> it’s a company that I feel has lost its alignment with me and other long-time Apple users and customers.
When OS X debuted there was a daytime radio talk show in my area called “The Computer Guys.” They capably covered all sorts of computing topics, but were clearly long-time Apple dudes. And they spent weeks complaining about what a disaster OS X was. The Dock was useless and violated Apple’s HIG. The Finder made all the same mistakes as Windows did. And a text terminal? Like DOS?? Who the hell is ever going to want to use that on a Mac?
Going even farther back, it was long-time dedicated Apple users who booed when Jobs announced the deal with Microsoft.
Being a long-time dedicated Apple user is a shitty job. You don’t get paid, have no input, and are constantly disappointed. And Apple does not care about you.
I strongly suggest people should throw this notion away. It does not matter how long you’ve bought from a big company, they owe you nothing. If the latest product seems good, buy it. If not, don’t. Any more emotional investment than that is going to cause pointless unhappiness.
Save your customer loyalty energy for businesses where you can actually establish a connection, like a restaurant you like, or a local handyman.
> And a text terminal? Like DOS?? Who the hell is ever going to want to use that on a Mac?
Me. I have to use a Mac at work, and I use the text terminal more than anything else on the computer. It doesn't help that Mac's don't have a good UI, everything is hidden behind extra key-presses, and switching between windows is a PAIN.
On a mac every window for an app is considered the same, so there's no concept of switching between windows (except with special hidden key presses).
When a window is in the background it doesn't receive clicks, so you have to click on it twice.
The menubar of a non-active window doesn't exist, so you need an extra click, first to activate the window, then to go find its menubar and do an action.
> People who have no use for all these pro video recording features shouldn’t waste their money on it. Unless they want a big chunky iPhone with the best camera array and/or have money to burn.
I feel like people who “want the best camera array and have money to burn” probably describes a significant percentage of HN readers.
I’m honestly pretty excited that they’ve finally put the larger, high res sensor in all three iPhone cameras - which should result in pretty decent image quality across the entire 13 - 200 mm equivalent range. It’s a nice upgrade from my current iPhone which uses smaller 12 MP sensors for the ultra-wide and telephoto cameras - resulting in images that are noticeably soft and noisy.
I personally don’t consider the iPhone 17 Pro to be too big or chunky. I’m generally happy to sacrifice an extra millimeter of thickness for better battery life, and enjoy the usability of larger screen sizes. I know that a lot of people really want smaller phones, though, and I think it’s unfortunate that Apple cancelled the mini (and the smaller SE design). I guess it just wasn’t selling that well.
And finally, I’m at a point in my life where spending $1100 on a new iPhone every few years isn’t going to break the bank. And I also am able to give my current iPhone to family members, who should be able to enjoy it for many more years to come.
I do feel like there is some man shaking fist at cloud here.
The post dismisses airpods, yet they are one of the most popular products in the US, with like 75% of young people owning a pair, great quality, features, and battery life. I dont think a swappable battery is even a good feature, the parts would be tiny and break easily given their size not to mention how often they could get lost
Hot swappable batteries kind of became not so important after battery banks and fast charging became a thing. Makes more sense to carry one battery bank that can charge anything than to have 2-3 phone batteries in your bag (which would be exposed to puncture too).
I still think the price of battery replacements is way too high from apple. It's $150 AUD here which feels far and beyond the cost of the part cost itself.
I realize we're talking about Airpods, but hot swappable batteries don't make sense to me either anymore. I seem to have power almost everywhere.
My phone spends a surprising amount of time on a charger. Most of the day while I'm at home, it's on a charger. I used to keep one at the office on my desk. The car has a charger too, and CarPlay so you might as well plug it in.
I'm not sure if it's a coping mechanism for poor battery life or just convenience.
For long days outdoors, I've also got a booster pack in the car with USB ports and an inverter (120V) that gets some use.
I used to hate Airpods in videochats since they made the person wearing them sound bad because of dropouts, had heinous latency, and frequently disconnected causing meeting interruptions. But people think they're "better" than [wired] Earpods, which have none of those problems.
> I do feel like there is some man shaking fist at cloud here.
The poster himself admits that after a meandering 2000 words...
> I found a lot of reactions to these products to be weirdly optimistic. Either I’m becoming more cynical with age and general tech fatigue, or certain people are easily impressed.
Airpods are very, very expensive compared to competitors with 90% of the same features. I've been using a $30 set for several years and the main drawback is it's difficult to switch devices—because apple doesn't allow third parties to use access the proprietary comms that allows this for airpods.
Also, I think the white is ugly. But kids seem to love it.
A casual search showed several studies over several years estimating 70-80% of young people owning airpods, which matched my irl expirence. In the past random earbuds and headphones were common but apple has taken the market by storm.
The title is appropriate, in that it feels to me that most of the awe has gone out of these products/keynotes. This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though. Perhaps they can be blamed for failing to introduce exciting products in new categories.
I do find that wireless earbuds actually last much longer than the wired variety, despite the non-replaceable batteries. Back in the day I went through one or two sets of earbuds a year because the wire failed internally, whereas I've only had two TWS pairs in ~six years (admittedly, it was the battery that became a problem in the first set). There's undoubtedly a lot more e-waste gubbins in each though.
> A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
The number of people who might actually like this is very tiny. Most of them do product reviews. But their audience is not going to care. Think about your older uncle. Your niece in her 20s who loves to paint and read but doesn't want to replace hardware. That's what most people are like.
Those are the people who Jobs focused on impressing and enabling to do things they wouldn't do otherwise. That is the focus that has been lost without Jobs, IMHO, and it's the focus that makes the products better for people who want to get the most out of their products per unit of time invested in learning how to use it.
I am thinking about my older uncle and my niece in her 20s. They're smart-enough people, and they're quite aware that a modern phone can be very expensive to fix.
