I remember getting my hands on the first iPhone. “So where is copy-paste?” I asked. Oh, I was “ignorant” and “not aware of best user interactions principles”. Sure, whatever. A few years later, iPhones had copy-paste of course. Or the Mighty Mouse, a revolution (according to Apple) which introduced…the right click we all had relied on for decades already before their big announcement.
And now…the magic button on the iPhone. This isn’t business as usual, nor should we let them get away with it again. Apple is a company whose outsize effect on user interface it is time we all question. Sure they control more than half the smartphone market in the United States. But that’s about it! And even there, somebody should grow a set and state the facts.
Apple, we have had enough of your pointless changes. You want a super thin MacBook? Go ahead, leave it with just one USB port. But don’t expect everyone to follow just because of your multimillion advertising prowess. You want to remove the iPhone’s multifunctional home button? Be our guest, but what do you have to say now that you are bringing it back?
The problem is that Apple has an effect on everything. And it shouldn’t. Because they really are not the best at UI. Not even close. Their criteria is not the best user experience but how to sell more iPhones. They add and take away ports in order to sell more dongles, adapters or their new accessories. It is all about, and only about, their bottom line. They are making fools of all of their users and it’s about time you wised up to this fact.
Tweaking the Bluetooth protocol to make it different and weird and incompatible isn’t clever. It costs the entire planet billions in waste. There are international consortiums where these things are discussed and agreed upon precisely because we need our stuff to work together for as long as possible, as easily as possible and as widely as possible. Apple is laughing in the face of its users in the most disrespectful way possible too. Adding two buttons to your daily phone isn’t funny. There is a learning curve and a massive cost all the way up and down the chain of everything around the iPhones.
It’s not just iPhones. We have all suffered greatly from every “weird” choice Apple made these past decades. Even when we don’t use Apple products. It affects everyone. They weren’t weird for any other reason than profit. The DoJ is right. Apple has made something worse than a walled garden with iOS. It is a dictatorship that demands payment every few years in the latest Apple products.
Free market. You can choose to stay within that garden. But don’t pretend that it is the cutting edge of technology. Nor the best design choices. It is costing the entire planet to look at Apple as anything else than an extremely selfish niche company playing dictator.
Meta for sure is the most evil large technology company of our times. It is at heart the extension of an extremely immature mediocre hacker. Time and time again proven unreliable or just straight lying to everyone’s face. Even if we accept that it has grown so much that it is now difficult for Facebook to act as bad as it used to, we know it will try. How? It’s the little things every day. The lack of resources in policing content. The experiments are still running on users all the time. The lack of transparency. Heck you can’t even export your data normally, they keep trying to hide deactivation menus or make not accepting cookies harder than they should.
Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to connect people. He just wants to connect your wallet to his bank account. Plain and simple. Facebook and Instagram are the crack cocaine of our digital world and he is always looking for ways to make them even more lethal to our psychological well being and social cohesion. There is simply no upside to any of Meta’s products. And even if there was some social aspect to them it is submerged in constant changes and lies of the platform. One minute they are promoting facebook pages, get everyone to invest in those, the next they have relegated them and nobody sees them in the newsfeed. Then it was video, the future of everything, go build studios in your companies….oh no, he ended that too without warning. Nobody should take anything Meta says seriously anymore.
Microsoft is of course evil but in a more traditional way. This is old fashioned monopolistic behavior. They build their products in all the ways they can to lock customers in. Not as bad as Meta because after all this is the software that runs a lot of the planet’s infrastructure and day to day business. But they do their best. Complicated pricing structures that get you started and then hold you by the balls. Lobbying to governments with shady deals that turn into long term locks. They open up when they lose, like with mobile phones, just enough to try and keep a finger in every pie. Just so they can weasel their way into your company’s backbone and get you paying a monthly fee for something or other. And somehow that monthly fee grows over time. They always find a way. Microsoft is evil on a state level of lobbying and backroom dealing. But at least they also get stuff done for the planet and occasionally actually improve their products.
