With the VisionPro hype already dead (maybe forever?), bad or tasteless iPad ads, purposeless updates to iPad, Apple dropping their car project, and reaching out to OpenAI or Google for AI services … it certainly feels like it to me. They’ve at least run into their limitations recently however much they want to find the...
I think they’ve hit a point where they’re doing more for shareholder value than for customers.
They’re so scared of iPad chewing into Mac sales that they’ve hobbled iPadOS, leaving it just useful enough to encourage people to buy both. They’re continuing to offer base 8gb RAM, despite it costing them pennies to increase that to 16gb, because they like the money they make from charging for upgrades.
They’re one of the world’s most valuable companies, and they’ve got there by shortchanging customers as much as possible over the past 15 years.
In many ways, I have no problem with what they charge for their devices. What they make is (generally) very high quality and can last for a long, long time. The likes of Amazon and AliExpress have given us a false sense of how expensive things should be.
But I do have a problem with feeling like I’m not getting the most from my purchase.
Like, I have a 6th gen iPad mini. It’s a great little device. But I can’t help thinking how much more useful it could be if Apple had allowed Stage Manager and external display support on it. But why would they when a 256gb version of it puts it on par with a Mac mini. For the majority of what I do, I could be happy with my iPad hooked up to a display, with the ability to side load apps, a la macOS, and the ability to be portable. But Apple don’t want people buying the cheapest they can work with when they can charge twice for both a Mac and and iPad. So they’ve intentionally hobbled the iPad.
They were, they just weren’t massive enough for it to be as obvious or egregious as it is now.
I mean, I remember buying my first Macbook in 2007 and only speccing it with 1gb of RAM because what they were charging to double it to 2gb was eye-watering compared to what I paid online. Same with storage. They only get away with it now because they solder everything on.
But while I never like to be all “Steve would never…” I do wonder whether they’d have walked a more fine line if he was still around. Some of the shit they’re pulling now feels downright hostile, where his approach was to make Apple the more friendly of the computer companies.
Because they can make more money from the walled garden of i/Pad/VisionOS. They can’t take their cut of apps installed on a Mac outside of the App Store, and they hate that.
The benefit is that Apple are making the chips and want to use the chips in as many products as they can. It doesn’t matter that the software is nowhere near the hardware, the chips are bought and paid for, so they’ll use them.
And, I think, the keyboard. So if you have a current iPad Pro and want the better quality keyboard and trackpad, you have to upgrade your otherwise still more than capable iPad.
My Mini at work has 8gb that I can’t upgrade, and honestly, the only time it’s ever a real issue is when I’m running a Win11 VM that eats up half the RAM.
However, with the cost of RAM now, speccing 8gb on any £1000+ computers is downright criminal.
The trouble with YT Premium is how much they’re charging for it.
We used a VPN to get Ukrainian family YTP for a fraction of the price they charge here in the UK. We pay something like £4 a month now for both of our accounts. That would be the better part of £20 a month if we’d done it legit. Fuck that noise.
Sure, it comes with YT Music, but I’ve literally never used that. I have Apple Music and an iPod. So £20 a month JUST TO REMOVE ADS.
I remember buying Bioshock on my iPhone way back in the mists of time, before decent controller support existed for iOS. The on screen controls weren’t great, so I didn’t spend much time playing it, always planning to come back at some point.
Then it got removed from the App Store so completely that it disappeared from my purchased list, and that was that.
I was ok with the Angry Birds franchise right up until the shitty kart racing game they pumped out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more wretched collection of bare-faced advertising and micro transactions as that fucking piece of shit.
The game was crammed full of new pop songs, and when one would play the game would display a link to buy it from iTunes. I couldn’t let my kid play it, it was just too egregious.
Haven’t touched any of those games since. Which is a shame, because I really enjoyed the original.
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Would you say Apple is in a slump?
With the VisionPro hype already dead (maybe forever?), bad or tasteless iPad ads, purposeless updates to iPad, Apple dropping their car project, and reaching out to OpenAI or Google for AI services … it certainly feels like it to me. They’ve at least run into their limitations recently however much they want to find the...
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