- Get rid of Air products. Thinness is not a meaningful feature.
- Make Finder an actually good file manager, starting with a configurable sidebar.
- Add a headphone jack back to all mobile devices. Seriously, bluetooth just won't cut it.
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Tim retires and you replace him as CEO
- Thread starter Jeeve Stubbs
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Do everything in my power to bring the product road map forward by one year because Apple are too far behind now.
Rehire Jony Ive.
Buy Sonos.
Phew. Glad you all got the joke. I was worried I was about to get flamed.
Today in Apple history: Michael Dell says he'd shut down Apple
On October 6, 1997, Michael Dell made an infamously bleak appraisal of Apple's fortunes, saying the company should shut down completely.
www.cultofmac.com
I was lucky enough to be working at apple when APPL overtook DELL’s market cap. Everyone got a congratulatory and gloating email from Steve 🤪
1. Computing: 27” Mac Standard and 32” Pro version. Laptops are fine. iPads are fine. Air and Pro - done. Keep it simple. Push more on making your iPhone a legitimate computer that you just plug into a monitor to use. We’re almost there, but keep pushing this convergence. People will find when they retire they don’t need everything a Mac has to offer. Simplicity is everything. Most Apple users are younger. My generation is split. Plan for what that looks like as Gen X people and younger retire in the coming years to retain your base through life. My phone can do just about all I need with a few touches here and there as far as a computer goes, but there are times when I need a big monitor. Make it seamless.
2. Media: AppleTV “Theater”. 5.1.2 soundbar with remote subwoofer. Option to add two HomePods with upfiring speakers for 7.1.4 and maybe a second sub for 7.2.4. Built in TV OS. Built in camera for FaceTime. Safari. Keyboard and mouse option. Extra HDMI input or two for a BD player et al. Multi device learning remote (think the amazing Logitech we used to be able to get). Get DTS onboard and update the catalog to the original audio formats that were used for the films. Maybe even work with Sony on SDDS for the movies that had it. Improve audio bitrate for movies. Start looking at 8K.
3. Apple ID: Instead of merge an old Apple ID to get access to your catalog, allow a new Apple ID to replace it as long as the old ID is closed out. If you ever get hacked, you’re stuck with the old Apple ID for your content or you have to use another iCloud account or service like outlook or gmail to change it resulting in the use of two Apple IDs to get to your content. It’s messy. This applies to a lot of people that had iTunes before they had an Apple product, but didn’t have an iCloud account. It’s ridiculous I can use a different Gmail account anytime I want for my Apple ID for my content, but I can’t generate a new iCloud account to do the same. There is a way to merge it, but it has restrictions that make it messy and in some cases you can’t actually perform the merge. Just transfer everything and be gone with the old account. There’s probably some legal BS associated with this, but if someone took the time to figure it out then it could be done. It just takes effort. I mean, what if your email was dickandjaneforever@icloud.com and it didn’t work out?🤣
4. Bonus points: Just make a HomePod with a built in charge stand to hold your iPhone, iPad or iPad mini. Forget making an actual device with a screen.
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A headphone jack. YES. In fact, I agree with all three decisions. Cannot think of better ones.
I can't count the number of things you can do on Windows/ChromeOS/Linux/Android that you can't do on Apple devices. Some of them are more complex/geeky and Apple caters to the "let's keep it simple" crowd, so I can understand that. But other things, like the one you mention, are pretty straightforward and simple, so you have to wonder why Mac can't do that.
I would:
- Bring back skeuomorphism (obviously);
- Remove subcription option from AppStore and bar developers from using it outside the AppStore;
- Make it as easy as possible for game devs to port games to iOS and macOS, so there will be finally something to play on new iPhone apart from 12 year old GTA San Andreas port;
- Make iPads water-resistant, bring removable SD card storage as an option to every iPad;
- Implement new battery designs so that they will be as easy to replace, like replacing AA batteries in TV Control. Will sell every original battery at 30-50$/piece;
- Bring back chargers, stickers and even add AirPods to EVERY new iPhone;
- iPads will get Apple Pensil BUNDLED instead of AirPods;
- Finally bring back BootCamp for native Windows installation, will solve that with Microsoft;
- Make camera shoot natural pictures, remove unnecessary computations, remove aggressive sharpening, remove aggressive denoising, tone down HDR and make it an option;
- Rebuild UI of iOS from scratch to make it actually user-friendly, no options you cannot disable (like memories in photos, "recently deleted", object recognition, AI features). Everything must be possible to opt out of.
