Sending this ad is completely destructive to all the hard work other teams at Apple have done to make Apple Wallet actually private — and, more importantly, *to get users to believe that it’s…
This is a funny gag from Claude Zeins, but if you think about it, it shows just how destructive Apple’s decision was to send a push notification from the Wallet app promoting F1 The Movie.
It’s a fact that no company can inject an ad into your physical wallet. It just can’t happen. So if Apple’s message to users is that they should trust Apple Wallet, and move more of their “shit that goes in your wallet” life from their traditional analog wallet into their digital Apple Wallet, that’s the bar. No ads, ever. They’re competing against the privacy and intimacy of one of the most personal things people carry with them.
It’s not just that many people find ads annoying, no matter where they appear. It’s that Apple Wallet ought to be sacrosanct — like the Passwords and Journal apps. Apple is asking us to trust this app with our finances, our identity cards, and our keys. I’m 99.9 percent certain this F1 ad was just blasted out to zillions of Wallet users indiscriminately, but some number of users who got it — especially people who know they’re in the demographic for the movie — surely think they got the ad because Wallet is tracking their interests and activities. Like, what if you recently bought tickets to see another summer blockbuster movie? Using Apple Wallet? And then you got this ad? It’d be completely sensible to be spooked by that, and conclude that Apple Wallet is tracking you.
Sending this ad is completely destructive to all the hard work other teams at Apple have done to make Apple Wallet actually private — and, more importantly, to get users to believe that it’s private. That Apple can be trusted in ways that other “big tech” companies cannot. The perception of privacy is just as important as the technical details that make something actually private. I try very seldom to call for anyone to be fired, but I think whoever authorized this movie ad through Wallet push notifications ought to be canned.
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Apple Wallet is in the App store, and the F1 ad debacle directly violates App Store guidelines https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/)
> 4.5.4 Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.Interesting. I feel like this clause is violated very often by major apps:
> Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages.
By discostrings 2025-06-2913:343 reply Uber violates this. At least as of a few years ago, there was no way to get notifications about driver arrival without also getting special offer and Uber Eats spam notifications periodically. Not only was there no opt-in consent, there was no way to turn them off without disabling the status updates.
It's particularly bad when apps with legitimate time-sensitive functionality do this.
I denied the app the ability to send any notifications on principle, and now it's very annoying to have to check the app to see the driver status. It makes things worse for both me and them and I use it less as a result.
Account > Settings > Communication > Marketing Preferences. Uncheck them all. A bit hidden, but it does work.
By discostrings 2025-06-2914:492 reply At the point in time when I disabled notifications for the app, it did not. I tried that. Even after navigating dark patterns, digging into the menus, and turning those options off, I still received promotion notifications.
Perhaps they've fixed it since? I don't know because they've already burned my trust and they've done nothing to earn it back. Publicly acknowledging and apologizing for this would have been a way to start getting off my list of bad actors.
Even if they've made it possible to successfully turn those off deep in the menus now, whatever dreamed-up definition of "opted in" it's operating under is a tortured legalistic one that undermines the actual meaning and spirit of opting in.
I can sympathize. I don’t know about uber in particular but it gets quite tiring trying to find and follow these obscure settings.
And what’s worse is that the companies always seem to find a way to reset it to what they want quite frequently. One of their tricks is to reorganize permissions frequently so the ones that allow their spam to get through are always new.
I had to completely turn off notifications for Instagram because none of the provided settings appear to disable the almost-daily "for you" and "trending" notifications. Now I don't get notified when someone DMs me there, which has lead to me missing important messages.
By kridsdale3 2025-06-2920:351 reply Same. And I used to work there, and I raised it with them. They have all their career incentives aligned to getting people to see spammy notifications. I was powerless.
By PaulHoule 2025-06-2921:56 The problem with the user hostility is that, in the long term, people don't use it.
As a web dev I see so many things that are lights-on-nobody-home about Meta. The Meta app on my phone generates numerous notifications, when I get one that says a game that looks really cool is 50% off, clicking on it doesn't send me to the landing page in the their app store, it sends me to the senseless home page of the app which seems to have the message "move on folks, nothing to see here"
The Instagram web application fails to load the first time I load it on my computer and I have to always reload. On either Facebook or Instagram I am always getting harassed by OnlyFans models that want me to engage with them... on the same platform where I engage with my sister-in-law.
When they say they are "careless people" I wonder if they are not just careless about sexual harassment and genocide but careless about making money because we're in a postcapitalist hell where Zuck could care less for making money for his shareholders but rather gets a squee from sitting behind Trump at his inauguration and hires people with $100M packages not because he wants them to work with him but because he doesn't want them to work with someone else.
I went through a couple rounds of trying to raise specifically this issue with support before simply uninstalling the app out of principle. They had their chance and burned it.
By Tijdreiziger 2025-06-3010:07
By Tijdreiziger 2025-06-3010:071 reply On Android:
1. your profile icon (bottom right) > hamburger menu (top right) > Notifications > Posts, stories, and comments > turn off ‘Posts suggested for you’ and ‘Notes’
2. on the same screen, set ‘First posts and stories’ to ‘From people I follow’
3. back out to Notifications > Live and reels > turn off ‘Recently uploaded reels’ and ‘Reels suggested for you’
This works for me, but if you’re still getting notifications you don’t want, you’ll have to figure out what category/type they fall under and turn that off.
By rjst01 2025-07-0115:28 Thanks for the suggestion. I'm on iOS but the notification settings look the same.
I already had all but one of the settings you mentioned disabled, along with most of the others. I'll report back in a day or two.
By lacker 2025-06-3015:06 Yes, unfortunately, they have changed their permissions structure a few times, and each time I have had to go back in and re-configure it so that the ads don't show up. It's quite annoying, they seem to be doing everything they can to follow the letter of the law while disobeying its spirit.
By surfearth 2025-06-2915:48 I discovered this a few months ago - it's worth spending the 60 seconds to update these settings to get rid of Uber's terrible promotion notifications!
By devnullbrain 2025-06-2918:591 reply I can do better than that. Uninstall it.
It's a 600 MB app and you can log back in using only the iOS password manager. Reinstall it when you need to use it.
By CitrusFruits 2025-06-2921:181 reply I think the 600MB part actually makes it harder to only install again when you need it.
By ghushn3 2025-06-2923:44 It's interesting that 600MB can be perceived as both trivial (e.g. on a fiber connection this is a matter of seconds) and excruciating (e.g. on a rural satellite line this could be 15-20+ minutes).
By daveidol 2025-06-302:42 I had them all unchecked but still get the notifications in the Uber Eats app
By madhacker 2025-06-303:07 can't find what you're talking about. Per ChatGPT, "In iOS, there is no universal path like Account > Settings > Communication > Marketing Preferences across the system. That type of menu usually appears within individual apps or websites, not in iPhone’s system-wide Settings."
So does "Too Good To Go". Missed a pickup notification because I didn't remember having angrily turned off all notifications one day, since they don't have any more fine-grained option.
I let their support know, but they don't care. I guess as long as it still brings in more additional sales than it costs in lost users, it works for them.
This is something I like better on Android: As far as I remember, separate "notification channels" are mandatory there, and deactivating a given one is possible purely from the OS notification UI, without having to dig through inconsistent and hidden in-app options.