In particular, I'm thinking that I (a person of reasonable technical skill) would love to help them out by changing the designed-to-be-swapped screen on the phone they dropped instead of them paying someone else to conduct surgery on it.
How many people do you know who want to change their own oil in their car? This is a frequent, required maintenance. Yet I can't think of a single car that advertises its ability to be maintained by somebody without special tools. The only people who change their own oil would have the skills to change an iPhone screen.
I have changed the battery on two iPhones on my own, and replaced one screen on my own. I've also once had one of those little shops do it, quickly and cheaply. I only did it on my own because I wanted to see how difficult it was. The savings in money and extra time was completely wasted other than for the entertainment value of changing it.
The slice of people who get entertainment value out of changing their screens, yet does not have the skills to do it on a current iPhone, must be quite small. Surely less than 10% of the population, for a "feature" that has easy alternatives of paying somebody $20-$30.
> How many people do you know who want to change their own oil in their car? This is a frequent, required maintenance. Yet I can't think of a single car that advertises its ability to be maintained by somebody without special tools.
Those are two very different topics. Sure, cars don't advertise their ability to be maintained without special tools. But I also know a lot of people who do in fact want to change the oil in their own car (because it's not hard, and much cheaper once you have the tools).
The price of replacing the screen is mostly the part itself. It’s extremely easy for any random shopping center phone store to replace in like 5 minutes. But the part itself costs more than an old phone is even worth.
Every time a family member has had a cracked iPhone screen replaced it has never really worked properly again. It may be easy but it’s apparently not easy to do it well.
My mom got her battery replaced at an Apple Store and the process broke the phones ability to connect to the internet or the cellular network. They ended up replacing the phone.
Unclear – I assume many in their audience also break their phones somewhat regularly, they'd probably appreciate not having to drop $99 or even more abroad for a battery replacement.
And this is why you shouldn’t listen to the “less space than Nomad. No Wireless. Lame” tech crowd [1].
A TV is bulky, race to the bottom commodity that is only replaced every 5-8 years.
> Neckband-style airpods with all-day battery life? Might not sell out, but would be popular.
I don’t think Apple has any issue selling AirPods. But honestly, I do like my $70 Beat Flex for traveling. I don’t have to worry about them falling out of my ears and between the seats on flights and the double flange ear tips block noise better than AirPods Pro.
I’ve had touch screen convertible Dells. I never used the touch screen. They are bulky, the screen ratio is off either way compared to an iPad. On the other hand, my wife now uses an iPad Air 13 inch with a regular old cheap Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and she loves it. Her x86 MacBook Air was getting long in the tooth.
This is before the newest OS with real windows.
[1] or more relevant to the HN crowd “For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.”
1. All these devices would sell out, because these are all of Apple's best sellers. I'm willing to bet a replacable battery iPhone will sell as much as the iPhone 6e. Replacable batteries aren't a strong feature.
2. "Current Apple Product" + "My own personal tweak" isn't a product strategy. "A convertible Macbook Air with a touch screen?" wouldn't move the needle sales wise, and would just be a headache for developers. If, for some strange reason, you need a 19inch touch screen, the iPad pro already exists and has better developer support.
Most Apple products are locally maximized. The last great new Apple product was the AirPods in 2016. Neither the Apple Watch or Apple Vision Pro seems like they will define a new product space.
I get your other examples, but a best-in-class TV seems like it'd be pretty good for Apple. It's an Apple TV device that's jammed into a television and doesn't come out, plus a premium price. Seems like it'd work out great. And everybody else buys the 'Apple TV 4K' standalone doohickey and plugs it into their regular TV.
> modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
Go the other way. Hermetically sealed, no connectors, inductive charging, rugged, with a solid state battery that will outlive the rest of the phone. Solid state batteries are more expensive, but that's a cost issue for car-sized batteries, not phone-sized batteries for US$1000 phones.
Samsung expects to have 20-year battery life in 2026.
> A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
And probably a regression on the waterproofing efforts they've made over the last decade. If you're gonna make it thicker, just put a bigger battery in.
Agree. Revolutionary tech happens, perhaps, once a decade. Apple's though is their own biggest enemy because there is so much gravity for these big roll-outs they have a couple times a year (typically Macs and then Phones+).
That's a lot of hyped, flashy events between anything really Earth shattering.
Maybe we miss when Apple was boring and new machines just rolled out with little more than a press release and a spread in MacWorld magazine.
> This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though.
LiDAR was cool.
They could buy Oura and let you write apps with programmable micro LEDs, and that would’ve been cool.
If iPhones had Star Wars style holographic projector, that’d be cool.
They could just be content with keeping the lights on without unnecessary UX changes that literally no one asked for, and that would be cool.
I’m still happy with Apple, but the problem is that they now perceive staying relevant is wasting battery on visuals and making the phone thinner. Those are recycled old-ass ideas. They need to find the new Jony Ives.
Look up "bullet MMCX IEMs". Plenty of options out there for cables too, some far less microphonic than others, and you can wear them over-ear to reduce that effect even more.
This pretty much sums up my feeling on the new generation. I too don't understand what's "awe dropping" about it, and have finally switched from an iPhone 15 Pro to the Android ecosystem, where a flip phone is somewhat "awe dropping". I'm not fully convinced about it, but it's different, it's fun, it's clever, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
The only thing I disagree with here is about the Air. I think Apple's strategy with the Air is to split the Pro line. Previously the Pro phones were for people who wanted a premium feeling and who wanted premium features, but those are often in tension, and might hold each other back. Now the Air is for those who want premium feel (you might call it flashy, looks great, feels great, but has trade-offs), and now the Pro is an uncompromising set of features, at the expense of being bigger and having a comical camera ~bump~ ~plateau~ continent. This is the same as the Watch, where you have the stainless steel models for the premium feel, and the Ultra for the premium features.
