It's Just Me, Huh?

[eyoungren]

We can complain about how Apple doesn't have the magic it used to have, but let's be honest, no one in the consumer electronics segment has been able to meet Apple's level of coordinated software, hardware and services approach even when they are slacking.

The problem is, I use pretty much just the hardware. Most of the software I use is not Apple and it's the rare Apple service that I do use (and none that I can't live without).

But, I never expected my computer (whatever it was) to be magical. The first ones I got were not magical. They required that I do something to get something out of them. Want to run a program? Type it in. It was easier to play games and that's primarily how they functioned for me until my late teens when I started needing my computers to do other things.

When I finally came to Mac completely (2003) it was because Apple had proven to me that their computers and OS would function despite problems. Problems that would have crippled (and did cripple) my PC at the time.

So, I've stayed because of the hardware.

 

[eyoungren]

It’s good to hear people with some common sense. The constant negativity is not only unwarranted but getting old. That doesn’t mean we have to agree with every Apple does but I feel like most of the negative Nancy’s never experienced what some of us have. The tiny device we carry in our pocket is amazing. Take time to appreciate what we have.

As much as I appreciate my iPhone(s), I appreciate my Macs more. My focus has always been on desktop computers because there are things I can do with them that I cannot do with my phone, or do in the manner I am accustomed to doing it.

I'm not negative on Apple. I love my Macs and using them to do things Apple either obsoleted them for or says they can't do, brings me satisfaction.

 

[TokyoKiller]

The problem is, I use pretty much just the hardware. Most of the software I use is not Apple and it's the rare Apple service that I do use (and none that I can't live without).

But, I never expected my computer (whatever it was) to be magical. The first ones I got were not magical. They required that I do something to get something out of them. Want to run a program? Type it in. It was easier to play games and that's primarily how they functioned for me until my late teens when I started needing my computers to do other things.

When I finally came to Mac completely (2003) it was because Apple had proven to me that their computers and OS would function despite problems. Problems that would have crippled (and did cripple) my PC at the time.

So, I've stayed because of the hardware.

I would agree with you that the hardware is what attracted me at first and is still what keeps me around, along with the hardware support proved by AppleCare if anything does happen. As much as Apple gets flack for repairability, they are better than most of the industry.

 

[williamofockham]

I first became an ardent apple user (macOS 1 through 9 were quite exciting to say the least) because of the hardware, specifically the Motorola memory model versus the Intel model. Then OS X (Darwin) was superior to MS system, I still prefer the mach kernel to the linux kernel. When my daughter went to college an iMac (400 MHz grey) went with her, followed by an iBook to grad school, as far as stale is concerned, so what they tend to work pretty well and generally I move to a new model for either cpu speed or ram (amount and speed) rather than system failure

 

[eltoslightfoot]

As I have suggested elsewhere, Apple should just rebrand itself iPhonesRUs and be done with it.

Have you even used a Mac in the M4 line? I got a beastly machine M4 Mac Mini 16/512 for practically nothing. SO GOOD.

 

[cateye]

Tools to accomplish things. Nothing more. Made by a company that does so only to make money for its shareholders, like any company. Any illusion to the contrary is marketing.

 

[cbsnbiker]

I'm thrilled by how well my Apple stock has performed.

The products are tools, as others have already written. I like them better than other tools on the market.

 

[eyoungren]

I like them better than other tools on the market.

The difference between Craftsman (or what Craftsman used to be) and Hyper Tough.

 

[NewOldStock]

The more hands-off and not personally involved the things become the less interesting they become.
Appliances, cars,computers, etc etc the more automation the more boring they get and less and less excitement.
Glue-weld-lock down and fasten and close it up boring. Computers become more appliances and we can now have to turn it on and it will do most first steps for us. Ai will make this more and more boring.
Ai is the only Tech breakthrough coming in a major way good or bad. Excitement maybe for some and doing things for self automatically will make some things boring. Doing things by hand or tools is the only way to keep from being bored.
Stay busy. Apple make a building hands on kit of some sort then it wont be boring. Depression is the enemy of all.

 

[TgeekB]

It does appear some people have a strong emotional connection to their devices. For instance, I have never cared what color my iPhone is. Others spend hours online speculating what colors the new lineup will bring. For me it’s an excellent tool that gets the job done without much emotions involved. I think that is the big difference in perspectives.

 

[benwiggy]

Personally, I'm doing more amazing things now with my Mac than I ever could have done in the Beige days.

