For once, I want to read from someone who thinks Apple has changed (for the worse) but has been an Apple user only after the iPod came out.

@pratik That's a tight niche but it would be interesting.

@patrickrhone How so? Didn't the number of Apple users explode after that?

@pratik The question is did the number of Apple bloggers explode after that and are they still around.

@patrickrhone I guess you’ve to be a blogger first if you’re constantly disappointed 😋

@pratik that’s basically me, but I don’t like posting negative things if I can avoid it so I’m just happily, and quietly, never wasting more money on macs or iPads again :)

@AndyNicolaides I can respect that. Also, not liking how a feature is implemented is cool. What I have trouble abiding by is how people have a fundamental disagreement with the direction of the company and still persist with it. Vote with your feet, I say.

@pratik The one thing that has definitely changed for the worse is the lineup across the Mac, iPhone and iPad. Year after year, there’s been nothing but increasingly artificial, minimal, or superficial device segmentation and to which they’ve attached price ladders. Until a little less than a decade ago, the lineup was so much more clear. As was their change in value over time.

@pratik I have been an Apple user since 2008, that's when I bought my first black MacBook. Before that, I was a devoted Windows XP user until I left Windows in search for an underdog SO. I worked mainly on an Open Suse Linux distro for two years and then one day I bought an iPod nano and that brought me to Apple. I have been angry with Apple lately because of the feature disparity in the EU, but apart from that, I'm not sure it has changed for the worse. It has grown big, and that comes with its own quirks, but to this day I find nothing more useful and convenient for my everyday work than my MacBook Pro-iPhone pair (no kidding, I call them R2D2 and C-3PO).

@estebantxo I loved my Thinkpads until 2009 before I switched. I think the EU disparity is created largely due to overzealous regulation of a niche lobby. Customer satisfaction in the U.S. remains high. Of course, it’s not perfect but what is, right? I treat it like how I treat my political choices ☺️

@pratik I wasn’t clear. I meant the incremental differences are between devices released in the same year or refresh cycle.

@moonmehta Can you elaborate? My iMac is 3.5 years old. I think they’re releasing a new version next month. I doubt I’ll upgrade. If I do, I’ll trade in and get a good value like I did for my previous one. I checked just now and shows me a trade-in value of $350

@pratik Apple lost personality in their products post Scott Forstall, and their embrace of flat design. It's not that their products are not good anymore, but the experience of using them is largely the same as any other interface or product. Everyone's on metal/flat design and the things that really stood out as really Apple-ish no longer exist. The quirkiness of iPod/Nano/Shuffle just does not exist in their product line. That is what I miss about Apple of the old, and yes I fit your persona criteria haha.

What I have trouble abiding by is how people have a fundamental disagreement with the direction of the company and still persist with it. Vote with your feet, I say.

​I'm pretty critical of lots of things Apple does. The problem is that the alternatives are either worse (Microsoft/Google) or not viable for me (Linux etc.). 🙃

Where I've landed is buying Apple gear (mostly used), while choosing other services. I mostly pay Setapp (or developers directly) for apps, Tidal for music, Dropbox for cloud storage, etc. I do sometimes pay for Apple Arcade, though – as that's a service I want to succeed. And I also have a bit of iCloud storage for photos. @pratik

@pratik 🤷‍♂️ People have always thought Apple has changed for the worse. That ridiculous toy computer, and silly mouse thing, they call a Macintosh - who is going to buy that? The iPod will ruin the company and they should get out of the phone market before it is too late. Etc. etc.

@stupendousman The design critiques are fair but also subjective. The 'trash can' design for the Mac Pro was quirky but also, I guess, not commercially viable; hence, it went away. The AirPods are definitely quirky and reminiscent of what Jobs would've announced. They were wildly derided when announced for their "weird" design.

​Again, I still find Apple's design aesthetic (and functionality) better (in computers) than other options. I'll be glad to go with something else if it exists. I love Rivian's design aesthetic in cars, Dyson's in household appliances, Eames in furniture, etc.

@Havn That's great. Apple does make it tempting to stay in their ecosystem but there are plenty of other equally good options. I almost went with Dropbox for my personal cloud storage needs. Ultimately I stuck with iCloud due to cost and coz I was already paying for the storage. As I've noted here, Dropbox does some things very well.

@Dunk Ha! Bashing Apple is an industry on to its own. Creates jobs and feeds several households.

@pratik Apple has indeed changed - for the better and for the worse, at the same time. That being said, it still has an edge of being better than the majority of tech companies.

(…) but there are plenty of other equally good options.

If we’re talking ecosystems, I simply don’t agree with this. 👆🏻 There are just so many good third-party apps available for Apple platforms… And things like the privacy is worse on Android/Windows. But there are good options for their services available! @pratik

@Havn I was trying to be kind to their choices ☺️

@rom I know. I guess our computer choices, like our political ones, are not perfect ☺️

@pratik Consider the following lineups which have been on sale like so for a year with barely $100 separations, in some case even less, and tell me if it can’t be simplified significantly for customer clarity and value?

