Editorial: Anticipating WWDC 2013 under a cloud of Apple doubt

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  • Reply 101 of 203
    SoulISoul wrote

    "Agreed, hardware is easy for Apple, I want Apple to take software to the next level and blow my mind. I have no pre-planned ideas, but Apple have set the standard for software development and looking to be amazed. If I am not then hopefully, it will be major upgrade that keep Apple ahead of the pack."

    The thing is they are already way ahead. I have recently worked on the Sumry app which is a way to create instant slideshows. We have an iOS client and an Android client, I wrote the iOS client and 'dabbled' only a little in the Android client which was written by a colleague. The problem with the Android client is the API's are so lacking in the area of media handling. The app includes an audio mixer that combines a number of raw sound files into a single audio track. On the Android app I put 2 weeks into creating this code, on the iOS app the hard part was done in a couple of hours thanks to the fantastic Apple media API. Not only does Android lack critical API's but it also includes very half baked ones. For example there is a media codec API for handling audio, but it simply does not work. Or if it does, no one outside of the API development team has managed to figure out how to make it work.

    So the problem here is one of perception rather than fact. Apple is very much ahead in software on these devices, so why doesn't the world know this. I blame marketing rather than technology for this.
  • Reply 102 of 203
    saltwatersaltwater Posts: 50member
    I think Apple loose the way since Snow Leopard, it completely abandon a huge number of computer and users with the 10.7 Lion system requirements, then the iLife and iWork package lacks good and innovative updates. Not to mention that some of those apps seems more abandonware than supported. In the last years it's all about iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, and in my opinion, iPhone is basically the same every year, it lacks functionality, it's good for the mass market, the ones that don't need to attach a computer code file to an email, what seems impossible to do on an iPhone for example. That mass market is also very volatile, it can change system like it change t-shirts, Google Android is very developed with some phones that are more powerful than my MacBook, Windows 8 - Xbox, Phone and PC ecosystem is starting to get some interest and I actually like it, certainly Microsoft learn the lesson. What I want from Apple is the speed, easy of use and innovative apps, that are not tight in a proprietary ecosystem, with as few bugs as possible. This last sentence is far away from Apple as ever been. Not to mention the price tag on Apple, it is just too much expensive for what Apple gives you!
  • Reply 103 of 203
    philgarphilgar Posts: 93member
    If anything, this editorial simply reiterates why investors are afriad of apple despite record profits. Apples current position was created by making knock ou of the park products; products that were so awesome the competition just didnt really exist. Today, the competition is almost as good, if not as good as apple, so apple must hit another homerun this year to maintain the profit margins that theyre used to. This is a lot of pressure for any company to be under.

    Additionally, apple is competing in one of the most finnicky markets ever imagined, one where a few wrong steps over the course of a year or two can erode away the majority of apples profits. Just look at mistakes sony made in the early 2000s, or more recently with blackberry. In the coursevof a few years (largely dur to apples iphone) blackberry went from being the 2000 pound gorilla to nothing, profits evaporated almost overnight.

    Like always, the pressure is on apple to innovate, in this market, a company cannot get by by saying "look at what weve done before, we beat expectations and well do it again". The company must continue to prove itself. For all the MS haters outthere, ms has managed to get themselves entrenched in a very mature market. They might ,not see apple level profits, but their profits are almost guaranteed. Theyre in a far safer position than apple.

    For the past year apple has been good enough, but has not blown people away. Unless this is changed, apple could quickly become the next blackberry. This is not an enviable position for most companiies..

    Phil[B][/B]
  • Reply 104 of 203
    jgutherjguther Posts: 97member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by fyngyrz View Post



    "Has Apple lost its magic?"



    Let me put it to you this way. As a dev, and an owner of many IOS and OSX items, after multiple IOS "upgrades" failed to provide real folders, the ability to share data between apps (or really any other form of realistic synergy), a "finder" like tool, or even just the ability to have as many files as you want in a folder, not to mention the closed development process, "provisioning" and the other IOS dev hassles... and now, the hype is what? ... "flat icons." Good grief. Talk about a complete non-issue. Fluff. Irrelevant to anything and everything.



