Apple have built their business on the back of telling you what they're going to give you rather than listening to what you want and they've been damn successful at doing it.
This is nothing new.
Deal with it.
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Apple have built their business on the back of telling you what they're going to give you rather than listening to what you want and they've been damn successful at doing it.
This is nothing new.
Deal with it.
Well, there's certainly a lot of frustration you had to get off your chest, and certainly agree with a lot of it. Except for the matter of USB-C:
First of all: it's easy to forget that it could have been far worse and in fact has been in the past. Remember when Apple (under Steve Jobs nonetheless) first introduced the iMac with (mostly) nothing but USB(-A) ports? Remember how that meant that your only option back then was to throw away all your existing peripherals with SCSI, ADB, RS-232 and RS-422 connectors because there were no such things as adapters for that?
With USB-C/TB3 you can still use each and every peripheral you own. Yes, at the cost of an adapter or a new cable, which can be an inconvenience. But it's really nothing but that: inconvenient. And it's barely even that when it comes to desktop computers when you don't have to lug around these extra adapters.
Secondly, no, Apple could not have waited for USB-C for their phones. USB-C wasn't even a glimmer in the eye of the USB Implementors Forum when Apple introduced the Lightning connector in 2012. The USB-C specification wasn't finished until 2014. And you know who was the driving force for the development of USB-C? Apple. Based on their experiences with Lightning. Without Lightning, there would be no USB-C.
I do agree with you that it would be good idea for Apple to switch their mobile devices to USB-C instead of Lightning, though. But remember the furor when Apple switched from the old Dock connector to Lightning? You see your own furor now that Apple switched from all kind of other legacy ports to USB-C? Expect the same furor when Apple would switch from Lightning to USB-C.
First of all: it's easy to forget that it could have been far worse and in fact has been in the past. Remember when Apple (under Steve Jobs nonetheless) first introduced the iMac with (mostly) nothing but USB(-A) ports? Remember how that meant that your only option back then was to throw away all your existing peripherals with SCSI, ADB, RS-232 and RS-422 connectors because there were no such things as adapters for that?
With USB-C/TB3 you can still use each and every peripheral you own. Yes, at the cost of an adapter or a new cable, which can be an inconvenience. But it's really nothing but that: inconvenient. And it's barely even that when it comes to desktop computers when you don't have to lug around these extra adapters.
Secondly, no, Apple could not have waited for USB-C for their phones. USB-C wasn't even a glimmer in the eye of the USB Implementors Forum when Apple introduced the Lightning connector in 2012. The USB-C specification wasn't finished until 2014. And you know who was the driving force for the development of USB-C? Apple. Based on their experiences with Lightning. Without Lightning, there would be no USB-C.
I do agree with you that it would be good idea for Apple to switch their mobile devices to USB-C instead of Lightning, though. But remember the furor when Apple switched from the old Dock connector to Lightning? You see your own furor now that Apple switched from all kind of other legacy ports to USB-C? Expect the same furor when Apple would switch from Lightning to USB-C.
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Merry Christmas to you too.
What an original argument. 'They make money so they're always right.' Hmmm, where have I heard that crap before? Oh yeah, it's the standard anthem of fanatical Apple fans everywhere. I've haven't heard an original argument in ages.
Here's one
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would've asked for a stronger and faster horse"
-Henry Ford after making the Model T car
Merry Christmas to you too.
What an original argument. 'They make money so they're always right.' Hmmm, where have I heard that crap before? Oh yeah, it's the standard anthem of fanatical Apple fans everywhere. I've haven't heard an original argument in ages.
The goal of Apple is to make money and they seem to be achieving that goal quite well under their current product design philosophy.
I'm not sure how pointing this out makes me a fanboy, unless you have arbitrarily decided to lower the conversation into petty personal attacks.
On a side note, I find it amusing that you think it a shame Scott Forstall left the company. Considering the initial lukewarm reception to Apple Maps and Siri, and missing iOS growth targets for two quarters in a row whilst he was at the helm, perhaps one could argue Apple did listen to its customers by pushing him out.
