macgui
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Apple pulls US-funded Radio Free Europe app from Russia
I'd like to see Apple not do any business with countries whose base philosophies are counter to our own and not be hypocritical. Pull out saying 'No iPhones for YOU!' Apple could afford not to do business with most of them... for a while. And who would build Apple's products? The US? Not hardly.
The tech is already expensive. We probably don't have the work force here to sustain the delivery times of Apple's stuff. What domestic labor would want for pay would drive the price up significantly. Then there are potential tariffs have been promised. That would miff the stockholders. Because principles are all well and good, but Apple's job is to make us money dammit! (I am not a stockholder.)
Apple breaking ties with authoritarian governments and trying to develop tech and build products in the US would kill it faster than the loss of revenue not selling to them.
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Power press: Fixes for Apple's oddly-placed Mac mini button
Isn't relevant to the discussion. You may not have noticed but AI among other sites as multiple posts/threads regarding the value the M4 mini represents, as well as actual objective tech reviewers, and not just mere influencers, leading or otherwise. Yet you suggest any present here aren't aware of its performance to dollar ratio. Except you of course. But this thread isn't about that.chasm said:What I think
People have chosen to weigh in on this thread to discuss the power button location and insult those who take issue with it. Classic forum behavior. Further they decide to dictate how everyone should view the location and what to do about it. You usually have well reasoned and thoughtful posts. However you like they are not arbiters of any degree nor do you or they know what any individual's situation. That's just plain HEAD UP ASS hubris.
You are obviously irked to say the least that this is being discussed. Others are too. I'm irked that idiots are trying to tell others how to think and what to view as important, thinking their experiences must apply to everyone else.
I've owned several minis over the years and have had to force quit more than "rarely" for various reasons. Never once have I accidentally hit the power button. I don't doubt that someone has done that more than once. A reason to move it? I don't think so.
If I get a new mini I'll be able to use the button without issue, probably inverting it. That doesn't mean it's a good design – it isn't. But Apple did it because it suits Apple. The could have put it in the forward corner instead of the back corner. That would have been more convenient but that doesn't matter. Apple had their reason(s) and that's what matters. To Apple.
Oddly the charging port on the bottom of the Magic Mouse didn't bother me at all. All of the reasons that people gave for it being a bad idea made no sense. They read like excuses and lies a miscreant tells the judge in traffic court why they were speeding. Most ultimately don't actually provide a reason, just a poor excuse. If someone said "I don't pay attention to the low battery notifications and have no regular charging schedule so the port is in a bad location". I could at least respect the honesty. The voice in my head would still say "You can't fix stupid." But that would stay in my head.
This article is interesting enough and it's fun to see a budding cottage industry and the ingenuity demonstrated. Those who choose to raise the noise floor are a buzzkill.
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Apple execs address Mac mini's hidden power button in 2024 redesign
That's a dumbass comment. Were it true, power buttons would have gone the way of the 3.5mm jack, long before the 3.5mm jack.Cesar Battistini Maziero said:there is no reason to use a power button on a desktop Mac.It's a non issue.
One of the biggest reasons for the seemingly out-of-the-way placement is how infrequently most users actually use the power button. "Honestly, most people almost never use the power button on a Mac," one of the executives remarked.
WTF? That's an excuse not a reason. It explains why they figured it would be more or less acceptable to move the button but not why they moved the button first place. If that's one of the bigger reasons (which it's not) what are the other biggest reasons? There's multiple biggest reasons? Then it follows there are also lesser reasons. None of which are addressed in this article. Why not put it in one of the front corners and not the back?
They did a survey/research to find out if Mac users use the power button? Not likely. This is just Apple being Apple. They wanted to do this, apparently for big and little reasons which can't be shared with the general public.
"They'll complain but give up eventually."
Just because it may be a non-issue (for some) doesn't mean it's not a bad design. It's a bad design.
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On-again off-again: Apple Ring project may not be dead
Of course you're not. Everything in your post is conjecture, when offered in support for your premise of why there's no Apple Ring yet. It's handily refuted. You offer no substantiation that would show otherwise. Even the WSJ quote you offer is their subjective opinion, with the WSJ arbitrarily assigning some threshold as to whether or not somebody "wants it".Pema said:
I am not going to dwell on your 4 points in reply to mine. They are nothing more than your conjecture based on your opinion - and as the old saying goes, everyone has one.charlesn said:
To your points:Pema said:
The reason we don't have an Apple Ring as yet is due to the number of reasons:- Apple already has a cash cow with the iPhones, wearables and Macs, not to mention the services.
- Apple has been rumoured to look at a foldable. Doubt if we will ever see that. The Samsung Fold is a paperweight collecting dust at the retailers that I visit regularly.
- Apple Watch is a huge success. Creating a product that delivers the health/functionality in a smaller form factor may/may not entice buyers away from the Watch to the Ring.
- After the Vision Pro & the Apple Car disasters Apple is gun shy about spending oodles of $ on a product that may steal market share from the Watch.
My suggestion would be to revisit the Apple Car. Rename it the Apple Car Software Division and sell the package to any EV manufacturer- other than Chinese - who needs the software to drive the car. Remember BEV cars have no engine just a battery. That's the guts and Apple was on track to deliver the software and then they got cold feet and gave us the Vision Pro answer a question no one ever asked.
1. The idea that any for-profit company would not develop and release a new product because it already has "enough" successful products is utter nonsense from a business perspective.