I definitely get unmutable notifications on Android from my first-party phone manufacturer bloatware apps, which is the equivalent here. Would I like to see the new Themes in the Theme Marketplace?
Pretty sure I've had marketing notifications on third party apps I couldn't disable without losing functionality, too. Separate notification channels might be mandatory in theory, but even if so, the Play Store is worse at policing that kind of thing in practice than Apple.
By Tijdreiziger 2025-06-3010:101 reply Go to Settings > Apps and disable said bloatware apps.
If not visible in the list, turn on ‘Show system apps’.
By hipparchus 2025-07-091:05 That doesn’t solve the main problem mentioned above: that some notifications from some apps are useful, but they don’t let you fine tune which notifications are permitted and which are disabled: you either get everything, including the marketing / adware notifications, or nothing at all.
By int_19h 2025-06-3019:22 It's still fundamentally down to app to properly use those multiple channels even on Android; if they want to, they can shove ads down the main channel instead.
This is one of those cases where ultimately the app stores need to have a rule about it, and actively enforce it with hefty penalties for non-compliance.
By agurk 2025-06-308:32 Curiously I have the opposite problem with Too Good To Go - they never give me notifications of available things I might be interested in, even though I've set that I want them.
This is on Android though, so perhaps an ecosystem difference?
DoorDash also. I tend to uninstall apps that do this if I have any alternative to them.
By bdangubic 2025-06-2916:54 I uninstall even if I do not have alternatives, I install/delete Uber every time I use it. When I need a ride with them I install it, when the ride is over I tip the driver and delete the app. Every single time, no exceptions
By foooorsyth 2025-06-2912:043 reply I’ve said several times before that notifications should be reportable as spam directly to Google/Apple, just like email spam reporting.
Google tried to tackle this with notification channels, but the onus falls on the developer to actually use them honestly. No company trying to draw attention back to their app with advertisement notifications will willingly name a notification channel “advertisements” or “user re-engagement” or similar — they’ll just interleave spam with all the non-spam. This API from G hasn’t worked.
There should be a public API, open to any user-designated program (including self-made, without requiring any special hoops to obtain any fancy entitlements), that can act as a "firewall" for all notifications (except, possibly, for few system-critical ones), allowing it to control and modify those as it seems fit.
Applications can interact with notifications on the user's behalf via the accessibility permission - I do this with KDE Connect. I don't know what the limitations are.
On iOS?
Last time I've checked, kdeconnect-ios was unable to read any third-party notifications, not to mention doing anything to them or modifying their text or appearance in any way.
Project readme still says "Notification syncing doesn't work because iOS applications can't access notifications of other apps" (https://github.com/KDE/kdeconnect-ios?tab=readme-ov-file#kno...) so I think it's still a thing.
By mzajc 2025-06-2916:53 On Android, I forgot to mention.
Sounds great! Until your grandpa downloads a notification filter than really just forwards all his notifications to the bad guys so they can hack all his accounts
By aembleton 2025-06-309:31 That can already happen because apps can get the permission to read your notifications.
By dreamcompiler 2025-06-2917:221 reply Precisely this. There needs to be an API that all apps have to use not only for notifications but also for getting your contacts, your phone's location, etc. that is spoofable by the user. Or better yet, an AI program that runs entirely on the phone and does the spoofing automatically and entirely on behalf of the user.
Let the enshittified apps' ads interact with your AI agent and steal your fake "data" in the background without bothering the user.
Also important: It must be IMPOSSIBLE for any app to detect that its requests are being intercepted by your agent. (If they can tell, they'll refuse to work until you give them direct access.)
This is a real killer app for AI but you'll never get VC funding to build it.
By netsharc 2025-06-2920:46 On Android such a spoof app existed, it can hook into seemingly any API call and return things you control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dt50HWys1k&t=27s
But of course you need a rooted phone, and rooted phones can't run banking apps, tap-to-pay, Netflix, Pokemon Go, blah blah..
The notification "firewall" is probably not impossible to make. I use Pushbullet, it mirrors notifications to my computer (to the browser extension to be exact), and I can already dismiss notifications coming into my phone from the computer. It should be possible to make an app that intercepts all notifications, analyzes their contents and dismiss them if they're spam...
By remus 2025-06-2912:17 > Google tried to tackle this with notification channels, but the onus falls on the developer to actually use them honestly. No company trying to draw attention back to their app with advertisement notifications will willingly name a notification channel “advertisements” or “user re-engagement” or similar — they’ll just interleave spam with all the non-spam. This API from G hasn’t worked.
Revolut are really annoying for this. I'm sure there's a few spare days In their development cycle for someone to implement it if they wanted to, but instead they keep everything on the same channel which is 50% promo shit, because you don't want to miss that notification warning you about fraudulent activity on your card.
By miki123211 2025-06-2918:37 We also need some kind of (privacy friendly) open rate tracking and spam protection.
If many users receive a new kind of notification, using a new template, with low open rates, and uncorrelated with app activity, somebody at Apple should at least give it a 5-second glance and decide between "false positive" and "needs to be elevated"
As soon as I see one violation, I turn off the notification permission altogether. For example the Amazon shopping app can't send me notifications.
By amendegree 2025-06-2913:49 Same I think I denied the wallet app the ability to notify me after this ad. It’s so ingrained in me that I don’t think about it anymore… if I see an add in a notification I just immediately swipe, settings, turn off
I'm at the point where literally only the messages, clock, and maps apps can send me notifications.
By Tijdreiziger 2025-06-3010:13
Why not just use the mobile website then? An app icon is itself equivalent to having a billboard on your homescreen. What is the app providing besides notifications that necessitates its use?
Mobile websites are often either non existent or work far worse than the app.
In the case of Uber, they actually have a very deeply developed webapp.
By tgsovlerkhgsel 2025-06-303:10 Thank you! You just saved me 700 MB of storage + whatever privacy violations the app was enabling.
By rchaud 2025-07-0121:19 I haven't found this to be true for any app that just shows text and images.
By msgodel 2025-06-2919:11 In fact that's the main selling point for developing an iPhone app rather than a web page these days.
By moffkalast 2025-06-2920:54 I can hardly think of an app that uses notifications and doesn't abuse it that way. I pretty much block them as standard.
By miki123211 2025-06-2918:28 Tinder and delivery apps definitely don't follow these rules.
By nixpulvis 2025-06-2917:11 The Boston parking meter app violates this FFS. Love getting Nift gift card promotions randomly from the app I'm forced to use to pay the meter /s
> Apple Wallet is in the App store, and the F1 ad debacle directly violates App Store guidelines https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/)
It would only violate App Store guidelines if Apple forces itself to agree to, and be bound by them. I think it's arguable that they probably do not, and so they didn't violate the guidelines because they're not bound by them.
By yencabulator 2025-07-0317:29 And how do you think EU will react to Apple giving themselves such privileges over others?
Wouldn’t the guidelines apply to anyone using it who doesn’t have specific, legal, written exemptions? Not to say they don’t have it, but simply hand-waving “well they wrote it so it doesn’t have to apply to them” doesn’t seem quite as simple to me. I could be wrong!
The whole point of an agreement is that it sets out what parties will do for each other, and what happens if there is a breach.