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The goal of Steve Jobs was not to make money, but to empower people to do great things. That was exactly what he said. The money comes when people recognize its great. The goal of a typical CEO is be a greedy evil person who would kill middle class jobs and put people out on the streets just to make himself and the shareholders a few more dollars. That is all Tim Cook is. That's what he started paying dividends, buying back stock, etc. that Steve never allowed because it encourages greedmongers like Carl Icahn to take interest in Apple and push them to make certain profit margins each quarter rather than make great new products that will make money because they are great, not because they are rushed out the door as fast as possible.
People like you don't comprehend the difference between a responsible business that recognizes its a part of society and that a great country like the United States enables its very existence and as such, it should be a responsible member of society. Stating that a corporation's only goal is to make as much money for the stockholders as it possibly can is a reflection of the sheer GREED of society. An artificial creation is only what people make it to be, after all. Because companies have proven again and again that they have zero loyalty to the United States, that they refuse to do what's right for the environment and their own workers, that is why we are forced to regulate everything businesses do and put legal limits on everything they can do. Certain groups don't like that (because they define greed), but a company that pollutes the rivers and land around it, operates under dangerous working conditions and moves to a new location at the slightest hint of larger profits, is not a responsible citizen on the United States. People who create hazards and pollute are held responsible and so should corporations. The Supreme Court declared Corporations "people" (proving they themselves are corrupt) and so a Corporation should have to behave like one rather than a depraved succubus.
If something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and behaves like a duck, it's probably a duck. That applies to ducks and fanatical statements of support for a company based on petty things like "they make money so they're always right" which is the ANTHEM of a fanatical argument. IBM maked money too. I don't want to buy an IBM. Microsoft makes money. I don't want a Windows machine. Making money doesn't translate to loyalty or desire. Some of us state why we no longer like Apple's products in a given area and people like you jump all over it with "they make money so they're right and you're wrong." or "Let's see you make billions of dollars with your own company" blah blah blah blah blah blah
Those are STUPID arguments. They take no thought at all to write, show no patterns of thinking and only show unending loyalty to a company because they're making money. A stockholder might say that, but a stockholder doesn't necessarily buy Apple products! I might buy stock in solar panels. That doesn't mean I own a solar panel, know anything about a solar panel or care one bit about them. Or it might mean because I liked my refrigerator, I'm going to buy all Kitchen Aid (Whirlpool) products from now on. That's a consumer fanatical view. Someone who makes rational comparisons and choices, looks at what is offered and critiques it based on its merits, not giving blanket endorsements because the company makes money.
Again, you make my point for me. Scott was responsible for everything that made the original iPhone models great and the OS X GUI great. It's all been downhill since then. I've heard nothing but complaints about Siri to this day still because it's inferior to Cortana and Alexa both. Are you going to blame that on Scott STILL too? Give me a break. I never heard of any feedback from customers to push Scott out. Most customers don't know a computer chip from a hole in the ground. Apple maps could hardly replace Google Maps overnight either. Google had over a decade to make their maps. Apple could hardly be expected to catch up in a year or two, particularly when talent often RUNS when a company is bought out. You can buy a company, but that doesn't automatically buy the people that work for it. Scott was Steve's man and Steve recognized his talent to make Steve's vision. Now we have Tim's vision, which is iPads are better, fruity colors and flat looks are all the rage so we should have those too. Who cares about the hardware? Make it look thinner. Steve liked thin! I think he would like it thinner yet. Make that happen Jony!
There's a lot of things I disagree with in your post, but I won't argue with any of that. The above however; Have you seen an iPod? Or the old Apple logo? Fruity colours is not Tim's invention. It is practically in the DNA of the company. Remember the phrase "bleeding in six colours"?
I think you've wilfully misinterpreted a lot (all) of what I've said because it doesn't suit the argument you are trying to make.
I honestly wish Apple would listen to what creative professionals (e.g. me) want from their products. The Mac Pro is a disaster, discontinuing Aperture was horrendously damaging for me and forced me to spend a huge amount of time (and time = money) transferring all of my past work over to Lightroom (which is an awful application), FCPX is basically just iMovie Pro, OS X has had no real innovation since Snow Leopard, putting mid-range mobile GPUs in premium priced laptops is just pathetic, etc.
