Thanks for your kind words. It took me a long while before hitting that submit button. It's that moment when you're unsure if what you've written is any good.
I think I now know why. There was a TED talk by Simon Sinek regarding how Apple sells its products to its customers by making you believe why you should need one than without one.
The keynote didn't really sell me the watch. To me it was more like a 'me too' smartwatch but with several customizable options to set it apart from the competition. They should've stick with one model and iterate later like they always did.
But I agree, if the presentation was worded like this, I probably would've bought one in a whim and wouldn't think the heartbeat thing as gimmicky.
While I don't think so much should be viewed under the 'what would Jobs do' prism, I agreed with your points on product development, choice, and presentation. Brilliantly written.
I'll be downvoted for this, but I'd like the chance to express myself to the author.
I felt what you wrote was in poor taste. I think that it's in poor taste to speak for the dead when one was close friends with them, and I think that it's worse still to speak for a celebrity whom you had no personal acquaintance with.
I feel like you did nothing more than mask your own personal complaints about Apple inside dialog written as if spoken by Jobs' , but with little forethought about Jobs' past history of actions, or the hierarchy of team effort that goes on at Apple, or even the way Jobs presented himself.
The disparaging comments about 'his' previous lineup that 'he' (you) made proved that furthermore.
I say all this with a personal hatred for Apple and the Steve Jobs method of getting stuff done, so I'd hate for anyone to think that i'm simply upset that it is sullying His name. I don't care about that; I just don't think that it's realistic in the least.
It's a good attempt at a Jobs-esque keynote, enjoyed that aspect, but on the product side the only criticisms can be boiled down to...
1. There's too much choice (option of a larger phone screen from the 6+, and a variety of watch options).
2. Because of this choice, you have to do more thinking for yourself.
I feel like it's sad that thinking for ourselves is seen as problematic. That diversity isn't something to be embraced. Though it just shows how much some value the status symbol aspect.
Its not about not thinking for yourself, its about avoiding unnecessary choice. Our lives our filled with enough real decisions without the need for inane and subtle product ones. Most people do not need to be worrying about the voltage of their electric toothbrush. Its not because they're brainwashed and hate diversity.
With the iPhone I'm now forced to regret the decision either way. The iPhone 6+ is too big for my hands, but the smaller one doesn't support the special landscape mode stuff and has a worse camera. They haven't even provided a clear upgrade differentiation, I'm forced to consider tradeoffs, in a product that I used to not think about at all.
Similarly, I am incredibly skeptical that we really needed 2 different watch sizes (given that reviewers say both feel fine). I'm sure you'd agree we don't need 55 sizes in between the current two sizes, so its clear that its possible to have too much choice. Add to this three variations (hopefully there won't be different capacities like with iPhones too) and its just a fact that you created a necessity for me to try them on first before just buying them online.
I think 2 different watch sizes are absolutely necessary. There is no way that one watch size will fit across the varied wrists of both men and women. Both may feel fine for a average sized wrist, but start moving up or down from that wrist and one size quickly becomes a problem. Look at the Moto360. It's so large that it only looks decent on the largest of wrists.
As for the watch size, your intuition is wrong. People are very specific on how a watch looks on their wrist, especially women. They aren't going to buy something that looks huge on their wrist, because it doesn't go with their outfit.
Unlike a phone, a watch is also a fashion item. And they will want to have a choice here.
Reducing choice is great when the involved tradeoffs are hard to figure out for yourself and depend on so many things around it.
That’s especially true for consumer electronics. I don’t know all the details, I can’t really write all the software for it, and I feel intimidated if I had to make all those choices by myself. I want someone to figure that out for me, especially since it works better as a tool if all the puzzle pieces are put together with care, not some bumbling idiot like myself. (Of course this is more subtle then that. And it’s always a delicate balance. Maybe others can deal better with picking tradeoffs for themselves. I personally really can’t.)
That said, while a little more complex, I don’t think the two models are too complex. But that’s where you can make a reasonable case. Still, they are clearly differentiated along practically only one axis (size) and exactly identical along most others. Only some things are more muddled and confusing to consumers (battery life, screen res, OIS). It seems manageable to me.
As for the watches … see, there’s where I think you are completely wrong. It’s not about functionality at all, it’s all about how it looks – and that’s a world of difference. When I go shopping for clothes I love to have a large selection. That’s the best thing. I want that choice, because it’s all very, very personal. That’s how this watch works, too, and that’s how it’s different. (In fashion there are problems, too, especially with no clear differentiation between products and no great overview. However, Apple doesn’t seem to make that mistake so far. Everything is clearly differentiated.)
The choices for the watch don’t really involve so much tradeoffs you as a consumer have to decide between (there is a bit of that w/ steel or aluminium and glass or sapphire – but that’s probably mostly paying more for better materials, not so much about tradeoffs), it’s more about what aesthetic you personally like. I think that’s very ok for something you wear. When I decide between different patterns for my shirt I’m not making tradeoffs, I pick what I like. That’s far simpler than making tradeoffs. It’s actually enjoyable, at least for me (and if the selection is big enough).
"Our lives our filled with enough real decisions without the need for inane and subtle product ones."
Considering the length of time we spend with our gadgets it pays to spend a bit of time in those 'inane' decisions. However, if you're a light user and just want something that works you can always choose based on price. It's really not that hard.
"With the iPhone I'm now forced to regret the decision either way."
But are you though? Let's imagine for a second that the iPhone 6+ didn't exist. Is the iPhone 6 enough of an upgrade for you to want it? The obvious upgrade path is iPhone 5 to iPhone 6, if you've never wanted a phablet then the iPhone 6+ is not for you. There, I made your decision for you.
