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The number 1 feature of the Apple TV to me is the GUI speed. The number 2 is the lack of ads. As long as Apple continues with this, it has a sale from me. If the next Apple TV has an A18 with 8 GB RAM, it would make for a nice upgrade from my Apple TV 4K 1st gen with A10X Fusion with 3 GB of RAM.

It's going to be a never-ending fight to prevent ads and tracking from the TV space. At some point, TV makers will require WiFi or Internet connections for their TVs to work. and will be more than happy to overlay an ad on top of the streamer box signal. How Apple fights against that is a good guess. Offering their own TV would be a way. There is a market for it. Not sure if big enough, but a certain class of buyers will pay a premium for it.

13” 220 PPI display, A18 Pro, 12 GB RAM, 256 GB RAM, and 2 USBC ports for $700 would make for a nice machine. Cell modem, 24 GB RAM, and up to 2 TB as options would all be great. 

Yeah, one-click cancellation of subscriptions from Apple's app store is a huge feature to me. Apple funneling and forcing iPhone and iPad app developers to do this is a huge quality of life improvement, and hence, why I will continue to buy through Apple's App Store, even after governments force Apple enable sideloading and such~. If this stuff gets more onerous. I'm just not going to subscribe, or consume whatever service's content.

Just got a used 2023 Chevy Bolt. The myChevrolet app is useless with a minimum $15/mo OnStar monthly subscription. The app tells me nothing about the state of the vehicle without the subscription. No state-of-charge, no charging station maps, no charging state, no vehicle data, no phone key. It's just has a mostly useless owner's manual, not properly formatted for iPhones. With the OnStar subscription, you get a lot of niceties. However, you also will get OnStar selling your driving data to insurance companies and advertisers. They may say they don't do that, but like a judge, they can change their mind at any time. All it takes is a quarter with bad revenue. And cancelling means having to call them and dealing with the automated call system, soon to be impossible to find an actual human to talk to.

Everyone already knows cancelling subscriptions can be a Sisyphean task, including these judges. And these judges know that just made an anti-consumer decision.

blastdoor said:

For any successful CEO close to retirement, their most important remaining job is working with the board to find successor candidates. Steve Jobs did his job well — he picked Cook. One thing that is especially remarkable about Jobs’ pick is that Cook is very different from Jobs. It would be very tempting to pick a “mini me” as a replacement. For Jobs, that might have been Ive. But because Jobs cared more about Apple than his ego, he picked someone very different from himself because he knew that is what Apple needed next. And Jobs was right Cook was great for Apple in the ten years after Jobs left. 

But Cook is no longer the best leader for Apple and Apple does not need a mini Cook as the next CEO. So Cook needs to find the right yin to his yang to be the next CEO.

Gurman already rumored the succession planning last year. Jeff Williams would take over in the short term. John Ternus would take over in the long term. So, if Cook retires in 2026, John Ternus will be CEO according to this rumor. With Williams retiring, maybe it just pulls forward Ternus' training.

Apple's executive suite has been remarkably stable for nearly 3 decades now. Schiller is still hanging around. Joswiak has been there since the 90s too. Eddy Cue similarly has been there 30+ years. Federighi has been software SVP for 13 years now. Ternus has been a big plus since taking over ad hardware SVP. Alan Dye looks like he will be the design lead for a while.

CEO of Apple is not a fun job. Unfortunately, Apple is a nation-state level actor, and that means the CEO job is not a "product" job anymore. It's not even a "product strategy" job anymore. Steve Jobs would despise being CEO of Apple today. The major portion of the CEO of Apple today is to talk to, meet with, and to deal with the most despicable people on the planet: politicians, lawyers, dictators. All-in-all, just unreasonable people. Who in Tartarus wants to deal with that everyday?

Surprised that Ternus even wants the job. No practical person would want that type of job.

mfryd said:

CheeseFreeze said:

mfryd said:

CheeseFreeze said:

I don’t find this very plausible. 

They could perhaps create a better “iPad + keyboard” combo that offers an attractive package.  But Apple already sells three kinds of laptops and three kinds of iPads. Why confuse the consumer with another one that overlaps both classes?

The difference is that it would be a Mac.  At this point the defining attribute that differentiates a Mac from an iPad is that the Mac runs Mac OSX.

Mac OSX allows a greater flexibility in available software.  With additional software, OSX can even run Windows in a virtual machine.

OSX is a platform that can be used to teach programming.   To my knowledge, Apple doesn't allow users to write traditional software under iPad OS.  I have a C compiler for my Mac, I have not been able to find one for my iPad.

Similarly, OSX allows one to drop into the command line and explore a bit to see how the machine works under the hood.  I don't think the iPad allows this.

You can even run iPad apps on a Mac.

All of these make OSX a better choice for many educational situations.

Sure, I get the differentiation. And for exactly the reasons you mentioned I am a macOS user primarily. But why another product? The target audience you are describing are MacBook Air or even Pro users. 

Apple could simply stick a M1 in the same form factor and sell it for $100 less and provide at least some parity with the CPU class they offer (easier to develop for), but what do they gain from that? They won’t unlock a new audience segment. 

The majority of their profits don’t come from marginally cheaper products. It’s the extra memory, the bumped up CPU. That is where they make the big bucks at scale. It’s not an interesting proposition for them to sell us a cheaper laptop. In fact, it’s not their brand strategy. They would have to offer a cheaper screen, cheaper internals, etc to drop $200-$350 and that is ‘un-Apple’. That’s why I find this rumor not plausible. 

A low cost, entry level Mac is a way of bringing new users into the Apple ecosystem.  This is especially helpful if those users are students.   If the student learned on a Mac in school, he is more likely to buy a Mac as an adult.   Furthermore, someone who uses a Mac, is more likely to buy an iPhone instead of Android.

A parent buying a first computer for a child may want an inexpensive one.  Whatever that child gets, they are more likely to stay with that platform rather than switch.  Apple doesn't currently offer a product to fit this need.

There are benefits to having products in all market segments.

There are economies of scale.  Apple sells more iPhones than Macs.  Using an iPhone chip in a Mac will cost Apple less than maintaining production of old model M1 processors.

An A18 Pro is 40% faster than an M1 in single core, the same performance in multi-core, the same performance in GPU, 200% faster in NPU, operates at half the power consumption, and costs half as much to make.