All this, and more, bothers me, but here's the part I realised long ago and what I think you're struggling to comprehend: They don't care. They're making money by not listening to customers, so why would they bother changing?
No, that's not what I'm arguing. Obviously Steve was motivated by the desire to empower people through creating great products, but to try and argue his goal was not to make money is just foolish. Money was his power, the catalyst allowing him to empower people through products.
We live in a capitalist society. I don't know what else to say. Call me cynical, if you like.
If a comment isn't an outright indictment of everything Apple has done post-Steve, it must be mindless fanaticism, right?
Excuse me? Why are they stupid arguments? What on earth does this even mean? Again, if a comment isn't an outright indictment of everything Apple has done post-Steve, it must be mindless fanaticism, right?
The initial reception to both products was bad. Bad products are due to bad management. You can take this argument and use it on the Watch or iPad Pro, I don't care. I don't own either of things things. Scott was at the helm for two badly received products, and was pushed out. What else is there to say?
I honestly wish Apple would listen to what creative professionals (e.g. me) want from their products. The Mac Pro is a disaster, discontinuing Aperture was horrendously damaging for me and forced me to spend a huge amount of time (and time = money) transferring all of my past work over to Lightroom (which is an awful application), FCPX is basically just iMovie Pro, OS X has had no real innovation since Snow Leopard, putting mid-range mobile GPUs in premium priced laptops is just pathetic, etc.
All this, and more, bothers me, but here's the part I realised long ago and what I think you're struggling to comprehend: They don't care. They're making money by not listening to customers, so why would they bother changing?
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You're simply stating what I already said in that Steve had a goal in life (to empower people through new ideas/products) and that money was a means to an end as opposed to the products being the means to an end that is money. With Tim, I simply believe his priorities are the opposite. Apple products are a means to make money and while that will please shareholders, it may not please customers. Seeing as I am a customer and not a shareholder, I only care about whether the products they are offering suit me. Yes, I can go buy someone else's product, but they have their issues too (i.e. Windows 10 spyware and malware versus a lack of GPU power and things like gaming support; yes you can run Windows 10 with Boot Camp just for gaming, but you still really need a quality GPU.)
Thus, I am constantly torn between settling for something inferior hardware-wise to keep OS X for its better privacy and lack of malware (relatively speaking) and for what I used to think was the superior GUI and OS in general versus better hardware selection, cheaper prices and an increasingly competitive OS in both features, stability and overall design. It's frustrating to say the least.
If I were merely a stockholder, I wouldn't care about the products at all except that I thought people would buy them and thus the stock would be likely to keep going up or at least keep paying a solid dividend. But I'm not a stockholder of Apple so I couldn't care less and thus my replies feature my perspective as a consumer, not as a stockholder.
True Capitalism isn't actually a statement about making endless money for the given few large businesses, but rather it's a statement that COMPETITION is good for the consumer in terms of both better selection and lower prices and more innovation. Anti-Trust laws were designed to promote healthy Capitalism by not just allowing a company to buy out all its competition so it obtains monopoly or near-monopoly status or colludes to fix prices so that lower prices are thwarted. In other words Capitalism is supposed to consumer orientated, not business orientated in that it's an economic system that's supposed to empower an entire country, not just a select few. You can get that with a dictatorship or even socialism. Who gets the money is about the only difference.
Crony Capitalism is what we've been heading for with select large companies being allowed to merge until they're too large to fail or until most of the competition has been eliminated, all perpetuated by a corrupt government that represents paid (lobbied) interests as opposed to the will of the actual citizens. In other words, the system has been corrupted to make a few rich and screw over everyone else (opposite purpose of True Capitalism). A country with a small or non-existent Middle Class is a 3rd World country and that is where Crony Capitalism ultimately leads.
That depends on what the comment is saying. "They are making money so they must be right" or "Go start your own company if you don't like it" are the types of comments "fans" (which is short for fanatics) tend to make because they don't like people ripping on their favorite company. But your point is easily turned around to say that if a comment doesn't outright support everything Apple does, it must be 'put down' with comments like Irishman made that say things like "Deal with it". Why am I on these forums if not to discuss new products and concepts and whether I like them or not and why? That type of comment is trying to shut down any discussion and lump it into a trash bin labeled "dissent".
