Apple’s death of magic

Simon Helyar writes for Medium of a theoretical meeting between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple intern. Cook asks for the intern’s honest answer to his question, “Tell me, what’s wrong with Apple?” The intern complies:
Ok… well… Having a banner advert on the Apple homepage selling off the newest iPhone since launch for cheap isn’t magical. It’s begging. It’s weak. And having a fat cheap iPhone XR, that confuses the product line up isn’t magical. iPhones should simply be small, medium and large. A budget iPhone should be last years model. Expensive doesn’t equal magical. iPads and iPad Airs and MacBooks and MacBook Airs, it doesn’t make sense. It isn’t magical. Apple TV isn’t magical. The Apple TV remote is not a magical experience. It’s almost useless…
MacDailyNews Take: That poor remote. (Pun intended.)
Jony certainly wasn’t involved with the design of the Apple TV’s Siri Remote – unless he was drunk during the 20 minutes that were lavished on its so-called design. — MacDailyNews, November 22, 2016
With the Siri Remote, users can’t tell which end is up in a darkened room due to uniform rectangular shape. The remote is still too small, so it gets lost easily. All buttons are the same size and similarly smooth (the raised white ring around the menu button helps, but so barely it’s astounding that Apple even bothered; it’s a bandaid on a turd). The tactile difference between the bottom of the remote vs. the upper Glass Touch surface is too subtle as well; this also leads to not being able to tell which end is up. A larger remote, designed for hands larger than a 2-year-old’s with a simple wedge shape (slightly thicker in depth at the bottom vs. the top), as opposed to a uniform slab, would have instantly communicated the proper orientation to the user.
If Jony Ive “designed” the Siri Remote, he should forfeit his knighthood*.
*But we all know Jony has been obsessed with Apple Park for many years now and likely never even saw the piece of shit remote before they threw it in the box. — MacDailyNews, September 25, 2017
Apple CEO Tim CookApple not selling its own external screen for 8 years isn’t magical. It’s insane. Though not as insane as ceasing production of Mac Pros and hoping nobody notices. Then crawling back to the media announcing we’ll actually make them again, give us a couple years? That’s not magical. The keyboards on every single laptop we sell. Not magical at all. Neither is our fuck-off-elephant-in-the-room silence about it. Waiting out a huge and growing problem is not magical…
Aimlessly talking about software and hardware years before we launch it isn’t magical. And then shelving it completely isn’t magical. Apple is gently gliding from greatness into mediocrity and it’s not magical.
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, now, that sounds familiar.
BTW: We can still consider Apple to be the greatest tech company on earth while not believing it’s living up to users’ expectations at times. The two situations are not mutually exclusive.
Steve Jobs could make a power cord seem insanely great. Tim Cook could put a room to sleep while unveiling teleportation.
Apple is currently helmed by a charisma black hole.
Lacking a charismatic leader who could sell ice cubes to eskimos, execution is the key. High quality products and services that just work with timely updates in sufficient supply at launch would be more than enough to keep us excited, satisfied, and loyal. Strong marketing wouldn’t hurt, either. With excellent products and execution, the weak keynote presentations would be bearable. Apple’s issues with late, old, sometimes problematic products and services do more to dampen excitement and devotion than anything. — MacDailyNews, January 4, 2019
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If he retired today, Tim Cook’s Apple would be known for coasting along on Steve Jobs’ innovations, rolling up tremendous profits that any halfway competent CEO would have accrued (or more), and devolving into being lazy, sloppy and routinely late. That’s a great legacy, Tim. — MacDailyNews, April 10, 2018
SEE ALSO:
Tim Cook is not the best person to be CEO of Apple – April 2, 2019