That's the point, that it does exist. I don't regret the other iPhone 5's because they actually don't exist. Since the iPhone 6+ actually does exist, developers will start programming custom superior landscape layouts for it that will serve to continually remind me I don't have it.
Had the only difference been physical size, the decision would be easy like you describe, I'd be measuring on one variable that I know how I prefer. (Note that this could be similarly fixed by apple choosing to offer the landscape modes on the 6 too, then it would just be battery and camera that are worse, of which battery is understandable).
"I don't regret the other iPhone 5's because they actually don't exist."
Except that they do exist (i.e. iPhone 5C). Perhaps you didn't face this dilemma with the 5S vs. 5C because it was clear which one was seen as the "best". It's the status symbol aspect.
Phablets are a niche market, if you have never wanted a phablet then the 6+ is not for you. The flagship model is the 6.
As for the features you'll be missing out on, do you have the same feelings about the superior features you can find on non-Apple phones? PureView from Nokia is far superior to Apple cameras, you can find Android phones with far better batteries, etc... Why is it only an issue with Apple? Again, I suspect, it's the status symbol aspect.
Once again, you seem strangely convinced that I am obsessed with the "status symbol aspect" despite my repeated listings of the differences in features I care about. I'll try once more: the iPhone 6 is smaller, which I consider better because I have small hands. The bigger one has iPad-style landscape layout and a better camera that I care about. Notice how neither of those have anything to do with impressing anyone with my status. Notice also that I don't care that one happens to be called a phablet: it still contains features unrelated to the size that I want and don't understand why they left out of the smaller one, and I also fear the fragmentation of the app market for things designed for the bigger screen and arbitrarily not available for the smaller one (as has already happened in Apple's software).
And I absolutely care about the discrepancy of features with Android as well. I happen to stick with iOS since I develop on iOS, of course I'm sure you'll now respond that this is really subconsciously because I want to have the status of an obj-c programmer or something.
"I also fear the fragmentation of the app market for things designed for the bigger screen and arbitrarily not available for the smaller one (as has already happened in Apple's software)."
That could happen, but if it happens a lot I'd expect Apple to change their app approval guidelines. iOS now supports dynamic layouts AFAIR so it shouldn't be a big issue for the better developers.
As for your continued phone upgrade dilemma, if you're an iOS developer there's a good argument for getting both (if you can afford it), but aside from that...
Have you used a phablet before? Small hands may not be an issue, speaking anecdotally phablets are relatively popular in Asia and Asians seem, on average, to have smaller hands than Americans. Why does this popularity exist? I'd suggest it has something to do with where you use your phone and what you use your phone for.
Ask yourself two questions...
1. Do I mostly use my phone whilst standing up or sitting down?
2. Do I communicate using voice calls much?
If you mostly use your phone sitting down and don't use the voice call features of your phone much, consider a phablet. If you're often using your phone whilst standing up, consider the smaller phone. If you use voice calls a bunch, but mostly sitting down, it's mostly personal preference (I mean, it's all personal preference, but the answer is less clear cut).
Perhaps the only way you'll resolve this for yourself is to try a phablet for yourself and see if you get on with it. Do you know anyone with a Galaxy Note?
Well, Apple's lack of choice sure helped me pick out my last laptop.
I had three companies on my list of laptops: Asus, Lenovo, and Apple. Go checkout Asus and Lenovo's websites. You'll find dozens of different laptops in various configurations spread across different lines and with many of the laptops further configurable after you've added them to your cart. You can't do a proper analysis of which to buy without starting a spreadsheet.
Oh, and most of the models you find at the store will end up being something completely different from what you saw on the website further compounding the issue.
I spent half a day building out a spreadsheet to compare all the different configurations and then decided to throw it all out and just buy a MBP since I needed the laptop by the end of the week and didn't have the time or energy to compute every possible combination of Asus's and Lenovo's lineup to figure out which laptop was the optimal purchase.
The single version of the watch is spot on. As is the implicit point that maybe they could have hit this year's holiday season if they hadn't tried to make so many different versions.
The best part of what you wrote is the end, where Steve ties the watch to the human experience. I hadn't thought about his keynotes from that lens before -- you showed me something new.
I've heard other criticism about missing the holiday season. I suppose I feel like.. they're building a 20 year platform here. What's one holiday season?
Besides, with this timing, they can sell early adopters this "Ipad 1" of a watch and possibly release the Watch 2 in time for Christmas 2015.
Apple frequently "misses" the holiday season. Each version of the iPod Mini was launched in January of all times. The full sized iPod in summer. The iPad is in a March cycle.
The idea that a different screen size or a bunch of watch bands would cause a delay of 3 months is pretty ridiculous. The far more likely scenario is that either (a) there are serious hardware showstoppers, (b) yield issues with certain components or (c) the battery life is still unacceptable.
Also the single version of a watch is a really dumb premise. A watch is a fashion accessory so you need to support people's varying tastes.
I feel like a fool sometimes where I have my iPhone out and everyone else around me does too. At least theirs are sometimes white. Now – your wrist is almost always visible. Once everyone gets an Apple Watch, if there were just one single minimalist design, it would start to feel less like a watch and more like a dog tag.
Missing the holiday season is intentional -- for one, Apple does that all the time, to great effect re Q2 sales (they require no additional holiday sales boost). Secondly, they deliberately licked the cookie of this product category, which is going to annihilate holiday quarter sales for their competitors and most likely cripple wearables teams in terms of group buyin for the coming year.
There could also be a "Well if Apple is going to release something right after the holidays, the other companies might try to make better models right after the apple watch comes out" feeling. Sort of the feeling that Apple might get one-upped by Samsung, et al.
