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Ask HN: Has Apple lost its way?
11 points by Zufriedenheit 52 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 20 comments
I use a Mac and iPhone and appreciate the clean experience. But i just watched the WWDC and felt like the whole thing could be summed up in a 5 min video. They have so much talent and resources and all they come up with is slightly redesigning the icons every couple years. And now it seems they started to re-implement the mac UI on iPad again, i literally though that was a joke when i first saw it.


It certainly seems as if they are more focused on rent-seeking than on innovation nowadays (cf. the Epic Games lawsuit vs. Apple Intelligence). On top of that, the WWDC has shifted to adress the public rather than the actual technical audience that attends the conference. Previously, WWDC keynotes were a bit closer to what is now the Platforms State of the Union presentation.


I feel like I'm the only person around that's completely okay with nice small additions each year. My phone does everything I could imagine, and once a year they add something nice that Android did first or a small quality of life. I don't think earth shattering additions every single year could go on forever - the phone does so much already at this point.

As for the UI changes - I think they're fine, but I agree that the industry needs to chill out with redesigns. Spotify pisses me off with a new way to make the app worse with a redesign every six months.


I see it the other way around. Freakin' Microsoft proved you could integrate a full desktop with a tablet interface and it worked just fine. Customers didn't care: most of them asked "who moved my cheese?" the other question was "do I have to stow my Surface when the plane is landing?"

For what the iPad Pro costs, Apple should have brought the Mac UI to it 5 years ago, but Apple wants you to travel with a Macbook and an iPad and a Phone whereas one sleek device could replace them all.


Yeah, but windows tablet model isn’t exactly a hit, and they ruined windows in the process.

Personally, I think tablet is a loser form factor. It’s great for simple fixed app scenarios, and mediocre for everything else.


Work just fine is both an overstatement and not true. If you dig deep enough you will find interface elements from Window 1.0

https://github.com/Lentern/windows-11-inconsistencies


They introduced major changes in the usefulness of the iPad, the phone app got much better on the iPhone, iPad and the Mac.

I don’t use my personal MacBook Air M2 or iPad Air 3 (last gen before the Mx transition) enough to care.

But my wife just got a brand new iPad Air M3 and she has an old Intel MacBook Air. She can definitely use just her iPad Air with a regular old Bluetooth keyboard and mouse especially with the improved mic support.

The better built in translation is a game changer for me and my wife since we will be spending winters in Costa Rica starting next year and my Spanish still isn’t great.

But from a developers standpoint, since unlike Android, every iPhone will be able to run on device models and now developers have access to it. This is much better than last year.


> They have so much talent and resources

I believe this has little to do with the outcome we got. We are definitely at a local maxima of technology advancement, when it comes to laptops and mobile devices. You can't expect even the most talented people to innovate out of their butts in 2025 just like that.


Many of Apple's local UI have gone backwards for reliability.

iOS 18 on the iPhone SE sometimes won't respond to tapping to share a photo... Spotlight on Mac has gotten worse and often won't find files...


Apple's software isn't anywhere near optimal. I've seen what's possible and worked on some of it myself.


I think the "has apple lost its way" is a meme now.

The fact that a PR video goes on long is ... normal?


I'm shorting them after today. I wanted to do it in December and chickened out. They're still way overpriced for a company with no potential for growth.


You don't think the world is primed for the second coming of Aero Glass?


Lets say I feel the urge for a Pixel again.


> They have so much talent and resources and all they come up with is slightly redesigning the icons every couple years.

You mean that, like me, you aren't excited about Apple's "new material" and jiggle physics?

Apple is dragging its feet on the incorporation of LLMs/ML in the OS. This is another facelift; my expensive iMac Pro will be phased out on OS updates and exposed to security issues; and Apple is blowing smoke up the wazoo with trite rhetoric about "new material" that boils down to translucent glass. Not the bold leadership and vision one might hope for, and I'm going to start looking around for other options to outfit my law firm. I can't stand M$, so it might be time to bite the bullet and look into Linux and a dumb phone.


Gotta wait for Apple VR 2, next year? maybe?


Cause VR 1 was smashing success?


First iteration no, but after 5 or so iterations they'll get to it haha


I'm surprised by how many missteps they made in a single release cycle. I was a Mac fan through the dark times, but I think I'm not a fan through the Liquid Glass era and will be navigating to Linux rather than staying on macOS for my development.


Apple sucks. Overpricey for little value.


Apple released Apple Silicon in 2021 and moved the game on so I am willing to give them a few more years to surprise us.




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