Apple could already do things with the App Store without needing to agree to something to get Apple to let Apple do App Store things.
Apple is not going to sue themselves for being in breach.
etc.
Just because there's e.g. a license agreement doesn't mean you need to agree to something, if you are somehow otherwise authorized to do the thing. E.g. fair use, or you have a pre-existing right or ownership, or whatever.
By kulahan 2025-06-305:01 Thanks, this is why I asked - I know law can be weird and somewhat counterintuitive, so I try not to assume much!
No. Apple does not sign up for an Apple Developer account. Contracts with oneself aren't even meaningful.
This is a common tech enthusiast fallacy: thinking that law is code. So there must be some "if app published, there must be a developer account, and if the developer account violates the rule the app must be removed". It just doesn't work that way.
Apple has contracts with third parties to allow them to distribute apps in Apple's App Store. That's it.
The law definitely is not code, but the law could require Apple to follow the same requirements they set for others. Then the government could sue Apple (or otherwise enforce this behavior.)
It's not the worst idea I've heard, tbh.
By thefounder 2025-06-2922:501 reply This is the reason why anti-trust agencies don’t like this. Apple (with its App Store) is a gatekeeper and in Europe at least it should not favor its own apps over the others(i.e maps, payments, AI integrations etc). It should play fair.
“Fair” meaning that an app that was designed from the ground up by the same people that created the device and operating system should get the same attention as a malware-ridden hack from six years ago?
What does fair even mean here? Ensuring the advantages of vertical integration can’t be enjoyed by users?
Fair means you follow your own rules and do not use your monopolistic position to promote your apps.
By fsflover 2025-07-0917:03
By mensetmanusman 2025-06-301:021 reply Law is absolutely fuzzy code. Lawyers are people that try to grok the legal API in as many languages as possible. Code is a great analogy.
By brookst 2025-07-0111:46 No, it’s really not. The law is not intended to be deterministic or efficient, and it is neither. Law explicitly leaves room for human judgment and context in ways code doesn’t and shouldn’t.
By bryanrasmussen 2025-06-2922:15 While I am in agreement about the common tech enthusiast, or perhaps just dev, mental failings regarding law, I feel obligated to point out that App store guidelines written by the company running the app store are not law.
By jeffgreco 2025-06-2921:58 I think the premise is folks at Apple don’t have the occasion to be prompted to accept the terms.
Resido - the app for honeywell smart thermostats - requires notifications to be enabled to view or manage your thermostat settings or run time history. This is relatively recent because I had disabled notifications over a year ago due to it pushing ads to me.
The good news is you can limit it to only showing badges, but you have to at least have that enabled or it just freezes on a blank screen after telling you to edit your settings.
By pants2 2025-06-304:12 What an awful app too. It doesn't refresh the current temperature without force-quitting and restarting. Not as bad as my water heater app though. Couldn't get it to pair after 30 mins of headbanging, finally got through to their support who told me that the app usually doesn't work and they don't know why, and that I shouldn't bother trying.
I refuse to allow any smart device in my house. Even my oven is getting out over its boots lately
By Sylamore 2025-07-0122:34 It was annoying because my previous house had some z-wave enabled thermostats I could manage through the alarm system without any of that BS, I thought the honeywell in this rental would be nicer but all it's done is confirm I'll be using something other than honeywell controls in my next house.
By nevitablentropy 2025-06-2919:18 Never knew this before - OfferUp is a huge violator of this where they will push notification containing only advertisements with a loud notification that is identical to those used when someone makes you an offer. There is also no way to disable those promotional notifications without disabling all notifications from the app.
By al_borland 2025-06-2917:17 A lot of companies violate that policy, and it quickly leads me to uninstall the app when they do.
I didn’t get the F1 ad though (at least not yet).
I have seen Apple abusing notifications in other areas to push their subscription services though, and it a problematic trend. It makes them look cheap and desperate.
I hope this impacts current or future lawsuits regarding anticompetitive app store practices. It's a clear example of the unfair playing field Apple runs.
By alwa 2025-06-2919:30 Lord help us if “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” and the remedy (or the portent [0]) is throwing open the platform to everyone to advertise this way…
That element of “well it’s different when we do it” is what’s so unclassy here. And, like… so weirdly un-self-aware.
And all for a coupon for a garden-variety movie?! The movie doesn’t have anything to do with Apple, other than being made on their dime. What a strange purpose for which to piss away your perch above the fray.
At least save this intrusion for when you’re pushing a magical new self-driving Apple Car or something!
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/report-apple-is-expl...
For better or worse, Apple doesn't enforce this on third-parties either.
By mvdtnz 2025-06-2919:29 You cannot possibly know that. Regardless of how many instances of infractions you know of you cannot know how many instances didn't occur because of the rule and you cannot know how the known infractions were punished by Apple behind closed doors. The very existence of this rule is what makes the playing field unfair.
By valleyjo 2025-06-2920:52 Uber does this all the time to me. It’s so frustrating. I allow notifications from uber when I don’t from most apps because they are useful when a ride is incoming. Yet I get random spam notifications. I wish Apple would stand up for their own rules and do something about it but since they don’t even enforce this rule on themselves what hope is there
By ugh123 2025-06-2920:17 >unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI
Have we not already agreed to this in one of the million TOS prompts that Apple shows us? sad
By Croak 2025-07-0810:43 Rules for thee not for me
By croes 2025-06-2917:19 They are for third party developers. Apple can and will do whatever they want
By m463 2025-06-2923:55 you probably agreed to it in the 1000+ pages of privacy policy you get at the start of setting up an iphone. And there is not one checkbox for opting out.
I've always wondered why apple feels entitled to do stuff like say "privacy is a right" while simultaneously collecting enormous amounts of data from your phone.
I think back to the dan ariely investigation into dishonestly showed that disclaimers (like license agreements/privacy statements) are pretty much the gateway to bad behavior. it's like carte blanche to do whatever they want.
By gdubs 2025-06-300:29 Because they designed those guidelines for the best user experience.
Apple without Ive and Jobs increasingly has a taste problem. Everything from their ads to things like this are just in really poor taste, and aren’t something that they would have done 15 years ago because they would have thought it was beneath their brand.
I like Apple, so I’m really hoping they bring on someone to solve this. Otherwise they’re on track to be the same as every other tasteless tech company.
More on taste and Apple: https://www.readtrung.com/p/steve-jobs-rick-rubin-and-taste
By somenameforme 2025-06-2912:4518 reply Apple is basically a smartphone company at this point, and smartphone sales are plummeting. And I think they're plummeting for the same reason desktop sales plummeted. We went from a time where a new PC was a bit dated in 3 months and obsolete in 2 years, to modern times where a desktop from a decade ago is good for pretty much everything, even including high end gaming if you started with a high end card.
The exact same thing's happening to phones. I have a 6 year old phone that was cheap when it was new, and it still runs 100% of what I use my phone for, and most people use their phones for, perfectly. Tech hardware as a recurring business model only works when there's perceived significant improvements between generations. Trying to sell a few more pixels, or a fraction of a cm thinner case or whatever just isn't worth it for most people.
So, as typical with corporations in this spot, they start flailing to try to maintain revenue, let alone growth. Microsoft became a 'cloud' company paired with a side gig of spyware marketed as an OS. It'll be interesting to see what Apple transforms into.
