Comment by 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.
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).
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.