[alexanderson]

Apple has always been a hardware company first - think of how they sell consumers computers with the OS for free, while Microsoft primarily just sells the OS (when comparing the consumer business; I don’t want to get into all the other stuff Microsoft does).

Now that they own the SoC design pipeline, they’re really able to flex these muscles.

[ViktorRay]

Steve Jobs himself said that Apple sees itself as a software company

https://youtu.be/dEeyaAUCyZs

The above link is a video where he mentions that.

It is true that Apple’s major software products like iOS and MacOS are only available on Apple’s own hardware. But the Steve Jobs justification for this (which he said in a different interview I can’t find right now so I will paraphrase) is that he felt Apple made the best hardware and software in the world so he wanted Apple’s customers to experience the best software on the best hardware possible which he felt only Apple could provide. (I wish I could find the exact quote.)

Anyway according to Steve Jobs Apple is a software first company.

[hinkley]

But Steve also clearly believed in Alan Kay's old aphorism:

If you care about software you have to make your own hardware.

I'll allow that perhaps Apple considers hardware a means to an end. But what an end.

[Hamuko]

Not really. Back in the day you wouldn't buy a MacBook because it was powerful. Most likely it had a very shitty Intel CPU with not a lot of cores and with thermal challenges, and the reason you bought it was because macOS.

[fnord123]

The intel laptops also grounded into the user. I still can't believe they didn't have a recall to sort that out.

[seec]

Apple is extremely dumb with power management and power supply. That's because they pretended to innovate all the way back at the start and want to pretend, they still have the expertise.

But I have had 2 iMac power supply die one me, the grounding problem on a MBP and a major annoyance with power noise leaking from a Mac Mini (makes for some nasty audio output, hilarious when you consider they supposedly target creative who clearly need good audio output).

You always find people raving about Apple's engineering prowess but my experience is that it's mostly a smoke show, they make things look good, miniaturise/oversimplify beyond what is reasonable and you often end up with major hardware flaws that are just a pain to deal with.

They always managed to have good performance and a premium feeling package but I don't think their engineering tradeoffs are actually very good most of the time.

As far as I can tell, the new Mac Mini design still has grounding issues, and you will get humming issues, which is beyond stupid for a product of that caliber. At this point I don't care about having the power supply inside the dam box, just use a brick if you must to prevent that sort of problem. This is particularly infuriating since they made the iMac PSU external, which is beyond stupid for an AiO.

But common sense left Apple a long time ago and now they just chase specs benchmarks and fashionnable UIs above everything.

[hinkley]

The tingling just lets you know you're alive.

[chasil]

And in many decades past, OpenStep was slowly moving its GUI from Next hardware to software sales on various UNIX platforms and Windows NT.

And this would eventually evolve into MacOS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep

[alt227]

> very shitty Intel CPU with not a lot of cores and with thermal challenges

Very often the intel chips in macbooks were stellar, they were just seriously inhibited by Apples terrible cooling designs and so were permanently throttled.

They could never provide decent cooling for the chips coupled with their desire to make paper thin devices.

[kllrnohj]

> They could never provide decent cooling for the chips coupled with their desire to make paper thin devices.

Curiously they managed to figure this out exactly when it became their silicon instead (M1 MacBook Pros were notably thicker and with more cooling capacity than the outgoing Intel ones)

[alt227]

I still believe they purposefully throttled the last gen of intel Macs just to make people have bad memories of them.

[bzzzt]

I presume they were just playing it safe to not let the M1 migration flop. If you're dragging your users through a big migration the last thing you need is complaints about the new hardware...

[scrlk]

They made things even worse with fan curves tuned for silence until the CPU was practically at TjMax.

[leptons]

>the reason you bought it was because macOS.

That is probably the least of reasons why people buy Apple - to many it's just a status symbol, and the OS is a secondary consideration.

[NetMageSCW]

You have funny ideas about why people spend money on laptops.

[leptons]

You don't have to take my word for it, it's been talked about for many years.

https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+products+as+status+sym...

[hamdingers]

Nope, many bought it in spite of macOS because it was a durable laptop with an excellent screen, good keyboard, and (afaik still) the only trackpad that didn't suck.

[NetMageSCW]

I think “many” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

[a96]

There are dozens of us!

[qwertytyyuu]

not just mac os, also the decent keyboard and actually good display, guarenteed.

[a96]

Displays only got usable after Retina. Which is still very recent.

[alt227]

Apple has always been a software first company, and they only sell the hardware as a vehicle to their software. They regularly say this themselves and have always called themselves a software company. Compare their hardware revenues with that of the app store and icloud subscriptions, you will see where they make most of their money.

EDIT: I seem to be getting downvoted, so I will just leave this here for people to see I am not lying:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-apple-is-not-a-hard...

[wat10000]

I did that comparison and they make the vast majority of their money on hardware. Half of their revenue is iPhone, a quarter is services, and the remaining quarter is divided up among the other hardware products.