I suspect many on HN may not differentiate between the premium features and feel as much – I know it's not what I jump to – because "design is how it works" and many here aren't as fashion conscious, but a lot of folks buy new phones based on the colour, or how thin it feels, or other details that are easily written off when you know more about the hardware. I think the Air might be a big hit, while getting very little of the enthusiast market.
Depends who you are. If you want to take pro video on the phone they dropped some great improvements. The Air is impressive even if not the phone I'd pick. But realistically, if your current phone works really well for you which it probably does, nothing they could possibly announce would be interesting to you.
> nothing they could possibly announce would be interesting to you.
Apple is a hardware company that makes lifestyle products. Why isn't their hardware appealing to me? Why can't it be?
In a competitive economy, phrases like this should a last resort, used to describe only the most decrepit and unjustifiable businesses. If nothing they can announce will interest me, then what are they even selling? A religion? A service? Certainly not a commodity, apparently nothing I need.
I don't know how widespread this is but in my little circle the orange Pro was the biggest draw, it's the first in the Pro line (or at least as far as I can remember) with real color to it. Most of them are grayscale or very muted colors. It's another "feel" thing but got more attention than the Air's thin body.
These are my thoughts exactly. I've seen a bunch of people who don't value thinness or lightness in a phone getting dismissive or outright angry at the existence of the Air, and I want to grab them and shake them until they get it. I don't want the Air at all, and that's exactly why I'm thrilled it exists: it will split the Pro buyers into form-valuers and function-valuers, so the function-valuers like me can get an iPhone with a huge battery and a vapor chamber in it.
If you're one of those people who goes "why can't they make the phone thicker and heavier with more battery life", you should be overjoyed at the Air, because now that those buyers are peeled off to a different SKU, the product line for you doesn't need to find a happy medium with them.
You couldn't really always phones outside until they switched to OLED because you couldn't see the screens in sunlight. They were still popular though.
Huh. It’s been a while since Apple has “one more thing” awed me. So… “the awe tapers” sentiment, I can agree with.
The rest of the article I found full of non-sequitur, for me personally.
I think the Apple Silicon laptops are just about right. About the only thing that would fill an itch: I angsted for years after the discontinuation of the 17” models. Since what was 15 can now be 16, I’d put cash down for an 18” model.
I’m not much of a power photographer, but I really like the orange of the pro, and the trickle of feature improvements between my 14 and this one are enough to get enthused about.
My Pro ‘Pods (2) are going strong after a few washes, and I look forward to replacing them with 3s when they give out.
Here’s the thing for me I guess. I develop/maintain native apps on both platforms for my employer. I test with a couple of Samsung devices (why Samsung? Because 85% of our Android customers in ang tech are using Samsungs). And I just hate the experience. The hardware is ok, at times. We use them for testing (so not much daily driving) , and the failure rate is worse than the iOS devices. But the Ux is the worst. Apple will have to turn liquid glass into muddied frosted glass in a storm before the hodgepodge that is material, ui one, and the weirdest apps, make me want to switch.
Case in point, iPads don't have headphone jacks. While these devices are very capable of audio production, that's a joke while using Bluetooth.
But that's not Apple's concern. Airpods sell billions of dollars worth every year.
Every other phone manufacturer said ooh, cool and instead of getting pro level audio in my 1000$ Android phone I have to settle for Bluetooth which still hasn't caught up.
Airpods, and there cheaper friends are , as the article mentions, e-waste. Maybe you get 2 years out of them.
My analog headphones, with some light maintenance ( and a detachable cable) may last decades.
At this point Apple could come out with a 2000$ Audiophile line of phones with the jack and I'd buy one. But they won't.
I think the only way you can consider iOS “amateurish” is according to a ridiculously high standard for phone software that Apple itself is responsible for normalizing.
Unfortunately, the only real comparison for iOS is past versions of iOS; until that changes I don’t see things getting better in any stable way.
iOS 26 actually has a lot of great features and convergence with the rest of the ecosystem (e.g. preview is awesome). But it lacks the polish that Apple has a reputation for; unfortunately 50% worse polish for Apple is still significantly better than Android and Windows. There just aren’t greener pastures to move to.
> these [AirPods and Apple Watch] are the Apple products I care the least, together with HomePods and Apple TV.
I won’t defend HomePods much, but skipping the other three misses a lot of the ecosystem value less technical consumers are getting. Turn your lights off with your TV remote. Go to a run with just your watch and headphones and take a call at mile 3. Approve a payment (or a sudo!) by double tapping your watch. Start a channel on your TV from Siri. And so on.
I’m not sure if Liquid Glass (that iOS 26 just insisted on capitalizing) is going to be worth anything, and definitely doesn’t merit the marquee. But the some of the design thinking is still there, beneath the surface, in the delightful interactions between parts of their ecosystem.
> As for the AirPods, and true wireless earbuds in general, I find this product category to be the most wasteful. Unless someone comes up with a type of earbuds that have easily replaceable batteries, I’m not interested in buying something that’s bound to become e‑waste in a relatively short period of time.
I'm not a apple fan (been windows most of my life till moving to a new company that is Mac only, and have been on android for about 13 years at this point) but the airpods pro are maybe apples greatest product in a while (other then the M1 macbooks).
The audio quality+noise cancellation+transparency quality made them a super easy buy and I would buy the app3 as soon as my app2 die that's how much I love them as a android user. This is coming from someone who owns multiple iems and very expensive over the ears.
From everything reported so far, the app3 look like a solid spec bump at the same price, there isn't many products that keep that formula.
Edit: I am disappointed that the OP didn't talk about how all the iPhones now have "pro-motion" aka high refresh rate screens.
