[dvt]

> I think Tim Cook took Steve Job's vision and really took it to the moon.

I vehemently disagree with this. I think Cook's logistics and business-focused goals are, if not diametrically opposed to Job's product obsession, at the very least orthogonal to it. Almost everything about Apple the product, over the past 15 years, has either coasted (e.g. stayed at par with the rest of the industry) or gotten worse. The one exception is arguably Apple Silicon (and I'm sure their board is acutely aware of it).

[SkyPuncher]

I find this critique extremely odd. Sure, Apple isn't perfect, but literally every thing they do is top tier in the category they enter.

I started writing out a list of Apple's products and it was simply [x device] in [y category] is either the best or consistently rated in the top of that category.

[rolisz]

MacOS sucks. I can't wait for the day Asahi Linux is good enough so that I can bail on it.

Safari, a web browser, randomly stops being able to connect to the Internet (other apps can).

[richwater]

MacOS sucks but everything else sucks harder. Linux is still nowhere close to being good enough for the average consumer in regards to simplicity regardless of how much gaslighting the community pushes.

[rolisz]

Linux sucks in a way that is more controllable by me. I have run Arch Linux as my daily driver for 4-5 years. But I can't on a MacBook, which has the nicest hardware

[rrvsh]

It's not gaslighting; you're not the average consumer by the simple fact that you know what HN is. My 12 year old cousins havE daily driven ElementaryOS for a year

[thenakulchawla]

In Steve Jobs biography, I read that he was obsessed with the factory they built to mass produce devices. I think he was in some way also obsessed with logistics of how things were made, and Tim Cook came in and not only helped Apple but also helped transform the global supply chain.

I also think most products apple makes are in the top tier of their respective category, if not the best.

[VirusNewbie]

Airpods? They make more than most SaaS decacorns. How can you not credit that as a massive success that came out of nowhere?

[steve_taylor]

It's a stealth subscription product. People are losing those things all the time.

[suprfnk]

And if not losing, the battery dies in 2-3 years, so you'll have to buy new anyway.

[aqme28]

Eh, mine are four years old and still going strong. Battery still lasts longer than I need it to.

[carlosjobim]

Like all other bluetooth in-ear phones.

[OJFord]

Successful for the business no doubt, but they are an example of 'par with the rest of the industry' aren't they? Nothing market leading about them (except perhaps the price, heh) and not the first in the category, just one of a bunch of good options.

[audunw]

Nothing market leading about AirPods? I find it telling that it’s one of the only Apple products that LTT Linus is using, despite not working as well with Android as with iOS. And they have around 30% market share in their product category

[OJFord]

You find it telling that some YouTube 'influencer' uses Airpods? You only noticed because of Apple's distinctive white branding, they have market leading marketing, I'll give you that!

[joseda-hg]

Not GP, but I also find it telling that Influencer with a free pick at any sound equipment at any price point, famously not super onboard with the ecosystem (Bar recently with the Neo) still does pick them

Linus is not an audiophile by any means, but he's also exposed to more and better equipment than even most of the already significant outliers in HN

[basisword]

Their ability to connect and move between devices is 100x better than any competitor. They were also the first to make truly wireless earphones that didn't suck. Judging it now, when the market has finally caught up in most areas doesn't make sense.

[dahauns]

>Their ability to connect and move between devices is 100x better than any competitor.

This statement only has any merit if your usage pattern is 100% limited to Apple devices, otherwise it falls apart.

It would be fine if they fell back to "at least as good as the competition" in a mixed use case, but in the mixed case they are worse than what even low-budget BT buds often offer (no BT Multipoint, no ear recognition, etc., hell, not even a battery level over BT...and even pairing/reconnect is often a crapshoot reminiscent of the state of BT Audio 10-15 years ago). It was honestly a really disappointing realization.

[abujazar]

I have no problems using my AirPods across two Macs, an iPhone and Windows. I have to manually reconnect on Windows if I have an active Apple device nearby which I recently used the AirPods with, but apart from that it's quite seamless. This worked fine in 2020 already.