Google is much harder to consider evil because of the extremely unique business model. Billions of people around the world have never ever paid Google a cent yet they use Google products all the time. Google Maps, YouTube, Search, Docs, Android and other incredible and unique tools that are completely free. Unlike what conspiracy theorists try to tell you, free means free. In ten seconds you can get a Google account, 15GB for free and do absolutely amazing things on your phone, tablet or computer. Google is what I call a benevolent dictator. Sure, they could destroy the planet at any time. They could ruin all of us. They probably know what will happen a few years in the future better than anyone. But they don’t.
Chat GPT is an excellent illustration of this. The “T” in GPT of course being a Google invention that the company gifted to the world. Google could have released something similar a long time ago. They didn’t. The kind dictator knew it was too soon for humanity to handle it.
Apple shouldn’t even be on this list because it isn’t a tech company. A giant yes, tech no. Apple doesn’t innovate technologically. It is a lifestyle company. More importantly it is a staple of the American economy. Much like the dollar. Apple sells mainly in North America and doesn’t even bother to accommodate the rest of the planet in product design or support. They make products with last year’s tech copied from everyone or from companies it buys out. It makes “good enough” gadgets with the design language it has found works for it. It’s financial success has nothing to do with any groundbreaking technology. Banks don’t run on Macs and neither does anything else of any consequence on the planet.
So stop lumping “tech giants” in articles and opinions. They are nothing like each other. Sure there are product categories where they conflict. But it is completely irrelevant. The business models and the way they look at the world is so different that they should hardly ever be in the same sentence. Some of us, the people that really try to think about technology, society and business care about these differences after all. Show some respect.
a lot of volunteers helping Google become even better at AI. Thousands of people doing image label verification, or audio validation, handwriting verification and millions of other clever ways to help Google improve. I am Level35 because I found it interesting from the start. I enjoyed the tech talks from Google AI people and the seminars. You know, back when AI wasn’t all the rage like it is now.
Or maybe you have heard of Google Photos. A ridiculous in scale endeavour whereby Google gave the entire planet (after all 8 out of 10 smartphones run on Android, not iOS) infinite photo backup. Thus sucking up the greatest free database of images anywhere. Ever. While iPhone users all have phones out of storage because they don’t want to pay anymore than they already pay every month to Apple.
These are just two examples that you might not have thought of. Of course Google Maps, YouTube or Google Search are also on a scale way beyond anything Apple can even imagine. This isn’t like Siri, Apple can’t just throw 200 million to buy an SRI equivelant to catch up. In fact Siri is an excellent example because even when it was launched it was many years behind Google. Much like with Apple Maps, Apple seems content to have an inferior product simply window dressed for the North American market.
Google has invested long term in making Google Maps a globally relevant product. There has been a vibrant group of contributors adding to the quality of the data and the AI. Apple has been too busy trying to upsell devices at a greater profit margin to bother to improve its products. Some say it’s the “dark horse” playing “the long game”. They are ignorant and almost funny in their ignorance.
It isn’t just about massive datasets. AI focus has been at the core of Google’s existence from the get go. Converting Google search to Chat GPT like functionality was just the flip of a switch for Alphabet. They didn’t need to buy any companies because they are that company. And if it is about computing power again Google has the best model. They have been selling “free” services like search, maps, youtube and everything else for years, building massive infrastructure on the back of their ad business in ways that consumers consider a win win.
Apple’s endeavours in digital video creation are an excellent illustration of the extent of the hole they have dug themselves. A few decades ago the company thought that digital video creation would be the next DTP, the next saviour for their computing division. Even now with their touted advantage in processors they have just 20% of the global computer share. Back then they bought software like Final Cut and other more expensive digital creation tools and tried to package them in various ways to sell more Macs into studios and broadcasters. It didn’t work of course. Apple was not that kind of company, it made money from iPhones. There was no durability to the vision and the software started dying out with less and less updates. It went back to being a cute toy for some Apple loving film folk.
Right now Apple has no AI vision. It can’t even think of how to develop one. They are too busy trying to think of some gadget that will sell as the iPhone’s market share which is puny. For all you Americans reading, globally just 15% of humans use an iPhone. They all prefer products that are more affordable, more flexible, more open and with the innovations that Apple copies for their next flagship every year. They haven’t been beating world champions at the game of Go, nor folding proteins.
