uacd
macrumors 68000
In my opinion he was a good CEO for a company. He made so many people rich just off the pure propaganda-like marketing that “Apple is still great”. And gotta be honest, Apple is indeed still better than competitors in many terms, though it got much more expensive when it comes to flagship devices. But I am comparing apples to apples, not oranges to apples. I want a return of old Apple, I want some true innovation in products not something that people just buy year after year because it is seen as “cool”.
Some stuff that happened under Tim is indeed awesome:
- Apple Silicon and first-ever fanless, silent MacBooks;
- Apple’s market value is huge. That means new jobs and big positive impact for American economy;
- New cheap devices category. No matter how good Steve Jobs era was, one could have never gotten an iPhone or a MacBook for 600$. There are definitely concerns with how long those devices will be useable or how good battery tech is now, but if we look at the competitor market – Apple is winning.
Some things tho are kind of unnerving:
- Departure from skeuomorphic designs led by Johnny Ive but greenlit by Tim. Skeuomorphism was Apple’s brand design language and was invented for better eye care and that anyone, no matter the age can use these devices without issues. With minimalism one has to guess “what this icon does and what that icon is”;
- USB-C. It is a good port but… a bad port! Apple put it in an iPhone simply because they caved in to European Commission and it would have been odd if they made two variants for different markets - North America and EU. I believe they should have invented a new Apple port that would have been as strong as Lightning (the port! Not the cables!) but at the same time would have more benefits than USB-C. I guess they had to do this for cross-compatibility. But USB-C is nevertheless not a good port, it must be used with extreme care, you can’t even get your phone dirty because you will probably never clean all the contacts in this port thanks to stupid design with contacts both in the tip and in the port itself;
- Software is a**. Not Liquid, just pure a**. My 17 Pro at times works “as fast” as my old Galaxy S10+, which wasn’t a bad phone overall, but the speed of Android on it made me switch to 11 Pro back then. I often notice how phone would slow down whenever it wants to, performance-wise iOS 26 is still far behind iOS 17. And irony is that all of them are much slower than iOS 6 or 5. Something happened in Apple’s software department, their operating systems have become too bloated. I know 27 might bring “Snow Leopard-like” bug fixes, but cannot tell if there was a difference for me when I upgraded Leopard to Snow Leopard back in the days, just ever-so-slightly more features;
- Obsession with algorithms. Computational photography especially. Sometimes it is good and OK, but much more often it ruins the photographic intent. Denoising is on such a high level that it makes textures look like LEGO bricks, and sharpening finalizes this plastic look;
- Subscriptions. After Apple introduced subscription models in AppStore you can barely find any good or free apps. Most apps are often laggy baits. If they introduce subscriptions, they should had added free developer accounts too for people releasing open source software. Even Apple’s brand software is now all-subscription (Apple Creator Studio). I don’t like all of this and I doubt it would generate more revenue for the company, feels like penny-pinching;
- Large phones. Who invented this??? How could Apple cave to Samsung and make their own showel-phones? Again, if I need a bigger screen - there is an iPad. Apple is shooting their leg by promoting iPhones with large screens. My 17 Pro is both too big and heavy (206 grams for a phone🤦♂️), and that ain’t even a Pro Max! And they are planning to do another large “ultra” double-sided slate (that will FLOP in terraFLOPs, mark my words). Are they making phones for aliens? I just want a mini or at least iPhone 6 sized smartphone that is light to hold in one hand, iPhone Air is an abomination of its own name, it is neither small nor actually light, as well as costs a lot for such a small feature set;
- Useless tech. Purely pointless useless or disposable devices I had not ever had and probably won’t ever have: Apple Vision Pro, Apple AirPods, Apple Watch. No offense, I get that people love them. But for me I don’t see the point of having smart watch when all the stuff is already on my phone, especially such a limited smart watch that cannot browse the web, doesn’t even have apps quite often and those only serve as shortcuts for phone apps, as well as wearing this stuff all day is tiresome, feels like being a chained slave.
AVP - simply no comments, I had never understood the point of that. THIS is not the future. THIS does not compute. THIS has only 2 hours battery life. What’s the point, to compete with several failures that Meta has released?
And AirPods? They are just bad, both from ergonomics standpoint and that they need that stupid case for charging, that their battery dies in less than 2 years and then you are not able to use them at all, pretty much disposable devices that should cost 20-50$ or come as a free item with every new iPhone. The only nice thing is that they have microphones are are good for communication without taking the iPhone off the pocket.
In general, I liked the Tim Cook era and he didn’t let competitors make fun of the company, because they are still unable to make something genuinely better than tech Apple makes. Well, competitors have definitely made some good devices, such as Google Pixel, but on the other hand Apple still leads in personal computers category and tablets. Windows is such a joke in comparison, Windows is worse than it had ever been and I really miss the old Windows 7/XP days when it was actually fast and not bloated with trackers. However macOS begins to gain some bloat too with recent versions and also has it’s own kind of quirks.
But this era was also quite boring and I hope that new CEO will bring more life into things company is making, we will see in next years anyway because transition is not an instantaneous process. I want some excitement for the tech again. Can’t wait to see change, if there will be any. I am cautiously optimistic and hope it is not a “change for the sake of change”. They can start with refining Liquid Glass! Make it actually neuomorphic, not “something in between”. I want some real “rebel soul” of old Apple and some radical decision making.