[dahauns]

How is having to manually reconnect each time when switching between, say, an IPhone and a Windows laptop every time fine or even remotely seamless?

I do not have to that even with my ~30€ JBL buds.

[joseda-hg]

> Judging it now, when the market has finally caught up in most areas doesn't make sense.

Why? Why should we consider an advantage that doesn't exist anymore?

[basisword]

Because we're judging innovation. At the time it was innovative.

[Kon5ole]

Less space than a nomad? ;-)

IMO the airpods vs the rest of the industry is kinda like the iphone vs blackberry.

[ezst]

Yes, what about airpods? Little reason to buy them if you are not in the Apple ecosystem, and if you are, and you are a careful buyer, you'll probably settle with other brands which are technically ahead (in either of build, sound or ANR quality, or all, Apple being on the Pareto front of neither). I'm not dismissing the marketing forces behind airpods selling by the millions as a "status symbol", but that's very much a "high cost of living country" thing, Apple is inexistent elsewhere, which is most places.

[npunt]

Apple plays the 'it's the best for most people' game, not the 'technically ahead in [one or a few feature categories]' game. They make the lion's share of profit in the categories they compete in because they sell to the mass market; there's 2.5 billion active iOS devices!

Every time I see someone here dismiss this success as status symbol-oriented marketing, I just shake my head at how much that signals a deep misunderstanding of how the world works or what most of the human race wants in a product. Nobody wants the Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds because Sony doesn't even give a shit enough to give them a name people can remember. Nobody wants Bose earbuds because nobody wants to open a buggy spyware-laden app to turn on/off noise cancelling. These products are destined to fail because they make simple things complicated, untrustworthy, bothersome.

People are whole-experience buyers, not single-feature buyers, and the experience nearly every person on earth wants is the magical 'I put it in and it works' experience. What people want is all the upside of the magic of technology and none of the cognitive overhead associated with it. The specific choices that make up a product offering - aka the product marketing - reflect the inherent desire of the customer. Any luxury / status symbol aspects come AFTER that.

[deltarholamda]

>Nobody wants the Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds

You fool! The WF-1000XM5 is the worst model of the line! You should buy the WF-1010XN5, it is far superior!

Apple tends to name things in an odd way, e.g. sometimes you need to remember whether your laptop came out in "early" 2014 or "late" 2014, but they have a remarkably flat, but consistent, product line.

I mean, honestly, if somebody just tossed you a random Macbook from the Apple store, it may not be the exact model you want but you wouldn't complain. All of them are pretty good, even down to the bargain basement Neo.

[npunt]

Yeah tho most customers never even encounter that level of detail. Most people just know there’s a ‘new one’ and an ‘old one’. If they have an old one, they come in and get a new one. Everyone replaces on their own replacement schedule, and every year there’s a new one, so it kinda just works for everyone.

Apple at its best makes its product like so legible people only need dim awareness of what they’re buying. That’s only possible if you build a ton of trust with consumers, which is why Apple is so so focused on their brand value.

[cjpearson]

This comes off as a quite dismissive and incurious take. Are you quite sure that of the ~500 million consumers who bought a pair, nobody considered utility and it was simply a fashion choice? Or is it more likely that some consumers judge the utility differently from you?

[ezst]

I happen to have a pair of airpod pro 2 and some Sony's (the airpods being a gift). Nothing about the airpods strikes me as being clearly superior, which is surprisingly rare for Apple products: they tend to all stand out in one way or another, whether that's essential to the experience or not (I have no use for an iPad, but I can tell a good display when I see one, I wouldn't keep a MacBook if one was gifted to me, but I can appreciate a good trackpad, …).

Airpods? I have nothing bad to say about them, but nothing good either (I rather take the Sony's with better NC and battery life on a flight, better audio quality and painless equalizer).

> Or is it more likely that some consumers judge the utility differently from you?

That's possibly the case, so help me, what I am missing?

[carefree-bob]

Apple didn't use to be a status symbol. I think they earned it. And the fact that they are going all in on Neo tells me they don't care about the status symbol part as much as the profit maximizing. Let me know when Ferrari sells an affordable car.

