I kind of feel like, once you're talking publicly about things like if you are committed or not, you probably aren't and are trying to keep people from fleeing while you figure out what to do or while some long-term strategy kicks in.
Agreed, I have the exact same feeling for this case as well.
"We have so many amazing things in store that I am so excited about" <-- recycled and beaten to death CEO lingo. I mean, he might be telling the truth (I am not gonna argue what I don't know!) but the wording is just awful and comes off as corny and forced by your PR department.
Actions speak louder than words. The new MBPs are the most meh Apple laptops ever. The iPhone 7/Plus are the laziest iPhones ever made, too. Rehashes losing legacy ports and trying to impose new ones (although USB Type-C is the best decision they've made in the last several years; I think they should've went with the same port for the iPhone as well). And losing battery life. Damn.
I was never an active Apple user. I bought my first iPhone and Macbook at March 2016 (the 12" Macbook and the 6S Plus; I sold the iPhone only 4 months later but that's a separate topic). But I did consider Apple because part of the Windows ecosystem -- and the entire Android ecosystem -- are disappointing me a lot lately. I was really curious what will Apple bring with the iPhone 7/Plus and the new MBPs.
Severe disappointment followed. I'll give them until the next iPhone release. If they can't excite me, oh well, guess it's time to sift again through the trash yard that Android has become lately.
Only answering this because of the ecosystem comment.
I wish manufacturers would make products that work well with anything. Like Apple watches with Android phones and vice versa, Apple TV running Amazon's Prime TV app, Amazon's Prime TV box running Apple's TV app, etc.
All of these ecosystem-exclusive things are annoying and in some ways I believe holding technology back a little.
We all wish that and they are not just holding back things "a little" but by massive amounts. But alas companies are usually not in it to advance technology, but to make shedloads of money. Lock-in, incompatible ports, moats are all by design to reduce customer attrition from inferior products by some margin.
Peter Thiel's "From 0 to 1" opened my mind to this. SV VCs also don't care about your tech too much - but they are insanely focused on what your "moat" is. I.e. lock-in, patents, network effects etc.
While lock-in might be a motivating factor and benefit, it's also just that it's really hard to make something that works with a competitor's something-else without your competitor sharing all their details. It's much easier for a company to guarantee the experience of the end-user when they only have to worry about things they have control over. You can't just make that kind of simplification as if it's proven fact.
I don't mean to offend you, but that's such a naive comment. Look at how many problems Windows has with all the hardware that it needs to support. The entire reason you get ecosystem-exclusive things is because it's nearly impossible to make things cross-compatible to such a degree that it doesn't turn into a giant game of finger-pointing.
If your Apple Watch series 4 doesn't work with your Nexus 20 phone, whose fault is it? Who needs to fix it? It might be holding technology back a little but until we get away from capitalism and there's a financial risk/reward system to making sure everything works and nothing is shared, we'll have to deal with this exclusivity.
On one of my previous jobs we had a video conference with the boss of our department. We did not knew what it was supposed to be about. He said that the rumors spreading that our office will be closed are not true. Nobody heard those rumors before in our office (maybe we expected this to happen in a Dillbert kind of a way). Guess what happened few months later...
This was a private comm internal to Apple, not a public communication.
Also, in this situation, denial is the lesser of two evils. Because if there are rumors that "X is going to be killed", and you don't squash them, that's even more suspicious.
> This was a private comm internal to Apple, not a public communication
PR departments (and governments) concoct and intentionally "leak" internal docs to the press all the time as a back-channel. This particular Apple missive reads like a press release[1].
I recently read an interesting article on how governments benefit from unsanctioned leaks as they provide cover for planned leaks. The same dynamic applies to companies, planned leaks are a mechanism for good PR that they do not want to be officially recognized as PR. I wish I could find the link, I can't find it in my history :-(
1. "The current generation iMac is the best desktop we have ever made, and its beautiful Retina 5K display is the best desktop display in the world."
“I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore?" Tim Cook told the paper during a trip to visit Apple's flagship store in London for the debut of its powerful big-screen tablet, the new iPad Pro. "No really," he said, "why would you buy one?”
No offense, but this is like one of those false stories in politics that keeps spreading no matter what the fact checkers say. I've seen that quote posted on HN like five times now. It doesn't mean what you think it means. Tim Cook isn't actually so undisciplined that he would call an entire product line of his company useless in an interview.
In Apple's world, "PC" means Windows PC; the Mac is not a "PC". As Gruber noted[1], remember the ad campaign - "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC..."
Yes, Apple definitely wants the iPad to work as a computer replacement, but they also recognize it's not good enough as a replacement for most power users (yet). In fact, in the same article as the "why would you" quote, Tim Cook goes on to say the iPad Pro can replace "a notebook or a desktop for many, many people". "A notebook or a desktop", unlike "a PC", does include Macs, but saying the iPad Pro can replace them for "many, many people" implies it can't for others.
Yes, but "PC" has a very specific meaning in almost every context, and Apple never refer to their machines as PCs. Which is why Apple was able to run those "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads.
I think people put too much significance into the name change. They often referred to themselves as just “Apple” since at least the early 1980's. They dropped “Computer” from their name just weeks before they announced the deal with Apple Corps Ltd to get permanent rights to the trademark.
Exactly. There is a good line from game of Thrones that goes, "The King doesn't have to tell people he is the King." Or something similar. This is puddle deep marketing spin.
What Apple is committed to is its iPhone-powered firehose of cash. (Maybe volcano of cash? Atomic bomb? No hyperbole is too strong, here.)
I pine for great computer hardware from Apple as much as anyone else, I'm sad about the current state of their computers. But can you really blame them? The numbers generated from their iPhone business is bonkers. It's off the map/beyond the pale and it has made them arguably the biggest most successful enterprise in the history of the world. What are they to do?
Except that Cook is cited as giving an explicit assurance. A manager can lie only once before they get a certain reputation, and I doubt that Tim Cook would spend his one lie on this.
A manager can lie many times.in their career. There's, usually, a declining (with a each lie) degree of reliance put in each statement after a first lie, but that's very different from only being able to lie once.