UPD:
P.S: it would be no-brainer if John Ternus would continue this COVID-era pre-recorded keynote style. I want some actual, live performances again. Old keynotes felt like a live tech theater and you wanted to tune-in every year. Purely visual? Maybe, but what’s not? Again, I don’t like minimalism in every corner of my life. IKEA stuff and home design? Ok, easier to clean stuff! Tech? Tired!! If it is an age of artificial intelligence, then bring a life to it! There is a reason people are different, have different skin color, different faces, traits and personalities. That’s why tech must feel “alive”
Some stuff that happened under Tim is indeed awesome:
- Apple Silicon and first-ever fanless, silent MacBooks;
- Apple’s market value is huge. That means new jobs and big positive impact for American economy;
- New cheap devices category. No matter how good Steve Jobs era was, one could have never gotten an iPhone or a MacBook for 600$. There are definitely concerns with how long those devices will be useable or how good battery tech is now, but if we look at the competitor market – Apple is winning.
Some things tho are kind of unnerving:
- Departure from skeuomorphic designs led by Johnny Ive but greenlit by Tim. Skeuomorphism was Apple’s brand design language and was invented for better eye care and that anyone, no matter the age can use these devices without issues. With minimalism one has to guess “what this icon does and what that icon is”;
- USB-C. It is a good port but… a bad port! Apple put it in an iPhone simply because they caved in to European Commission and it would have been odd if they made two variants for different markets - North America and EU. I believe they should have invented a new Apple port that would have been as strong as Lightning (the port! Not the cables!) but at the same time would have more benefits than USB-C. I guess they had to do this for cross-compatibility. But USB-C is nevertheless not a good port, it must be used with extreme care, you can’t even get your phone dirty because you will probably never clean all the contacts in this port thanks to stupid design with contacts both in the tip and in the port itself;
- Software is a**. Not Liquid, just pure a**. My 17 Pro at times works “as fast” as my old Galaxy S10+, which wasn’t a bad phone overall, but the speed of Android on it made me switch to 11 Pro back then. I often notice how phone would slow down whenever it wants to, performance-wise iOS 26 is still far behind iOS 17. And irony is that all of them are much slower than iOS 6 or 5. Something happened in Apple’s software department, their operating systems have become too bloated. I know 27 might bring “Snow Leopard-like” bug fixes, but cannot tell if there was a difference for me when I upgraded Leopard to Snow Leopard back in the days, just ever-so-slightly more features;
- Obsession with algorithms. Computational photography especially. Sometimes it is good and OK, but much more often it ruins the photographic intent. Denoising is on such a high level that it makes textures look like LEGO bricks, and sharpening finalizes this plastic look;
- Subscriptions. After Apple introduced subscription models in AppStore you can barely find any good or free apps. Most apps are often laggy baits. If they introduce subscriptions, they should had added free developer accounts too for people releasing open source software. Even Apple’s brand software is now all-subscription (Apple Creator Studio). I don’t like all of this and I doubt it would generate more revenue for the company, feels like penny-pinching;
- Large phones. Who invented this??? How could Apple cave to Samsung and make their own showel-phones? Again, if I need a bigger screen - there is an iPad. Apple is shooting their leg by promoting iPhones with large screens. My 17 Pro is both too big and heavy (206 grams for a phone🤦♂️), and that ain’t even a Pro Max! And they are planning to do another large “ultra” double-sided slate (that will FLOP in terraFLOPs, mark my words). Are they making phones for aliens? I just want a mini or at least iPhone 6 sized smartphone that is light to hold in one hand, iPhone Air is an abomination of its own name, it is neither small nor actually light, as well as costs a lot for such a small feature set;
- Useless tech. Purely pointless useless or disposable devices I had not ever had and probably won’t ever have: Apple Vision Pro, Apple AirPods, Apple Watch. No offense, I get that people love them. But for me I don’t see the point of having smart watch when all the stuff is already on my phone, especially such a limited smart watch that cannot browse the web, doesn’t even have apps quite often and those only serve as shortcuts for phone apps, as well as wearing this stuff all day is tiresome, feels like being a chained slave.
AVP - simply no comments, I had never understood the point of that. THIS is not the future. THIS does not compute. THIS has only 2 hours battery life. What’s the point, to compete with several failures that Meta has released?
And AirPods? They are just bad, both from ergonomics standpoint and that they need that stupid case for charging, that their battery dies in less than 2 years and then you are not able to use them at all, pretty much disposable devices that should cost 20-50$ or come as a free item with every new iPhone. The only nice thing is that they have microphones are are good for communication without taking the iPhone off the pocket.
In general, I liked the Tim Cook era and he didn’t let competitors make fun of the company, because they are still unable to make something genuinely better than tech Apple makes. Well, competitors have definitely made some good devices, such as Google Pixel, but on the other hand Apple still leads in personal computers category and tablets. Windows is such a joke in comparison, Windows is worse than it had ever been and I really miss the old Windows 7/XP days when it was actually fast and not bloated with trackers. However macOS begins to gain some bloat too with recent versions and also has it’s own kind of quirks.
But this era was also quite boring and I hope that new CEO will bring more life into things company is making, we will see in next years anyway because transition is not an instantaneous process. I want some excitement for the tech again. Can’t wait to see change, if there will be any. I am cautiously optimistic and hope it is not a “change for the sake of change”. They can start with refining Liquid Glass! Make it actually neuomorphic, not “something in between”. I want some real “rebel soul” of old Apple and some radical decision making.
UPD:
P.S: it would be no-brainer if John Ternus would continue this COVID-era pre-recorded keynote style. I want some actual, live performances again. Old keynotes felt like a live tech theater and you wanted to tune-in every year. Purely visual? Maybe, but what’s not? Again, I don’t like minimalism in every corner of my life. IKEA stuff and home design? Ok, easier to clean stuff! Tech? Tired!! If it is an age of artificial intelligence, then bring a life to it! There is a reason people are different, have different skin color, different faces, traits and personalities. That’s why tech must feel “alive”
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