I would say it’s simpler than that. Between Wall Street demanding “growth” and the executives’ stock options being tied to meeting those numbers, they always pull out any and all stops to push “growth”. As others have implied, with people like Jobs and others gone, there is also no cultural resistance based on core values that created Apple to push back on shameless debasement.
It is also what is happening all over the western world in general as “growth” sacrifices the indigenous cultures and people at the altar of money for the executives, ie aristocrats, and anyone resisting or even just objecting is silenced, including here, because resistance to growth at all costs is futile.
> resistance to growth at all costs is futile
humans want to improve their (material) conditions, it's pretty much the thing we do at this point (that other species don't really)
the issue that was a bit of an inconvenience, a mere side-effect of our culture is nowadays burning down the whole shebang
we overvalue short-term gains (thus we have serious agent-principal and integrity issues), we have a laundry list of cognitive biases, and we managed to invent the weaponized cognitive-bias-exploitor and immediately tried it out on ourselves, and ... since the good old days of pamphlets and religious wars we are engaged in all kinds psyops.
we are both great and terrible at "winning hearts and minds" (that's why it works, but unfortunately it works much better at turning people into crazy self-destructive antisocial trolls than courageous prosocial reformers)
“ we overvalue short-term gains (thus we have serious agent-principal and integrity issues),”
Agree and would even make the argument that Chinas rise in some is a response to short term with patience.
China is willing to move mountains and allow western corporations 8-10 years of ridiculous low labor costs and promote incredible profits. They then learn the process and the tech and now companies like TP-link, Huawei, BYD, tencent, and so forth are all legit and make good products. This approach can even be seen in their military. With all the talk of China invading Taiwan… the reality is it just won’t happen. China will patiently build the largest Navy and infiltrate the political landscape of Taiwan until they just peacefully transfer back into the fold.
Not sure what the answer is here but perhaps we could learn something back ?
By fireflash38 2025-06-2916:471 reply Do you think that strategy is from their rulers? And do you think that when the rulers die, that strategy will live on?
I think it will pass like every other empire/business: ruined by future generations who did not toil for it and who will trade it for short term gain.
By somenameforme 2025-06-2918:46 I don't think the obsession with the short-term is necessarily the natural state of people, especially not in leadership. There were buildings built in times past knowing full well that it would take decades and even centuries to complete.
But I think long-term thinking requires a unified people in a democracy, or a non-democratic system. Democracy in a divided society makes long-term stuff basically impossible when the next guy who comes in will just undo it to spite you. And long-term visions often come with short-term costs without anything yet to show for it, which can then be weaponized against you. Oh and the best trick of all is doing something with short term benefit and mid-term costs, and then blame the consequences of your own actions on the next guy in office. Excessive printing of money is an obvious and extremely common example of this.
By vinceguidry 2025-06-2916:522 reply > China will patiently build the largest Navy and infiltrate the political landscape of Taiwan until they just peacefully transfer back into the fold.
I don't think this would work, they can't manipulate a sophisticated Western political system without actual sovereignty over the land. Western soft power is just that good.
If China had a playbook that could accomplish that, they would have used that instead for assimilating Hong Kong instead of what they ended up doing. They tried, but HK resisted Chinese influence HARD. So China stopped offering carrots and brought out the stick.
The west is very naive. A lot of the current state of the world is a result of western politicians believing the "end of history" theories of the 1980s - the idea that any country would naturally become a free market liberal democracy as it grew richer.
China is building soft power. We have Chinese funded teaching in British universities, lecturers moved from teaching a course because they upset Chinese students (who supported the regime), open apologists at places like Jesus College, Cambridge, agents building influence with MPs....
I agree Taiwan is unlikely to easily agree to be taken over by China, but that is because they know what living under Chinese rule will be like, not because of the soft power of the west.
By vinceguidry 2025-06-2917:361 reply The limiting factor to Chinese soft power development is its need to remain authoritarian. Folks will accept living under one if that's all they know. But if you didn't grow up with the brainwashing nobody will trust you and everything is transactional. You see Chinese attempts to exert political control over its diaspora and it never works as well as they would like.
Where the West's soft power essentially comes from in is in being the alternative to authoritarianism and it really doesn't have to be any more than that. The West will operate its own authoritarian regimes, like Puerto Rico, and Hawaii before it became a state, and the Phillipines, and these folks are perhaps the most oppressed of all. The West knows authoritarianism extremely well and is far better at the carrot / stick game of manipulating people.
When your carrots consist of patently self-serving deals to other autocrats at the expense of the public, the public eventually gets wise and puts pressure on the autocrat. The West can offer much more lucrative arrangements for all around, like that of building Taiwan's semiconductor industry. It's become a source of national pride for them and has created middle classes, a necessity for a modern political system.
I don’t know man, I would have believed this wholeheartedly ten years ago. But people are choosing true authoritarianism in droves. People just keep voting for Trump, Orban, Erdogan, and Le Pen. Trump is extremely transactional.
All of which is great news for China, and a great victory for their ‘do nothing: win’ policy.
By somenameforme 2025-06-309:11 I don't think authoritarian is the right term for critiques here. Try to define it in a way that one can't simply turn it around and apply it to people you probably don't want it to be applied to. For instance the actions taken during COVID, and against people during COVID, could easily be framed as extremely authoritarian. But then, like now, claims of authoritarianism were more of a proxy for 'I don't like the actions of this government' with authoritarianism just a framing of convenience.
In general the trends of the past were largely a product of globalism, and globalism is dying. So I expect we'll enter more into a historical zones of influence global status quo. For instance anybody who doesn't think Chinese soft power is growing exponentially should visit basically anywhere in Asia now a days. A decade ago China had relatively minimal influence, now it's everywhere driven in large part by just absolutely massive numbers of Chinese tourists as well as expats. A rapidly expanding middle class in a country of 1.4 billion has an impact that's basically impossible to overstate.
They always have. The present isn’t super special, and I think Europeans (speaking as one) realize this a bit easier, because we see populist governments rise and fall again, over and over, in different countries.
Populism is notoriously brittle, and almost every European populist party has eventually fallen once they gained actual power, because it turns out governing is complicated and can’t be done effectively while maintaining that beautiful, simple, enticing narrative that brought you into power.
But the Chinese government is not populist in the same sense, often quite the contrary. Their legitimacy seems to be derived from the fact that they have achieved real results for their population, which means they will eventually hit a different road block.
In uni, my friends used the phrase “simple solutions for complex times” as an insult for political ideas. Cutting the Gordian Knot only works well if your father spent half his life perfecting a new military doctrine for you. Still, it’s amazing how many people have “how hard can it be?” attitudes about everything but their own career/field.
By hopelite 2025-06-3021:07 Yes, it will surely all end in calamity, whether anyone here experiences it themselves or not. Humans have a major (among many) flaw, in the nasty tendency to believe they not only have a sufficient understanding of sufficient enough things, but that they also know the effects their perceived perfect choices and actions will have on such a complex system. Many religions have stories capturing this folly, the most famous possibly being the Tower of Babel, which were are furiously building in spite of what many humans call God, while others believe they have no more need for a God greater than themselves.
