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Comment by bottlepalm

18 hours ago

This. He would have never approved a foldable phone, the iPhone Air, or the Vision Pro. Apple is back to throwing shit at the wall like they were in the 90s. Directionless. Visionless.

31 comments

bottlepalm

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gehsty  18 hours ago

I really don’t know how you can say he wouldn’t do this things.

The Air particularly - the thinnest, lightest feeling, nicest to hold iPhone ever made, I think that might have been his favorite.

The Vision Pro is clearly an interesting category of device, Apple needs to be in, if it would have seen the light of day under Steve Jobs is unknowable.

He was ruthless at Apple because back then he had to be - now they can run Vision Pro and it not impact their ability run the business, if Apple had A product that did not succeed in the 90s it might have sank them.

  • saagarjha  17 hours ago

    The nicest to hold iPhone ever made was iPhone 5. I'm sure it was his favorite.

    • hoherd  16 hours ago

      The first time I held an iPhone 5, I thought it was a demo device. It was too light to actually be the real device. That was such a great phone.

    • hn993302  13 hours ago

      The iPhone 5 size was designed for people who use smartphones a healthy amount, ie not very much, usually in pocket and often one-handed for a small task. At some point, that was no longer how smartphones were most often used.

      I kept my 5S as long as possible, until my carrier wouldn't even provide cell service to it.

    • bschwindHN  1 hour ago

      Yep, this form factor was the peak. Like others said, if you run your life on your smartphone I guess it might not be sufficient. I just feel sorry for the people actually ruining their lives on their phones though. What shitty typing and multitasking experiences they must have...

  • bottlepalm  16 hours ago

    90s Apple also coasted on the tailwinds of what Jobs accomplished in the 80s. Same with today. Jobs set things up in the 00s and now Apple is coasting again.

    Jobs had products getting people out of their seats and applauding. New products, new industries. As opposed to now where Apple is following the herd and not leading it.

    It feels aimless, and Vision Pro ironically is the best representation of Apple's complete lack of vision.

    • gehsty  2 hours ago

      I disagree with it feeling aimless - other than the Vision Pro, you can’t really point to a weak point in their lineup?

      You can only invent the modern smartphone once then everything else is iterative. The iPhone, iPhone Pro, Air and now Duo is a crazy strong lineup. Same for the watches, same for the AirPods.

      Vision Pro is super interesting but just not ready for prime time yet, but as a demonstration of what is technically possible it is fascinating. Immersive entertainment is a huge opportunity, watching a gig or a sports game like you are there. If they can repackage and get it down to $500-750 then they could have another hit category that largely doesn’t exist (like Bluetooth headphones pre AirPods - around but no one had nailed it).

    • anon7000  9 hours ago

      And yet Apple is doing exceptionally well financially, the MacBooks with M series chips are clearly the pinnacle of Mac laptop engineering, and most of the devices are more reliable and more durable than they ever have been. (As someone who was repairing iPhone 4/5 screens multiple times a year for friends and family.)

      What you’re noticing is consumers being desensitized to tech. It transformed from bulky computers to slick hand-helds. It’s not like Apple made the first product in all those categories, they just made a decent ones that were easy to use.

      Comments like this I think are just missing that Apple is actually doing extremely well without Jobs.

  • Danox  17 hours ago

    Nothing wrong with the Vision Pro it’s just a little bit before it’s time functionally it needs to be at least three or four times faster and the battery life needs to be as good as the flagship iPhone and it needs to be half of the weight and half the price.

    • gehsty  16 minutes ago

      As a technology demonstration it’s amazing, as a product it isn’t particularly compelling. It’s to expensive, to heavy, and just a pain to put on and take off.

      A $500 light weight version that lifts on and off more like glasses than a headset, would be revolutionary. I know a lot of companies are racing towards this but Apple with their custom silicon and almost limitless reserves of cash, feel like the most likely to get there.

  • saberience  17 hours ago

    The iPhone Air completely failed though in terms of sales/popularity.

    Apple these days has completely lost touch with what people actually want.

    • p_j_w  9 hours ago

      > Apple these days has completely lost touch with what people actually want.

      Did you see how well the base iPhone 17 sold? Macbook Neo?

audunw  18 hours ago

Apple threw plenty of shit at the wall when Jobs ran the ship. The hockey puck mouse and the Mac Cube was under Jobs. The first Apple TV. That was pretty much what the Vision Pro is: a side project to test the waters and get some experience with a new format. It’s just that the Vision Pro by its nature is a much more expensive and ambitious side project.

All the three product you mentioned is exactly the kind of things Steve Jobs did. Don’t make him into this mythological flawless visionary.

microtonal  17 hours ago

You can bash the Air all you want, but it's the iPhone I love the most by far, and I had many iPhones since the 3G. It's such a pleasant phone to hold and the screen size is lovely.

If they release a second version with a ultrawide and maybe tele camera, it would be perfect.

shepherdjerred  13 hours ago

I could definitely imagine him loving the Air. But I don’t think he’d segment the market; he’d probably get rid of the normal iPhone