- Make just ONE iPhone again but in TWO sizes, priced at 800$. No less, no more. No pro, no air, no "e", just "iPhone". One size would be as small as iPhone 5 was (or at least something in-between iPhone 5 and iPhone 6/X), another would be like iPhone Air. Both thin and light, NO UGLY CAMERA BULGES, DYNAMIC ISLANDS and ALL that goofy ahh trash!! Design is always a compromise. One camera? Good, iPhone Air shows people don't even need other cameras! No FaceID? OH NO, anyway... TouchID into Apple logo or power button, problem solved. Worse camera? So what, go buy Sony Alpha a7 if you care about pixel peeping! Smaller screen in smaller model? YES you heard me right, because people deserve good and pocketable phone, not PHABLET or shoe-in-your-face brick.
- Fire whole software design department, rehire Scott Forstall so he can assemble a team of UI-UX professionals and release new iOS 27 as soon as possible, with each iOS 26 update replacing the ugliest elements of iOS 26;
- Send PWM in OLED displays into trashbin of history. Make phones safe for eyesight, because company must care about health of its customers;
- Fire marketing department, hire real professionals and come back to real, live keynotes, streamed with real cinema cameras not some cheapo iPhone with plastic lenses. I am sick and tired of boring, tired Apple ads that will resonate only to minority of potential target audience.
- Bring back skeuomorphism (obviously);
- Remove subcription option from AppStore and bar developers from using it outside the AppStore;
- Make it as easy as possible for game devs to port games to iOS and macOS, so there will be finally something to play on new iPhone apart from 12 year old GTA San Andreas port;
- Make iPads water-resistant, bring removable SD card storage as an option to every iPad;
- Implement new battery designs so that they will be as easy to replace, like replacing AA batteries in TV Control. Will sell every original battery at 30-50$/piece;
- Bring back chargers, stickers and even add AirPods to EVERY new iPhone;
- iPads will get Apple Pensil BUNDLED instead of AirPods;
- Finally bring back BootCamp for native Windows installation, will solve that with Microsoft;
- Make camera shoot natural pictures, remove unnecessary computations, remove aggressive sharpening, remove aggressive denoising, tone down HDR and make it an option;
- Rebuild UI of iOS from scratch to make it actually user-friendly, no options you cannot disable (like memories in photos, "recently deleted", object recognition, AI features). Everything must be possible to opt out of.
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I would make all the OS's open source, then every year hold a poll for what the consumers want on the new phones (as long as it is reasonable), and then give the watch a face store+remove hardware exclusive faces.
Quite a lot of good ideas !!!
I would also add the following:
a. To stop the dumb marketing idea about Apple AI. This is not going anywhere any time soon.
b. To stop the incessant idea of "thinness and compactness," specially for desktop computers. Just built regular or medium to "obese" computers with efficient heat dissipation. Thinness and compactness may save $ in construction costs, but at the same time makes heat dissipation more problematic.
c. Produce Macs with removable and replaceable RAM and SSDs. Leave it to the customer to do whatever he or she wants with it once the warranty is over.
d. Concentrate on improving the design of OS-X, based on being more intuitive for all users.
e. Get rid of the Apple News department. That's a waste of money and resources.
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A better and fair form of capitalism. Or, I could complain about socialism and run for Congress, get elected for a couple terms, retire and enjoy the benefits of socialism(on a grading scale) that the American people bestow on me for life, lol. Ohhh, the lovely irony of it all.
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* Remove the financial component from each project. It's obvious that some products just don't get worked on because they're "not important". Books.app is a good example. But put a dev onto the app, just to keep it alive. So it costs $200,000 a year, but it helps keep the greater ecosystem alive.