    So I went out and bought a Droid. Perhaps Google will listen. Apple clearly doesn't.



    I still make OSX apps, but IOS is pretty much dead to me as long as they keep limiting it to the most basic functionality. IOS could be so much more -- but it isn't.


    You may want to take a minute and try to understand why Apple is moving away from the outdated concept of files and folders. There's plenty of literature out there. A file system shared between all applications is the biggest security risk of all. Also, we learned from usability studies that the classical hierachical file system is the #1 stumbling block for the average user. Once you understand that, it is pretty obvious why Apple is moving to innovative ways of storing and presenting content. Spotlight, Documents in the cloud, iPhoto Library, iTunes Library, Launchpad and many more all point in the same direction - good-bye file system...


     


    Time to realize that something that was a good idea 40 years ago is no longer state of the art...

  • Reply 105 of 203
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    jguther wrote: »
    fyngyrz wrote: »
    "Has Apple lost its magic?"


    Let me put it to you this way. As a dev, and an owner of many IOS and OSX items, after multiple IOS "upgrades" failed to provide real folders, the ability to share data between apps (or really any other form of realistic synergy), a "finder" like tool, or even just the ability to have as many files as you want in a folder, not to mention the closed development process, "provisioning" and the other IOS dev hassles... and now, the hype is what? ... "flat icons." Good grief. Talk about a complete non-issue. Fluff. Irrelevant to anything and everything.


    So I went out and bought a Droid. Perhaps Google will listen. Apple clearly doesn't.


    I still make OSX apps, but IOS is pretty much dead to me as long as they keep limiting it to the most basic functionality. IOS could be so much more -- but it isn't.
    You may want to take a minute and try to understand why Apple is moving away from the outdated concept of files and folders. There's plenty of literature out there. A file system shared between all applications is the biggest security risk of all. Also, we learned from usability studies that the classical hierachical file system is the #1 stumbling block for the average user. Once you understand that, it is pretty obvious why Apple is moving to innovative ways of storing and presenting content. Spotlight, Documents in the cloud, iPhoto Library, iTunes Library, Launchpad and many more all point in the same direction - good-bye file system...

    Time to realize that something that was a good idea 40 years ago is no longer state of the art...

    Well said!
  • Reply 106 of 203
    yojimbo007yojimbo007 Posts: 1,165member
    Thumbs up!
  • Reply 107 of 203
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    It feels a lot like Christmas ... Eve ....
  • Reply 108 of 203
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    I just think they should air the keynotes three hours earlier on the east coast ... :D

    This off Mac Rumors credit to OP

    Love this ...

    [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/26329/width/350/height/700[/IMG]
  • Reply 109 of 203
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    philgar wrote: »
    If anything, this editorial simply reiterates why investors are afriad of apple despite record profits. Apples current position was created by making knock ou of the park products; products that were so awesome the competition just didnt really exist. Today, the competition is almost as good, if not as good as apple, so apple must hit another homerun this year to maintain the profit margins that theyre used to. This is a lot of pressure for any company to be under.]

    The problem is that the author of this article simply forgets history.

    Apple has ALWAYS been under a cloud of doubt as far as investors and analysts have been concerned. Anyone who has followed Apple for any length of time has hear thousands of stories about how Apple is dying. Or Apple can't keep up its pace. Or Apple's glory days are over. Or Apple is no longer relevant. Or any of a thousand other unfounded whines.

    It's just par for the course.
  • Reply 110 of 203
    vtvitavtvita Posts: 26member
    Thanks and congrats!
    Well written article and editorial.
    Provided great insight.

