[galogon]

I am an Apple fan because I have been a fan for 20 years. However, Apple has been objectively a "boring" company the last 10 years. They are famous for design but they don't push design forward anymore because they don't have a crazy, arrogant person at the top to rally the troops in a unique direction.

The only area they're not conservative in is chip design, but that's not a cool and trendy thing. You don't hear regular people talk about the chips in their iPhones. How is Apple able to stay relevant among younger people and convince them to buy iPhones when Android phones are just as capable and look just as good?

[prewett]

Apple have been plenty innovative. In the past 10 years, Apple have:

- released Apple Watch

- all displays are Retina. (As far as I can tell by looking at all the monitors from other companies in an electronics store, they all still think that 96-dpi is acceptable)

- Apple displays have a much wider color gamut (I suspect the largest in the industry, but don't know)

- Apple Silicon (as you mentioned)

- AirPods, which people seem to really love

- continuously improved cameras on iPhones; no comparison between the current camera(s) and the iPhone 5 from 2012.

- Touch Bar (might or might not like it, but it is innovative)

- new, thin keyboard design (turned out not to be a good design, but it was innovative)

- integration between iOS/macOS: use your iPad as a monitor, handoff calls between phone and computer, shared copy/paste, etc.

- macOS can now run iOS apps

- Rosetta 2: invisible translation of x86 code that even runs faster than on their most recent native Intel laptops

- privacy as a feature (arguably innovative, but compared to what everyone else is doing it is...)

There's not so many new-category-defining innovations, but Apple have hardly been sitting on their hands.

[codsane]

> There's not so many new-category-defining innovations, but Apple have hardly been sitting on their hands.

Yep! With more to come too. Seeing Apple’s take on VR/AR in these next few years is going to be very interesting. Probably not as big of a paradigm shift as the iPhone, but still exciting nonetheless.

[eunoia]

This is such a tired and lazy line of thought.

Completely leaving out services , the “secret” projects and incremental improvements in hardware to existing products, in the last decade:

- AirPods - Apple Watch - Apple Sillicon

Each one of these new product verticals would be ten to hundred-billion dollar companies if independent.

I look forward to hearing why none of this is actual innovation and actually quite boring.

[askafriend]

Not to mention AirPods and Apple Watch became mini cultural revolutions in their own right. How quickly people forget.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Sales of Apple Watches are down 35%: https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2021/12/apple-watch-....

I doubt that's a $10B company with that type of negative growth.

[dmitriid]

Tell that to Uber ;)

Also, you link is to 2021. In 2022 it grew again, https://www.counterpointresearch.com/smartwatch-market-grows...

[howinteresting]

Apple Watch is only what it is because Apple shut off the ability for anyone else to have that level of integration. Hope the EU forces them to open it up.

[joshstrange]

This is just patently false. There might be a few things that Apple shuts off (though none are coming to mind, I had a Pebble for years and it worked perfectly), the truth is the competition isn't playing in the same league, mainly due to the chips/OS available. On top of that the Android Wear products I've seen don't hold a candle to the Apple Watch in terms of looks or capabilities.

[dntrkv]

Not only that but Apple commits to their products. Apple Watch v1 was pretty meh, but they kept at it, iterating year after year, until I finally pulled the trigger on one because it had the functionality that I was looking for.

All the other companies are constantly rebuilding their products from scratch, or dropping them entirely. Apple sets a vision and just continually works toward executing on that vision with small advances every year. That’s why users love them.

[shard]

I felt the same way with the Samsung watch. v1/v2 was pretty meh, but they kept at it, iterating year after year, until I finally pulled the trigger on one because it had the functionality and design that I was looking for. I was specifically keeping away from squarish smartwatches because I didn't want a watch that screamed "smartwatch" and wanted a rounded design, which I find more aesthetically pleasing.

[askafriend]

You nailed it. They are focused and relentless - something to admire in a world where companies are usually super reactive and don't have confidence in their vision.

[mentos]

Ben Horowitz’s peace time CEO vs war time CEO in ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ comes to mind. Tim Cook is a great peace time CEO that can ‘focus on expanding the market and reinforcing the company’s strengths’. In war time (like when Jobs joined Apple and was weeks away from bankruptcy) ‘a company is fending off an imminent existential threat..has a single bullet in the chamber and must, at all costs, hit the target.’

There are probably ten thousand hackers on here that day dream about being at the helm of Apple with a world class team and war chest at their disposal. I know I’ve day dreamed about it and truthfully if money and technology were no object I’m not sure what opportunities remain for products that can fit inside a briefcase that Apple does not already pursue.

Curious to hear ideas that aren’t VR/AR or a SmartCar..?

(The best I can do is just a new take on existing products like a eInk iPod with 2 million songs and a month long battery.)

[cwp]

Apple is about to find its self in need of a wartime CEO. The threat will come when China is no longer a viable place to manufacture high-tech devices. Apple has deep pockets, but they've been doubling down on China with each new warning sign. At some point they'll have to scramble to start manufacturing on this side of the Pacific, and it'll be rough.

[askafriend]

You think there is a better person on this planet than Tim Cook to navigate the global operations and manufacturing challenges you pointed out?

I will bet against that any time.

[cwp]

It's not that I think there's someone more skilled at operations. It's that Cook got Apple into this situation. He was the one that reimagined Apple's manufacturing strategy, closed their American factories and moved everything to China. He then spent 20 years expanding, refining and doubling down on that strategy. And it was brilliant. Jobs could not have saved Apple without Tim Cook. But the time for that strategy has passed.

To get out of China, Apple will need to again reimagine all its operations from first principals, and they need someone who is intellectually and emotionally free to do that—even able to repudiate Cook's past decisions in order push Apple in the right direction. Just as Ballmer couldn't lead a shift away from Windows and it took Nadella transform Microsoft, Tim Cook will not be able to remake Apple.

