charlesn

macxpress said:

Apple could be a big player in the future for all sporting events in the US. They have the money to get these agreements and the additional money and technology to make them great. As a motorsports fan I would love for them to get F1 and NASCAR in the future. 

"Could be," yes, but I"m not sure about "wants to be." Or at least to what extent. Apple didn't make a run at the NBA rights that were in play this year, despite basketball being a global sport, and worldwide appeal is very important to Apple. I guess NASCAR's a possibility, and would give Apple a real hold on the motorsports category, but NASCAR seems very America-centric in a way that F1, soccer and baseball are not. 

Mark Gurman is now reporting on the usabilty/legibility issues that have forced Apple to really scale back the Liquid Glass appearance in iOS 26 beta 3. I haven't been using the betas, so I don't have a personal opinion, but with reports that the interface now looks like a frosted or diluted glass look, this is starting to sound like a half-assed UI appearance that isn't going to make anyone happy. smh. How are we 8 weeks from launch and JUST realizing that the splashy new look headlined at WWDC a month ago has serious usability/legibility issues? Isn't that the kind of UI 101 problem that should have been recognized long ago in alpha testing? 

I'm a big fan of Tim Cook, but I'm pretty sure even Tim Cook would admiit that he shouldn't be leading a design team. I mean, just look at the way Tim dresses--Jensen Huang he's not. I find it really kind of strange: Apple has long been at the pinnacle of industrial design for consumer tech products. It has mountains of money to spend on attracting the best talent. It has been the world's most admired company for 18 consecutive years. And a well-designed new product will not only make a global impact, but that design is also going to get a kazillion dollar global marketing campaign like no other. And yet there seems to be no candidates for a new Chief Design Officer (which I actually think is an excellent title) at Apple. I mean, what the hell is up with that? How many CDOs have ever been KNIGHTED for their work? Spoiler alert, it's one: Jony Ive. Not a bad perk of the position, right? (And in case Tim is reading this: I'll happily take the CDO title for no money!)

True, as this article correctly points out, Apple seems to be doing okay without filling that position--but we've also been in an era when literally everything coming out of Apple design-wise is a rounded rectangle. And while I know, yes, "the devil is in the details" of how you execute that, it's still just a rounded rectangle that lacks the excitement of pushing the boundaries of what's possible in industrial design. The new iPhone Air promises to be a thinner rounded rectangle which you might notice if it's not in a case and you hold it sideways, so... yay? The last design that seemed to have something to say was the Watch Ultra, a great titanium take on a beefy adventure watch that I still think looks awesome. And whether you love or hate its design, the one thing it's not is boring. I'd like to see Apple take some bigger swings with design, but you need a talented CDO with vision and an ego to drive that, and I don't think it emerges from a design-by-committee structure. What you get is the safe decision of rounded rectangles. 

AppleInsider said:
Then The Elec's idea of capping or limiting production is to constrain it to around 20 million devices. That's not artificially limiting buyers, it's just around the sales that Apple managed with the iPhone 16e and the iPhone SE models before it.

The 16e has only been on sale for a little over 4 months, and since it represents an entirely new form factor/feature set/price point for Apple's cheapest iPhone, I'm not sure how they're projecting annual sales this early in the first cycle. Further: if the 16e is only doing the same numbers as SE, then it would be a sales flop, given that the whole point of replacing the SE was to boost sales of the low end phone. And further still: if Apple is "constraining" the supply of the 16e, you sure wouldn't know it from the retail side, where it's possible to pick-up the 16e of your choice on any given day. Finally: it's ludicrous to suggest that the spring launch of the "e" model is going to cannibalize to any significant degree the sales of the latest, more premium iPhones that get launched six months earlier. No doubt the "e" does cannibalize some sales of the regular iPhone--I would think the 16e has become especially popular for enterprise, where the compromises vs a more expensive regular iPhone do not in any way affect its usefulness as a company-issued phone. But it's also no doubt that Apple would have assumed/known this in launching the "e" line. 

anthogag said:

Why would Apple make it on-demand before it goes freely to TV+ subscribers? It should go straight to TV+ for members; it could attract more membership sign-ups.  

100%. This is a bonkers decision that makes absolutely no sense. F1 would be the greatest and most effective marketing tool EVER to drive interest and sign-ups for the Apple TV+ service--and Apple is going to trade that for one-time revenue it gets by parking it on pay-per-view for months before Apple TV+ gets it? (Not to mention hugely pissing off current subscribers.) Look at what Netflix does--you know, that modestly successful service with 300 million subscribers and a stock price over $1200/share. Its biggest movies with the biggest stars and biggest directors play in theaters for just a few weeks to qualify for Academy Awards then go direct to Netflix. They seem to know something about how to use big budget/big talent movies successfully to build and hold their subscriber base--maybe Apple, with a service that's the subscriber laggard of the major streamers, should pay attention?