    The point you make I really got:
    ".... because Apple isn't competing to end competition; it's working to offer the best products of all its competitors."
    Excellent!
  • Reply 111 of 203
    macmanfelixmacmanfelix Posts: 125member


    I assure you all: you would not be happy with induction charging for at least the following reasons:


     


    1) When charging from a cable, one can still easily hold the phone and do whatever he wishes while it charges: type, play games, talk on the phone (I know, no one does this anymore), leave it next to you on the bed for a sleep cycle monitor…etc. Why would anyone want to hold an induction pad to the back of the phone to use it while charging it? This is the Number one deal breaker for inductive charging


     


    2) Cable charging works great in a moving car or boat, the iPhone would slip off an inductive charger frequently.


     


    3) Inductive charging is is inefficient—current iPhones can be charged with tiny solar panels (camping, sailboats etc—yes many of us do this.)


     


    4) Inductive charging is slower, who the hell wants that?!?


     


    5) Cord sync is still faster and more reliable. What if your phone bricks and needs a full software restore?


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by herbapou View Post



    Induce Charging:

    I wish Apple would now do induce charging since we don't need to sync with a cable anymore. I would prefer to just install pad, hide cables and just put my device on them for charging.

  • Reply 112 of 203
    sipsip Posts: 210member


    Thoroughly enjoyed reading this article.


     


    Apple designs and builds its own hardware to match its software (or is it the other way around?) Human nature being what it is, is reluctant to embrace change and learn new things -- revolutionary software needs to be drip-fed and that is something Apple understands better than any other tech company. Wearable computing means different things to different people -- to some it means being able to listen on a BT headset and talking to your wrist, to others it's being able to project a phone keypad on your palm and using that as your dial-pad.


     


    How come no one is questioning the car industry why we don't have flying cars that run on hydrogen power? If a flying car was as affordable as the car I drive, I'd buy one. And has anyone noticed that even movies which depict the future still have some sort of roadways upon which these wheel-less cars hover, rather than free flying cars?


     


    All I want is an iMac type computer which can hold 4 high capacity hard drives. Come on Apple, give us a new Mac Pro based around a 30-inch screen.

  • Reply 113 of 203
    eideardeideard Posts: 428member
    The ignorant are saddled with operating on faith. It's like being a party line Democrat or Republican. Or Christian for that matter. Reasonably foolish behavior unless you still live in a cave and fear those strange noises in the night.
  • Reply 114 of 203
    analogjackanalogjack Posts: 1,073member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post





    What separates Einstein from most scientists, I have always thought, was his attitude. He felt the problem out instinctively, more like a poet or philosopher than a scientist. Essentially, when he worked on a problem he used his instinct and intuition more than most scientist I've seen. Sort of similar, in the same way, to how Jobs is different to most entrepreneurs.


     


    Two things separated him. One was that he was a lone genius, these days when a new particle is discovered there'll be 450 names on the paper. But it was his peculiar tenacity that distinguishes him the most I think. Every other physicist when confronted with the curious fact that inertial mass was precisely the same as gravitational mass, just went... 'isn't that strange', and moved on to something else. But for Einstein, little things like that really bugged him. He thought about it for 10 years, and out of that thinking emerged a completely new paradigm that consigned to the scrapheap, everything everyone thought they knew about the universe. That was general relativity.


  • Reply 115 of 203
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    eideard wrote: »
    The ignorant are saddled with operating on faith. It's like being a party line Democrat or Republican. Or Christian for that matter. Reasonably foolish behavior unless you still live in a cave and fear those strange noises in the night.

    I don't disagree in general but not sure of the context for this post in this thread? You are not comparing my worship of Apple to a religion are you? :D
  • Reply 116 of 203
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    I'm already predicting WWDC will be a failure with tech and general media. If Apple doesn't turn iOS into Android they'll bitch and whine about it. If Apple does add some Android like features like widgets they'll bitch and whine that Apple isn't being innovative, they're just copying Google. And either way someone will accuse them of copying Microsoft because apparently Microsoft invented color and "flat" design. Oh and someone will accuse Apple of ripping off the Android font, even though that's a rip off of several other fonts, and Apple has been using Helvetia for a long time now. Won't matter, it will still be called a ripoff of MicrosoftGoogle. And the fans that don't like it will whine that Tim Cook needs too be fired, Jony Ive demoted back to hardware design only and Scott Forstall brought back to "save" Apple.