 

[heretiq]

I think that my sense that "the whole Apple thing" is no longer the exciting journey it once was aligns fairly closely to when the 24"iMac and/or the Mini became the thing. Or maybe it was with the passing of the Steve Jobs era.
To me, though, it's no longer exciting. It's all about phones and watches mostly with a side order of laptops. None of those things excite me, personally, especially phones and watches, but I understand that I might be all alone in that (I'm not trying to convince anybody that I'm right). The front page of MacRumors, as an example...well, I'm not seeing any exciting Mac rumors.
I'm still an Apple/MacOS person. To me, like it to all or most of you, it will always be the superior ecosystem.
But it all used to be quite thrilling, and, for me, it no longer is; and I do miss how it used to be.
Is there anyone that feels the same--at all?

Keep hope alive! The following chart from Horace Dediu showing Apple spending more on R&D than general expenses tells me Apple is investing heavily in innovations that we’re sure to see at some point.

Apart from that my current Mac is the best computer I’ve ever owned, my iPad Pro is the best tablet I’ve ever owned, my current iPhone is the best phone I’ve ever had (though my favorite design is the iPhone X), Vision Pro is a great productivity tool and Mac Virtual Display is a game changer for me, and I’m very pleased with my Apple Watch Ultra, OG HomePods and most services.

My biggest disappointments are Apple News (no way to kill ads) and Siri inconsistency (it’s so good at certain things that it causes me to believe it can do other similar things then disappoints — but not enough to cause me to stop using it so I get stuck in this cycle of delight and frustration).

Net-net: the overall Apple scorecard is a solid A-/B+ and way better than the alternatives for me.

 

[digimc]

As I have said before once a market reaches a certain level of maturity the leaps in innovation become a lot fewer and further between. What you mostly see when a market has matured, is more evolutionary changes than the reveloutinary ones that preceded it when the market was still forming.

30 to 40 years ago almost everything that Apple did seemed more "magical" because people could not fathom, previously, these advancements in innovation that we were seeing.

People couldn't imagine a laptop computer becoming so much lighter and smaller that you could literally carry it around with you on the go.

It would have equally been hard for someone in the 80's, that was use to staring at a bulky CRT 17 inch computer screen, that something called LCD would come along in a decade or so and not only make computer monitors more advanced but also lighter and less bulky, while at the same time giving consumers much larger screen sizes. Today though it's harder to be wowed by a new computer monitor, because they are changing more slowly than they did 20 to 30 years ago.

Apple has had to adjust more than most companies because Apple has always been a hardware company, whereas in the past its software, like pages, keynote, numbers, etc. were always considered afterthoughts to their competitors. As hardware innovation slows down, as it has, Apple has had to look more to its software, and in some ways that been more challenging for them.

Though I do think that it's more so in the software market where Apple has to biggest opportunity for growth.

 

[holmesf]

I think that my sense that "the whole Apple thing" is no longer the exciting journey it once was aligns fairly closely to when the 24"iMac and/or the Mini became the thing. Or maybe it was with the passing of the Steve Jobs era.
To me, though, it's no longer exciting. It's all about phones and watches mostly with a side order of laptops. None of those things excite me, personally, especially phones and watches, but I understand that I might be all alone in that (I'm not trying to convince anybody that I'm right). The front page of MacRumors, as an example...well, I'm not seeing any exciting Mac rumors.
I'm still an Apple/MacOS person. To me, like it to all or most of you, it will always be the superior ecosystem.
But it all used to be quite thrilling, and, for me, it no longer is; and I do miss how it used to be.
Is there anyone that feels the same--at all?

MacOS peaked in 2009. Once Apple became a services company which began with MacOS Lion in 2011 they become unaligned with the priorities of their power users. I can't think of any Mac features introduced after 10.14 (2018) which I enjoy. The last major feature I really like is Dark Mode. Apple seems to be continually struggling to reinvent the wheel when it comes to window management, widgets, and notification management. They spend excessive time trying to sell the user services, turning the OS into adware. They spend a lot of time rearranging the deck chairs with things like Settings app reorganization. They've invested a lot of time developing Mac Catalyst and other technologies to bring iOS apps back to Mac rather than developing Mac centric experiences. They leverage their newfound competitive advantage to promote proprietary solutions and walled gardens rather than interoperability.

 

[CasualFanboy]

I think that my sense that "the whole Apple thing" is no longer the exciting journey it once was aligns fairly closely to when the 24"iMac and/or the Mini became the thing. Or maybe it was with the passing of the Steve Jobs era.
To me, though, it's no longer exciting. It's all about phones and watches mostly with a side order of laptops. None of those things excite me, personally, especially phones and watches, but I understand that I might be all alone in that (I'm not trying to convince anybody that I'm right). The front page of MacRumors, as an example...well, I'm not seeing any exciting Mac rumors.
I'm still an Apple/MacOS person. To me, like it to all or most of you, it will always be the superior ecosystem.
But it all used to be quite thrilling, and, for me, it no longer is; and I do miss how it used to be.
Is there anyone that feels the same--at all?