By vinceguidry 2025-06-3014:271 reply Orban just tried to ban the yearly Pride parade and inadvertently turned it into the largest protest against his rule ever. Trump barely took the election and may have even stolen it, if recent news is to be believed.
By pas 2025-07-0222:46 meh, not like protests work
see Tblisi or Belgrade :(
By Yeul 2025-06-2917:47 Electing Trump and supporting Netanyahu doesn't help much with the soft power thing.
By rewgs 2025-06-2918:33 > Between Wall Street demanding “growth” and the executives’ stock options being tied to meeting those numbers, they always pull out any and all stops to push “growth”.
This right here. The perverse incentives integral to public companies are at the core of so much that is wrong with the world.
By Yeul 2025-06-2917:43 Growth is difficult when Apple is pushed out of the Chinese market because of geopolitics.
Decoupling was coined by Americans and enthusiastically embraced by the CCP.
By BurningFrog 2025-06-2917:142 reply Growth is awesome. We're incredibly fortunate to live in this high growth era!
What Apple may be guilty of here is focusing on short term growth at the expense of the long term. If you make an extra buck today, at the expense of losing user loyalty, that's not what any shareholder wants.
This could be a case of short term growth being rewarded inside the company. It could also be any number of other reasons.
> What Apple may be guilty of here is focusing on short term growth at the expense of the long term.
Wall St growthbros do not draw these sorts of distinctions. If the focus on short-term growth ends up tanking a company, there will simply be another company to project its growth obssession on. It could be Apple services, or Peloton bikes or Subway sandwiches, they could not care less. Those companies aren't their customers; the investment houses, short sellers, market makers and pension funds are.
By BurningFrog 2025-06-2921:17 That's a theoretical argument.
The empirically existing stock market does quite well long term. Apple itself is over half a century old, as are many other big companies.
By Tepix 2025-06-2920:07 Maybe. But future generations (like yours kids) will have to pay dearly for our „growth at all cost“ mentality that uses up limited resources disproportionately and unsustainably.
By msgodel 2025-06-2919:26 This stupidity isn't leading to growth though. I'm actually shorting them because their inability to produce products that actually add value to their customers lives is already manifesting in earnings/sales decay.
By supportengineer 2025-06-2915:14 All you can do is be an executive, or failing that, be a shareholder
Maturity/commoditization of technology (a good thing) can only be seen as problematic in a world where steady-state businesses with steady profits are seen as "stagnant", and only companies that delivers (or at least promises) perpetual growth are seen as successful. Apple has been wildly successful. There has to be a world in which such a company can benefit from a demand spike without betting its entire future on that demand continuing.
By surgical_fire 2025-06-2916:17 > Maturity/commoditization of technology (a good thing)
We are in a forum were more than once I have seen people deriding mature companies as "mediocre" because of "moderate profits".
This idea that line must eternally go up and growth must be infinite is pervasive, no matter how destructive it is.
The result is this unholy abomination of a union of hustle-culture and rent-seeking.
By pjmlp 2025-06-309:23 That doesn't work when shareholders demand exponential growth year after year, with consequences, layoffs or whatever, when those numbers aren't met.
> Apple is basically a smartphone company at this point, and smartphone sales are plummeting.
iPhone sales aren’t plummeting at all:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-ipho...
A graph whose data ends in 2018 isn't strong evidence for "they aren't plummeting."
That said, doing some searches for newer information (e.g., https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/) suggests that iPhone sales aren't plummeting but are instead rather stable. (Although I wonder how much of that is services attributed to iPhone as opposed to solely the sales revenue from iPhone, the source doesn't make that clear).
By scarface_74 2025-06-2915:21 Well, since you can actually look at Apple’s quarterly report where they break down revenue from iPhones and services separately…
By brookst 2025-06-2914:39 No services are attributed to iPhone. It’s a different category, reported separately. No conspiratorial thinking on easily-checked assertions please.
By WrongAssumption 2025-06-2914:351 reply How does the source not make it clear? The first two bullets from your source.
“Apple generated $390.8 billion revenue in 2024, 51% came from iPhone sales
Apple Services is the second largest division, responsible for 24% of revenue in 2024”
By AlecSchueler 2025-06-2914:591 reply Do either of those facts point to increases in iPhone sales?
The second source’s first paragraph says “with total sales expected to surpass previous records” for 2023, at least.
By somenameforme 2025-06-2916:521 reply Sales are accounted for in $ terms, not units sold. It's the same thing with Hollywood. You might think movies are more popular than ever thanks to record breaking sales (pre-COVID at least). In reality, we reached peak movie, in terms of tickets sold, in 2002! [1]
Back to iPhones, this [2] page shows their stats by units sold (about half way down). iPhone is essentially treading water if those data are correct (with a peak in 2015 overcome twice since, but by ~1% each time), but I strongly suspect that that's showing units shipped and not units sold, as iPhone sales declining has been universally reported.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-2918:23 Ask yourself the question of what it means when a company makes more dollars from a product while not increasing the number of units sold. It's completely obvious if you think about it for a moment.
While sales may not be plummeting. Hype around the market sure has. Nobody is really that excited about the next iPhone anymore.
By me_smith 2025-06-2914:42 The last time I bought the newest iPhone was iPhone 5. In the past, I’ve been getting hand me downs since most people change their phone between 12-18 months. I’m still using an iPhone X. I can’t upgrade the iOS at the moment so looking forward to getting an iPhone 13 in the next year or so.
I agree with you. Hand me downs aren’t coming as fast as they used to.
This is the first time in a long time I’m not interested in replacing my phone after a year.
By ghushn3 2025-06-2923:49 That's probably pretty healthy -- phones these days should comfortably last you several years. I consider folks who buy a new phone every year these days to be engaging in pretty conspicuous consumption.
By skeeter2020 2025-06-2916:061 reply which when you look at your device, it's cost and what you use it for, should not be all that remarkable of a statement. I mean, what if you replaced "phone" with car, house or partner?
I bet id buy a new car more frequently if cars were first invented!
As it is, I bought my car new and is 20 years old in great condition. Partner … I mean, who wouldn’t want to trade in for a new model if it weren’t for the social concerns? (I kiiiid I kiiid)
By Affric 2025-06-2923:09 If you could get the same partner with more capabilities and less wear and tear with all important information transferred into the new one every year it sounds pretty appealing.
I have bought two phones since 2010
The graph I see on that link goes only to 2018 and seems to show slight decline. What is the takeaway meant here?
By refulgentis 2025-06-2914:591 reply This threads confusing so I'll jump in!
Well, no, it shows:
2021 < 2023
2022 < 2021
2023 > 2021
2024 ??
By refulgentis 2025-06-2919:471 reply That's not true, though!
We can see the bar for 2021 is longer than 2023!
We can see the table value for 2021 is > 2023!
Screenshots, for sales, from 2nd link, i.e. what we are told to look to see 2021 < 2023: https://imgur.com/a/CpGWbWM
(although, my comment makes a hash of the whole thing and says 2021 is both < and > than 2023. Sigh.)