It takes no thought what-so-ever to surmise money = success = don't question anything Apple does or any product Apple makes. But that says nothing about the products themselves and it doesn't help a consumer find what they need. It's a simple 'shut down' argument designed to trash and discourage anyone from offering anything but positive reviews. It's like getting rid of the dislike buttons on here. Getting only positives tells you absolutely nothing since you have no idea whether more people hate your ideas/posts or like them or just don't care to bother. It says nothing at all.
How is that helpful to a consumer? If you encourage enough people to send their dissatisfied feedback, Apple sometimes does listen (particularly if it makes the press). Thus, I would want to get enough people behind my view to give such feedback. It may not work. It may never work. That's beside the point. Just buying whatever it is they're selling doesn't really work for me either. I'm not going to pay $2400 for a notebook with only 256GB of storage and $3000 (to get 1TB) is a bit ludicrous for a notebook. I vote with my wallet. I wanted a machine with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C and I can even deal with an adapter or two to make it work, but my dream of having a nice breakout box with one wire and a gaming level graphics card to turn that notebook into a desktop (one computer to rule them all) is utterly defeated if the price of that notebook plus such a box costs more than buying two separate computers. And if I'm going to buy a machine just for games, I might as well hold onto my 2012 Mac Mini for shopping, banking and surfing and use the Windows machine just for games and save $2000+. That probably means the beginning of the end for me and the Mac. I could build a Hackintosh instead of just a PC and be done with it.
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Oh I dunno. There's a difference between "the company" to me and "Steve Jobs vision of the company". Steve wanted black and white for the Mac (while Apple II had color). Apple without Steve went with color. Steve's iPhone was black beveled with a dark interface. After Steve died, the interface went FLAT and almost pastel in colors with clear overlaps and breaking most conventions for depth and ease-of-spotting window edges and boundaries. Yes, Steve did have some colorful CASES at various points (along with many steel and black cases as well), but a colorful case and a colorful GUI aren't exactly the same thing.
Steve was all for making computing accessible and fun - that included colours. In both GUI and hardware. Not necessarily eye-popping extreme colours, but colours. The coloured Apple logo was part of the GUI of a lot of Macs (and came to be while he was at the company), and the buttons to zoom, minimise and close a window, the traffic light as a lot of us know it, well they were coloured rather than monotone. And if I may go back to hardware for a bit, iBooks and iMacs were extremely colourful in the beginning. Did Steve believe simple colour schemes like black, white and silver had their place, of course. Did he also believe in proper use of colours, of course
So do you consider the 2D/Color GUI makeover of the iPhone (and to some extent OS X) a "proper" use of colors? Ironically, some of the things that were in color (e.g. Finder side bar and Apple logo) were made monotone (even though the finder icons were harder to look at with no color differentiation while XtraFinder revealed they were all still in color internally) while a couple of versions later everything but those items went to color. What about leaving Cover Flow in OS X and iOS but removing it from iTunes? These inconsistencies came after Steve. You can ask in feedback all you want. You won't get any response why they keep things inconsistent. Jony just likes it, I guess.
But from what I've heard about Denmark, you are probably quite used to the concept of what we in the US would probably consider stifling conformity.
Yes, let's generalise individuals based on larger groups without even knowing how well the individual fits into that group, why not? And as a US citizen, you must be obese and idiotic, right? Or shall we just consider what we actually know about one another based on actual statements, rather than try and apply stereotypes to one another?
So is your argument that there were absolutely no inconsistencies whilst Steve ran the company? In a lot of ways, I feel that the whole Apple experience is more consistent now than it has been in a long time. Over the past many years, iCloud has evolved to be an amazing knot that ties everything together and the experience of going from one platform to another having all your things there immediately is the ultimate kind of consistency, isn't it? You're right that there's also been a few inconsistent moves since he passed away, but there also were inconsistencies when he ran the company.
To go a bit back, and answer your questions about colour use in the flatter OS designs, well, initially, no. But as time went on, the designs really grew on me. In a lot of ways, macOS/OS X Yosemite and beyond seems very, design wise, reminiscent of Tiger and below. You know, in particular the Dock. And when it comes to iOS, well, try and go back and use one of the skeuomorphic OS's for a week. I'm sure you'll enjoy some aspects of the design a lot more than the new designs, but overall, I think you'll miss the newer design. It's a lot more fresh.