* Stop being afraid to cannibalize sales. Small phones (the mini, for example) may generate less revenue from the app store, but it helps keep the ecosystem fresh. Same with an iPhone Air with 2 cameras, or an Apple TV remote with a built-in UWB radio.
* Take a year or two to focus on platform stability and platform uniformity. Roll out an "app update" in September, instead of a whole new OS if you need to keep the ecosystem fresh, but please for the love of everything Apple fix the bugs.
* Stop putting out MVPs and waiting until the "next revision" to fix stuff. Maybe it helps entice users into always upgrading, but it also leaves users always feeling like they paid a premium for a device that is half baked (see point 2).
* Stop being afraid to cannibalize sales. Small phones (the mini, for example) may generate less revenue from the app store, but it helps keep the ecosystem fresh. Same with an iPhone Air with 2 cameras, or an Apple TV remote with a built-in UWB radio.
* Take a year or two to focus on platform stability and platform uniformity. Roll out an "app update" in September, instead of a whole new OS if you need to keep the ecosystem fresh, but please for the love of everything Apple fix the bugs.
* Stop putting out MVPs and waiting until the "next revision" to fix stuff. Maybe it helps entice users into always upgrading, but it also leaves users always feeling like they paid a premium for a device that is half baked (see point 2).
- Make appstoreconnect not look like a website from the 1990's.
- Overhaul of how App Review works.
- Third party watch face store.
Updates to iPhone Mini, iPad Mini (OLED + ProMotion) and MacBook Air updates with OLED + ProMotion and a Cellular option.
Hey ... you asked!
😀
Oh, also ... iPods are back and built for Apple Music (and/or other music apps) and have Siri and messaging and at least some of the options are positioned as a fun & healthy communications devices for kids.
Hey ... you asked!
😀
Oh, also ... iPods are back and built for Apple Music (and/or other music apps) and have Siri and messaging and at least some of the options are positioned as a fun & healthy communications devices for kids.
I would love an updated iPod with streaming music app support and bluetooth.
Ok, I think I'm changing one of my answers.
Cool functionality that comes to iOS comes the SAME YEAR to iPadOS, not a year later.
Cool functionality that comes to iOS comes the SAME YEAR to iPadOS, not a year later.
I thought this too but with the X-box woes, it's made me rethink how profitable videogames actually are.
I really don't understand why they haven't done it.
They could even be encouraging an entire separate type of games for the devices.
You can do interesting things with screen size and/or input method limitations, just look at the PlayDate.
There seem to be a zillion cool things Apple could be doing ... yet are not.
🤷♂️
Niche products cost money to develop and are likely not to generate the desired ROI. Just becasue there is a market doesn't mean you need to serve it.
Probably to small a margin
That's the thing; Apple doesn't take chances anymore. If a product doesn't generate $xxx in profits, they won't even try it. If something generates $1 in profit, there's no reason not to. It's not like I'm going to take $200 that I would have spent on an iPod and instead spend it in the app store. I'll probably spend it outside of the Apple ecosystem.
So Apple loses my money, loses an integration to their ecosystem, I'll spend the money elsewhere, but worst is that Apple stagnates.
- Ban the non obvious long presses and swipes as the only way of performing an operation.
- Have a status indicator for when background processing is completed after an upgrade.
- Always support current standards. Don’t cripple a product by not supporting the full standard because you want to differentiate the Pro products.
I would put in place a policy that every 1,000 times Siri tells a user "here is what I found on the internet for ______" 10 of the most tenured people on the Siri team are terminated.
We need Steve Jobs' ruthless pursuit of excellence in the user experience to return. People need to be motivated to create products that are a joy to use.
Also, switch to updating iOS and Mac OS to every other year.
We need Steve Jobs' ruthless pursuit of excellence in the user experience to return. People need to be motivated to create products that are a joy to use.
Also, switch to updating iOS and Mac OS to every other year.
It’s ROI, not profit that is important, what you are ignoring is opportunity cost. Unless the profit return exceeds what can be made on another product or simply stashing it in the bank, the product should not be made. Not all profit is desirable.
Which is fine. Some customer wants are not worth making if they cost a company money.