Comment by baggachipz
3 months ago
If they don't add big features every year, the tech press crucifies them as "just putting out another version of the same thing". IMO they trapped themselves into this yearly release cycle with the OS naming, and this puts pressure on them to deliver something big and new every time. Quality? Ain't nobody got time for that!
> If they don't add big features every year, the tech press crucifies them as "just putting out another version of the same thing".
That's the bed they made themselves and lay in it willingly.
No one is forcing them to do huge yearly releases. No one is forcing them to do yearly releases. No one is forcing them to tie new features which are all software anyway to yearly releases (and in recent years actual features are shipping later and later after the announcement, so they are not really tied to releases either anymore).
I would argue the stock market is forcing them to do all that. Line must go up, but it's not sustainable. Like you said, they ship later and later after the announcement. At some point they're going to have to disappoint or move the goalposts.
I owned the tiniest sliver of a fraction of a percent of Apple, but I sold my shares due to a lack of technical leadership.
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Stock value has no meaning at all. What matters is revenue and profit. If Apple doesn't release new devices every year, then they will still sell last year's model. What are customers supposed to purchase instead? A PC? Nobody is going to turn down a new Mac just because the model is 1,2, 3 or 5 years old.
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Stock market is responding to Apple behavior. Stock market was perfectly okay with Apple not doing yearly releases before the iPhone. The stock market was perfectly okay with Apple not doing yearly releases of MacOS during the iPhone era. The stock market was totally okay with Apple not doing yearly (or predictable) hardware upgrades on anything but iPhone.
The stock market can easily be taught anything. And Jobs didn't even care about stock market, or stock holders (Apple famously didn't even pay dividends for a very long time), or investors (regularly ignoring any and all calls and advice from the largest investors).
You need political will and taste to say a thousand nos to every yes. None of the senior citizens in charge of Apple have that.
I would be totally fine with bi-yearly releases.
They could do a kind of tick-tock, with one feature release being followed by a polish and refinement one. Kind of like they did with the regular and S iPhone models. I would welcome that; I don’t know about the marketing department.
Now what they did with iPhone is Tick-tock-tock-tock-tock-tock
> If they don't add big features every year, the tech press crucifies them as "just putting out another version of the same thing".
And then what? Mac users would buy some janky Acer with Windows 11 and bunch of preinstalled malware instead?
Zero percent of consumers care what the tech press writes, and Apple makes their money by selling their devices to consumers.
They could easily wait longer between releasing devices. An M1 Macbook is still in 2025 a massive upgrade for anybody switching from PC - five years after release.
If Apple included fully fledged apps for photo editing and video editing, and maybe small business tools like invoicing, there would be no reason for any consumer in any segment to purchase anything other than a Mac.
> They could easily wait longer between releasing devices.
They could, but then they wouldn't be a trillion dollar company. They'd be a mere $800bn company, at best. ;)
New releases do not drive increased sales as much as people think. Especially if the new releases are lacking in quality.
Not many consumers go out to buy an Apple device because the new one has been released. They go out to buy a new phone or new computer because their old one gave out and will just take the Apple device that is for sale.
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Nobody really cares if they add a lot of OS features as long as they don't make grandiose statements.
I generally see complaints about advancement aimed at the hardware. Some are unreasonable standards, some are backlash to the idea of continuing to buy a new iphone every year or two as the differences shrink, but either way software feature spam is a bad response.