Apple did the right thing by releasing dozens of customization options for watch. They also did the right thing by having different sized watch mad phone. The whole average adult hand size is just that. Average. It ignores the fact that women have much smaller hands and wrist.
Phone has evolved to become everyday life commodity. You have to consider practical needs for devices that are going to be on you half your waking life.
What worked for apple in the past may not work for them in the future. For what they are they are solid devices.
The bigger problem apple has isn't the marketing. Its that they are making products that are predictable.
I honestly have no idea whether it would have been better for Apple to sell a single version of the watch, but I see no reason to assume that Steve would have made a different decision, seeing as Apple sold 5 different colors of iMacs simultaneously under his leadership. At least the watch doesn't come in flower power or blue dalmation.
The writer says a lot of things that are just silly. For instance:
It's hard enough to craft desire for a single identity. When asked to think of an Apple Watch, people don't know what to picture. Can you imagine if the original iPhone in 2007 came with sixty customizable skins?
Well, um, it did come with hundreds of customizable skins. They were called iPhone cases. They were, and still are, endemic.
Instead of a single, perfect product, we got a jumble of features and choices.
Actually, there is no functional difference between the various Apple Watch lines. It is a single product. It simply allows the user to customize the appearance of the product. This is necessitated by the fact that this device, unlike all Apple devices to date, is worn on your body.
The important point is Apple did not sell those cases when the iPhone was first released. It didn't talk about the idea of customizing it. People will figure out how to own their phone and make it personal.
I think the author of this piece did a great job channeling a likely, and better, introduction.
Right, and what would be the analogy here? I suppose they could've let you replace straps without actually offering other straps? But that sounds like you're not offering more out of some silly superstition?
Apple as a company has more resources today and I think that's certainly part of it. They barely launched a single phone on time in 2007, let alone multiple models. Steve Jobs said that "nobody would buy a bigger phone?" He didn't see people using phones the way they do today. In 2007 "bigger phone" meant "I can't make this smaller because small is hard" and by being small -- but inline with the phones people were using at the time -- it was even more impressive. Hell they STILL get us with that one, every single year. Thinner! Lighter! Yes!
Yeah that's true but it's still silly. Phones sit in your pocket, they mostly look the same, it's not that big a deal.
Watches on the other hand have been fashion items for over a hundred years. There are countless variations. It would be arrogant - even for Jobs - to claim that a single design would satisfy everyone, would be perfect.
It did not. And what's more annoying is the way he puts it: I KNOW WHAT STEVE WOULD HAVE DONE. I, a big nobody compared to a CEO that's worked for Apple since 20 years, know why he got it wrong. Now I'm gonna tell you what I would have done.
This is the worst bullshit. Critique is great, and you can pull it off brilliantly even you are a little dot compared to the big guys you're criticizing. This is clearly not the case.
About the customization: there's two version of the Watch, one big, one small. The rest is fashion. Apple knew, better than anybody else, that you need fashion to sell something that stays on your wrist and everybody will see all the time.
Deem it superficial, if you want, but that's reality. Once again competitors couldn't do something similar, because they may have the tech. This time around even the ecosystem. Unfortunately the don't have the best team of designers (not merely industrial designer, designer in general) a company has ever employed.
Doesn't seem to hurt the iPods of various form factors, Macbook Airs and Pro Retinas of various form factors, iPads of various sizes, and nor will it hurt the iPhone, I suspect.
May be. Just that Apple Watch is launching with two size options, whereas in case of other products that you mention, options were introduced years after the first launch of the products.
endemic? I have no idea what you meant by that word. It's not the right word at all.
iPhones are pretty much "worn" these days, either in the hand or pocket. What about the iPods that are worn daily by runners and practically everyone in the gym.
Endemic in this situation is used as commonplace. He's just saying that cases are commonplace. It's not a perfect use of the word, but one I've definitely seen and used.
That the iPhone is shown with Guardians of the Galaxy on the screen in his hypothetical is all wrong -- you can't get it in iTunes today. Apple would should a movie you can buy right now.
When Mossberg in 2003 asked Jobs whether he
planned to put video in an iPod, the CEO said
he was turned off by the idea.
“I’m not convinced people want to watch movies
on a tiny little screen,” Jobs said. “To
paraphrase Bill Clinton, ‘It’s the music,
stupid, it’s the music!’ Music’s been around
for a long time, will continue to be, it’s huge.”
"I'm not convinced people want to watch movies on a TINY SCREEN"
Later they created a device with a much bigger screen(at least six times bigger) and called it IPOD, but it had not a tiny screen.
The same could be said about small computers. When I got my first laptop I considered at least 17'' necessary, which was very bulky, I told everybody that.
Then I got lots of complaints from people when I got a 13'' macbook air:"You said you will never use anything smaller than 17 inches".
But I didn't say that. I said that given the resolution they had at the time, I needed 17 inches, but obviously I wanted the same screen in a smaller size at a reasonable price.
The 13 inches macbook has more pixels on it than my old laptop.
Hacker News: your premier source for Steve Jobs fan fiction. (laughs)
Does the author really think that Steve Jobs would have ever said "When I open up a website on Safari, I don't have to strain my eyes anymore"? They're still selling 5S and 5C! Not even Asus would disparage their previous products like that.
The rest of the piece is just as bad and devoid of substance.
(Steve rolls in his grave)
Right. A product is, well, a product of its time. I doubt Apple spent much time worrying how can we go bigger after saying we had the perfect size. Seems a bigger problem is how can we go bigger without people thinking that's the only difference? A 5.7" iPhone would be as out of place in 2006 (not enough power to push those pixels, low power screen tech was non-existent) as a 3.5" phone is today. No mental backflips required.
> A 5.7" iPhone would be as out of place in 2006 (not enough power to push those pixels, low power screen tech was non-existent) as a 3.5" phone is today.