This is (personally) one of the biggest step up in quality, I would never buy a baseline iPhone because 60 Hz just looks gross to me now, it's immediately noticeable.
The C1, while slower, was a little more energy efficient. Signal Reception seems to be ok too. I am expecting the C1X to be even better.
Combined with A19 Pro, C1X, N1. I would expect Air to be more efficient than 16 Pro. So with that in mind,
The Air ~3100 mah, the 16 Pro ~3600 mach should have similar battery life, or may be just slightly less than 16 Pro, a little bit better than iPhone 15 Pro with 3274mah.
If that is the case I say Air is actually not bad. And we can look forward into the future for even more energy efficiency OLED, SoC and newer Battery Tech. That would make Air perfect.
Not to mention iPhone Air is a required training for foldable iPhone. Their competitors are already making foldable phone with one side at less than 5mm. And is currently being held back by USB-C port. Apple needs at least one or two generation of learning to move in that direction. And iPhone Air is exactly that.
I am really looking forward to al the iPhone review this year. It has been a long long time since the iPhone produce range was exciting.
Reading the criticism, I just came to a completely opposite conclusion regarding the magsafe battery: is the iPhone Air the answer to the people complaining about no removable battery? Make the body thinner, still waterproof, and you can have multiple “external” batteries to clip on. Boom, battery life is “infinite”.
With Apple, the bloom is off the rose, and as with a lot of big business lately, the prose misses the mark.
Its copy was once great. Now we get "Awe-dropping", the latest example of marketing professionals coming up with the most basic rhyming wordplay that fits in a three word sentence. Smack a big period on it so it looks like a fact, then head to the bar.
There isn’t any way that you could have replaceable batteries and still make them as lightweight and comfortable in your ear without other tradeoffs. We can argue about the case - maybe.
The AppleTV is by far the most responsive set top box and the least slimy as far as privacy and invasive ads [1].
If you like classical watches, the Apple Watch isn’t for you. But there are enough people that disagree that they sell like crazy.
The iPhone Air is probably going to sell like crazy in places with low iPhone adoption where it’s only affordable by the wealthy minority like China where it will be seen as a status symbol. Ben Thompson of Stratechery has been documenting for a decade about the biggest driver of iPhone sells is models that look new.
But if you already have an iPhone 16, Apple doesn’t expect many to upgrade. The replacement cycle has been around 3 years for awhile now.
[1] yes I realize the default Home Screen of the AppleTV has Apple’s apps in the top navigation bar and when you are on the icons it is advertising for Apple services. But you can put any apps up there and those apps control the hero image when you on them. They usually show what you have been watching
I feel like these posts started popping up with increasing frequency over the last 10 years. At this point its almost a rite of passage to realize that Apple---though good in many ways---is far less than it's cracked up to be.
I started using Linux in the 1990s, and I flirted with Apple through out the 2010s. I finally switched full time to a Mac Studio this year despite the UI, despite the read-only root and kexts no longer being a thing and inconsistencies and stupid settings app and everything else.
For one, M4 Max is awesome. For two, every other OS is now more annoying to me. Linux is more inconsistent, and the changes being made by major distros make little sense. Windows is a dumpster fire. The BSDs don’t work on anything I own, and the M4 is better anyway. Finally… pricing. For the price of my M4 Mac, there is no PC with as good a spec considering the price of GPUs. RAM and SSD? Yeah, Apple is nearly criminal… but the price of an NVIDIA GPU? Actually kinda criminal.
Some of it is that the market has matured - going from not being connected to only connected on a desktop to everywhere on a phone with a real browser was a lot of changes you notice all day.
A child born on the day the
first iPhone launched is old enough to vote now.
Many of those posts are being written by people who have been along for that ride, too, so it’s going to be hard to recapture that excitement after experiencing past hot products not changing your life. It’s like a middle aged American buying a new car - yeah, it’s nice but fundamentally nothing changes in your life and you’re never reclaiming the excitement of being 18 and going from marooned in a boring suburb to being able to travel, which is a transformative change even if it was in a clunky old hand-me-down.
I don't think the Air is merely a precursor to the foldable, however. It's rather that the technological evolution that allowed for the 5mm thin iPad Pro last year allows for the Air this year and helps with the foldable next year (and thinner MacBooks are rumored as well). But the Air is probably there to stay as a separate form factor, assuming that it doesn't flop in terms of sales. The foldable will be much heavier and bulkier, more resembling a Pro Max.
I want that speculation to be true, but I also don't think that the Air is a stepping stone towards that. The risky parts on a folding phone are the bending screen and the hinge and the software features.
It tests their assembly lines and supply chain by producing 100 million titanium cases.
They did something similar when they transitioned the product line to aluminum.
(As a product, it’s the opposite of what I’d want — worse battery, bigger screen, worse camera, but they’ll certainly sell enough to debug the assembly lines.)
I've also seen speculation that it's an engineering experiment to see if they can squeeze all the essential components of a high-powered computer into a space the size of the camera plateau. Which may eventually lead to viable AR Glasses (or a cheaper Vision).
I'm just getting back into Apple after having the first iPhone, but then Android/Linux since then. Now I'm all in on Apple silicon... For the next decade at least.
Some small carriers in Australia don't support eSIMs, even though they're required for Apple Watches and other devices, and also second phone numbers in phones without dual SIM card trays.
I'm hoping that the iPhone Air will make them prioritise eSIM support!
Australia has like 100 reseller phone networks. There are only 3 real network providers and these as well as the majority of the resellers support esim, but when every single retail brand and supermarket has it's own mobile network offering, there's always going to be a couple that haven't put in even the smallest amount of work to support it until it's absolutely forced.