2. What does Apple looking into foldables have to do with anything? Again, Apple is perfectly capable of many multiple projects at the same time.
3. Yes, Apple Watch is a huge success. The Ring appeals to a large market of buyers that Watch doesn't reach: people who wear traditional wristwatches but are interested in health and fitness tracking. No cannibalizing Watch sales, either, because Watch offers many features that wouldn't be available on the Ring--the most obvious of which is that buyers of the Watch use it as their watch.
4. Vision Pro isn't a disaster by any reliable metric, but you'd have to know what those reliable metrics are to understand. I'm not going to offer remedial education here. Suggest you read Tim Cook's recent interview in the Wall Street Journal as a start. Suffice to say that Vision Pro will continue to be developed and will be in the Apple lineup for years to come. Apple Car also wasn't a disaster: it made total sense for Apple to research and attempt to develop a car of its own, and it also made complete sense to pull the plug on the project when Apple could foresee no sufficiently profitable way forward. Evidence of that can be seen in how various EV companies have either folded or are struggling, Ford and GM have seriously curtailed EV production, and the Chinese EV competition is absolutely brutal globally--we don't see them in the U.S. because they're essentially banned. Fun fact: while Cook gets roasted for "failing" to create "the next Tesla," he was busy during that same time period developing the Services division, which now has annual gross revenue that exceeds Tesla, plus profitability and growth that leave Tesla in the dust. If you care about those things--gross revenue, growth and profitability--Services turns out to be a bigger and far more successful company than Tesla.
What's the use case for Apple isn't even a question. The term "use case" applies to how a product can be used by buyers -- not to the company that manufactures the product. Maybe you meant to ask why the Ring makes sense for Apple? Easy answer: because health and fitness have become a core focus of the company and its customer base, and the Ring would allow Apple to offer its health and fitness tracking features to the large potential buyer pool of traditional watch wearers that it can't and won't reach with Apple Watch. It is a strategy Apple has pursued to great success across other product lines. Why did Apple introduce the Ultra when it already had a full line of watches? Simple: to target the large market of sports/adventure watch buyers that it wasn't reaching with the regular Apple Watch.
Incidentally 'use-case' is when a company considers a product, i.e. if we spend money on developing this, who and why is anyone likely to need, ergo buy it?
The one item that I will address, because you are clearly ignorant of that fact, is why Cook chose to be interviewed by WSJ?
Easy answer: a month earlier the WSJ wrote in its technical column the following damning line: The Apple Vision Pro is a nice product but nobody wants it.
Your assumption based on nothing more than your bloated opinion is that the Apple Vision Pro will long live in the Apple catalogue. Wrong! Apple is already massively scaling back it's development and marketing wondering how they can turn around this Titanic. The thinking going: having learnt from the Apple Car fiasco, it is best to not sink billions into a fruitless project - better to let it bleed to death.
A great many executives and engineers at Apple were strongly against releasing this product. And for good reason.
Tim Cook pushed it out the door to divert attention away from the sting of the Apple Car disaster.
You are perhaps one of the people in the single-digits on this planet who doesn't believe that scuttling a project after nearly a decade and wasting billions is a win. Sad. -
Apple makes room for new Macs by rethinking retail Vision Pro demo stations
So many people are clueless about the Apple Vision Pro and think Apple was trying to make the product they wanted it to be and not what Apple intended it to be. Cook spelled it out and still people just.don't.get it:
"...At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product. Right now, it’s an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today—that’s who it’s for. Fortunately, there’s enough people who are in that camp that it’s exciting.”
Seriously, it couldn't any clearer. So it shouldn't a bit surprising that it's selling closer to the iPhone numbers in 2007 than iPhone numbers in 2024.
When Apple makes one designed for mass market consumers, it will sell better than now. But it will still be a niche product, so those complaining that it's not selling a billion units a year are and will still be fools.
'Pro' from Apple doesn't mean what you think it should mean as evidenced by other Apple products labeled 'Pro'. And where are those products sold? In Apple Consumer stores. It makes sense to sell it in a consumer store because that where Apple customers go for Apple products, however niche those products may be. It's estimated that Apple has sold 160,000 to 180,000 AVPs. Most of those have probably been to consumers. So no, there was no 'mistake selling direct to consumers'. Potential buyers need some place to try them out, especially since fitting them to your face is a thing. It's meant to be sold to consumers. Just not a large number of consumers. Again, Cook spelled it out.coolfactor said:It's the Vision "Pro", not a Consumer product, so selling in consumer stores doesn't make a lot of sense. Does Apple have Sales teams visiting corporations that could benefit from the Pro? A consumer version of the Vision headset is coming. Their only mistake was trying to sell the Pro direct to consumers.
"Fortunately, there’s enough people who are in that camp that it’s exciting.”
They'r not meant to be "glasses". That will be a different product entirely should Apple go that route. "Glasses" will not provide anything like the experience of the AVPs. Even competitors AR/VR goggles don't come close to the AVP. Apple released a flagship proof of concept product a lot of people want and have bought. I like flagship. Flagship is good. I don't think I want to wait until late 2025 or spring 2026 for V2. I absolutely don't want Apple Vision Lite, nor wait until maybe 2027 for it either.
Apple Vision Pro is a choice. There are other choices out there. Buy or don't by as you like. Mischaracterizing a product because of ignorance doesn't help anybody.