Why would a 3.5'' phone be out of place, today? I see people everywhere assuming this is right, that increasing the screen size was truly needed (and demanded), but I'm yet to see the evidence.
I mean, I'm sure that there's evidence that people wanted bigger screens (if Apple did it...), but I can't seem to find it, except for interweb-people who blog about... stuff. :) Real people - do they want bigger screens? For them, is the 3.5'' phone really out of place?
Anyway: I guess I can be considered a interweb-person, tech savvy, heavy user*, and all that jazz. Still, I'm proudly driving my 4s. Even the 5/5s/5c is too big for me; I can't comfortably reach the top corners of the screens. I do believe that habits may have changed, but our anthropometry certainly didn't - the average human thumb is still the same length.
Plenty of articles show that people are buying phablets and bigger screen phones this past year at higher rates. In fact, I would argue it's the only reason Apple made a big ass iPhone as they were losing customers in this growing segment. Purchasing a product is a pretty god measure of intent.
"People are buying" and "higher rates" isn't really proper data. Also, phablets are somewhat new, so increasing at higher rates is normal.
What I wanted to know is roughly how much are the bigger smartphones being sold, against the regular-sized ones. The most recent Apple smartphones are big, both, while the "regular-sized" ones are from last year or before. Does the data supports this decision - "forgetting" about the "regular-size" and launching only bigger ones?
My attempt was not to share the actual data, but to allude that the data is readily available showing that "phablet" as a market segment is growing.
Can't put my hands on the exact article and corresponding chart, but from memory the segment has grown from around 4-5% area to closer to 10%. Again not exact numbers, but until I find the post that's all I got.
Consumers have had both "regular" and "large" phones to choose from and they're choosing larger and larger displays.
These are not the posts I'm specifically remembering, but do have helpful insight:
> Consumers have had both "regular" and "large" phones to choose from and they're choosing larger and larger displays.
I'm sorry, but I can't read that from the data you shared. "They"'re not choosing larger and larger displays - it was an untapped market, so people willing to buy bigger smartphones are doing it, as they become available. We can't assume that everyone/most/many will follow this trend and we also don't know when it will stop growing. Also it seems natural that buying trends will, up to a point, follow marketing trends - if almost all automakers start selling only big cars, then people would choose "larger and larger" cars.
First, let me preface this with I really dislike large phones. My hands aren't big enough to use any of the new phones' screens one-handed, either. So, I feel your pain there.
The reason you're looking for is that these aren't phones any longer. Pulling numbers out of my ass here, but I bet the vast majority of smart phone users spend less of a hundredth of total smart phone usage actually talking on the thing. They're media consumption devices, just like your TV. And just like TVs, people like having larger screens so they can see more content, easier. Obviously, there is an equilibrium of size to convenience that will eventually be reached.
First, "old" in this case is "older than 3 years", which is about 3 years older than almost any other phone manufacturer; my almost 3-year old iphone 4S is still getting updates the same day a new phone does. (Yes, my more-than-5-years-old iphone 3G does not, so?)
2nd, they don't care about older-than-3 iphones. But they care about getting old iphone owners to feel good about themselves and to upgrade to a newer one. And disparaging older products goes against that.
The author of this piece has got it completely confused: Talking sh*t about your old products is in the Microsoft playbook. Whenever they have a new Windows coming out, they tell you how bad the old one was so you should upgrade. Apple has never done that.
please explain how this is any sort of relevant to my argument.
i never compared Apple to anyone. i never suggested it would be in character for Apple to vocally disparage their old products. i never put a limit on "old" nor did I ever suggest the original author was correct (or incorrect). lot of people hearing what they want to around here.
feel free to downvote without explanation- that seems to be the trend in Apple threads.
It's relevant in that it shows that there is most likely a reason that support doesn't last > 3 years.
If you're going to state facts like "hardware gets deprecated" simply just to state it, then you're not adding anything to the conversation and that's why you're getting downvoted.
If you're mad at Apple for not supporting outdated hardware when no one else in the industry is supporting outdated hardware, then you're being unreasonable and that's why you're getting downvoted.
thank you for a thoughtful response. my point is not that "hardware gets deprecated" nor am I "mad" at anyone. are these really the only two possible interpretations of my post?
my point is that just because Apple doesn't vocally disparage their old products doesn't mean they think their old products are perfect.
my point is that some light disparaging of their old products may be a refreshing dose of honesty. (inb4 "but that could be bad for business!". I don't care.)
Yeah, at least for me, that's how your original post came across. I think your points that you declare here are fine points and would likely have been well-received (or at least not downvoted) if you had started with it to begin with.
Without qualifying your original statement, it just sounded angry and purposeless. I agree with you now, though.
Don't know why you're getting down voted either. My old ipod touch is basically a brick. The battery doesn't last more than an hour, I can't update the OS anymore, 90% of apps aren't for my older version of iOS, and it lags on every input.
I wish I could just install whatever version of iOS it originally came with and use it as an mp3 player. Don't know why iTunes let me update to a version of iOS that my hardware can't handle, but oh well.
I honestly don't understand why apple fanboys get so worked up over this stuff, as if Apple is infallible. I just try to keep my opinions about apple to my self for the most part, at least on HN, because that's the environment the user base here has fostered.
Can't even read relevant tech news on HN if it shows Apple in a bad light, but hey, I can always go to reddit if I want to get a dose of reality relating to Apple.
You might find Whited00r useful for older iOS devices. For me it made an old 3GS into a snappy prepaid loaner phone for guests visiting from out of country.
A study by Harvard University shows online complaints rise every time a new version is released. Researchers discovered that Google searches for phrases such as ‘iPhone slow’ spike whenever a more expensive type of the device goes on sale.
