Serious Apple

i'll bite, but i also have other shit to do tonight and i'm sure a lot of posts will pile up between this and whenever i'd want to come back to reply, so no promises i'm going to follow up on any of this shit ever. this post could be improved a lot, but time is money and i don't have a lot of either right now:

i'm not just trolling. i've spent a huge portion of the last four-ish years of my life following this company, probably more than most of the people in this thread, and my interest in them isn't superifical. a lot of people here clearly have a different sort of interest in the company than i do, because i don't like this thread that much, (or, frankly, a lot of ilx in general these days, but that's beyond the scope of this post). what interests me about apple has a lot to do with jobs and little to do with the quotidian shit like which device should i buy. for me, the company is about ideas and, yes, the products too. but the culture jobs created is the thing. the values embedded in the design of the new campus is the thing. the thoughts that go into the design of the products is the thing. “excellence,” which steve and tim talk about, is the thing

beyond that, right now, there's a lot going on that one could talk about that isn't specs crap: tim cook is changing the company. look at those two businessweek pieces. (hilarious cover, right? captivating to hear people talk about that instead of what's in the fucking articles.) cook has a clear, public focus on social justice and the environment. that's interesting, because for jobs it was explicitly about the products. (again, see the two bw links.) there's the “openness” issue cook refers to and others have noted, especially during and post-wwdc. cotton was kicked out as part of that, perhaps. (to make things “friendlier” or w/e.) forstall's firing, which is also brought up in the longer interview, was clearly part of a change in the company's internal ways of doing things. (i'm just gonna stop saying read the pieces now, but read the pieces. maybe check out gruber's “only apple” thing too.)

i just got done the other day re-reading the sj bio, and that's the sort of stuff that's more interesting to me personally. i use an ipad. i'm typing on an imac. but there's much, much bigger stuff at stake here. i figure there are probably very few here who are as interested in that side of the coin though, and a lot of ppl, as i've kinda suggested, are probably just casual fans who'd rather talk about whether the iphone 6 plus will fit in their pocket or not, but i can't stop them from posting unfortunately

ilx basically is more or less not for me anymore, so i should probably reduce my involvement instead of just getting annoyed or w/e all the time, but i don't really have many other places to hang at the moment, so here i am

― markers, Monday, September 22, 2014 5:26 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

Do you worry about adding distraction or adding unnecessary technology to people’s lives?
I think it takes away instead of adds, because what you’ll find out is, like … Today, to know what time it is—unless in this room and I look up there [pointing to wall clock]—I’m doing this [pulling out phone]. And once I do this to see what time it is, I’m saying, “Well, I might as well check my mail, and then I might as well check my Twitter (TWTR) stream to see if I’m getting bashed about something or other.”

Where on this [holding up Apple Watch], you’re not doing that. You’re not doing, “Oh, I’ve got a call,” and I see who it is. “I can do that one later.” You know? It’s also a bit more socially acceptable, I think, to do this [looking at watch] than it is to do this [pulling out phone]. You know? So I’m not saying anything bad about smartphones. They’re unbelievable. But I think this is a nice complement. If anything, if you wear it for a week, you would find yourself less distracted than more.

This is actually a subtle thing about the watch that I think could really turn out to be meaningful -- the google people kept saying that glass was going to make mobile tech feel "less in the way", but somehow wearing it on your fucking face was not a convincing way of doing that. Having it on your wrist seems like a happy medium between glass and having to reach into your pocket for something. Just a thing that lets you know what's up so you don't keep awkwardly checking.

I missed where the italics stopped and was impressed with Cook's Google Glass trash talk.

― Alba, Monday, September 22, 2014 5:31 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

Markers, serious question: If any, what are some of the flaws of the new Apple products (iPhone 6/6+, watch, etc.) that you think Jobs would've objected or at the very least, sent back into development?

My example would be the app screen on the watch. It looks way too disorderly than what Jobs would've approved.

― pplains, Monday, September 22, 2014 5:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

I was thinking this morning that it's interesting when people are like "Jobs wouldn't have let this fly" bc it's based on this static image of someone whose ideas and perspectives can't change anymore. Would Apple be as successful if run by this conceptual unmoving Jobs? Or would he have become more flexible? But I don't really know much about him so I can't really expand on this.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Monday, September 22, 2014 5:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Creaci%C3%B3n_de_Ad%C3%A1n_(Miguel_%C3%81ngel).jpg

does markers work for apple or something? evangelising for a tech company is pathetic

i couldn't get very far in the steve jobs bio. Seems like a very mean man.

my serious question for this serious thread would be what, exactly, is the "bigger stuff at stake" referred to above?

the future of ~the internet~ I guess our mediated relationships with the earth and each other?