• iPhone SE (64GB, 128. 256)​ < iPhone 15 (128, 256, 512) < iPhone 15 Plus (128, 256, 512) < iPhone 15 Pro (128, 256, 1TB) < iPhone 15 Pro Max (256, 512, 1TB)
• ​iPad (64, 256) < iPad Mini (64, 256) < iPad Air 11 (128, 256, 1TB) < iPad Air 13 (128, 256, 1TB) < iPad Pro 11 (256, 512, 2TB) < iPad Pro 13 (256, 512, 2TB)
• The Mac models list is mostly similar to the iPad’s case

This is without even counting one year old models being simultaneously on sale and the new models now coming in. Previously, Apple would differentiate models across years as well by distinctly pricing or deprecating older models.

@moonmehta I think the no-suffix iPad could go, and the lineup could be limited to Air, Pro, and Mini. Similarly, the iPhone is SE, Yr, and Yr Pro. The rest are differences in size (Plus and Max) and storage space. The Mac, as I mentioned previously, is slightly more expanded due to the niche Pro market. I think it is a pretty straightforward lineup for a trillion+ company.

@pratik But the storage space offerings are not even consistent and some even artificial. Many base offerings make little sense, such as the iPad still starting from only 64GB. These exist purely to upsell. And blissfully unaware customers buying these get lower value because of a singular choke point. Separately, one could also argue that there could be two storage tiers for all devices instead of three. Trillion dollar company or not, I don’t find the yearly lineups to be clear for years now.

@moonmehta I won't comment on the base offerings because that's not the point of this conversation. Also, I think customers are pretty savvy when buying stuff and no longer get swayed by specs. Also, not sure how you are deciding "value" which can differ from person to person. Currently, on the website, this "Help Me Choose" is a pretty good tool to know what you can get for the things you will use it for.

@pratik

​> I won't comment on the base offerings because that's not the point of this conversation.

It is not? Device lineup segmentation now versus then is how we started this conversation. Base offerings are naturally part of that.

Also, not sure how you are deciding "value" which can differ from person to person.

Sure, I agree that value differs from person to person. But I don’t see how this point is applicable in the example I cited. The base offering providing low value ​is an objective measure because you can’t change it after buying, and Apple provides among the lowest storage in its price range. Those who never utilize the full base storage are fine and unaffected but there also many who do and have. At Apple prices, the base storage for several models could’ve been easily higher as it would better the experience of those who will need it. That latter part keeps diminishing with increasing storage but the low default that Apple starts with leaves a lot of room to improve. For Apple, it leaves a lot of room to upsell.

@moonmehta I'm now confused as to the point of this discussion. If your main premise is that Apple's base offerings have "low value" because, compared to the PCs, it's more expensive, that's fine. People who are price-conscious in terms of specs should get something else. Apple charging a premium price for upgrading specs is also true, but that has always been true. What you seem to think has changed with Apple is different from what others have mentioned i.e., vibes and lack of quirkiness which I can understand

@pratik

What you seem to think has changed with Apple is different from what others have mentioned i.e., vibes and lack of quirkiness which I can understand

Yeah, I see that from the diversity of comments too. But ​that’s also why I chimed in with my opinion because I fit in the original premise of your post: specifically for me someone who only started using Apple long after the iPod came out.

@moonmehta Yup. Thanks for chiming in. After that, I was addressing your perceptions.

@pratik And I was yours. 😆

@pratik BTW the argument was that even if we may disagree on how much a recent yearly product lineup can be simplified—and I do see your POV too—the point is that it could be streamlined for sure. Whereas lineups around a decade ago did not have too many variants to trim while still maintaining a broad price spread.

@moonmehta That, unfortunately (or fortunately), may be due to Apple's growth in terms of market share and users globally. Maybe people will wait for the iPhone 16 to finally upgrade to an iPhone 15 at a lower price. Apple is not offering the iPhone 13 and prior, so their data may have shown people continue to buy at least two years old models.

​They could very well only sell the latest iPhone and let the secondhand marketplace deal with the rest. Perhaps that affects their brand value since their latest OSes still support older models. I don't know coz I don't have access to their data. Hence I don't try to advise what any company should do for business and operations-related aspects.

@pratik Sure, but I wasn’t talking about older models in that last reply! 😅

​In all my examples, I’ve been primarily talking about and citing models released in the same year.. I feel like we have been having two different conversations. XD

Anyway, Apple does what Apple does—based on whatever factors they want to optimize. But that’s not the necessarily the same as optimizing value to customers directly, or at least value perceived by them, which is where the range of opinions like mine and yours would kick in.