In contrast, they found there were no such patterns for rival products such as the Samsung Galaxy.
Professor Sendhil Mullainathan said: The results are, to say the least, striking’. However, he warned that the perception of a phone ‘slowing down’ may be purely psychological.
The study bases itself solely on results of Google searches. (also, that's the kind of research some professors are spending their time on these days? wow.)
The adulation is a bit rich. Wasn't 3.5 inches claimed to be "the perfect size" by this same individual?
Part of being Steve Jobs is knowing when you have a breakthrough and knowing when you've got an incremental improvement. He did plenty of the latter as well as the former.
The design of the iPhone is guided by what is technically possible as much as by ergonomics. As the size of our hands hasn't changed, how can a 4.7 inch phone now be perfect when previously 3.5 inch was deemed perfect? Here is one reason: as the devices become slimmer, your thumb can reach farther than before and hence cover a larger screen. So: it's the combination of thinness and size that makes the iPhone 6 still usable with one hand. I'm not denying that people might not care as much and simply want a bigger screen, too, and this is an additional factor.
> As the size of our hands hasn't changed, how can a 4.7 inch phone now be perfect when previously 3.5 inch was deemed perfect? Here is one reason: as the devices become slimmer, your thumb can reach farther than before and hence cover a larger screen.
Well, I'd say most of the problem here is trying to identify a two-dimensional screen by a single number, the length of its diagonal. It must make more sense to give the actual dimensions of screens.
I remember pained discussion of the Nexus 5 saying the 4 was wide enough. The 5 is only wider by a couple millimeters, but is significantly enough taller that they bumped the single number identifying its size. That's no way to communicate.
Doesn't perfect also depend on what you're trying to do?
It's all trade offs but as we increase what we do with our phones, a bigger screen potentially becomes more valuable.
I know a lot of people saying they have no interest in more than 3.5" or 4". Generally those people are fairly casual users. I also know "power users" (horrible term) who have been crying out for bigger screens.
I'm less worried about thumb size and more worried about how it feels in my pocket.
There are a lot of Apple fans who are about to suddenly discover that their thumbs are actually longer than they previously thought, or have grown in the years since the first perfect iPhone was released.
I agree. Steve Jobs died in 2011. It's like an eon ago in this field. He would have changed his mind so often in this period, over so many things, that we would be here reading tons of bad pieces about that time Steve said so and so and "oh look how the prick's contradicting himself all over again".
Get over it people, the Steve's passed, we can't have him back, unfortunately, and the worst thing Cook & co. could do is to follow the footprints of a guy who completely defied even the most common rules of big business. It worked, because he was Steve. It won't work for Tim & Phil & Jony & Craig and all. They're too smart to ignore that. The only one who really thought he could be Steve II, Scott Forstall, has been ousted. And that's fortunate, or he could have steered Apple against the cliffs in a very short time.
Sounds like a good cross section of the tech press. Only half kidding. There have been mentions of this kind of thing (cheering, gasping, feverish typing) in live blogs of these events from The Verge and others.
That's interesting. I know we have some mild interest in the industry, but some people's slavish devotion to it (with associated euphoria/disgust at features) seems really weird to me. How do they keep up the excitement?!
Agree totally except for the bands. Customizable bands were a necessity for something you wear. It's a whole new experience to wear it and I would not buy it if it were just the band you selected as best. Otherwise this is spot on...
This article is _fantastic_. Nailed Steve Jobs, as I remember him anyhow. The presentation that Apple gave sounded a lot like something you would hear from Google, not Apple, in my opinion. Too many options, too many stats. Not concise. Not moving.
This article was horrible, in poor taste, and raises a litany of ridiculous points.
That said, while I'm happy to see the iProduct naming convention die, I agree that including the logo in the product name is a bit much. There is the old story that the command key used to be an apple logo, but Steve had it removed as to not dilute the brand.
Jiggity, kill the intro to the blog post. All that insecurity stuff is BS. Jobs was as insecure as they come. But your Jobs transcript is spot on! Just have that as the blog entry. Keep it simple.
Worth noting that "iWatch" doesn't work because it sounds like the sentence "I watch". There's a lot of ways to take that in creepy/joking directions, which would be an unnecessary distraction from the product.
This was killed already once today and is back again?
Steve was very explicit to Tim Cook and others in the Apple executive team that they should never ask "what would Steve do." Seems to be written by someone with little understanding of Apple today.
He didn't necessarily say that in Apple's best interests. Maybe he wanted to be missed more than he wanted Apple to succeed after his death? He did feel "hurt" when Tim Cook said Apple would remain the same regardless of who was leading it, after all.
totally disagree on the watch. I would never consider a watch with that metallic band, and there a few bands I really like that apple released. I think apple nailed it by recognizing the personal aesthetic and fashion statement that wearing a device on your body entails
I think the article was interesting, but it was surprisingly uncomfortable to see the various photos where Steve was suffering from the effects of his illness (I guess for me, it's more personal having seen other family members go through the same and pass away...).
Maybe Jobs wanted to launch "The Sixty" and did not have a product deemed personalizable enough to do so in his time?
Where they could, they have iMac, Macbooks, Mac minis. So with OSX, they do have multiple options cause it fits. Each model is customizable into gazillion ways based on HDD, RAM, GPU and what have you. How many variations of Macbooks can you count which can be ordered directly from Apple store website? I bet you it is more than the Apple Watch.
What the author misses is - Apple thinks. It did with Jobs, and it is doing so without him. Apple did "The One" when they thought it suited. They did "The Sixty" when they thought it suited. Copying Apple is a job of other companies, not of Apple.
