Apple needs a flop manton.org

@manton A flop, or a comprehensive legal defeat -- something to make them realize that they can't keep going like this. I used to love Apple developers and Apple; now, the Mac division is the only part of the company I feel that I can support.

@ayjay Agreed. That also gets back to Apple's size: they can afford the best lawyers.

@manton First rule - never believe a company has a soul. All things considered, the company will always aim for the most profit. People running the company may have souls, but it depends on who and how many are in the company. As the company gets larger, it's less likely.

@manton Arguably the original HomePod was a bit of a flop. I recall hearing that when they were clearing out inventory for it the SKUs were from the initial manufacturing run. They didn’t sell a lot of them and it was discounted most of its life as a product.

They came back with the HomePod mini (a much better conceived and more affordable product) and a new larger HomePod (more of a mixed bag).

@manton I don’t know if this counts, as it wasn’t a separate product per se, but both the Touch Bar and butterfly keyboard were “flops” insofar as they weren’t received nearly as well as Apple hoped — becoming a bit of a meme, even — and were ultimately pulled from products.

I think Apple is still pretty arrogant, but they haven’t been entirely successful.

@manton I was sceptical at the title but your arguments are sound. A reality check (not a virtual check) is in order, maybe.

@manton do we know they haven't? Thinking of the Apple Car, or even AppleTV still not having Netflix in their primary queue (that Google does have in theirs).

I have also yet to feel compelled to buy an iPad since my iPad 3 got too slow; I just use my Mac, iPhone, and Kindle. We'll see how far they get with their gaming pushes, and how many companies succeed with whatever degree of native Mac ports on the AppStore vs. Steam (or people just using WINE and buying Steam Decks)

@manton Couldnt agree more

@manton At the insane scale at which Apple operates, what will constitute as a flop? There is only varying degrees of success, but there is nothing Apple makes anymore that will legit be flop.

@manton Well, Apple missed the Calculator app on iPad that many have been asking for. Instead, it gave us "the future of computing" via a device (Vision Pro) that can only be purchased from Apple. (Sorry, I think some of my skepticism has become cynicism.)

@manton I remember Jeff Bezos saying to his staff that Amazon will not be around for ever. Such a reflection, at least as it is presented in the Buddhism, is meant amongst other things to develop humility in people. I’m not sure that it has done so in Amazon. However Apple, or at least the powers that be in Apple, might do good to remember that. Apple use not to be here, is here now, and will be gone one day. Any doubts? Take a look at the ruins of the Roman Empire.

@manton I was thinking this too when all the AppStore news dropped the last couple of weeks, amongst all the excitement for the Vision Pro. And I agree: there needs to be something to reign Apple in a little. While I don't really want to see the Vision Pro fail, maybe something like seeing YouTube and Netflix hold out long enough that it'll leave them with unsold stock.

@manton Really good piece. And I agree. Though a flop would probably hurt the share price, and it feels like a lot of their worst behaviours are driven by worrying about the share price, so it might be rough on everyone for a while.

@crossingthethreshold Now you got me thinking about the Roman Empire again! 😅 (And Buddhism. Just today I ordered two books by Alan Watts, one about Taoism and one about Zen Buddhism).

@odd Now you have me thinking about Alan Watts. I bought The Watercourse Way and The Way of Zen many years ago. I need to look at them again.

@acfusco That’s the books I ordered! We had maybe half a page on each of the other religions/philosophies in our Christendom education at school, and I thought I’d like to know more about these two. Also of interest: Zarathustra, so maybe later.

@odd Cool! I'll definitely look at them again now. Buddhist reading club ... 🧘‍♂️ 📚

@njr Thank you. I have mixed feelings about the share price because I know a lot of people in the Apple developer community own shares. Wouldn't want to see them lose money. But I'm not sure the Vision Pro alone is enough to move the needle much one way or the other.

@lmika Yeah, I think YouTube and Netflix holding out would have more of an impact if there wasn't also Apple TV+. And that's the competitive advantage Apple has by owning a little slice of every possible market.

@odd Hahaha, sorry!

@crossingthethreshold I don’t think this holds true, we are in new territory where the size and market of the companies allow them to adapt and capture new turf quickly. Not to mention they are not monoliths of past that grew off a finite resource or were siloed to one vertical. They have a deep competitive advantage with cost-switching.

@manton Please stop. A quick search will turn up numerous failed Apple products and that is just the stuff they tried to sell. There is an equally impressive catalogue of stupid ideas from Bicycle onwards. Soon to be joined by the stupid idea of alternative app stores. Do any users actually want this?

I use a lot of audio plugins. Here is a picture of my Desktop with just some of the stores/portals I use. This is not a good experience... remembering what came from where - some Heavyocity come through their store others are via Native Access...invariably the store needs updating...fingers crossed that the update did not log you out... finding your username and password to log back in... then you can check if there is an update for the actual software.

Is this the kind of thing you want to see on phones?

I get the big picture - Capitalism is a stupid idea, along with private property and nation states, but here we are 🤷‍♂️ t

@Dunk I'm not anti-capitalist (well, not since I was 18) but there should be limits to protect users. I still can't think of many failed products in the post-Jobs era that had this much publicity. Maybe HomePod and AirPower.

@microdickie Yeah. If it's mostly for money and shareholder value, I wish they would tone down the "we're doing this for users" bit. It just sounds disingenuous to me now.

@Dunk I like having alternative app stores. I would want to see some stores that intentionally curate towards different audiences. I don't think the way this is getting implemented by Apple (either because of the wording of the DMA or their own malicious compliance) would allow for small, independent groups to curate stores.

Now, it is annoying to have to keep multiple different stores updated. It seems we need an app store protocol that allows for users to plug in other app stores to their operating system's native software management application.

@jeff @manton Yeah… far from magic. I have an iPod Hi-Fi sitting around, too. That did probably create the high end “iPod” speaker market filled by other companies, though… so not a complete failure.