If someone were to believe that technological and industrial design were critical to the future direction of the planet and humankind, then I suppose Apple would seem like an important leader in those fields. I happen to think these categories are less than critical in importance.

my serious question for this serious thread would be what, exactly, is the "bigger stuff at stake" referred to above?

Don't know. My perspective is just as skewed as Markers' callow boosterism. "four-ish years"? BFD. I've been mixed up with Apple for 26 years.

The "bigger stuff" I'm thinking of is the long-term strategy of Apple Pay. At risk of sounding like a cryptocurrency acolyte, I think Apple just announced their own bank. I'm surprised that Big Credit lowered their interchange fees with Apple Pay transactions, but I suspect they are afraid of the long-term. There's nothing stopping Apple from simply saying "hey capitalism, go with Apple Pay exclusively - we'll charge less fees, and we're backed by the world's most philosophically transformative tax avoidance system." The iTunes Store was great for when people still bought albums, but eventually someone will buy a house with Apple Pay. Good-sized fee payout on that.

As for the watch, I'm not sure that Apple knows what it created. I kept thinking of the iPad's lousy introduction - a Stevenote nonetheless - with the same endless parade of enterprise bulletpoints: spreadsheets, word processing, blah blah that tech companies from that era still feel the need to address. The paradigm feels old-fashioned and something an executive board of middle-agers would come up with. Once the iPad got out into the wild and folks started creating things that Apple couldn't have anticipated and more importantly - could only be done on an iPad, Apple's fearsome one-two of marketing and whitewashing quickly pivoted.

I suspect the same will happen with the watch. Once it's out there, it may just become a credible device after it's next revision and especially after it's inevitably jailbroken. Otherwise, I feel that Apple is telling me that there is so much activity taking place on my phone that I need a remote for it.

One issue. I don't wear a watch.

And that's ultimately the fate of the entire wearables market. I think it caters to a certain demographic that:
- needs something to tell them what to do
- responds easily to gamification. "I have more friends/burned off more calories than yesterday"
- lives in an area where it's actually the future and not the 85% of the planet where it's still 1975.
- is OK with wearing a watch, Google glasses, etc.

I don't know how much of a niche that market is now and how much that market will be distorted by the watch's presence. Who wants to bet me that within 12 months after the watches ship, a major health insurance company will offer a discount on premiums if you agree to wear one 24-7?

its a good question, not sure if any of that stuff has happened w/fitbits yet but as someone with a tangential interest in what the health insurance industry is up to i feel strongly that it's on its way.

i'm in two minds about the apple "core" (corp). on one hand they represent the great american spirit of entrepreneurial spirit and achievement, they support smaller government and less taxes, yet on one hand they are beloved by liberals. kinda makes ya think huh?

as for the whole "1984" thing, it's this simple: nothing to hide, nothing to fear

(i'm a "pc guy" btw,

I definitely think that if the gameplan for the watch is to rely on people's love of tracking their health/fitness stats, it will remain a niche product. As I said in the other thread, I think it's possible that people will discovery they like getting updates on their wrist (rather than constantly indulging the impulse to "check") more than they thought they would. Maybe that's because I'm an anxious person who invents reasons to check my phone all the time. I also think that wide adoption is going to require some kind of pricing/bundling gimmick with phone plans (or a change in the way people buy devices), because it already seems like Apple is asking people to pay $300 rather than $200 with a plan, at a minimum, for the new iphones, since a 16GB phone now seems not that useful. I'm not ponying up another several hundred dollars to know when I got a text without reaching into my pocket. But iPad was also thought of as kind of a niche/luxury product at first ("what do I need that for when I have a laptop AND a smartphone?")

Also I think watch is a much more likely to succeed wearable than google glass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef_BznBwktw

one hand they represent the great american spirit of entrepreneurial spirit and achievement, they support smaller government and less taxes

Zero taxes that is: http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2013/05/28/how-does-apple-avoid-taxes/

apple historically supports more govt and more taxes, they just don't support paying them.

its a good question, not sure if any of that stuff has happened w/fitbits yet but as someone with a tangential interest in what the health insurance industry is up to i feel strongly that it's on its way.

