charlesn

blastdoor said:

I have now fully come around to agreeing that It’s time for Tim Cook to go. 

A lot of great things happened under his leadership, especially apple silicon in Macs, but the Apple car debacle and now the AI debacle are convincing me that Apple needs a “product guy” leading the firm again. 

Please explain what you see as a "debacle" for the R&D that Apple put into a possible car. There was never any assurance that a car would result from this effort--the whole point of doing research and development is to determine if manufacturing a competitive and superior product is possible and financially viable. And for Apple, never having been in the car manufacturing business, the challenge was even more difficult, especially considering that Apple's business model is based on very high profit margins, while autos are a fraction of that. At the end of the day, Apple decided there was no financially viable path forward and shut down the project. Look around at the EV business and you'll understand why this was the smartest decision: Fiskar is already out of business, Rivian and Polestar continue hemorrhaging money like it's water, and every company not named Tesla that produces EVs is losing a massive amount of money on every EV they sell. Ford has been manufacturing cars for 123 years, yet Car & Driver reported that in the Q1 2024, it was losing $130,000 on every EV that it sold. And now, with the EV business already a black hole money pit for car makers, Trump is ending the incentives that helped to bolster EV sales, so things are about to get even worse.

The inescapable truth from all available evidence is that Apple avoided a money-losing debacle by shutting down Project Titan. The only argument one might make--and there's no way to know the truth of it--is that they should have shut it down sooner than they did. We also don't know what R&D for Project Titan might be useful for breakthroughs on other projects, so it's not as if the whole thing was pointless. 

nubus said:

randominternetperson said:

Afarstar said:

They might as well change iPhone and iPad numbering too. They missed iPhone 9 out altogether so iPhone 26 would make sense. 

The rumor I read yesterday says exactly that. iPad 26, MacBook Pro 26, iPhone 26.

So the current products would be:
MacBook Air M4 13=> MacBook Air 25 13
AirPods Max => AirPods Max 20
HomePod => HomePod 17bis
iPad Pro 24, iPad Air 25, iPad 25.... 3 different processors. 25 is less than 24 but better than 25.

Perhaps for iPhone but the current naming is mostly OK.

That's not how it would go and I offer that thought directly from what Apple is doing now. Go to Apple's website > Mac tab. See any model numbers? Now scroll down to Macbook Air (as just one example) and open the product page. Does Apple call it a Macbook Air M4? Nope. It's just Macbook Air, same as it has ever been, with the M4 chip listed in the product description along with other specs. Now go to the iPad tab, where you'll also see just model names and click on iPad Pro to open the product page. Does Apple call it the iPad Pro M4? Nope. Just iPad Pro with the M4 chip listed in the product description. This kind of simple clarity in product naming isn't hard or confusing to consumers--Apple has been doing it for decades with most of its main products but, for reasons unknown, believes that iPhones and a few other products need numbers in addition to model names. 

ne1 said:

For the love of God, please stop changing the thickness and dimensions of the phone every year. Does Apple no longer have any hardware forethought or long range planning? Are these year-to-year teams not coordinating with each other? Find a thickness and case dimensions that will work for several years and stick to it! 

This isn't viable. Have you seen a teardown of an iPhone? There is zero space wasted. Dimensions have to be tightly based around the phone's capabilities and the size of components needed to deliver those capabilities at that time. Component sizes change, usually getting smaller over time, while the dimensions of new components may not be locked a few years in advance when they're still being tested. From what we can see in this video, the 17 Pro Max capabilities require a case that's .5mm thicker--but it wouldn't have made sense to make 16 Pro Max thicker for no reason, leaving that space empty until the 17 Pro Max came along. And what of the larger screens introduced with the 16 models? Should the 15 models have adopted thick bezels on the top and bottom of its smaller screen so it could maintain size parity with the upcoming 16? You could go pretty far down the rabbit hole with other examples. 

I'm a fan. Clean, simple, Ends the mishmosh of different numbers for MacOS, WatchOS and iOS/iPadOS. And while we're simplifying:

Stop naming each year's new MacOS. A number is enough. I can never remember which CA locale is this year's MacOS. 

Do we really need a number for iPhones? On Apple's website, a click on the iPhone tab takes you to a list of numbered phones. But click on the Mac tab, and it's just model names, no numbers for desktops and laptops. Click on the iPad tab and you see the same thing: model names, no numbers. My 6th Gen iPad Mini is simply engraved on the back as "IPad Mini." So why can't we just have iPhone E, iPhone, iPhone Air, iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max? Why do September's phones need to be additionally labeled "17" when they could simply be the 2026 editions of these models? The lack of numbering for so many other essential Apple devices pretty much proves that you don't need numbering. 

thedba said:

AirPods max haven't changed since their introduction back in December 2020, other than a port change in September 2024.

The Sonys OTOH have been constantly updated XM4 (2020), XM5 (2022) XM6 (2025) making them more technologically advanced. 

That being said I still prefer the Max. I've been on my original pair since the end of 2021. 

Probably without realizing it, you've made an important point here: in the world of audio, technological "advancement" does not necessarily translate into significant audible improvements. Despite Sony "updating" their premium headphones and earbuds about every two years, you still prefer your 4.5 year old AirPods Max. I own the XM4 and the APM, and while I thought upgrading to the XM5, my audition of them confirmed what I read in a lot of reviews: no compelling audible advantage over the XM4, and I have a huge preference for the more streamlined look of the XM4 over the bulbous XM5. (If you think the XM5s sound much better than the 4s, I'm not going to tell you that they're wrong--you have to be a fool to try and tell someone what their ears are hearing.) Anyway... now the reviews on the XM6 seem pretty mixed as well for the same reason--yes, they're a very fine set of headphones but not compellingly better than the XM5. It's important to keep in mind that consumer tech companies need to keep selling us stuff, and there's no more powerful sales word in the English language than "new."

What's my definition of compelling audible advancement? That's an easy one. AirPods Pro 2 vs AirPods Pro 1. I still have both and the difference in sound quality and ANC is night and day.