A watch is a fashion accessory. If you make it only in one 'perfect size/look/color', it becomes a gadget, which is the furthest thing Apple wants it to be.
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The keynote didn't really sell me the watch. To me it was more like a 'me too' smartwatch but with several customizable options to set it apart from the competition. They should've stick with one model and iterate later like they always did.
But I agree, if the presentation was worded like this, I probably would've bought one in a whim and wouldn't think the heartbeat thing as gimmicky.
While I don't think so much should be viewed under the 'what would Jobs do' prism, I agreed with your points on product development, choice, and presentation. Brilliantly written.
Make sure you don't overlook whichever part of the brain or thinking framework/state that allowed you to pull that off.
I felt what you wrote was in poor taste. I think that it's in poor taste to speak for the dead when one was close friends with them, and I think that it's worse still to speak for a celebrity whom you had no personal acquaintance with.
I feel like you did nothing more than mask your own personal complaints about Apple inside dialog written as if spoken by Jobs' , but with little forethought about Jobs' past history of actions, or the hierarchy of team effort that goes on at Apple, or even the way Jobs presented himself.
The disparaging comments about 'his' previous lineup that 'he' (you) made proved that furthermore.
I say all this with a personal hatred for Apple and the Steve Jobs method of getting stuff done, so I'd hate for anyone to think that i'm simply upset that it is sullying His name. I don't care about that; I just don't think that it's realistic in the least.
1. There's too much choice (option of a larger phone screen from the 6+, and a variety of watch options). 2. Because of this choice, you have to do more thinking for yourself.
I feel like it's sad that thinking for ourselves is seen as problematic. That diversity isn't something to be embraced. Though it just shows how much some value the status symbol aspect.
With the iPhone I'm now forced to regret the decision either way. The iPhone 6+ is too big for my hands, but the smaller one doesn't support the special landscape mode stuff and has a worse camera. They haven't even provided a clear upgrade differentiation, I'm forced to consider tradeoffs, in a product that I used to not think about at all.
Similarly, I am incredibly skeptical that we really needed 2 different watch sizes (given that reviewers say both feel fine). I'm sure you'd agree we don't need 55 sizes in between the current two sizes, so its clear that its possible to have too much choice. Add to this three variations (hopefully there won't be different capacities like with iPhones too) and its just a fact that you created a necessity for me to try them on first before just buying them online.
Unlike a phone, a watch is also a fashion item. And they will want to have a choice here.
That’s especially true for consumer electronics. I don’t know all the details, I can’t really write all the software for it, and I feel intimidated if I had to make all those choices by myself. I want someone to figure that out for me, especially since it works better as a tool if all the puzzle pieces are put together with care, not some bumbling idiot like myself. (Of course this is more subtle then that. And it’s always a delicate balance. Maybe others can deal better with picking tradeoffs for themselves. I personally really can’t.)
That said, while a little more complex, I don’t think the two models are too complex. But that’s where you can make a reasonable case. Still, they are clearly differentiated along practically only one axis (size) and exactly identical along most others. Only some things are more muddled and confusing to consumers (battery life, screen res, OIS). It seems manageable to me.
As for the watches … see, there’s where I think you are completely wrong. It’s not about functionality at all, it’s all about how it looks – and that’s a world of difference. When I go shopping for clothes I love to have a large selection. That’s the best thing. I want that choice, because it’s all very, very personal. That’s how this watch works, too, and that’s how it’s different. (In fashion there are problems, too, especially with no clear differentiation between products and no great overview. However, Apple doesn’t seem to make that mistake so far. Everything is clearly differentiated.)
The choices for the watch don’t really involve so much tradeoffs you as a consumer have to decide between (there is a bit of that w/ steel or aluminium and glass or sapphire – but that’s probably mostly paying more for better materials, not so much about tradeoffs), it’s more about what aesthetic you personally like. I think that’s very ok for something you wear. When I decide between different patterns for my shirt I’m not making tradeoffs, I pick what I like. That’s far simpler than making tradeoffs. It’s actually enjoyable, at least for me (and if the selection is big enough).
"With the iPhone I'm now forced to regret the decision either way." But are you though? Let's imagine for a second that the iPhone 6+ didn't exist. Is the iPhone 6 enough of an upgrade for you to want it? The obvious upgrade path is iPhone 5 to iPhone 6, if you've never wanted a phablet then the iPhone 6+ is not for you. There, I made your decision for you.
Had the only difference been physical size, the decision would be easy like you describe, I'd be measuring on one variable that I know how I prefer. (Note that this could be similarly fixed by apple choosing to offer the landscape modes on the 6 too, then it would just be battery and camera that are worse, of which battery is understandable).
Phablets are a niche market, if you have never wanted a phablet then the 6+ is not for you. The flagship model is the 6.
As for the features you'll be missing out on, do you have the same feelings about the superior features you can find on non-Apple phones? PureView from Nokia is far superior to Apple cameras, you can find Android phones with far better batteries, etc... Why is it only an issue with Apple? Again, I suspect, it's the status symbol aspect.
And I absolutely care about the discrepancy of features with Android as well. I happen to stick with iOS since I develop on iOS, of course I'm sure you'll now respond that this is really subconsciously because I want to have the status of an obj-c programmer or something.
As for your continued phone upgrade dilemma, if you're an iOS developer there's a good argument for getting both (if you can afford it), but aside from that...
Have you used a phablet before? Small hands may not be an issue, speaking anecdotally phablets are relatively popular in Asia and Asians seem, on average, to have smaller hands than Americans. Why does this popularity exist? I'd suggest it has something to do with where you use your phone and what you use your phone for.
Ask yourself two questions... 1. Do I mostly use my phone whilst standing up or sitting down? 2. Do I communicate using voice calls much?