So when Apple inevitably announces what its plan are in AI, I would take them with a massive pinch of salt. Buying any company won’t solve their problem and no new technology they can announce will either. AI thinking is a long term project and Apple has been absent from the party.
A trillion market cap is pretty impressive for a company that mainly sells to Americans. It’s not just the 8.5% global market share for computers that is pathetic. Nor the equally laughable share of global smartphones. Android is the defacto global standard, iOS is a joke. Yet for people living in Callifornia or New York (and them alone) it is important. And they are the people writing in tech magazines and blogs, they are the people in the media. They are the ones keeping the stock price so high for absolutely no reason.
It takes a lot to make a truly global company. Google develops its products in local languages, it makes tools we all rely on. Really rely on, not fancy toys. Things you can’t live without anymore. HP has local support. You know real support, real sales people, real local offices in every country in the world. Apple? Not even close! And they have never seemed to care. Too big to fail, too close to an all American symbol.
This does in fact present a real problem to users. With such a small loyal user base Apple doesn’t need to care about backwards compatibility, to take just one example. Unlike Windows or Android, they can just leave old users in the dust and demand you upgrade. It is amazing that I can still use a computer with Windows 95 for a lot of things (even running DOS applications!) or and old Android 4 phone. It will connect and work for most things unlike Apple devices. This is the real world of real responsibility. When major corporations, governments and institutions around the world rely on you, that is what you do, you care about connections and standards. You talk to other companies, you collaborate, you commit.
Not Apple. Despite popular perceptions, Apple doesn’t actually innovate. At all. They are great at marketing. Design maybe. Innovation? Not really. Not at all. If we talk purely tech they have nothing. The very public and obvious failures of their Maps app or Siri or anything that demands you to – well – actually work seriously on something, they simply can’t do it.
It’s a one horse pony. For a single market. And it’s time we all started treating it as such.
Clever street promo in Berlin which pops up at night. You know normal marketing from companies that sell computers that actually do the work the world runs on
The entire industry has gone crazy about the “phenomenal” performance of the new Apple computers. As I predicted, under Tim Cook Apple is indeed changing. But not nearly enough. And don’t be fooled like all those tech “experts” who make money from click baiting you with the impressive titles about “PC killing performance”. When Cook first took over I famously wrote that I might buy an iPhone in a couple of future iterations. I stand corrected. Tim Cook disappointed me, he didn’t turn it into the best version of IBM. This is a company with no mission statement that simply doesn’t have any technological innovation of its own. Apple is not about technology, it is more of an American stock market game that moves the i-Goalposts as much as is needed to fool enough of the people.
So before you rush out to buy one of these new laptops everyone is raving about, let me tell you why you will regret it. Let’s look at a two year scenario. What could go wrong with this lovely new Apple laptop in the next two years?
If anything isn’t working, well, you’re on your own. Apple users have been crying over faulty keyboards forever and the company didn’t even acknowledge them, let alone fix it for them. The “you are holding it wrong” mentality is still strong at Apple.
Accessories – they have you by the balls! Even when Apple pretends to follow a standard, they twist it into something proprietary. Whether it is power, Bluetooth, storage, or even simple cables, they always find a way to make you pay more and restrict your choices. Apple can make even buying a webcam a difficult task while the rest of the planet simply plugs and plays.
We know that the gimmicks might disappear. They put that bar on the top of the keyboard, made you pay extra for it, you showed it off to your friends the first day, and then what? Other companies will at least make an effort to support it a few years into the future, Apple takes pride in not giving a damn about you and how much you loved or hated something on their machines.
We burn Pentiums to the ground. We have seen this exact scenario before. Apple had moved to IBM made processors. For a very short period they had a bit of an edge in performance. It wasn’t like for like if you also considered price, but it was close. Almost immediately however Pentiums took over. As the benchmark test showed Apple falling much behind even on Photoshop and other staples of the designer world Apple simply disregarded them. After years of pretending they finally switched to Intel. 95% of the planet works on PCS. That is where science develops everything, that is where serious businesses invest. It is simply a matter of time for the serious users to overtake any minor party trick Apple comes up with.