100% yes.

I use a macbook pro, which obviously uses the same OS as a desktop would. It's really no longer a desktop UI. It's a phone UI forced onto the desktop and laptop.

All "innovation" for the last few years is phone-first. None of that is of the slightest interest to me. And not only has desktop innovation ceased, it has regressed.

 

[FranApple]

I get what this guy is saying though. Say what you want about Steve Jobs, but he had a way of making their new releases seem magical. It feels like everything they do these days is some variation of Steve's formula. But that's to be expected. People like Steve don't come around everyday.

 

[grammatica]

I think it's several things:

1. Apple is relying more on its legacy rather than pushing boundaries in innovation. In other words, the products are boring.
2. You're growing out of seeing technology or equipment as entertainment. The products are tools.
3. Virtual events are lame.

 

[SkweeBop]

Still trying to normalize a return to visual customizability for the users, so macs can be a better tool for folks.

 

[Ctrlos]

Technology isn't supposed to be exciting: its supposed to be useful.

All phones and laptops are boring and the grass isn't any greener in Android or Windows land. A folding spoon is still a spoon.

If you want entertainment, go watch a movie or play a videogame. Its genuinely a lot more fun

 

[theluggage]

You're not alone. I also miss the days when a new Mac release felt like a real event. Now it all just feels like iterations instead of revolutions.

Well, that's because it is iterative improvement on mature technology, that can do the same old job 10% faster.

...and, to a large extent, that's what most people now need out of the modern personal computer. I'm interested in what new Macs come out but, TBH, I'd quite like to get on with doing the things I want to do on my computer and I'm not even close to exhausting the possibilities of what 10 year-old tech can do.

For the last few years, the new shiny thing has been pretending that Large Language Models and Diffusion are somehow Artificial Intelligence - which, frankly, leaves me cold. I'm sure that the techniques aren't going away and will be important going forward - but wake me up when we get past the "let's pretend that this actually works safely and reliably" stage.

I think the excitement at the moment is coming from cheap boards like the Raspberry Pi which you can mess around with without worrying about breaking the PC you depend on for day-to-day admin and work. It's also interesting that "retro computing" seems to be popular even with people who weren't around (or too young to notice) back in the 80s.

Technology isn't supposed to be exciting: its supposed to be useful.

Well, I'd say it's supposed to be a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Doesn't mean that it can't be exciting.

 

[sgtaylor5]

And then there is the flipside of exciting which is infuriating: read Windows 11. I don’t have to worry about all of the pushing Microsoft does to do everything their way on my Mac:

* Yes, I will buy a copy of Office 365, even though my document editing needs are light.
* Yes, I will use OneDrive and Windows Backup.
* Yes, I will use Copilot religiously everywhere, even though I don’t trust AI as far as I can throw it.
* Yes, I will play games with Xbox, even though I’m not a gamer.

Now to be sure, there are much quieter ways that Apple wants you to do things their way, but they can be ignored and circumvented a lot easier than all of the Microsoft service pushing on Windows.

TL/DR macOS simply gets out of my way, and lets me get my work done faster than I ever could on Windows.

 

[Ctrlos]

Well, I'd say it's supposed to be a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Doesn't mean that it can't be exciting.

The actual means is the exciting part. A phone is just a shell: the interesting part is the software it contains and the apps it runs

 

[Flynnsworth]

What more can we really get out of these devices? Apple hardware has peaked and other than some nitpicking and nice to haves, there's not much left for Apple to improve.

The software side is a different story and I hope Apple focus more on it - particularly iPadOS.

The excitement of new hardware might be gone, but on the plus side, users are now starting to realise that their device from 4 years ago is still absolutely great.

 

[Bustermd]

Go outside. Touch some grass. Feel the sun on your face. Live your life. Meet a person. Have fun. Have some new experiences. Those are the things that should excite you. A computer should no more "excite" you than a Philips head screwdriver. When you're young the "latest and greatest" is exciting I guess, but its OK to mature out of that attitude.

Also, I think rumors of the Mac's death are greatly exaggerated. The Mac is the most useful as a tool now than its ever been. Has anyone used a Windows 11 laptop lately? The mournful cries of its fans screeching and bellowing at full power in a futile effort to keep the thing from melting are haunting.

 

[antiprotest]

Mac, Windows, iPhone, Androids, to me, have not been exciting for at least several years now. What has been more exciting for people, whether some people like it or not, are more software based such as AI and its applications. And what makes Apple less exciting than others is because it has the least AI than anybody else. Negative AI even.