(n.b. not trying to be aggressive, or disagree, or make a statement about the overall premise that sales are declining. Just mildly amused by the confusion in the thread)
(my $0.02 would be that we're seeing the same general stasis that was presumed after the iPhone 6 release, but really, we just need more data (2021 was COVID stimmy high))
(but my $0.02 should be that "yeah stuff plateaued, or at least no more hypergrowth, post-2018" because this is what we were shown on the Pixel team at Google, and a little birdy told me that's how Apple thinks about it)
> but my $0.02 should be that "yeah stuff plateaued, or at least no more hypergrowth, post-2018"
Note that what was being claimed was that “Apple is basically a smartphone company at this point, and smartphone sales are plummeting”. Whether iPhone sales are growing, bounced around a bit, or have plateaued is irrelevant. It’s pretty clear they are not plummeting.
By refulgentis 2025-06-3020:43 Right!
Note that I'm not saying that's true! I didn't say anything about any of that! :)
By wohoef 2025-06-2914:22 This is missing the last 7 years of data…
By cjbgkagh 2025-06-2914:20 There seems to have been a downward trend for smartphones since 2017.
Growth is either from an expanding market or an expanding market share, since it’s not an expanding market that leaves the market share.
I would image there is some substitution, with iPhones lasting longer on average it becomes more cost effective to switch to iPhones so they capture more market share. But if the general market doesn’t expand then it’s a fairly safe assumption that the new converts are going to wait before upgrading meaning that a decrease in sales is already partially baked in.
My anecdotal datapoint is 4 iPhones in 16 years which makes them rather cheap on an annual basis.
Edit: I had assumed that parent was correct, but as the peer pointed out iPhone sales have declined
Yep. And this is why “liquid glass” is the hot new thing this year. That’s basically all we have left to drive the refresh cycle that tech is addicted to.
By Imustaskforhelp 2025-06-2914:281 reply It surprises me that this is what apple has essentially boiled down to. Yes there are people stuck in the walled garden but they were willingly stuck there tbh. They liked apple vision and felt different. But if apple is just going to lose on all fronts ("AI","vision?","This year innovation=liquid-glass") Yeah, they might not be in a good state..., Also most people I see want an iphone just rebuy old iphones and those phones themselves are still in good conditions.
By drob518 2025-06-2917:56 Well, I’m pretty entrenched in Apple’s ecosystem because I value the iCloud integration between my devices, but all my devices are a couple years old and I tend to keep them until they are no longer supported (M1 Air, iPhone 14, iPad Air M1, etc.). In particular, I don’t drive my iPhone hard. As long as it can do phone and texting and run a browser and the Kindle app, I’m good. Needless to say, I won’t be upgrading devices for liquid glass.
By supertrope 2025-06-2917:05 Just like the new fashion season, car model year updates, and spectator sport video games roster updates. Change for the sake of driving sales. Has anyone done fashion as a service (FaaS)?
By steveBK123 2025-06-2913:571 reply Agree they have a huge taste problem, but even besides that Apple has a huge incumbent problem now really.
Smartphones ate the world, and they ate the majority of profit in the space. We are now 20 years on and the software is no longer driving the urgency of the hardware upgrade cycle it used to. Apple gets the majority of its revenue from iPhones and related services. Note that services category includes all sorts of App Store extortion payment stuff that they are slowly losing court cases over.
iPhones are so big for them, no other product category created since is even in the same order of magnitude. Partially I think thats on Apple, but I look across the consumer electronics space and don't really see anything new categories they aren't already dominating anyway (tablet, smart watches, etc).
One "moat" they probably do have is that in the US at least, theres not a lot of other physical retailers to go try out consumer electronics. 20+ years ago Apple Store were filled with 3rd party products, now its all Apple everything.
Apple’s MO, at least in recent decades, is to let others blaze the trail into a new space, then do their own version that gets it right.
Smartphones were a big deal before the iPhone. People would talk about how they were addicted to checking email on their “crackberries.” But they were niche. You could see that they were going to be big, but they weren’t there yet. Then the iPhone catapulted smartphones from a popular niche to a ubiquitous product.
Before the iPhone, they did the same thing with portable music players. Afterwards, it was the same story for tables and smart watches, although not with the same degree of ubiquity. Arguably it was the same for PCs (“personal computers,” not IBM-compatible machines, of course) and GUIs, way back when.
What big upcoming thing would they do this with now? As you say, there really isn’t anything. Maybe VR/AR, but that isn’t even in the “popular niche” stage yet, the technology isn’t there yet, and it’s far from certain that it will ever be more than a tiny niche. Otherwise, what? Self-driving cars? That’s not a new market, that’s a product feature in an existing large, mature market. AI? That’s also looking like a feature rather than a new product category.
By steveBK123 2025-06-2915:362 reply You're 100% right, Apple as a fast-follower "getting it right" tech company, and there's nothing to fast follow right now.
IoT/smarthome has been a niche/fad going nowhere since day 1.
Smart speakers are commodities.
They dabbled in an EV project, canned it.
They've dabbled in AR with the VisionPro but really it's too early, if it will ever work.
AI is software not hardware.
Apple smartphones/tablets/watches have essentially killed 10x more hardware categories than have come into existence since.
They sell a lot of headphones I guess.
The only consumer electronics I buy now outside Apple are basically higher end niche hobbyist stuff in for example music or photography. Nothing that would ever sell at the price levels ($200-1000) or volumes (billions) to move the needle for Apple.
By ghostpepper 2025-06-301:332 reply >> They sell a lot of headphones I guess.
If you are still using bluetooth headphones as they existed 10+ years ago, and haven't tried using apple headphones with an apple computer/phone, you are missing a massive quality of life upgrade in terms of basically never having to do the pairing dance again after your initial purchase.
By Tijdreiziger 2025-06-3010:192 reply You don’t have to do that with non-Apple headphones either.
The bigger problem with Bluetooth headphones is that the batteries are non-replaceable, so consumers are incentivized to throw them out every few years (just like smartphones).
By int_19h 2025-06-3019:29 Some non-Apple headphones can pair to more than one device, but there's usually a hard limit, and it's fairly small. And you have to set each up separately.
Apple headphones will roam between all Apple devices that you own, and it pretty much "just works".
Of course, as soon as you step out of their ecosystem, not only you have to pair manually again, but it can only be paired to a single non-Apple device at a time.
By gosub100 2025-06-3012:42 This doesn't match my experience. Even gen 5 Bluetooth on android is still choc full of gotchas and erratic behavior.
By seec 2025-07-054:26 There is such a mythology around that it's basically religious fervor at this point. Apple stuff isn't any better or more convenient than any other brand. The gold standard is multi-point Bluetooth which Apple doesn't do because they would rather have you locked in their "ecosystem". Joke's on them because even if you are a customer, you can very much get a good experience by avoiding the Apple stuff.
By SlowTao 2025-06-301:22 This is something I have said for a while. A lot of the fields they are in now are largely 'solved'. Not saying there cannot be improvements but we are well into the diminishing returns phase.
There is absolutely no risk of Apple going under any time in the next few decades but the era of rapid progress is over.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-2918:311 reply Let's hope eink or any other type of outdoors usable display. That's a new market of hundreds of millions of devices they can sell.
By steveBK123 2025-06-2919:092 reply I’ve dabbled in a bunch of those. Kindle. Remarkable. Daylight.
The problem is it’s always a great 3rd or 4th device. Not sure there’s a high margin high volume demand for it.