It has got a bit easier to go IN their walled garden but remains almost impossible to get OUT of the Apple ecosystem. They are making money from services now, trying to reduce their dependency on iPhones. So YOU are the product. Buy those much cheaper Apple speakers, wow, they are a third of the original price, why? Because much like Amazon they just want to get you into their world of services. (I can export everything from twenty years of living with Google with one click and take them to any other IT system as they are openly accessible formats.)
Apple has no friends. I watched the company enter the video business. They never innovated, simply bought other companies, used them to gain market share. They made a big fuss about entering the broadcast business, then suddenly gave up and left everyone high and dry with no support. Even Final Cut Pro languished unloved and unsupported. They don’t share with partners, they don’t invest in retail channels. That is how Apple rolls. It never includes your best interests.
Indeed Apple has written the book on “how to do something that really screws your customers and get away with it”. They stop supporting something you love all of a sudden with no explanation. It might be that they make no new drivers for your printer, it might be that they stop working completely with a peripheral company you had already bought everything from. When they switched to 64bit machines, yes, we all knew that sooner or later the industry was heading that way. But only a selfish idiot would force that on us. Even now millions of people rely on 32bit solutions thanks to the incredible backwards compatibility of Windows. When Steve Jobs announced he was killing Flash he was no prophet; he was a disgustingly selfish businessman trying to bully the planet through marketing gloss. I hate Flash as much as anyone, probably more, but it is still around for good reason and it outlasted Jobs. Acting selfishly is part of their charm according to their fans.
Well, if you like that sort of thing and have plenty time and money to waste, run along and buy a new MacBook. I warned you.
When Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage this September, nobody expected the shocking news he was about to deliver…
He unveiled the new iPhone 11—the most advanced phone Apple has ever made.
But it was not the triple-lens camera and lustrous finishes that stole the show. It was the phone’s price tag.
For the first time ever, Apple cut its iPhone price.
As I’ll explain, Apple made this move out of desperation… and it may well spell the beginning of the end of Apple’s run as a dominant company.
Apple Is a Phone Company
Let’s get one thing straight…
Apple is not a computer company anymore.
Apple is a phone company.
Since it introduced the iPhone in 2007, Apple has sold 2.2 billion phones raking in over a trillion dollars in sales—more than any other phone maker in history. Meanwhile, Apple stock shot up over 2,037%… and became the world’s largest publicly traded company.
RISKHEDGE
iPhone Is Apple’s Golden Goose
Apple has earned a whopping $1.99 trillion since 2007. The thing is, more than half of it came from iPhone sales.
iPhone is not only Apple’s best-selling product by far. It’s also the company’s most profitable product.
For every dollar an iPhone brings into the company, Apple earns $0.60–0.74, according to PhoneArena. Compare that to the MacBook Air… Apple’s most profitable notebook…which earns a mere $0.29 on the dollar.
If it weren’t for the iPhone, Apple wouldn’t be where it is today. Without the iPhone, Apple would be a mediocre computer company like Dell at best.
iPhone Sales Stalled Out
For years, iPhone revenues have sprinted higher at an exponential pace.
But in 2015, Apple reached an inflection point. The growth of its iPhone sales has died out, as you can see below…
RISKHEDGE
Last year, Apple sold 14 million fewer phones than it did three years ago.
That’s not unusual, though.
When Apple unveiled the first iPhone, the smartphone was groundbreaking technology. The typical lifecycle of a groundbreaking technology looks like this:
Sales skyrocket out of the gate… then flatten out as the market matures… and finally take an inevitable downturn.
Twelve years ago, only 120 million people had a cell phone. Today, over five billion people own a smartphone, according to IDC.
Think about it… In 2010, you could buy a brand-new iPhone 4 for $599.
In 2017, you would have had to fork over $849 for the iPhone 8 and $1,149 for the iPhone X… Apple’s most expensive phone.
The price hikes kept Apple’s growth engine alive… and for this reason, its revenues have gone on marching higher since 2011.
But there was also another reason Apple was forced to hike its phone prices…
iPhones Are More Expensive for Apple, Too
Take a close look at the chart below. It shows how much it costs for Apple to make an iPhone…
RISKHEDGE
With the exception of a few years, the cost of making an iPhone has been climbing higher since 2007.