Seriously? Which ones don't support it, I actually have found more that are "esim only" these days (but I am someone who churns through ozbargain deals)
As a counterpoint: Apples has gotten so big that its user and customer base is not techies, they have moved into supporting our mainstream society as it operates today. They don't care about techies (at least primarily)
wonderfully written article -- my thanks to the author. there's a heavy amt of cynicism, but i enjoyed the argument, and i believe it's well reasoned. i do think that modern tech companies have lost all sight and attachment to the products that customers actually experience. it feels dissociative & much like another step of our broader culture shifting towards "bend-the-knee-ism", thanks to our current cabinet of clowns.
companies like Valve & Panic! remind me that focusing on producing high quality, enjoyable software/hardware experiences is not only still doable, but highly desired.
it's a beautiful art form - the exploration of human computer interaction. we're only really touching the surface, even still. it's exciting.
i thought tech companies were exciting? that they cared about this future? when did Apple & co start becoming IBM? when did the shareholders that Jobs despised win?
> What really got on my nerves during the Apple Watch segment of the event, though, is this: Apple always, always inserts a montage of sob stories about how the Apple Watch has saved lives, and what an indispensable life-saving device it is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad those lives were saved. But this kind of ‘showcase’ every year is made in such poor taste. It’s clear to me that it’s all marketing above everything else, that they just want to sell the product, and these people’s stories end up being used as a marketing tactic. It’s depressing.
Yeah, the trauma porn in Apple events has become quite annoying. We get it - if you don't have an Apple watch you're going to die.
A few days ago I tried to express a similar opinion here - regarding design and taking in account the liquid glass thing and the iphone air, it feels they are doing "innovation" for the sake of "innovation", and got downvoted. They're doing (arguably) huge improvements in processing and computing yet they want to disrupt user experience just because.
I kind of agree but I also can think of a counter argument. They don’t want to seem stale. The current macOS look is more than a decade old, so Tahoe shakes it up a little.
I’m kind of indifferent to it so far but I can see what someone might have been thinking.
You are experiencing the negative side of the apple reality distortion field.
I too have experienced this. I expect that i have been too direct in my dislike of apple in this post.
You have to come at the problem sideways. To allow for any real hope of not being down voted the crowd.
I dont know what the root cause is.. if Cupertino corp has a really expensive pr team or apple devices are laced with some kind of mind altering drug.. the effect is the same.
Not a huge believer in belittling an author's points, but the author makes absolutely not one objective point in this entire article. Genuinely every single thing he describes is an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. And those opinions, at that, aren't even very accurate.
AirPods becoming e-waste? Seriously? Pick a better idea to make your point, because pretty much everyone I know has had their AirPods for 2-3+ years, and even if that was _when_ they decided to move onto another, that's an _incredibly_ long amount of time to have wireless earbuds of those quality at that price point.
And as for disabling features on the Apple Watch - again, seriously? Most techie, HN'y complaint ever. There's a reason the Apple Watch and AirPods sell as well as they do - people love them.
As for awe at new features - AirPods live translation, standard iPhones being ProMotion, one of the thinnest phones ever created?
When OS X debuted there was a daytime radio talk show in my area called “The Computer Guys.” They capably covered all sorts of computing topics, but were clearly long-time Apple dudes. And they spent weeks complaining about what a disaster OS X was. The Dock was useless and violated Apple’s HIG. The Finder made all the same mistakes as Windows did. And a text terminal? Like DOS?? Who the hell is ever going to want to use that on a Mac?
Going even farther back, it was long-time dedicated Apple users who booed when Jobs announced the deal with Microsoft.
Being a long-time dedicated Apple user is a shitty job. You don’t get paid, have no input, and are constantly disappointed. And Apple does not care about you.
I strongly suggest people should throw this notion away. It does not matter how long you’ve bought from a big company, they owe you nothing. If the latest product seems good, buy it. If not, don’t. Any more emotional investment than that is going to cause pointless unhappiness.
Save your customer loyalty energy for businesses where you can actually establish a connection, like a restaurant you like, or a local handyman.
Had they never used MPW?
Me. I have to use a Mac at work, and I use the text terminal more than anything else on the computer. It doesn't help that Mac's don't have a good UI, everything is hidden behind extra key-presses, and switching between windows is a PAIN.
On a mac every window for an app is considered the same, so there's no concept of switching between windows (except with special hidden key presses).
When a window is in the background it doesn't receive clicks, so you have to click on it twice.
The menubar of a non-active window doesn't exist, so you need an extra click, first to activate the window, then to go find its menubar and do an action.
It's just a bad UI.
> People who have no use for all these pro video recording features shouldn’t waste their money on it. Unless they want a big chunky iPhone with the best camera array and/or have money to burn.
I feel like people who “want the best camera array and have money to burn” probably describes a significant percentage of HN readers.
I’m honestly pretty excited that they’ve finally put the larger, high res sensor in all three iPhone cameras - which should result in pretty decent image quality across the entire 13 - 200 mm equivalent range. It’s a nice upgrade from my current iPhone which uses smaller 12 MP sensors for the ultra-wide and telephoto cameras - resulting in images that are noticeably soft and noisy.
I personally don’t consider the iPhone 17 Pro to be too big or chunky. I’m generally happy to sacrifice an extra millimeter of thickness for better battery life, and enjoy the usability of larger screen sizes. I know that a lot of people really want smaller phones, though, and I think it’s unfortunate that Apple cancelled the mini (and the smaller SE design). I guess it just wasn’t selling that well.
And finally, I’m at a point in my life where spending $1100 on a new iPhone every few years isn’t going to break the bank. And I also am able to give my current iPhone to family members, who should be able to enjoy it for many more years to come.
Sent from my iPhone 13 mini, which is also Too Damn Big.
I’m got above average size human hands, which are too small even for the mini.