Things like Daylight could be really great if the software was more tailored to the device. And even then, you are right, I don't think it will ever be anything more than niche. It is the kind of product that if it absolutely struck a chord would be 10% of the market absolute tops.
Nothing wrong with that though. It is good to be a part of stable but solid market rather than trying to dominate it and fail.
What would be awesome is to have a double screen device. OLED on the front, eink on the back. So you could operate in simple mode if you want or use the sharp screen for photos when needed.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-3013:40 I believe the manufacturer Sharp is working right now on displays which will have both modes in the same screen, so no need to flip your device around.
By BlueTemplar 2025-07-041:45 Yotaphone did it in 2013-2015 :
https://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/yotap...
By carlosjobim 2025-06-3012:101 reply That's like the people saying retina/HiDPI displays would only be niche, or that portable computing devices would only be niche. Good outside usable displays would revolutionize the world – especially in places that get a lot of sun. And Apple is probably the only company which would be able to capitalize on that with a "new" category of product. It's not different than people needing clothes for cold weather and for warm weather. Right now we only have indoor clothes...
Retina/HiDPI are almost entirely better than the alternative without them. The "almost" is just because of increased processing and power needs, which pretty quickly became insignificant. They took over because there's no real compromise. You pick the one that's better in all circumstances.
A display that's better outdoors and worse indoors is never going to take off. Approximately nobody wants to carry two phones just so that they can see the screen a little better while they're waiting for the bus. Current screens are good enough for outdoor use, even if not great.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-3017:101 reply > A display that's better outdoors and worse indoors is never going to take off.
That's not what I'm suggesting. We already have those displays. What I'm saying is that once they have the technology to make a great outdoors display without too many compromises on the other parts, then they have an entirely new category of device to replace the old, and to sell hundreds of millions of units.
> Approximately nobody wants to carry two phones just so that they can see the screen a little better while they're waiting for the bus.
You're arguing like you live a limited life, which I'm sure is not the case, you're just arguing in that way in the quote above. People want to be outdoors much more than just to wait for the bus. And approximately 100% of the people who work with computers would prefer to do it in a well-lit environment. Offices and living rooms are currently constructed to shield from light, to let people see their computer or TV screens better.
Not to forget the people who actually work outdoors and need to check blueprints, take orders, or whatever. Bring your laptop to the park on a sunny day and try to use it. It won't be pleasant for your eyes even in the shadow.
> see the screen a little better
It's not a little, it's a lot. Try comparing your phone screen out in the sun with a sheet of paper with something written or printed. The paper is much brighter.
> Current screens are good enough for outdoor use, even if not great.
They are absolutely awful, and you need to compare in real life with better screens or paper to get a feel for it.
This is why I originally wrote that Apple is the right company to bring this kind of technology to the masses. They understand that the general public will buy products that are great to use, not products which are capable of being used if the user suffers all the time.
I guess I misunderstood "needing clothes for cold weather and for warm weather. Right now we only have indoor clothes..." as suggesting we could have different screens for indoor and outdoor.
I often work outside in the middle latitudes when it's nice out, which usually means sunny. My laptop's display is fine in the shade. If I was desperate, I could use one of those third-party apps that enables HDR mode for all content to get it brighter than 100%, but so far I haven't needed it.
Which screens are you using outdoors? There's a pretty wide range of maximum brightness out there, so your experience will vary considerably depending on your specific hardware. A Dell Pro 16 laptop (picked arbitrarily from dell.com, I know nothing about it otherwise) display does 300 nits. My laptop does 1,000 nits, 1,600 with an HDR hack. An iPhone from the past few years will do 2,000. This is a wide range of usability.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-3020:171 reply If it's sunny outdoors, I use an E-ink display. My Macbook Air does a maximum of 500 nits, but I don't think even 1600 nits is enough, which is the maximum a Macbook Pro can do with some hacking.
If you look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkEa1ZttTxg
It's usable if you really need to, but it's far from good. What's needed is "great" if Apple wants to bring a new category of device to mass market (new as in how iPhone with retina display was new).
> An iPhone from the past few years will do 2,000. This is a wide range of usability.
Billions of people use their phones outside every day, so there's no doubt it's usable. But it's a very very bad experience when the weather is sunny. Just look around you at the people squinting and shading their display with their free hand.
I have a friend who also insisted that modern OLED phones are good for outdoor use, and we tried putting his phone with max brightness next to a Kindle and a white sheet of paper. The difference is night and day. LCD/OLED displays are pathetic next to reflective displays outdoors. And much harder to read.
People say their Acer touchpad is good until they try a Macbook touchpad. They said that lo-DPI displays were good until they saw a Retina/hi-DPI display. They said 1,5 hours of battery was good until Apple started selling 8 hour battery life laptops. Or that entering a passcode was good until Apple introduced Touch ID. Etc etc.
Screen visibility outdoors is a real pain-point with modern electronics, and I think many people would like to pay for a good solution to this problem if it was offered, rather than suffer a bad experience for little reason.
I said “good enough,” which is not quite the same as “good.” They’re usable.
Better outdoor usability is demonstrably a selling point. That’s why newer iPhones have such a high max brightness. And people will certainly like even more. But they’re not going to pay a large amount for it, or accept any loss of indoor capability. It’s not going to be a new category of device, just the same stuff except better in very bright light.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-3023:15 It would be a new category of device in the sense that a significant amount of current device owners will have a very good reason to upgrade and in the case of portable computers and tablets it would change completely how and where they are used. I think that's the main concern of the original question: What next great thing could Apple release to make an additional ton of money again?
I think regular LCD/OLED displays will become fully daylight capable before these specialized displays become high volume. We’re almost there today. My phone and laptop are usable outside in most conditions, but not great in direct sunlight. It’s not really the right technology for that environment, but the R&D money being poured into it is immense.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-2921:191 reply LCD/OLED displays are hardly usable outdoors or in well-lit spaces, unless you live in a very dark place geographically. They need to become at least twice as bright if not more to be pleasant to use, and by that point battery life and heat starts to become a problem.
But if they are able to make it, I'm all the happier. If Apple manages to make a fully daylight compatible device (whichever display technology), then they will have unlocked sales of hundreds of millions of devices. Because who doesn't want to get out of the cave?
By fennecbutt 2025-06-2923:581 reply Apple don't make displays. So they won't manage to make anything of the sort.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-3011:09 Correct. But they can instruct their suppliers to make these displays.
By graemep 2025-06-2917:04 Other way round with GUIs. Apple were first to mass market, and MS were far more successful.
By scarface_74 2025-06-2915:20 There is no evidence from Apple’s breakout of iPhone revenue that sales or “plummeting”. They are stagnant.
And statistics show that the average person buys a new phone every 3 years. Apple’s laptop sales are also stagnate and not declining.
Most people use laptops - not desktops. There is no six year old laptop that has the combination of speed, battery life, quietness and lack of heat that a modern M series Mac has.
By Apofis 2025-06-2914:38 I still have my iPhone 12 Pro that I preordered and got in release day and it still does everything I can ask of it, though the latest Call of Duty runs a bit slow, which is making me want to upgrade. Them not releasing a smart Siri that answers to more than just basic prompts is really hurting them and I can see why investors sued them. There's no reason for me to have to use ChatGPT on an iPhone, I should be able to talk to Siri like she's an actual personal assistant and not just an easier way to check the weather and set a timer.