The first iPhone cost Apple just above $200 to make. Meanwhile, iPhone XS (the latest iPhone Apple reported on) costs double that.
Apple has always set records with its phone prices. But as you can see, it did it for a reason. It had to offset the ever-growing costs.
But as I warned my readers before, it was just a matter of time before Apple had to pull back with its pricing.
It didn’t take long….
iPhone Has a New Feature: Lower Prices
Last September, Apple unveiled iPhone XR, a less advanced and more affordable version of the iPhone X.
It cost $749, a 35% drop from the iPhone X’s $1,145 price tag.
But in truth, it was almost the same iPhone X, only disguised as a budget phone. It was basically an excuse for Apple to release a cheaper phone to get its sales figures back on track.
This year, Apple went a step further. It slashed the price of its full-fledged iPhone. The newly released iPhone 11 started at $699, a price point not seen since 2017.
Apple did it as a last resort to spur lackluster demand. But in doing so, it has signaled the beginning of the end of its lucrative iPhone business.
The End of Apple
See what’s happening?
Not only is Apple selling fewer iPhones, it’s now earning much less on each one.
Recent financial reports show that iPhone revenues… which have been Apple’s lifeblood… are starting to sink.
Last quarter, Apple earned 10% less from iPhones than it did during the same period last year. That’s a loss of about $20 billion!
Apple has never earned so little from iPhones… and all this will start showing up in Apple’s financial reports very soon.
Let me make it clear: half of Apple’s business is going off the rails, and there’s no turning back.
While Apple admits the demise of iPhone and is looking into new business directions, these things don’t happen overnight. Meanwhile, Apple’s money-making machine is grinding to a halt.
As I warned you earlier this year, Apple is a ticking time bomb… and for this reason, I’d recommend staying away from this stock.
Written with the assistance of Dainius Runkevičius.“
As it appears in Google search cache
Pretty straightforward stuff. Forbes’ analysts have made similar predictions in the past, that is what analysts do after all. Last August Forbes published one entitled “Dark days are closing in on Apple” for example. But getting an article deleted like this now is either Apple with its usual heavy-handed journalist blackmailing techniques or a very clever and sneaky Forbes self-promotion.
“So, seriously Alex, do you think Apple has a problem?”
Financial analysts call me up some times for “insights”. It is usually when their job is on the line and/or they have to handle a really really big investor. The guy was worried and wanted me to give him something new to say in the big meeting, something none of the others in the office had thought about. And he came to the right place. I hate Apple, I have hated Apple since 1981 when I realized how little the company cares about technology. So the analyst got some dirt and we chatted away.
“OK, so I will tell them to buy Apple then” he concluded. I didn’t disagree. Because this is not about technology. Apple had the smallest research and development budget for many years. Apple has fallen way behind in artificial intelligence and the smart home. Apple’s new computers are a joke that took years coming and isn’t even funny if you are a professional that relies on them. No, this is not about technology. It is about the stock market. Apple is to stock what the dollar is to global currency markets. And all it needs to do every so often is produce a fairy tale.
Take the recent iPad launch. This is a a truly insignificant dying sector. About 4% of devices sold globally are tablets. Apple has a third of a market nobody wants. Apple is losing ground in education, medical and pretty much any vertical you want to pick. But what are the analysts saying? Every so often someone flashes that graph about revenue being too dependent on the iPhone but then they forget it like the Apple fan boys and girls they rely on in the media for information.
So don’t call me about Apple anymore. You don’t need my decades of experience in tech to guess what Apple will do next and how successful it will be. Tim Cook could present a half eaten moldy apple and sell it for a thousand dollars tomorrow. Nobody would care if he only sold five of them at a loss. Nobody cares about it working or actually helping somebody in the real world work. Antennagates, Batterygates and even Bill Gates knew what he was doing when he saved Apple. It was never about tech.
.
(That’s not an apple in the photo by the way. But who cares?)
When Tim Cook came out to the media as gay I was not surprised. We all knew that Apple products were disproportionately favored by gays. The statistics occasionally cropped up and then disappeared in a very…Apple sort of way. A very “gay” sort of way in fact if you wanted to use a crude and unfair generalisation in terms of stereotyping 5-7% of the world population and the richest corporation in the history of homo sapiens. Interestingly enough that is about the market share of Apple products globally. (If you add smartphone and computers it may be a bit less but both kind of statistics are really hard to nail with any precision.) Apple is the perfect demonstration of how hypocritical a gay CEO can be when he is the one in a position of power.
