New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

they're not gonna kill it and have the narrative be: apple gave up on dedicated portable music players during their twilight and let shitty company X come in and take over what little was left of the market before it died. apple wants to be the one to see it out the door

which it should do, for reasons of history if not revenue, because the revenue ain't that much

i dont think thats the reason why.

plus, the ipod is an iconic product. i don't know how you're supposed to go about killing it, and i'm not sure apple does either, especially since they've only killed products, not major product lines, since the return of steve jobs.

apple has never been shy about killing things off and has never ever cared about "seeing things out the door"

well see the thing i just posted

they've only killed products, not major product lines, since the return of steve jobs

ipod mini, which was replaced. cube, which was not. hifi, which was a failed experiment. macbook, which was replaced with the air.

idvd. iweb. former incarnations of icloud.

but not the mac, ipod, iphone, or ipad line in toto.

i wouldn't be surprised if the ipod goes out with just a press release (or perhaps even nothing!), but man, that'd be something

i think killing all the ipods would be a deal. people were writing goodbyes to it a few months ago, weren't they? and apple hasn't even killed it yet. but when they do, perhaps they'd take the step of doing so on stage.

if they kill the ipod, but keep the ipod touch, they will have killed a product but not a product line!

yes, that is true. (if by "ipod" you mean classic, nano, and shuffle. or any one or combination of those)

anything that plays music and does apps w/o being a phone or tablet is an ipod

There are many business applications for iPod Touch which, although not very lucrative, would represent Apple nodding in the direction of business and education (as it always does) if the Touch were to stay in the lineup.

they've only killed products, not major product lines, since the return of steve jobs

Since the return of SJ they've killed the Newton, Printers and Cameras product lines.

rip LaserWriter

haha ya i thought you meant since jobs' death

basically the most famous thing steve jobs did was shut down almost all of their product lines!

jesus christ guys that was in what, 1997? when he was changing around the company?

since then, what? nothing!

that doesn't make your statement any more correct

i mean, that wasn't his apple. that was the apple of sculley, spindler, and amelio. none of that shit existed beyond 1998 or so.

you have no idea what you're talking about.

"he killed his predecessor's product lines!" is not "he killed his own product lines!"

that was cleanup shit. not worth mentioning. killing the ipod would be a totally different deal.

you CLEARLY have no idea what you're talking about because you said steve jobs didnt kill off any product lines since his return and that was the first thing he did

what is buying Beats if not "changing around the company"? Maybe Tim has the long knives ready.

(I don't think they'll kill the iPod, fwiw. Maybe the classic, yep)

basically the most famous thing steve jobs did was shut down almost all of their product lines!

this is insane

no one thinks that except for you

unless you mean in the context of 1997, which, fine, an argument could be made there

Regarding hardware, Steve decided to start from scratch and base the whole strategy on a simple matrix. Apple would drop its 20+ product lines and make just four great products: a consumer desktop, a consumer notebook, a pro desktop and a pro notebook.

yes, indeed he did that

i was not thinking of that when i made my statement. if we're going to include that stuff, then you're right.

but it's not something they've done since

and it's not something they've done to his own product lines

what about the cube

or the ROKR

that's a product, not a line, and i already addressed that upthread in addition to the ipod mini and ipod hifi

products! products!

of course they've killed products!

and it's not something they've done to his own product lines

This might get semantic, but I kinda think the G4 Cube counts. He presented it as a whole new product line at the time - a fifth to complement the four, equal to PowerBook, Power Mac, iBook and iMac.

This was before the iPod, so it's not really right to say that "Mac" was the product line then - the whole company was only "Mac" at that point.

i said as much!

ipod mini, which was replaced. cube, which was not. hifi, which was a failed experiment. macbook, which was replaced with the air.

― markers, Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:11 AM

the cube was a mac

look at apple's website: ipod, ipad, mac, iphone

i keep forgetting what argument you're trying to make here. the ipod classic is not a product but a product line unto itself? but the cube and ROKR aren't?

it was a new type of mac, but not a new line. it was like the shuffle or nano

i keep forgetting what argument you're trying to make here. the ipod classic is not a product but a product line unto itself? but the cube and ROKR aren't?

― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:55 AM

the first two are products. the rokr is a weird case.

post-cleanup, apple has not killed a major product line.

i'll add that clarification, because you two are right that he did clean house, and i wasn't thinking of that