    Bank on it. :smokey:
  • Reply 117 of 203
    y2any2an Posts: 187member
    The so-called tech press miss the obvious, that launching the next OSX and iOS7 simultaneously means something and is hard. New products mean incremental OS launches which slows down the major OS development cycle. I'm pretty sure the product gap is deliberate to get OSX and iOS7 in sync, not a lack of innovation in the wings, and I'm really curious to see what is announced this week.

    (Thinking about the conference subtitle "where a whole new world is developing" and the translucent overlapping colour patches, maybe the distinction between OSX and iOS is blurring...)
  • Reply 118 of 203
    kdarlingkdarling Posts: 1,640member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MacManFelix View Post


    I assure you all: you would not be happy with induction charging for at least the following reasons:



     


    You mean YOU would be unhappy.  Some of us would not :)


     


    Quote:


    1) When charging from a cable, one can still easily hold the phone and do whatever he wishes while it charges:



     


    That's a valid point, especially if you let the phone get low on charge.  Interestingly, an inductive charger makes that less likely (at least in my case), because I'm more likely to plop the phone on it any chance I got.


     


    Quote:


    2) Cable charging works great in a moving car or boat, the iPhone would slip off an inductive charger frequently.



     


    Nope, not if it also has magnets like the Palm Touchstone had.  The phone aligns and stays at a nice viewing angle.


     


    My son-in-law kept a Touchstone at home, at the office, and in his car.  He loved being able to just grab and go without worrying about unplugging.


     


    Quote:


    5) Cord sync is still faster and more reliable. What if your phone bricks and needs a full software restore?



     


    Then you use a cord.  Inductive charging doesn't mean cables are no longer an option. 


     


    I think most people think of those mats when they hear inductive charging.  Those of us who had the Palm Pre and the Touchstone charger have a totally different concept, and know how luxurious and useful it was.

  • Reply 119 of 203
    matrix07matrix07 Posts: 1,993member
    I assure you all: you would not be happy with induction charging for at least the following reasons:

    1) When charging from a cable, one can still easily hold the phone and do whatever he wishes while it charges: type, play games, talk on the phone (I know, no one does this anymore), leave it next to you on the bed for a sleep cycle monitor…etc. Why would anyone want to hold an induction pad to the back of the phone to use it while charging it? This is the Number one deal breaker for inductive charging

    2) Cable charging works great in a moving car or boat, the iPhone would slip off an inductive charger frequently.

    3) Inductive charging is is inefficient—current iPhones can be charged with tiny solar panels (camping, sailboats etc—yes many of us do this.)

    4) Inductive charging is slower, who the hell wants that?!?

    5) Cord sync is still faster and more reliable. What if your phone bricks and needs a full software restore?

    All the good reasons. I wouldn't touch it for 4) alone. You save time like what? A few seconds difference between placing it on the pad or sticking cable to it but you waste much more time waiting for it to be full. Fools.
  • Reply 120 of 203
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    y2an wrote: »
    The so-called tech press miss the obvious, that launching the next OSX and iOS7 simultaneously means something and is hard. New products mean incremental OS launches which slows down the major OS development cycle. I'm pretty sure the product gap is deliberate to get OSX and iOS7 in sync, not a lack of innovation in the wings, and I'm really curious to see what is announced this week.

    (Thinking about the conference subtitle "where a whole new world is developing" and the translucent overlapping colour patches, maybe the distinction between OSX and iOS is blurring...)

    I have exactly the same thoughts. This is going to a monumental WWDC for Apple's OSs. The hardware is secondary (albeit I want to see a new Mac Pro).
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