We don’t know exactly how many people on the planet are homosexual. And to be honest, we shouldn’t really care. I have walked Gay Pride marches enough to know that all my gay friends, and the friends of their friends are a fantastically varied collection of human beings. In fact I don’t even think classifications help. There is no “gay meter”, human sexuality is a wonderfully complex thing, nobody is completely “straight” and what people fantasize about or do in terms of their sex life is nobody else’s business. It shouldn’t even be mentioned in business.
Oh wait. Actually it is.
One of the biggest, most consistent and absolutely fair demands of all of us who believe in equal opportunities, is the push for fair pay. I want my daughter to get paid as much as a man when she works doing a similar job. Hey Siri, is this true in Apple regarding gay employees? Hmmm…no response, eh? I want my kids to grow up in a world where we don’t need quotas in upper management. Hey Siri, are there disproportionately more gays in Apple? Siri won’t tell you. Apple won’t tell you. It is their right after all not to tell you. But why is nobody asking? We ask about all sort of other groups of people. We do our politically correct best to help minorities of every kind. We read and write about how a corporation needs a coherent mission and values. If Apple is more camp than others why is not openly projecting it?
It seems rather impressive that we can #meToo ourselves until we are blue in the face and turn a blind eye to this opportunity. If Tim Cook was a Yankees fan, when he met the President of the USA, we would read “and they joked about the game”. If the CEO of the richest corporation in the history of humanity was married to a woman we would probably see her at his side there too. Through a combination of good timing and the all powerful Apple PR machine, since he bravely came out openly as gay however we have heard almost nothing. A few carefully planned and executed, possibly paid for, high profile, profiles about it then. And since? Is Tim Cook in some way obligated to bring up LGBT issues since he has the ear of the world? Should he be doing more?
Of course it is a personal choice. And he should have the right to a private life. Other CEO keep their families away from the media. But the case of Apple and Tim Cook is a remarkable demonstration of the limits of selective political correctness, the limits of #metoo type of approaches and our extremely hypocritical approach to demands for transparency and “the truth” about our world.
I have been branded an Apple hater a long time ago, so I don’t bother to worry about that. Since 1981 I have lived and breathed technology and Apple insults the very essence of the world as I understand it with its behavior. I don’t use the word “like”, it is not aesthetic and it is not subjective. Apple can never be a positive force in the world of technology. Admirable marketing maybe. Amazing reality distortion for sure. Machiavellian trickery when it can.
Technologically speaking, the world is not an unknown, magical place. There are only so many electrons that can whiz around in silicon at a specific speed. Apple can’t change that. They can’t magically make any major breakthrough. Not only because they hardly spend any money in Research and Development. Because nobody makes such amazing leaps on their own. The world of scientific innovation is one of collaboration and open platforms.
That is of course the exact opposite of everything Apple stands for. It is no surprise that a Unix derivative in the form of Android now powers 90% of the planets smartphones. Here’s what Apple can never do:
Be open about its plans. Absolutely vital for innovation to happen. You can’t build on something if nobody tells you how it works.
Experiment more freely. Apple produces an absolutely terrible product such as the first iWatch but insists on selling it as the next big thing. They don’t seem to be able to give away something in order to learn like Google does so often. (With mixed results, but the principle is correct, tried and tested in innovation)
Make more. Why only three iPhones? I can get an Android with a battery that lasts 3 days, a rugged Android, an Android for 100 dollars, etc, etc. If you don’t try market niches, if you don’t allow others to explore them, you will never discover something really exciting.
Stick to global standards. Apple costs the world economy billions in lost productivity. Why on earth can’t they just stick to standards? How hard is it to have a “normal” USB for power, or to avoid tweaking Bluetooth? Standards in technology are the bedrock of innovation, the firm ground from which we fly to the skies.
