Apple to Provide Song Snippets for Music Video App Musical.ly

[McCool71]

Like it or not, Musical.ly is very popular. Within my circle of friends there isn't a single girl in the 10-13 year range that doesn't use it - a lot. No - I don't hang out with young girls, I'm talking about my friends kids.

Seems to mostly be a girl thing though, but that is par for the course when it comes to most types of social media where the point is showing off and harvesting likes to make yourself feel good.
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This is the most cancerous app on the platform, making the utmost talentless bimbos imaginable famous.

Or simply kids having fun. Which probably accounts for 99,9% of the content.

 

[oldwatery]

More pathetic crap from the company that used to be the most innovative in the world. Screw you Tim Cooke et al

 

[AdonisSMU]

I think I see where he was going with that. It wasn't so much a polemic against kids having fun as it was a rant against Apple trying to be hip instead of being hip before even the hipsters could see the hip.

Apple used to know where the world was going before the world itself knew. Apple was the company that had other companies yelling "Why the hell didn't we think of that?!" after every SteveNote. Witness the widespread adoption of USB and brightly colored plastics after 1998. Then the switch to very subtle, very brilliant industrial design. Tiny little things meant a lot when properly applied. And of course, there was that phone thing...

Now Apple just chases trends, tries to stay ahead of them, and tries its best to look hip. Like a 50 year old man in skinny jeans, talking to kids about "rad" things like those "Imagined Dragons". Tim Cook does a singalong. The rest of the Apple staff does tag team comedy at product announcements. At least Jony Ive stays out of it. He probably sits in the pub over a Guiness, muttering about "tossers on stage" or something like that.

Apple seems like a bunch of old men on skateboards now.

It sounds just a tad ageist. Old people are allowed to like technology seeing as they've created all of it.

 

[Sill]

It sounds just a tad ageist. Old people are allowed to like technology seeing as they've created all of it.

I never said they weren't allowed to enjoy it. The point is, don't try to act like a kid in order to sell to kids. Again, the Jobs-era Apple understood this. Apple never pandered, they just offered brilliant tools. Oddly, kids figured the stuff out on their own and rose to meet the tools, instead of Apple coming up with tools pre-packaged to appeal to what they thought kids wanted.

 

[chucker23n1]

Apple used to know where the world was going before the world itself knew. Apple was the company that had other companies yelling "Why the hell didn't we think of that?!" after every SteveNote.

BulIshit. Maybe that statement would have some legs if you had said "every tenth SteveNote".

Every single one, though? There were a few keynotes that brought us amazing leaps forwards, like the iPhone introduction. The vast majority, however, were merely "those were some good products, presented really well". And some were boring or stupid.

You're just painting the past in rose-colored glasses…

Now Apple just chases trends, tries to stay ahead of them, and tries its best to look hip. Like a 50 year old man in skinny jeans, talking to kids about "rad" things like those "Imagined Dragons". Tim Cook does a singalong.

…and then applying that same ageism to the present and future.

 

[Sill]

BulIshit. Maybe that statement would have some legs if you had said "every tenth SteveNote".

Every single one, though? There were a few keynotes that brought us amazing leaps forwards, like the iPhone introduction. The vast majority, however, were merely "those were some good products, presented really well". And some were boring or stupid.

You're just painting the past in rose-colored glasses…



…and then applying that same ageism to the present and future.

I'd probably take you more seriously if you didn't put things in such a vitriolic light. Besides that, you've got blinders on if you're going to hang a tag like "ageism" on anything I've said. Using buzzwords is a sign of a lazy mind, and I'd like to think you don't want to wear that sign. Do you?

I can't really think of any boring keynotes, aside from the iCards over-introduction. If you know the story behind that one, then you know why it was so bad. Despite your devaluation, the rest of the keynotes had the industry hanging on what might be coming, followed by endless dissection of what was presented and repositioning to stay in line with the success potential that Apple represented.

But, I will agree with you on a couple of sentences:

"There were a few keynotes that brought us amazing leaps forwards, like the iPhone introduction. The vast majority, however, were merely "those were some good products, presented really well".

In retrospect, this was indeed the effect of the typical keynote. Allow me to parse Socratic here, in the interest of moving the discussion along - a typical keynote during the Steve Era was any Apple-provided product/service/software introduction which resulted in a solid introduction of a satisfying item in any of those categories. Whether it was Steve or someone else delivering the presentation, but usually Steve. A SteveNote, though - a proper one - that was when Steve Jobs presented a completely stunning, revolutionary representation of any or all of those categories, something that knocked the buying public and the industry on its rear end.

