> I think Tim Cook took Steve Job's vision and really took it to the moon.
I vehemently disagree with this. I think Cook's logistics and business-focused goals are, if not diametrically opposed to Job's product obsession, at the very least orthogonal to it. Almost everything about Apple the product, over the past 15 years, has either coasted (e.g. stayed at par with the rest of the industry) or gotten worse. The one exception is arguably Apple Silicon (and I'm sure their board is acutely aware of it).
I find this critique extremely odd. Sure, Apple isn't perfect, but literally every thing they do is top tier in the category they enter.
I started writing out a list of Apple's products and it was simply [x device] in [y category] is either the best or consistently rated in the top of that category.
MacOS sucks. I can't wait for the day Asahi Linux is good enough so that I can bail on it.
Safari, a web browser, randomly stops being able to connect to the Internet (other apps can).
In Steve Jobs biography, I read that he was obsessed with the factory they built to mass produce devices. I think he was in some way also obsessed with logistics of how things were made, and Tim Cook came in and not only helped Apple but also helped transform the global supply chain.
I also think most products apple makes are in the top tier of their respective category, if not the best.
Airpods? They make more than most SaaS decacorns. How can you not credit that as a massive success that came out of nowhere?
Successful for the business no doubt, but they are an example of 'par with the rest of the industry' aren't they? Nothing market leading about them (except perhaps the price, heh) and not the first in the category, just one of a bunch of good options.
Nothing market leading about AirPods? I find it telling that it’s one of the only Apple products that LTT Linus is using, despite not working as well with Android as with iOS. And they have around 30% market share in their product category
You find it telling that some YouTube 'influencer' uses Airpods? You only noticed because of Apple's distinctive white branding, they have market leading marketing, I'll give you that!
Their ability to connect and move between devices is 100x better than any competitor. They were also the first to make truly wireless earphones that didn't suck. Judging it now, when the market has finally caught up in most areas doesn't make sense.
>Their ability to connect and move between devices is 100x better than any competitor.
This statement only has any merit if your usage pattern is 100% limited to Apple devices, otherwise it falls apart.
It would be fine if they fell back to "at least as good as the competition" in a mixed use case, but in the mixed case they are worse than what even low-budget BT buds often offer (no BT Multipoint, no ear recognition, etc., hell, not even a battery level over BT...and even pairing/reconnect is often a crapshoot reminiscent of the state of BT Audio 10-15 years ago). It was honestly a really disappointing realization.
It's a stealth subscription product. People are losing those things all the time.
And if not losing, the battery dies in 2-3 years, so you'll have to buy new anyway.
Eh, mine are four years old and still going strong. Battery still lasts longer than I need it to.
Yes, what about airpods? Little reason to buy them if you are not in the Apple ecosystem, and if you are, and you are a careful buyer, you'll probably settle with other brands which are technically ahead (in either of build, sound or ANR quality, or all, Apple being on the Pareto front of neither). I'm not dismissing the marketing forces behind airpods selling by the millions as a "status symbol", but that's very much a "high cost of living country" thing, Apple is inexistent elsewhere, which is most places.
Apple didn't use to be a status symbol. I think they earned it. And the fact that they are going all in on Neo tells me they don't care about the status symbol part as much as the profit maximizing. Let me know when Ferrari sells an affordable car.
Yep - Apple have worked through to becoming a luxury, upscale brand and there is no reason for them right now to change from that perception with their current market upper hand
1967, the Dino 206 GT
This comes off as a quite dismissive and incurious take. Are you quite sure that of the ~500 million consumers who bought a pair, nobody considered utility and it was simply a fashion choice? Or is it more likely that some consumers judge the utility differently from you?
Apple plays the 'it's the best for most people' game, not the 'technically ahead in [one or a few feature categories]' game. They make the lion's share of profit in the categories they compete in because they sell to the mass market; there's 2.5 billion active iOS devices!
Every time I see someone here dismiss this success as status symbol-oriented marketing, I just shake my head at how much that signals a deep misunderstanding of how the world works or what most of the human race wants in a product. Nobody wants the Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds because Sony doesn't even give a shit enough to give them a name people can remember. Nobody wants Bose earbuds because nobody wants to open a buggy spyware-laden app to turn on/off noise cancelling. These products are destined to fail because they make simple things complicated, untrustworthy, bothersome.
People are whole-experience buyers, not single-feature buyers, and the experience nearly every person on earth wants is the magical 'I put it in and it works' experience. What people want is all the upside of the magic of technology and none of the cognitive overhead associated with it. The specific choices that make up a product offering - aka the product marketing - reflect the inherent desire of the customer. Any luxury / status symbol aspects come AFTER that.
> you'll probably settle with other brands which are technically ahead (in either of build, sound or ANR quality, or all, Apple being on the Pareto front of neither)
Like what? In the true wireless camp, the Sony's are much less comfortable (and more expensive), the Bose are not as good (and more expensive)...
There's cheaper options, sure, but you're sacrificing build, ANC, battery life, etc.
I use AirPods and I have a Google Pixel, Windows laptop, and so on.
That's a very weird choice. I can understand people buying them for the integration with the Apple ecosystem, but outside of it they're just dumb bluetooth earphones. There are better alternatives.
Instead of being curious why someone would make a choice you didn't, you chose to attack the choice! You might as well stick your fingers in your ears and go "na na na I can't hear you!" until you find a tribe of fellow haters.
Except we can’t discount the fact that Jobs chose Cook as his successor. So there’s something Jobs clearly saw there, past being “diametrically opposed” to Jobs’ product obsession. Maybe Jobs felt there were enough product people.