If you mostly use your phone sitting down and don't use the voice call features of your phone much, consider a phablet. If you're often using your phone whilst standing up, consider the smaller phone. If you use voice calls a bunch, but mostly sitting down, it's mostly personal preference (I mean, it's all personal preference, but the answer is less clear cut).
Perhaps the only way you'll resolve this for yourself is to try a phablet for yourself and see if you get on with it. Do you know anyone with a Galaxy Note?
I had three companies on my list of laptops: Asus, Lenovo, and Apple. Go checkout Asus and Lenovo's websites. You'll find dozens of different laptops in various configurations spread across different lines and with many of the laptops further configurable after you've added them to your cart. You can't do a proper analysis of which to buy without starting a spreadsheet.
Oh, and most of the models you find at the store will end up being something completely different from what you saw on the website further compounding the issue.
I spent half a day building out a spreadsheet to compare all the different configurations and then decided to throw it all out and just buy a MBP since I needed the laptop by the end of the week and didn't have the time or energy to compute every possible combination of Asus's and Lenovo's lineup to figure out which laptop was the optimal purchase.
The best part of what you wrote is the end, where Steve ties the watch to the human experience. I hadn't thought about his keynotes from that lens before -- you showed me something new.
Besides, with this timing, they can sell early adopters this "Ipad 1" of a watch and possibly release the Watch 2 in time for Christmas 2015.
Also the single version of a watch is a really dumb premise. A watch is a fashion accessory so you need to support people's varying tastes.
There could also be a "Well if Apple is going to release something right after the holidays, the other companies might try to make better models right after the apple watch comes out" feeling. Sort of the feeling that Apple might get one-upped by Samsung, et al.
Phone has evolved to become everyday life commodity. You have to consider practical needs for devices that are going to be on you half your waking life.
What worked for apple in the past may not work for them in the future. For what they are they are solid devices.
The bigger problem apple has isn't the marketing. Its that they are making products that are predictable.
It's hard enough to craft desire for a single identity. When asked to think of an Apple Watch, people don't know what to picture. Can you imagine if the original iPhone in 2007 came with sixty customizable skins?
Well, um, it did come with hundreds of customizable skins. They were called iPhone cases. They were, and still are, endemic.
Instead of a single, perfect product, we got a jumble of features and choices.
Actually, there is no functional difference between the various Apple Watch lines. It is a single product. It simply allows the user to customize the appearance of the product. This is necessitated by the fact that this device, unlike all Apple devices to date, is worn on your body.
I think the author of this piece did a great job channeling a likely, and better, introduction.
Apple as a company has more resources today and I think that's certainly part of it. They barely launched a single phone on time in 2007, let alone multiple models. Steve Jobs said that "nobody would buy a bigger phone?" He didn't see people using phones the way they do today. In 2007 "bigger phone" meant "I can't make this smaller because small is hard" and by being small -- but inline with the phones people were using at the time -- it was even more impressive. Hell they STILL get us with that one, every single year. Thinner! Lighter! Yes!
Watches on the other hand have been fashion items for over a hundred years. There are countless variations. It would be arrogant - even for Jobs - to claim that a single design would satisfy everyone, would be perfect.
About the customization: there's two version of the Watch, one big, one small. The rest is fashion. Apple knew, better than anybody else, that you need fashion to sell something that stays on your wrist and everybody will see all the time. Deem it superficial, if you want, but that's reality. Once again competitors couldn't do something similar, because they may have the tech. This time around even the ecosystem. Unfortunately the don't have the best team of designers (not merely industrial designer, designer in general) a company has ever employed.
iPhones are pretty much "worn" these days, either in the hand or pocket. What about the iPods that are worn daily by runners and practically everyone in the gym.
I love the idea of the heartbeat feature. Is that a real feature of the iwatch?
You should read the entire article. Steve said a lot of stuff that he later (not so much recanted as entirely) ignored.
http://www.wired.com/2010/02/steve-jobs/
"I'm not convinced people want to watch movies on a TINY SCREEN"
Later they created a device with a much bigger screen(at least six times bigger) and called it IPOD, but it had not a tiny screen.
The same could be said about small computers. When I got my first laptop I considered at least 17'' necessary, which was very bulky, I told everybody that.
Then I got lots of complaints from people when I got a 13'' macbook air:"You said you will never use anything smaller than 17 inches".
But I didn't say that. I said that given the resolution they had at the time, I needed 17 inches, but obviously I wanted the same screen in a smaller size at a reasonable price.
The 13 inches macbook has more pixels on it than my old laptop.
Does the author really think that Steve Jobs would have ever said "When I open up a website on Safari, I don't have to strain my eyes anymore"? They're still selling 5S and 5C! Not even Asus would disparage their previous products like that.
The rest of the piece is just as bad and devoid of substance. (Steve rolls in his grave)
Why would a 3.5'' phone be out of place, today? I see people everywhere assuming this is right, that increasing the screen size was truly needed (and demanded), but I'm yet to see the evidence.
I mean, I'm sure that there's evidence that people wanted bigger screens (if Apple did it...), but I can't seem to find it, except for interweb-people who blog about... stuff. :) Real people - do they want bigger screens? For them, is the 3.5'' phone really out of place?
Anyway: I guess I can be considered a interweb-person, tech savvy, heavy user*, and all that jazz. Still, I'm proudly driving my 4s. Even the 5/5s/5c is too big for me; I can't comfortably reach the top corners of the screens. I do believe that habits may have changed, but our anthropometry certainly didn't - the average human thumb is still the same length.
What I wanted to know is roughly how much are the bigger smartphones being sold, against the regular-sized ones. The most recent Apple smartphones are big, both, while the "regular-sized" ones are from last year or before. Does the data supports this decision - "forgetting" about the "regular-size" and launching only bigger ones?