Regardless of revenue, Apple isn't a hardware company or a software company. It's a product company. The hardware doesn't exist merely to run the software, nor does the software exist merely to give functionality to the hardware. Both exist to create the product. Neither side is the "main" one, they're both parts of what ultimately ships.

[alt227]

> The hardware doesn't exist merely to run the software

Watch this and maybe you might change your mind:

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

[wat10000]

I think he's saying software is essential, not that it's the only thing. He contrasts the iPod with products from Japanese companies, which tend to make great hardware with crap software, and that software difference is why the iPod beat them.

Modern Apple is also quite a bit more integrated. A company designing their own highly competitive CPUs is more hardware-oriented than one that gets their CPUs off the shelf from Intel.

[alt227]

Do the same calculation for profit instead of revenue.

[wat10000]

Are those numbers available? In any case, comment said revenue, not profit.

[achierius]

> Compare their hardware revenues with that of the app store and icloud subscriptions, you will see where they make most of their money.

Yes, it's $70B a year from iPhones alone and $23B from the totality of the Services org. (including all app store / subscription proceeds). Significantly more than 50% of the company's total profits come from hardware sales.

[ertgbnm]

In addition, making money off the software that others develop and sell on the app store doesn't make Apple more of a software company, it makes them a middle man.

[alt227]

IMO a middle man means you are in between 2 other services, taking a cut off the top. In this instance, apple not only created and curate the app store, but also invented the concept. In this case they are definitely not a middle man, they are a software company selling access to their software to developers.

[the_arun]

Shouldn’t we compare profit? Instead of revenues?

[transcriptase]

McDonald’s is still a burger joint, even if the soda and fries are far higher margin.

[spogbiper]

mcds is more of a real estate company - https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burg...

[alt227]

Where are you getting these numbers from, care to share source?

We should be comparing profit on those departments not revenue. Do you have those figures?

It is well known that companies often sell the physicval devices at a loss, in order to make the real money from the services on top.

[adastra22]

Apple does not sell hardware at a loss.

[alt227]

Yeah, everyone says stuff like this but nobody can actually produce any reliable sources to show how much profit it actually makes. So until you can, its all guess work.

[adastra22]

Apple is a public company. You can find the numbers (broken down into product aka hardware vs service) here: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2025-q3/FY25_Q3_Consol...

[jsnell]

Sure, let's compare.

Apple's product revenue in this fiscal year has been $233B, with a gross margin of $86B.

Their services revenue is $80B with $60B gross margin.

[justincormack]

Much of the service revenue is the payment from Google for search placement.

[alt227]

Source?

[jsnell]

Good grief. Apple's official financials.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2025-q3/FY25_Q3_Consol...

Look, I totally understand making an off-hand comment like you did based on a gut feeling. Nobody can fact-check everything they write, and everyone is wrong sometimes. But it is pretty lazy to demand a source when you were just making things up. When challenged with specific and verifiable nubmers, you should have checked the single obvious source for the financials of any public company. Their quarterly statements.

[RossBencina]

Apple has been calling themselves a consumer electronics company since at least 2006.

[alt227]

"Apple views itself as a software company" - Steve Jobs (2007)

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

[RossBencina]

Steve Jobs may have said that, but in 2006 I quite by accident ran into some mid-level Apple people at a guest house breakfast. I expressed my dismay at the poor manufacturing quality of my new Mac Book compared to my previous T-series IBM Think Pads. The Apple people politely explained that Apple was a consumer electronics company[1] and I should not expect business-grade products from Apple.

[1] They used that exact term, and it has stuck with me ever since.

[ksec]

It goes back even further, Steve Jobs said Apple is a software company, you just have to buy its hardware to use it. It is the whole experience.

[alt227]

Here is the quote for anyone who is interested:

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

[dylan604]

Apple has always? Sure, maybe today with collection % of sales from apps it looks like a software company. If there was no iDevcies, there'd be no need for app store. Your link is all about Cook, yet he was not always the CEO. Woz didn't care what software you ran, he just wanted the computer to be usable so you could run whatever software. Jobs wanted to restrict things, but it was still about running the hardware. Whatever Cook thinks Apple is now does not make it always been as you claim

[alt227]

You know you might just have a point if you werent completely making that all up.

Steve Jobs consistently made the point that Apples hardware is the same as everyone elses, what makes them different is they make the best software which enables the best user experience.

Here see this quote from Steve Jobs which shows that his attitude is the complete opposite of what you wrote.

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

[HumblyTossed]

Tim is the CEO, he's going to say whatever he needs to in the moment to drive investment.

Apple is and always has been a HW company first.

[alt227]

OK So I guess when the CEO of a company explicitly says something about their company, we should just ignore it because he is 'in the moment'?

[bombcar]

Tim Apple is notoriously misinformed about his own company.

[alt227]

I guess Steve Jobs was as well then.

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