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by ruswick
5066 days ago
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I agree that there isn't much that Apple has done lately that has been truly groundbreaking. The last time that I was really surprised by Apple was the iPhone 4. That said, it's totally unreasonable to assert that Apple is declining because Steve is gone simply because their products haven't "thrilled" you or because they ran a bad line of ads. The Retina MBP is an excellent machine with one of the best screens to ever be put on a consumer-grade device. It might not blow everyone's mind, but it is at least as interesting of a product as the scores of laptops that were put out under Steve. Mountain Lion isn't groundbreaking by design. It's an iteration on Lion, and so it's unreasonable to expect a massive amount of new features. The iPhone 5 and iOS6 haven't been released yet and in the case of the former the rumors are so vague and unsubstantiated that it's categorically ludicrous for you to pass judgement yet. Lastly, I have to ask why the amount of "thrill" that a product brings matters anyway. Most consumers don't want to be thrilled. They want to buy a computer, and that's it. Apple is successful not because they thrill people, but because they make good products. The Retina MBP and Mountain Lion are still good products. I think the biggest annoyance in the post-Jobs era is that every imperfect action that Apple does is automatically passed off as a result of Steve being gone. Steve wasn't perfect, either. We need only look to the iTunes phone, Ping or the button-less iPod Shuffle. Apple has never been perfect, and the post-Jobs era is no different. |
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Marketing. Hype and thrill, I would argue, is a direct result of Apple's financial position today. The everyday consumer doesn't understand the technical qualifications nor do they care. They want nice, shiny and new. Start with that and build a stable high-quality product to match and it could be candy canes you're selling, you're gonna be successful. Packaging is probably the most important part of a product. It entices thrill and envy, the very primitive emotion that makes you click the usually brightest button on the page: "Buy".