― call all destroyer, Monday, September 22, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My employer's wellness program provides fitbits but idk if they do any tracking of the people who wear them.

If the fashion is right I think the watch could be v popular with people who keep their phones in bags rather than pockets and hate missing notifications/calls. That probably skews towards women right now, but that could change to include a lot of men as phones get bigger

xp i think at some point they're going to want to do anonymized collection of fitbit data, like the analytics opportunities are just too crazy to resist.

man if only some entity was as obsessed with tracking how much i don't drive providing a net health benefit to everyone as much as the health analytics industry was with getting into my body.

I don't drive *and* don't drink (like one sixth of a beer per fiscal quarter, tops) so in my mental accounting that means I can impulse-buy basically anything under $50 whenever I want

xp i think at some point they're going to want to do anonymized collection of fitbit data, like the analytics opportunities are just too crazy to resist.

What opportunities?

If someone were to believe that technological and industrial design were critical to the future direction of the planet and humankind, then I suppose Apple would seem like an important leader in those fields. I happen to think these categories are less than critical in importance.

really? you can't think of a single critically important thing that doesn't hinge at least partially on technology + industrial design?

HKBodyTemperatureSensorLocationRectum

The temperature was taken in the rectum.

Available in iOS 8.0 and later.

oof. fucked up the phrasing there. you can't think of a single critically important thing that hinges at least partially on technology + industrial design?

xp eh i was just thinking if i was an ensurer i'd be mighty interested in a bunch of data related ppl's real-life phys activity, sleep, etc. at the cost of a slight premium discount.

http://media.tumblr.com/89cdc682325eab0ffd8842da84a2748f/tumblr_inline_nihkh3I4vn1t7dpx0.jpg

looking forward to getting my “callow boosterism” on later today!

"four-ish years"? BFD. I've been mixed up with Apple for 26 years.

The "bigger stuff" I'm thinking of is the long-term strategy of Apple Pay.

u sure u weren't asleep at the wheel for, like, twenty-four, twenty-five of the twenty-six

anyway, i think i am going to leave this thread now, but maybe one day the two of us will go to whole foods together, where i will buy you a seltzer with apple pay in honor of steven paul jobs

l'esprit de l'escalier

if notifications on a watch are going to work, apple needs a significantly better and easier way of improving the signal to noise ratio than there is now. i don't even look at the notifications screen on my phone any more because it's cluttered with irrelevant and out of date shit. yes i know i can hone my settings but fuck honing a setting

I hone settings for fun!

the venn diagram of people who are shelling out for these watches and people who hone settings for fun is not gonna show a huge amount of overlap is my hunch..

i think the venn diagram of people who are shelling out for these watches and people who refuse to hone notification settings at all is not gonna show a huge amount of overlap either

if my focus group of one is any indication you are wildly otm

actually i guess there are a buncha, like, mildly wealthy single dudes obsessed with status for whom their watch settings could represent an extension of self-upkeep, like, ok ordered belle epoque cigarette ad with most expensive frame: check, shaved pubes: check, hone my settings: check

i think there are a lot of dudes out there who have figured out how to turn off notifications they don't want to see with a relative lack of stress or work or thought!!

Has Ive’s work declined? My favorite work from both an iconic and engineering perspective:

1998 — iMac G3
1999 — iBook
2000 — Power Mac G4 Cube
2001 — iPod
2002 — iMac G4
2003 — Power Mac G5
2007 — iPhone
2008 — MacBook Air
2010 — iPhone 4

Moreover, his worst work is his recent work (e.g. iPhone 5c, iOS 7, and iOS 8).

oh god the idea of figuring out how to make spotify notify me when THIS playlist updates but not THAT one gives me a blast of ennui straight to the dome and i just slide the whole mess out of the way

but yeah i fully own up to my series of posts on this topic being firmly in the long tradition of "hey apple, why didn't you design your products specifically for me?"

yeah that's like my wife complaining today about some problem she had with the phone's alarm and it came down to their defaulting to having snooze turned on

I would add:

1994 - MessagePad 110
2001 - Non-clamshell iBook
2001 - TiBook (not so much on the engineering side with all that flaking)

Definitely nothing like the big hits recently. And please god can we get a mac laptop that isn't brushed aluminium already?

otm hoping for hypercolor next

http://atomicdelights.com/blog/a-glimpse-at-how-the-apple-watch-is-made