[finghin]

Yep - Apple have worked through to becoming a luxury, upscale brand and there is no reason for them right now to change from that perception with their current market upper hand

[alt227]

Im not sure how you think Apple is an upscale luxury brand. Every teenager in America owns an iphone with airpods.

Thats the power of marketing, making you think you are exclusive and treating yourself to luxury when you buy their product, instead of the reality that is everybody on the planet owns the same device as you.

[alt227]

Staus symbol is defined as "a visible, external marker—such as luxury goods, exclusive memberships, or specific lifestyles—used to indicate an individual's high social, economic, or professional standing."

Does owning the same phone as every 16 year old in America really fit that description?

[windward]

1967, the Dino 206 GT

[carefree-bob]

People forget that you could buy Ferrari's in the 60s for 7-18K. 7K was the entry Ferrari. Average new car price in 1967 was $3000, so the entry Ferrari was 2.3 times the average new car price.

Today the average new car price in the US is 50K. That would make an entry Ferrari 115K, but the cheapest new Ferrari is the Roma at 225K, or double that.

Ferrari used to be more accessible, but we had compressed incomes then, the rich weren't so far from the middle as they are now. Similarly in 1967 a bottle of Channel no 5 cost $15, but today it is $200. According to inflation, it should be $140, so again roughly double the spread.

[didibus]

I use AirPods and I have a Google Pixel, Windows laptop, and so on.

[eloisant]

That's a very weird choice. I can understand people buying them for the integration with the Apple ecosystem, but outside of it they're just dumb bluetooth earphones. There are better alternatives.

[russelldjimmy]

Instead of being curious why someone would make a choice you didn't, you chose to attack the choice! You might as well stick your fingers in your ears and go "na na na I can't hear you!" until you find a tribe of fellow haters.

[didibus]

In my experience, they work much better, their bluetooth connectivity and the way both of them are in sync is top notch. I also find their ergonomics the best for comfort, battery, how the case works, etc. And they have one of the best microphone for calls and how audible you are to the other person while not picking up too much noise.

[thenakulchawla]

This is tangential but somehow fits here. I tried multiple wired and bluetooth earphones/headphones with my switch 2. And the only ones that gave the sound that was acceptable to me, were the airpods. I had the Sony WHX… headphones, I also tried them using an aux cable, I had a few aux wired earphones (skullcandy and some others), all of their output was weak. I am not even sure how that’s possible, I don’t understand sound/music quality as much, but I was genuinely surprised by this.

[kergonath]

It’s a logical choice. They are good and not that expensive. The whole "they only fit with other Apple devices" is misleading. They work better with a Mac than a Windows PC, sure, but on that Windows PC they work as well as the really good alternatives. None of the supposedly better alternatives are better in every aspect. It’s a tradeoff.

[dahauns]

>but on that Windows PC they work as well as the really good alternatives.

I know I'm a rather late here and essentially just ranting a bit while waiting for github to finally do as it is told, sorry :)

But that's exactly the (frustrating) issue - as I've laid out in another post - no, they don't work as well. It's not about others being better in every aspect (yeah, they usually aren't), but about expected baseline features that are simply missing.

(And to be honest, I've become a bit jaded regarding the resulting discussions :) No, that thing doesn't just suck in general. No, it's not impossible. It's Apple's implementation. External Display Support flashbacks incoming ;) )

[Kirby64]

> you'll probably settle with other brands which are technically ahead (in either of build, sound or ANR quality, or all, Apple being on the Pareto front of neither)

Like what? In the true wireless camp, the Sony's are much less comfortable (and more expensive), the Bose are not as good (and more expensive)...

There's cheaper options, sure, but you're sacrificing build, ANC, battery life, etc.

[atonse]

Except we can’t discount the fact that Jobs chose Cook as his successor. So there’s something Jobs clearly saw there, past being “diametrically opposed” to Jobs’ product obsession. Maybe Jobs felt there were enough product people.