[candiddevmike]

More integrated services for the home. HomeKit was supposed to be this big thing and it seems to have been silently forgotten. Same with improving the developer experience for building things on Apple platforms: the docs suck, the APIs are arcane (sign all your things, read this spec to figure out how!). IMO, aside from the swift fanboys, no one I've met enjoys developing for Apple.

[gumby]

> HomeKit was supposed to be this big thing and it seems to have been silently forgotten.

Actually this has just been rebooted as part of the "Thread" and "Matter" alliance. Might finally start working.

Apple's niche, as usual, is privacy, and part of their go it alone attempts (yes, plural) was because they wouldn't certify anything that nakedly leaked info. I don't know how all that will work now that Nest and Alexa devices (which share info with the cops without a warrant) will also be thread/matter devices.

[nl]

> HomeKit was supposed to be this big thing and it seems to have been silently forgotten.

Hopefully the reason work has slowed on this is because Apple & Google (and others) are actually getting Matter[1] right, so home automation will actually, finally work without having to geek out over all the details all the time.

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2022/03/17/matter-has-been-delayed-yet-a...

[Clubber]

I'd like to see a carry around device (phone format or even nano) that can dock into other things like a desktop or laptop and convert into that thing.

So I'm on my MacBook, pull out the device (like a cartridge) and it's a phone. Plug it into something else and it's a desktop. Plug it into a car and it's a CarPlay. Everything I plug it into charges it too.

A universal computer.

[gumby]

> A universal computer.

I think the current idea is that the universal computer is the clown, and your terminals (phone/notebook/laptop) have some local processing and different kinds of views into that computer's space.

I actually like that model and remember it well from the late 70s/early 80s. Unfortunately as unix workstations became more popular their somewhat stovepiped model overtook that (despite Sun's "the network is the computer" bull). I hoe we come back to that.

[Doctor_Fegg]

Never mind cars, I’d love to see Apple revolutionise bikes.

[manmal]

Thousands of companies iterate on bikes, what could Apple possibly add to that, having almost no experience with moving parts?

[LexGray]

There is iteration, but nothing like the scale and customer base which Apple can bring to the table.

I think Apple would just need to aim for a market that barely exists. Single person transport vehicles would be my guess. It would need a big name brand which emphasizes safety and privacy over noise and power.

There are gyroscope based motorcycles with roof shells which would be great for the average consumer which would be in line with their environmental goals. Combine that with a complete augmented reality surround experience and some sort of ridiculous safety features like multi-limb airbag deployment or emergency jet obstacle avoidance they are in a unique position to completely change personal transport.

Add in some alternate transport options which are not available at all which would require major corporation negotiating power. Short flights added in as an option dropping some wings to bypass traffic. Perhaps some sort of rail connection to hook into those single car tunnels or existing railway tracks. Open the railways for traffic each direction when not otherwise occupied. Perhaps an optional jet ski and snowmobile accessory. Make it buoyant so it never sinks like trashed scooters in the river.

I would imagine they would focus on ergonomics, smoothness of the ride and energy efficiency over power. All digital so lots of haptics. Light enough to take into an elevator to park in your apartment. Just flip a switch and the gyro makes it stand on one wheel to fit in an elevator. Imagine being disabled and it opens your front door and drops you off in your living room.

I should imagine they would combine some high resolution camera technology to easily snap photos in any direction of whatever is interesting, 5G cellular for live-streaming in vehicle with easy swapping between internal and external cameras, automated pickup so you could send your bike to the store for curbside pickup without going with it and taking control from home if necessary. Disable local control so can send it out to pick up the kids from school. Or send it to park when you have reached your destination and it pays for parking and comes back when you need it.

Perhaps OLED exterior so you can change the look on the fly. 360 degree camera coverage so you have no blind spots. Auto collision avoidance from any direction.

There is a huge wishlist out there and it is easy to brainstorm all sorts of things that small companies just could not pull off in any sort of scale. Production wise they already custom design all the phone manufacturing hardware which runs 24/7 and there is always the possibility of just acquiring what they need.

[shard]

Xiaomi, which started as a smartphone OEM, has released several e-bikes, which as a non-biker I wasn't interested in, but I though there was a sentiment that it's a pretty good e-bike, especially for its price range. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in.

[mikestew]

How is Apple able to stay relevant among younger people and convince them to buy iPhones when Android phones are just as capable and look just as good?

If you truly can't figure it out, first thing I'd recommend is checking your assumptions.

[qeternity]

> How are they able to convert newer people to buy iPhones when Android phones are just as capable and look just as good?

There's an embedded statement in this that might be incorrect and would give you the answer to your question.

[davewritescode]

Agreeing with others that this is a lazy take.

Apples AirPod revenue alone in 2020 was more than Twitter, Spotify and Square combined.

Apples ability to create diverse, revenue generating lines of business is unparalleled.

[throw03172019]

The UX on Android is completely different. Everything is slow and laggy. Im looking at you, Samsung.

The Google Pixel’s Android version is better but not iOS.

[llampx]

Green bubbles vs blue bubbles

[shard]

> How is Apple able to stay relevant among younger people and convince them to buy iPhones when Android phones are just as capable and look just as good?

There is quite an element of peer pressure for young people to display status through having new and expensive technology (which I believe is one strong reason the design of smartphones are rev'd every year, so that people can tell at a glance whether you have the latest device), and add upon it Apple's cultural cachet to be the "cool/in" brand, it's often hard for young people to resist the pressure. This has led to issues such as "blue bubble versus green bubble" where young people on Apple devices exclude those on Android device based on not wanting to see an out-of-place color in their text message window.