I'm submitting that finer definition for consideration. Fair enough?

 

[chucker23n1]

I'd probably take you more seriously if you didn't put things in such a vitriolic light. Besides that, you've got blinders on if you're going to hang a tag like "ageism" on anything I've said. Using buzzwords is a sign of a lazy mind, and I'd like to think you don't want to wear that sign. Do you?

Hey, I'm not the one who pooh-poohed Apple's executives for daring to try to reach a young audience.

Allow me to parse Socratic here, in the interest of moving the discussion along - a keynote during the Steve Era was any Apple-provided product/service/software introduction which resulted in a solid introduction of a satisfying item in any of those categories. A SteveNote though, that was when Steve Jobs presented a completely stunning, revolutionary representation of any or all of those categories, something that knocked the buying public and the industry on its rear end.

Fair enough?

Seems a bit tautological to me, but OK.

This changes your original statement:

Apple was the company that had other companies yelling "Why the hell didn't we think of that?!" after every SteveNote.

To effectively mean: Apple under Steve frequently had other companies yelling "Why the hell didn't we think of that?!".

Yeah, that happened, now and then.

But really, more often than not, Apple's products weren't about great ideas, but about great execution. That's why competitors were frequently instead yelling "we can do even better than that!", because they failed to understand what made Apple's products good. They thought, for instance, an iPod would be even better as a "portable media player", then failed to understand why those didn't take off as a market. Then they created a "PlaysFoShizzle" alliance to compete with iTunes, and still didn't take the world by storm. Then they figured, oh, it must be because of platform integration, but at that point, with the Zune launch, it was already way too late. Plus it wasn't fashionable.

They were playing catch-up, and did a poor job understand what it was they were catching up to.

And that, folks, is still the case.

 

[Sill]

You replied just as I was editing my original post for clarity. So be it.

Hey, I'm not the one who pooh-poohed Apple's executives for daring to try to reach a young audience.

I never did that. Another member basically pointed out how they were trying to appeal to kids by acting like kids. I mentioned to someone critical of his post that I can see that is possible. The current approach by the executive staff is vastly different from the way it was handled in the past. And yes, I mean the way it was handled by Steve. In his second tenure at Apple he treated kids like people, like thinkers, like individuals who needed tools to express themselves. People who saw him with children around technology noticed how he took special joy from watching kids figure out his machines without behaving like a typical adult. People never saw him cooing to the kids in one of those sing-song, rising/falling/rising voices: "OoooooOOOooh! LoooOOooook at THAT! Isn't that cooooOOOOllll? WooooOOOoow!" and hoping to get a "squeal of delight" out of an 8 year-old thats being tired of treated like a 2 year old.

Jobs= what can you do with this?
current Apple= here's what we think you'll like

Look, that kind of approach can work, but there's a greater chance it won't. Apple can do what they want, but I liked Steve's way of dealing with the younger people among us.

Seems a bit tautological to me, but OK.

This changes your original statement

Of course it did. You probably missed my intent, which was to agree with you that "every" 'note didn't shake the world. You were right in pointing that out.

To effectively mean: Apple under Steve frequently had other companies yelling "Why the hell didn't we think of that?!".

Yeah, that happened, now and then.

It happened more often than you think. Lots of people here have Apple and/or industry contacts, and can tell you some stories about that.
One thing Apple's competitors could never grasp was his restraint (which in all fairness he was not known for in the industry). So many times they thought he would announce movement in a particular direction, yet he would either stand pat or do something else. They approached his work always from the point of "this is what we would do", but they could never get "this is what Steve is going to do". The press helped immensely, because of a combination of ignorance, vengeance, or outright contempt. They constantly tried to paint Apple as floundering or backed into a corner yet after the first three years of Jobs v.2.0 they really weren't.

But really, more often than not, Apple's products weren't about great ideas, but about great execution. That's why competitors were frequently instead yelling "we can do even better than that!", because they failed to understand what made Apple's products good. They thought, for instance, an iPod would be even better as a "portable media player", then failed to understand why those didn't take off as a market. Then they created a "PlaysFoShizzle" alliance to compete with iTunes, and still didn't take the world by storm. Then they figured, oh, it must be because of platform integration, but at that point, with the Zune launch, it was already way too late. Plus it wasn't fashionable.

They were playing catch-up, and did a poor job understand what it was they were catching up to.

And that, folks, is still the case.

Well said, and also very much in line with what I've been saying on these forums for a few years.