The post dismisses airpods, yet they are one of the most popular products in the US, with like 75% of young people owning a pair, great quality, features, and battery life. I dont think a swappable battery is even a good feature, the parts would be tiny and break easily given their size not to mention how often they could get lost
I still think the price of battery replacements is way too high from apple. It's $150 AUD here which feels far and beyond the cost of the part cost itself.
My phone spends a surprising amount of time on a charger. Most of the day while I'm at home, it's on a charger. I used to keep one at the office on my desk. The car has a charger too, and CarPlay so you might as well plug it in.
I'm not sure if it's a coping mechanism for poor battery life or just convenience.
For long days outdoors, I've also got a booster pack in the car with USB ports and an inverter (120V) that gets some use.
So much for their carbon neutrality.
/me shakes fist at cloud
The poster himself admits that after a meandering 2000 words...
> I found a lot of reactions to these products to be weirdly optimistic. Either I’m becoming more cynical with age and general tech fatigue, or certain people are easily impressed.
Even phones and laptops I’m willing to give a pass on, ever since USB-C got “good enough” and the battery life long enough.
If I had one complaint it’d be that they should sell one fat phone with no camera hump (because it has more battery).
Also, I think the white is ugly. But kids seem to love it.
Also, they don’t have decent passive noise cancellation, so they’re not appropriate for mowing the lawn, etc.
My Sennheiser ear buds solve all these problems for a much lower price, and their sound quality is much better than the last pair of AirPods I tried.
To each their own, I guess.
I do find that wireless earbuds actually last much longer than the wired variety, despite the non-replaceable batteries. Back in the day I went through one or two sets of earbuds a year because the wire failed internally, whereas I've only had two TWS pairs in ~six years (admittedly, it was the battery that became a problem in the first set). There's undoubtedly a lot more e-waste gubbins in each though.
A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
A convertible Macbook Air with a touch screen? It would be sold out.
Neckband-style airpods with all-day battery life? Might not sell out, but would be popular.
A best-in-class TV powered by Apple TV? Would probably sell well.
But all of these products would cannibalize sales of some other expensive iDevice.
The number of people who might actually like this is very tiny. Most of them do product reviews. But their audience is not going to care. Think about your older uncle. Your niece in her 20s who loves to paint and read but doesn't want to replace hardware. That's what most people are like.
Those are the people who Jobs focused on impressing and enabling to do things they wouldn't do otherwise. That is the focus that has been lost without Jobs, IMHO, and it's the focus that makes the products better for people who want to get the most out of their products per unit of time invested in learning how to use it.
In particular, I'm thinking that I (a person of reasonable technical skill) would love to help them out by changing the designed-to-be-swapped screen on the phone they dropped instead of them paying someone else to conduct surgery on it.
I have changed the battery on two iPhones on my own, and replaced one screen on my own. I've also once had one of those little shops do it, quickly and cheaply. I only did it on my own because I wanted to see how difficult it was. The savings in money and extra time was completely wasted other than for the entertainment value of changing it.
The slice of people who get entertainment value out of changing their screens, yet does not have the skills to do it on a current iPhone, must be quite small. Surely less than 10% of the population, for a "feature" that has easy alternatives of paying somebody $20-$30.
Those are two very different topics. Sure, cars don't advertise their ability to be maintained without special tools. But I also know a lot of people who do in fact want to change the oil in their own car (because it's not hard, and much cheaper once you have the tools).
If changing the screen of a phone were as simple as changing the oil in a Honda is, then none of this conversation would have to happen.
A TV is bulky, race to the bottom commodity that is only replaced every 5-8 years.
> Neckband-style airpods with all-day battery life? Might not sell out, but would be popular.
I don’t think Apple has any issue selling AirPods. But honestly, I do like my $70 Beat Flex for traveling. I don’t have to worry about them falling out of my ears and between the seats on flights and the double flange ear tips block noise better than AirPods Pro.
I’ve had touch screen convertible Dells. I never used the touch screen. They are bulky, the screen ratio is off either way compared to an iPad. On the other hand, my wife now uses an iPad Air 13 inch with a regular old cheap Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and she loves it. Her x86 MacBook Air was getting long in the tooth.
This is before the newest OS with real windows.
[1] or more relevant to the HN crowd “For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.”
2. "Current Apple Product" + "My own personal tweak" isn't a product strategy. "A convertible Macbook Air with a touch screen?" wouldn't move the needle sales wise, and would just be a headache for developers. If, for some strange reason, you need a 19inch touch screen, the iPad pro already exists and has better developer support.
Most Apple products are locally maximized. The last great new Apple product was the AirPods in 2016. Neither the Apple Watch or Apple Vision Pro seems like they will define a new product space.
Definitely not! This would be an inferior product in almost every respect for 95% of customers.
All of your solutions are bulky and difficult to manufacture compared to current products though.
Go the other way. Hermetically sealed, no connectors, inductive charging, rugged, with a solid state battery that will outlive the rest of the phone. Solid state batteries are more expensive, but that's a cost issue for car-sized batteries, not phone-sized batteries for US$1000 phones.
Samsung expects to have 20-year battery life in 2026.
And probably a regression on the waterproofing efforts they've made over the last decade. If you're gonna make it thicker, just put a bigger battery in.
That's a lot of hyped, flashy events between anything really Earth shattering.
Maybe we miss when Apple was boring and new machines just rolled out with little more than a press release and a spread in MacWorld magazine.
LiDAR was cool.
They could buy Oura and let you write apps with programmable micro LEDs, and that would’ve been cool.
If iPhones had Star Wars style holographic projector, that’d be cool.
They could just be content with keeping the lights on without unnecessary UX changes that literally no one asked for, and that would be cool.
I’m still happy with Apple, but the problem is that they now perceive staying relevant is wasting battery on visuals and making the phone thinner. Those are recycled old-ass ideas. They need to find the new Jony Ives.
Does anyone actually make wired headphones with ANC?