All this said, let me just end by saying that we are not entirely in disagreement here. I'm playing Devil's Advocate a bit, and I do genuinely believe in what I'm writing, but I also sometimes find images of iOS 6 and OS X Snow Leopard to look at, and just enjoy. The designs were so absolutely amazing. When the current design eventually passes, I'm not sure I'll do that. But do I enjoy it? Yes.
And we agree that loving a company and the products it creates means that you should stay critical about what they produce. If you just say "Oh well, it's Apple!" and buy it even if you don't agree with the product's traits and the direction is going in, you're essentially part of the problem. Showing disagreement is the only way to change anything, and if you love the company and its products, you'd want them to make the best things they can.
Well let me put it this way. This is the first Macbook Pro in eons that Consumer Reports has chosen not to endorse as a recommended product so I don't think I'm totally off-base here. I already decided against the iPhone and went with a Microsoft phone of all things (don't need lots of apps and it was dirt cheap ($40 + $98 200GB SD card) and works with Tracphone (not a big phone user) so I get a pretty nice smart phone for $17 a month that can still play all my music/songs/photos, etc. just like my old iPod Touch. I switched from AppleTV (had Gen1 and Gen2 units and hacked the former to run Linux with Broadcom cards) to FireTV. So maybe the Mac is just the last to go.
Back on topic. Aspyr is bringing Mafia 3 to mac.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AspyrMedia/status/811965043025866754
https://mobile.twitter.com/AspyrMedia/status/811965043025866754
I actually think Microsoft is doing really well these days, so no need to say "of all things". Still not a massive fan of Windows, but I think they make pretty neat hardware these days, from the Surface Book to the Studio to their phones. And I've always thought that Windows Phone looked better than Android.
Truthfully, neither did Steve Jobs.
I don't really know exactly who, inside Apple, got them to make that little push for gaming support that existed for a few years there (around the 2002-2005 time-frame, roughly). In that time-frame, we saw a lot of native Mac ports of popular titles released, and even a few "B" titles that you'd never have guessed would see a Mac port (like "Stubbs the Zombie"). That was the "golden age" for Mac games, in my opinion. That's when titles like Halo came out, along with Spiderman, True Crime: Streets of L.A., NASCAR Racing 2002 and 2003, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942, BloodRayne, Command & Conquer: Generals and much more.
But it felt to me like everything kind of petered out after that, with just the occasional "big name" title popping up, 2 or 3 times a year -- and many "franchises" no longer receiving Mac editions after that.
I remember back then, though... Jobs insisted that he really disliked the idea of any games appearing on the Mac that involved violence, guns or warfare. Frankly, that eliminated the majority of the titles in existence right there -- so it's a good thing developers went on releasing them despite Steve's wishes!
I don't really know exactly who, inside Apple, got them to make that little push for gaming support that existed for a few years there (around the 2002-2005 time-frame, roughly). In that time-frame, we saw a lot of native Mac ports of popular titles released, and even a few "B" titles that you'd never have guessed would see a Mac port (like "Stubbs the Zombie"). That was the "golden age" for Mac games, in my opinion. That's when titles like Halo came out, along with Spiderman, True Crime: Streets of L.A., NASCAR Racing 2002 and 2003, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942, BloodRayne, Command & Conquer: Generals and much more.
But it felt to me like everything kind of petered out after that, with just the occasional "big name" title popping up, 2 or 3 times a year -- and many "franchises" no longer receiving Mac editions after that.
I remember back then, though... Jobs insisted that he really disliked the idea of any games appearing on the Mac that involved violence, guns or warfare. Frankly, that eliminated the majority of the titles in existence right there -- so it's a good thing developers went on releasing them despite Steve's wishes!
I don't remember him saying such thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the ultimate reason why Apple never supported gaming.
But OTOH, I remember Schiller demoing Q3 arena. Although it was the best game to show at that time, they didn't have to do it on stage.
After that -relatively- good period, iPhone & iOS happened. We all know how things went from there on.