hawaiianshirtguy

zoetmb said:

In spite of the technical and engineering hurdles, I have to wonder why a company with all of Apple's resources can't get it done.   While 9 mothers can't make a baby in one month, I've always been bemused when I've read that some of the Apple development teams are actually quite small.    According to reports, Apple has 123,000 worldwide employees.  Aside from support, internal IT, HR and sales, what the hell do they all do?   Apple still has a quite small product line compared to most other manufacturing companies.  

You need to stop and think about what apple produces: pencil. watch. ipad. iphone. headphones. airpods, chargers. speakers. apple tv. macbook. imac. keyboards. mice (mouses?). a gazillion little accessories. Dongles. And that's just hardware. There's also three OS's, and hundreds of apps, websites in multiple languages, developer tools.  That's just software. There's also support, marketing, training, divisions for education, business, research, and so on. 

If there's one thing I've learned in over three decades writing software, engineering teams are often much, much smaller than you might imagine. I've known some very successful, very expensive software from hundred million dollar companies that was developed and maintained by just three or four people. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the charging pad team was made up of just three or four full time engineers.

Even though Apple is huge, they create a tremendous amount of stuff. 

nunzy said:

Steve Jobs was a saint. A creative genius. And the best huckster the world has ever seen. He made billions of dollars.

A saint? I think that's the first time I ever heard that! Creative genius? You bet. Best huckster? Rivaled only by P.T. Barnum himself. 

He made billions of dollars. That's just basic math. 

Since it doesn't support multi-room audio, that makes me think it doesn't support airplay. WTF?

entropys said:

Notch when playing video: really? I mean really? Steve Jobs (PBOH) would never have allowed it. You know this is true.

What's the alternative? The article mentions you can watch the video "unobstructed or expand it to full screen, which rounds off the corners and knocks out the slot where sensors sit. " Given that there must be sensors somewhere, and Apple allows you to either view a video in a rectangular window or expanded to fill the corners, it looks like they've covered all the bases. The only other option is to remove the sensors completely, but obviously that has large ramifications.

metrix said:

The concept of the Apple store is still quite the same. Cook better get things going it seems like there is no "one more thing for years

Why does it need to change? The apple stores earn more per square foot than any other company, including Tiffany. 

As for nothing new, we've seen complete new product lines (watch, homepod) that has earned Apple billions of dollars, as well as fairly significant changes to many of their other products. 

If you're expecting to see another runaway success story like the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, that's likely not going to happen again no matter who is running Apple. It's hard to fault Tim Cook for not being able to top those products. 

robbyx said:

If you think HomePod compares to Sonance, I’d say you’re the one who has no idea how good speakers sound.  As for Sonos, sure, they’re not high end and I haven’t compared HomePod to anything but my Play5, but to my ears Play5 produces a much more pleasant and balanced sound than the thump thump thump of HomePod with vocals floating so far above the mix that they sound disembodied.  I was interested in the convenience/simplicity of HomePod too but the sound quality just isn’t up to snuff. 

I never said they compared equally to Sonance, I merely implied that Sonance isn't particularly high end in the audio world. Sure, the Sonance are almost certainly going to sound better to most people, but they also cost more. No surprise there at all, they are a very different type of product. 

BarryMarshall said:

Are these Apple events worth even watching anymore? No really since Apple hasn't brought out anything new that will start another revolution in the hardware department and that every company will try to mimic. No time to tell Apple that these prestations are passe.

We likely won't see anything like that again from any manufacturer for at least another decade. The ipod/iphone/ipad was a unique convergence of vision, and the ability of hardware to deliver on that vision for the first time. I think we're stuck with a steady evolution rather than revolution for quite some time. This isn't a failing of Apple or anyone else. It's just that it requires unique circumstances to create such ground breaking products, and unique circumstances are by definition rather rare. 

cesco said:

Jennifer Anniston. 'Nuff said

It's hard to know what you mean. That sentence could mean you love the show, or it could mean you hate it.

A lot of people like Aniston for her acting ability and will watch anything she's in. Then there are people who like her simply for her beauty and will watch anything she's in. There are people who despise her for lack of acting ability and won't watch anything she's in. There are those who think she is overrated and won't watch anything she's in. There are also people who despise her simply because they think it makes them edgy.

Which of those are you? Why do you think simply mentioning her name is 'Nuff?