Can't put my hands on the exact article and corresponding chart, but from memory the segment has grown from around 4-5% area to closer to 10%. Again not exact numbers, but until I find the post that's all I got.
Consumers have had both "regular" and "large" phones to choose from and they're choosing larger and larger displays.
These are not the posts I'm specifically remembering, but do have helpful insight:
http://www.businessinsider.com/there-will-be-four-times-more...
http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/third-smart-phones-shipped-q...
I'm sorry, but I can't read that from the data you shared. "They"'re not choosing larger and larger displays - it was an untapped market, so people willing to buy bigger smartphones are doing it, as they become available. We can't assume that everyone/most/many will follow this trend and we also don't know when it will stop growing. Also it seems natural that buying trends will, up to a point, follow marketing trends - if almost all automakers start selling only big cars, then people would choose "larger and larger" cars.
The reason you're looking for is that these aren't phones any longer. Pulling numbers out of my ass here, but I bet the vast majority of smart phone users spend less of a hundredth of total smart phone usage actually talking on the thing. They're media consumption devices, just like your TV. And just like TVs, people like having larger screens so they can see more content, easier. Obviously, there is an equilibrium of size to convenience that will eventually be reached.
2nd, they don't care about older-than-3 iphones. But they care about getting old iphone owners to feel good about themselves and to upgrade to a newer one. And disparaging older products goes against that.
The author of this piece has got it completely confused: Talking sh*t about your old products is in the Microsoft playbook. Whenever they have a new Windows coming out, they tell you how bad the old one was so you should upgrade. Apple has never done that.
great, so we agree.
i never compared Apple to anyone. i never suggested it would be in character for Apple to vocally disparage their old products. i never put a limit on "old" nor did I ever suggest the original author was correct (or incorrect). lot of people hearing what they want to around here.
feel free to downvote without explanation- that seems to be the trend in Apple threads.
If you're going to state facts like "hardware gets deprecated" simply just to state it, then you're not adding anything to the conversation and that's why you're getting downvoted.
If you're mad at Apple for not supporting outdated hardware when no one else in the industry is supporting outdated hardware, then you're being unreasonable and that's why you're getting downvoted.
my point is that just because Apple doesn't vocally disparage their old products doesn't mean they think their old products are perfect.
my point is that some light disparaging of their old products may be a refreshing dose of honesty. (inb4 "but that could be bad for business!". I don't care.)
Without qualifying your original statement, it just sounded angry and purposeless. I agree with you now, though.
I wish I could just install whatever version of iOS it originally came with and use it as an mp3 player. Don't know why iTunes let me update to a version of iOS that my hardware can't handle, but oh well.
I honestly don't understand why apple fanboys get so worked up over this stuff, as if Apple is infallible. I just try to keep my opinions about apple to my self for the most part, at least on HN, because that's the environment the user base here has fostered.
Can't even read relevant tech news on HN if it shows Apple in a bad light, but hey, I can always go to reddit if I want to get a dose of reality relating to Apple.
the tone in my original post would have been very different if I could install an old version of iOS on my iPhone. strange you can't, no?
A study by Harvard University shows online complaints rise every time a new version is released. Researchers discovered that Google searches for phrases such as ‘iPhone slow’ spike whenever a more expensive type of the device goes on sale.
In contrast, they found there were no such patterns for rival products such as the Samsung Galaxy.
Professor Sendhil Mullainathan said: The results are, to say the least, striking’. However, he warned that the perception of a phone ‘slowing down’ may be purely psychological.
The study bases itself solely on results of Google searches. (also, that's the kind of research some professors are spending their time on these days? wow.)
..
> my almost 3-year old iphone 4S is still getting updates the same day a new phone does
..
>great, so we agree
No. I don't think you do.
Part of being Steve Jobs is knowing when you have a breakthrough and knowing when you've got an incremental improvement. He did plenty of the latter as well as the former.
Well, I'd say most of the problem here is trying to identify a two-dimensional screen by a single number, the length of its diagonal. It must make more sense to give the actual dimensions of screens.
I remember pained discussion of the Nexus 5 saying the 4 was wide enough. The 5 is only wider by a couple millimeters, but is significantly enough taller that they bumped the single number identifying its size. That's no way to communicate.
It's all trade offs but as we increase what we do with our phones, a bigger screen potentially becomes more valuable.
I know a lot of people saying they have no interest in more than 3.5" or 4". Generally those people are fairly casual users. I also know "power users" (horrible term) who have been crying out for bigger screens.
I'm less worried about thumb size and more worried about how it feels in my pocket.
>Half a billion original thoughts safely stored on iCloud.
Yea, very good idea to say something like this just couple of weeks after data has been leaked from iCloud.
That said, while I'm happy to see the iProduct naming convention die, I agree that including the logo in the product name is a bit much. There is the old story that the command key used to be an apple logo, but Steve had it removed as to not dilute the brand.
Steve was very explicit to Tim Cook and others in the Apple executive team that they should never ask "what would Steve do." Seems to be written by someone with little understanding of Apple today.
Depends which Steve you are referring too, there still is, and always has been a very brilliant Steve at Apple.
Where they could, they have iMac, Macbooks, Mac minis. So with OSX, they do have multiple options cause it fits. Each model is customizable into gazillion ways based on HDD, RAM, GPU and what have you. How many variations of Macbooks can you count which can be ordered directly from Apple store website? I bet you it is more than the Apple Watch.
What the author misses is - Apple thinks. It did with Jobs, and it is doing so without him. Apple did "The One" when they thought it suited. They did "The Sixty" when they thought it suited. Copying Apple is a job of other companies, not of Apple.