simply sticking their hand out
| the window and siphoning incremental revenue. I imagine Cook in
| Ballmer's sweaty Oxford shirt yelling "Services! Services!
| Services!".
|
| back to the OP, all that is to say i see aapl's future as rocky,
| since there will be less and less of a cohesive product vision
| going forward as emphasis skews back and forth across revenue
| categories. Not to mention navigating the regulatory waters.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4
| joconde wrote:
| On the other hand, if pre-iPhone Apple could invest into
| inventing the iPhone, I don't see why today's Apple could balk
| at a new effort of this kind, since today's Apple is vastly
| richer.
|
| How much did the original iPhone and iPad cost to create? I
| imagine it would be an easy effort for 2022 Apple, and even a
| total failure would not dent their revenue by much. I can't
| imagine Cook being unable to do it.
| baby-yoda wrote:
| id attribute it to the maximizer mindset - take Meta for
| example. reports are metaverse development cost $10 billion
| so far. development came from zuckerberg himself so no one is
| getting fired, but say an apple VP sponsors a project that
| creates a $10 billion loss. very likely they hit none of
| their targets, have no bonus and are on their way out the
| door. reading between the lines, is this the cause for the
| constant turnover in the rumored apple car project?
|
| maybe this is an over simplification but, who has license to
| consume large amounts of resources across the company,
| potentially all of it being a loss, and not be fired?
| gumby wrote:
| > I can't imagine Cook being unable to do it.
|
| ...and he has: AirPods, M1, Apple Watch, cleaning cloth...
|
| Also some failures that made it out the door, like HomePod...
|
| I'd like a little more focus on quality and consistency but
| that would mean stepping off the annual treadmill. Which they
| could do everyone a service by being the first to do so.
| cwaffles wrote:
| M1 was built by the PA Semi team, acquired in 2008 [0].
| They build the A series chips in the iPhone, I would argue
| that M1 would not exist without them, furthermore, M1 was
| not a Cook endeavor. For the watch, it looks like the first
| key hire was in 2013, but there is a chance that it was not
| all Steve's work [1]
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi 1.
| https://www.wired.com/2015/04/the-apple-watch/
| culturestate wrote:
| _> their endless pursuit for revenue has pushed sales and
| marketing people to the front of the line and product people
| operate in their shadows_
|
| It may surprise you to learn that for a _very_ long time,
| Apple's de facto head of product (aside from Steve, obviously)
| was Phil Schiller. The "marketing people" have always been near
| the top of the food chain.
| baby-yoda wrote:
| i'm no expert in the inner workings of apple but i would have
| considered Ive head of product. just curious as to why you
| put Schiller ahead?
|
| of course Marketing is an integral part of any large business
| and of course apple has been well above average in how their
| campaigns and messaging would rank in that regard.
|
| i added the commentary from Steve about the Scully era to the
| original post for context. from his explanation the nuance
| is, IMO, that when a company gets into this endless revenue
| cycle, a sales/marketing effort can demonstrate growth - hard
| numbers - far easier than a new product could. the new
| product could take years to become positive in NPV while a
| marketing campaign can "show up" by next quarter's earnings
| release.
| [deleted]
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