No ANC but they already isolate sound very well.
The only thing I disagree with here is about the Air. I think Apple's strategy with the Air is to split the Pro line. Previously the Pro phones were for people who wanted a premium feeling and who wanted premium features, but those are often in tension, and might hold each other back. Now the Air is for those who want premium feel (you might call it flashy, looks great, feels great, but has trade-offs), and now the Pro is an uncompromising set of features, at the expense of being bigger and having a comical camera ~bump~ ~plateau~ continent. This is the same as the Watch, where you have the stainless steel models for the premium feel, and the Ultra for the premium features.
I suspect many on HN may not differentiate between the premium features and feel as much – I know it's not what I jump to – because "design is how it works" and many here aren't as fashion conscious, but a lot of folks buy new phones based on the colour, or how thin it feels, or other details that are easily written off when you know more about the hardware. I think the Air might be a big hit, while getting very little of the enthusiast market.
Apple is a hardware company that makes lifestyle products. Why isn't their hardware appealing to me? Why can't it be?
In a competitive economy, phrases like this should a last resort, used to describe only the most decrepit and unjustifiable businesses. If nothing they can announce will interest me, then what are they even selling? A religion? A service? Certainly not a commodity, apparently nothing I need.
If you're one of those people who goes "why can't they make the phone thicker and heavier with more battery life", you should be overjoyed at the Air, because now that those buyers are peeled off to a different SKU, the product line for you doesn't need to find a happy medium with them.
When "you can't use it outside anyhow" expands to phones, which are only useful because you can take them outside.
The rest of the article I found full of non-sequitur, for me personally.
I think the Apple Silicon laptops are just about right. About the only thing that would fill an itch: I angsted for years after the discontinuation of the 17” models. Since what was 15 can now be 16, I’d put cash down for an 18” model.
I’m not much of a power photographer, but I really like the orange of the pro, and the trickle of feature improvements between my 14 and this one are enough to get enthused about.
My Pro ‘Pods (2) are going strong after a few washes, and I look forward to replacing them with 3s when they give out.
Here’s the thing for me I guess. I develop/maintain native apps on both platforms for my employer. I test with a couple of Samsung devices (why Samsung? Because 85% of our Android customers in ang tech are using Samsungs). And I just hate the experience. The hardware is ok, at times. We use them for testing (so not much daily driving) , and the failure rate is worse than the iOS devices. But the Ux is the worst. Apple will have to turn liquid glass into muddied frosted glass in a storm before the hodgepodge that is material, ui one, and the weirdest apps, make me want to switch.
Case in point, iPads don't have headphone jacks. While these devices are very capable of audio production, that's a joke while using Bluetooth.
But that's not Apple's concern. Airpods sell billions of dollars worth every year.
Every other phone manufacturer said ooh, cool and instead of getting pro level audio in my 1000$ Android phone I have to settle for Bluetooth which still hasn't caught up.
Airpods, and there cheaper friends are , as the article mentions, e-waste. Maybe you get 2 years out of them.
My analog headphones, with some light maintenance ( and a detachable cable) may last decades.
At this point Apple could come out with a 2000$ Audiophile line of phones with the jack and I'd buy one. But they won't.
iOS 26 actually has a lot of great features and convergence with the rest of the ecosystem (e.g. preview is awesome). But it lacks the polish that Apple has a reputation for; unfortunately 50% worse polish for Apple is still significantly better than Android and Windows. There just aren’t greener pastures to move to.
I won’t defend HomePods much, but skipping the other three misses a lot of the ecosystem value less technical consumers are getting. Turn your lights off with your TV remote. Go to a run with just your watch and headphones and take a call at mile 3. Approve a payment (or a sudo!) by double tapping your watch. Start a channel on your TV from Siri. And so on.
I’m not sure if Liquid Glass (that iOS 26 just insisted on capitalizing) is going to be worth anything, and definitely doesn’t merit the marquee. But the some of the design thinking is still there, beneath the surface, in the delightful interactions between parts of their ecosystem.
I'm not a apple fan (been windows most of my life till moving to a new company that is Mac only, and have been on android for about 13 years at this point) but the airpods pro are maybe apples greatest product in a while (other then the M1 macbooks).
The audio quality+noise cancellation+transparency quality made them a super easy buy and I would buy the app3 as soon as my app2 die that's how much I love them as a android user. This is coming from someone who owns multiple iems and very expensive over the ears.
From everything reported so far, the app3 look like a solid spec bump at the same price, there isn't many products that keep that formula.
Edit: I am disappointed that the OP didn't talk about how all the iPhones now have "pro-motion" aka high refresh rate screens.
This is (personally) one of the biggest step up in quality, I would never buy a baseline iPhone because 60 Hz just looks gross to me now, it's immediately noticeable.
The C1, while slower, was a little more energy efficient. Signal Reception seems to be ok too. I am expecting the C1X to be even better.
Combined with A19 Pro, C1X, N1. I would expect Air to be more efficient than 16 Pro. So with that in mind,
The Air ~3100 mah, the 16 Pro ~3600 mach should have similar battery life, or may be just slightly less than 16 Pro, a little bit better than iPhone 15 Pro with 3274mah.
If that is the case I say Air is actually not bad. And we can look forward into the future for even more energy efficiency OLED, SoC and newer Battery Tech. That would make Air perfect.
Not to mention iPhone Air is a required training for foldable iPhone. Their competitors are already making foldable phone with one side at less than 5mm. And is currently being held back by USB-C port. Apple needs at least one or two generation of learning to move in that direction. And iPhone Air is exactly that.
I am really looking forward to al the iPhone review this year. It has been a long long time since the iPhone produce range was exciting.
List of iPhone Battery Capacity.