Collaborate. It seems silly to even write that it is so obvious to everyone in business these days. You collaborate even with your direct competitors when it makes strategic sense. Apple never seems to be able to last long in any sort of collaboration, a slave to its Steve Jobs’ inspired image of the lone genius.
There is no such thing as a lone genius in technology. Some amazing people have made great leaps and provided us with inspiring moments and ideas. But the actual products? They are always the result of extensive team work spanning the globe, companies, universities and every kind of kid playing with something to finally achieve greatness.
When Cook took over I hoped he would change some of this. It seems he can’t. Apple is a prisoner to its old “rules” and too afraid to go for the real innovation of changing its corporate selfishness.
If you don’t remember that slogan, let me remind everyone. Because in a rather strange way, it has been wiped from Google! Seriously, Google it. “We burn Pentiums to the ground” and toasting Pentiums was a major Apple promotional campaign, aimed at convincing us all that their proprietary Motorola (IBM) processors were “better” or “faster” than the Intel alternatives. It is an extremely educational story to take to hearth as Apple goes down the same rabbit hole with the iPhone today. Back then it took users a couple of years to figure it out. Graphic artists were trying to ignore that benchmarks of actual task performance was showing a huge disadvantage. Back then, Apple was the tool of choice for creative professionals in the visual design. So it was a matter of pride. You applied a Photoshop filter and it took twice as long to render it as that guy you made fun of with the cheap PC. In video it was ridiculous. Apple did its best to make sure that there weren’t many applications running on both PC and Mac, but Adobe After Effects slipped through the net. Benchmarks there were off the chart, with the ultra expensive Apple machines trailing by whole minutes in everyday tasks.
So what did Apple do?
They lied in your face! The “we burn Pentiums to the ground” campaign, much like a lot of Steve Jobs’ presentations, were 100% lies. He used vague graphics and charts showing an X percent advantage, or stating the new processors were 22% faster than…something. And then they got personal claiming they “toasted” the Pentium processor. But you won’t find it easily. Here’s a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE6aKeK61A4
Where are the ads now? I am a long time Apple hater so I know very well how I used to find them with an image search…..gone. Zilch. Almost no digital footprint of them left! Either Apple or Intel, or both of them, got Google to make them disappear. And this is where it gets interesting. Because Apple is heading the same way today. I wrote a short article highlighting the many things about the iPhoneX. Quad DAC, GigabitLTE, MQA, Log and lookup tables for video…it is a long list of useful high end features other smartphones have already. I post it on Facebook and an Apple fan friend (I still talk to them) starts going on about the “all mighty A11 Apple chip”. Obviously he had no better response. But allmighty Apple chip? Really?
The company is in its classic rabbit hole. It needs to “think different” but instead it is focusing on “being different”. Not the same thing. When the whole world has Bluetooth, the whole world needs Apple working on a safer, faster, better standard. Not to just tweak it a bit and call it iBluetooth, making its AirBuds “proprietary”, “more expensive” and “not compatible”. (What their tag lines should have been in the first place.) When the world agrees to use USB type C we don’t want to carry around custom Apple dongles and dangles. Siri is a joke and new Apple “features” are usually just copied from Android. If they are not, they are a bad idea. Like getting rid of the home button.
I still remember holding the very first iPhone and asking “where is the copy-paste” function? They laughed. Like they laughed when I asked where the right click was on their mice. Guess what? The iPhone got copy and paste eventually. And the Mighty Mouse had a right click. Even now, Apple products are not as good as others in these two respects. In Android we have built in advanced clipboard features and multiple windows to play with. They copied too little, too late. And made a mess of the reality distortion necessary to cover up their tracks.
Much like the old days, someone is going to have bail Apple out. Not talking about cash this time. It will be Google that will run to the rescue and they won’t even tell us about it. Suddenly Siri will magically get better, Apple Maps will work around the world instead of the rather limited version they have now and other Google power features will trickle through in various ways. Just enough for Apple to pretend it is the innovator. Which it is. Just not in technology. In technology it takes R&D, persistence and number crunching to get to the top. Apple is better at getting money off people. Some call it marketing, some of us like to call it as it is. Especially since most of us aren’t making any money from this mass dellusion.
Don’t let me spoil the party though, enjoy looking at your shiny iPhoneX until it unlocks.