Model/Battery Life Battery Capacity (mAh)
iPhone 17 Pro Max: 5088 mAh (100%)
iPhone 16 Plus: 4,674 mAh
iPhone 15 Plus: 4,383 mAh
iPhone 17 Pro: 4252 mAh (84%)
iPhone 17: 3692 mAh (73%)
iPhone 16e: 4,005 mAh
iPhone 16 Pro: 3,582 mAh
iPhone 16: 3,561 mAh
iPhone 15 Pro: 3,274 mAh
iPhone 15: 3,349 mAh
iPhone 14 Pro: 3,200 mAh
iPhone Air: 3149 mAh (62%)
Its copy was once great. Now we get "Awe-dropping", the latest example of marketing professionals coming up with the most basic rhyming wordplay that fits in a three word sentence. Smack a big period on it so it looks like a fact, then head to the bar.
To change Apple's behavior, consumers need to change theirs.
Given the lines out the door at China at Apple stores today, I don't see Apple changing their behavior anytime soon.
https://nebula.tv/videos/realengineering-the-hidden-design-o...
There isn’t any way that you could have replaceable batteries and still make them as lightweight and comfortable in your ear without other tradeoffs. We can argue about the case - maybe.
The AppleTV is by far the most responsive set top box and the least slimy as far as privacy and invasive ads [1].
If you like classical watches, the Apple Watch isn’t for you. But there are enough people that disagree that they sell like crazy.
The iPhone Air is probably going to sell like crazy in places with low iPhone adoption where it’s only affordable by the wealthy minority like China where it will be seen as a status symbol. Ben Thompson of Stratechery has been documenting for a decade about the biggest driver of iPhone sells is models that look new.
But if you already have an iPhone 16, Apple doesn’t expect many to upgrade. The replacement cycle has been around 3 years for awhile now.
[1] yes I realize the default Home Screen of the AppleTV has Apple’s apps in the top navigation bar and when you are on the icons it is advertising for Apple services. But you can put any apps up there and those apps control the hero image when you on them. They usually show what you have been watching
1. It’s primarily for the people at Apple and their partner manufacturers to realize and be reminded of the value of the work that they do.
2. It’s a message to the broader tech community that if you’re going to copy most of what we do, here’s a few that actually save lives.
Now will it sell more watches… probably. Is it a net positive? I think so.
At least in tech circles.
I've been hearing that since before Slashdot dubbed the iPod lame. So I just kinda tune it out and wait to see whether people buy it or not.
For one, M4 Max is awesome. For two, every other OS is now more annoying to me. Linux is more inconsistent, and the changes being made by major distros make little sense. Windows is a dumpster fire. The BSDs don’t work on anything I own, and the M4 is better anyway. Finally… pricing. For the price of my M4 Mac, there is no PC with as good a spec considering the price of GPUs. RAM and SSD? Yeah, Apple is nearly criminal… but the price of an NVIDIA GPU? Actually kinda criminal.
A child born on the day the first iPhone launched is old enough to vote now.
Many of those posts are being written by people who have been along for that ride, too, so it’s going to be hard to recapture that excitement after experiencing past hot products not changing your life. It’s like a middle aged American buying a new car - yeah, it’s nice but fundamentally nothing changes in your life and you’re never reclaiming the excitement of being 18 and going from marooned in a boring suburb to being able to travel, which is a transformative change even if it was in a clunky old hand-me-down.
I don't think the Air is merely a precursor to the foldable, however. It's rather that the technological evolution that allowed for the 5mm thin iPad Pro last year allows for the Air this year and helps with the foldable next year (and thinner MacBooks are rumored as well). But the Air is probably there to stay as a separate form factor, assuming that it doesn't flop in terms of sales. The foldable will be much heavier and bulkier, more resembling a Pro Max.
The iPhone Air tests none of those things.
They did something similar when they transitioned the product line to aluminum.
(As a product, it’s the opposite of what I’d want — worse battery, bigger screen, worse camera, but they’ll certainly sell enough to debug the assembly lines.)
I've also seen speculation that it's an engineering experiment to see if they can squeeze all the essential components of a high-powered computer into a space the size of the camera plateau. Which may eventually lead to viable AR Glasses (or a cheaper Vision).
I'm hoping that the iPhone Air will make them prioritise eSIM support!
I’m not sure what the issue is though, could it be a standards issue? Government tracking phone users? Someone being cut out of the money?
Answers please on a postcard.
companies like Valve & Panic! remind me that focusing on producing high quality, enjoyable software/hardware experiences is not only still doable, but highly desired.
it's a beautiful art form - the exploration of human computer interaction. we're only really touching the surface, even still. it's exciting.
i thought tech companies were exciting? that they cared about this future? when did Apple & co start becoming IBM? when did the shareholders that Jobs despised win?
Yeah, the trauma porn in Apple events has become quite annoying. We get it - if you don't have an Apple watch you're going to die.
I’m kind of indifferent to it so far but I can see what someone might have been thinking.
I too have experienced this. I expect that i have been too direct in my dislike of apple in this post.
You have to come at the problem sideways. To allow for any real hope of not being down voted the crowd.
I dont know what the root cause is.. if Cupertino corp has a really expensive pr team or apple devices are laced with some kind of mind altering drug.. the effect is the same.
Come on. These are all minor improvements on existing products. Yawn.
AirPods becoming e-waste? Seriously? Pick a better idea to make your point, because pretty much everyone I know has had their AirPods for 2-3+ years, and even if that was _when_ they decided to move onto another, that's an _incredibly_ long amount of time to have wireless earbuds of those quality at that price point.
And as for disabling features on the Apple Watch - again, seriously? Most techie, HN'y complaint ever. There's a reason the Apple Watch and AirPods sell as well as they do - people love them.
As for awe at new features - AirPods live translation, standard iPhones being ProMotion, one of the thinnest phones ever created?
This is just a terrible opinion piece.