>Apple is basically a smartphone company at this point
Not entirely correct. Apple is a software sales platform.
Apple have stated that even older phones and iPads and macs will get the new OS26.
Apple realised a long time ago that, as you said, consumers don't have a need to upgrade.
So rather than taking the approach of others, which is to stop OS updates and then also security updates, which would result in compatibility issues. Apple are trying to maintain the largest possible user base.
So they can sell to all of them.
By Tijdreiziger 2025-06-3010:31 Google tries to maintain a large user base as well.
The problem Google has is that they’re dependent on phone OEMs to release OS updates, but OEMs mostly don’t make money off software.
They ‘solved’ this by pushing a lot of security and OS features into Google Play Services, so they can update them independently of the OS. Today, you can get new apps and OS features even on older Android versions.
If they are offering value add services, I'd much rather pay for them directly than have them subsidized be ads, sort of analogous to MS Office 365 (ideally with better privacy).
Maybe a direct pay model doesn't have enough reach for a big company in which case hopefully we'll get a Kagi-style paid phone OS from someone.
Unfortunately even if you're paying for the hardware, and paying monthly for iCloud, and paying 30% of every app and in-app purchase Apple still won't give you an ad-free experience.
The cash brought in by ads is concrete, quantifiable, and can be attributed to specific people. The lost sales and eroded brand trust are almost impossible to measure or attribute. This means it's very easy for businesses to (inadvertently) incentivise managers to destroy brand trust in pursuit of profit.
Nobody's every gotten a bonus for their restrained and tasteful decision not to put ads into something.
By hylaride 2025-06-2916:21 On top of that, Apple users tend to be in the upper half of the income distribution - like in the USA iPhones are 55-60% of the market, but that skyrockets to well over 80% in the upper income half.
There's a reason advertisers salivate at that (and why Google gives Apple billions to default to Google search).
By deadbabe 2025-06-2919:08 Apple is an ecosystem company.
By heavyset_go 2025-06-2919:32 Apple wants to be a services company that sells smartphones.
By Workaccount2 2025-06-2913:191 reply Probably more hardware while trying to recreate the "your friends and family will leave you out" effect of iMessage.
By rrr_oh_man 2025-06-2914:59 not outside NA
By supportengineer 2025-06-2915:131 reply You missed an important use-case. If my phone lasts for six years and I’m extremely pleased with it, then of course I’m going to buy another one. I’m going to keep doing that indefinitely.
By cronelius 2025-06-2915:16 6 year customer cycles are not recurring revenue. they want your money monthly and annually
By gizajob 2025-06-2912:53 Nokia.
By sillyfluke 2025-06-2913:211 reply >I have a 6 year old phone that was cheap when it was new, and it still runs 100% of what I use my phone for
What's especially annoying about iphones is that my decade old andriod phones without any os updates work more robustly on the modern web than a 2021 iphone with its original os. You can blame it on chrome dominance. but it's pretty much bullshit if you're a company with Apple's treasure chest and you are no longer able to push out any buy-me features to make up for your outdated build and release cycle.
You’re an outlier. Apple has arguably the best lifecycle in the personal computing space in all of its categories.
They support most devices for 5-7 years, and have a strong incentive to do so as there is a pipeline of used devices into developing markets and their branding and segmentation means their devices have strong resale value.
With your old android, you’re either running an open source stack of some sort, which is out of the reach of most users, or operating on an ancient os that Google or your carrier (or both) has long abandoned that leaves you vulnerable to a variety of issues.
By sillyfluke 2025-06-2917:011 reply >They support most devices for 5-7 years
You're not responding to the case I'm specifically talking about. As new major iOS or Android releases have features I could care less about, I primarily only care about critical security releases for the OS I have. Why is it thatI have to install a new OS just to get a updated version of Safari?
Whereas I seem to be able to download usable browsers on older Android phones (with older Android versions installed) from the play store?
These phones are not my primary phones, so I'm less concerned with security and more concerned about them turning into bricks of trash sooner rather than later. A phone that can stay usuable for longer without any os updates versus one that requires os updates to stay usuable should get some points in that category. And it's been my experience that battery life of older phones are negatively affected after os updates anyway, as they are not the targete phones for new OS.
By Spooky23 2025-06-2920:22 Because it doesn’t make sense with their business model.
My company had some ancient capital equipment that required windows 2000. We had a contract that supported them up until a few years ago. That contract costed a fortune, but made perfect sense for the use case. Nobody is going to pay to keep an iPhone 4 updated.
Note my comment is that you’re an outlier. That doesn’t mean that your needs are flawed, wrong or anything else. It’s just not consistent with the market’s need and represents an addressable market too small for Apple.
Sometimes companies do serve niche markets by rolling them together. Sonim, for example, made a fully waterproof Android phone that was rugged and marketed to public safety and construction customers. It also solved a problem for small customers like mine who had environments where traditional smartphones could trigger an explosion.
I don’t want a phone with design characteristics the lets it operate in a grain elevator. Likewise, I have no desire to operate a phone for many years, and the market, rightly or wrongly, agrees with me.
By hermanzegerman 2025-06-2915:00 > They support most devices for 5-7 years
That's the bare minimum under the new EU Ecodesign Rules. Also for phones this is long, but for PCs/Notebooks this is rather short.
>With your old android, you’re either running an open source stack of some sort, which is out of the reach of most users, or operating on an ancient os that Google or your carrier (or both) has long abandoned that leaves you vulnerable to a variety of issues.
That completely misses the point that old Android Devices still get updated and recent Apps that work well, while Apple blocks their users from enjoying that. No more iOS Updates on Apple usually means no more App Installs/Updates after a short time
By hedora 2025-06-2914:00 As far as I’m concerned, they don’t make smartphones anymore.
Sent from my iPhone 13 mini. It it breaks, I’ll replace it with a refurbished 13 mini or SE 3.
(My smartphone replacement budget is $1200.)
By iwontberude 2025-06-2913:404 reply 2015 Nvidia GTX 970 is such a piece of shit card, no you couldn’t do modern gaming. It has relatively few pipelines, low bandwidth and has no frame generation capability to make anything new playable.
By HighGoldstein 2025-06-2913:501 reply Op said "if you started with a high end card". The GTX 970 was Nvidia's mid-range at the time, and not a great one at that. A 980 Ti or Titan X can still perform reasonably well for a 10 year old card. Even with the 970, the real problem is its low VRAM (and the 3.5+0.5GB fiasco). The AMD RX 480 8G which was comparable but with much more VRAM can still run most games, even if you have to make some compromises.
By BlueTemplar 2025-07-041:59 Indeed, some compromises. A 2015 high-end is in 2025 a midrange at best.
Especially since in 2015 that likely still meant FullHD in SDR, while in 2025 high end would be UHD-1 with HDR.
By Spunkie 2025-06-2915:29 You absolutely can do modern gaming on it. I literally have 2 friends in our gaming group that are still rocking 970 in their desktops.
They have had to replace the fans on the graphics card a few times and a repaste but other than that they are chugging away.
Also solid lol on "frame generation". Marketing fluff/features like that only exists but because they have run out of real generational performance gains to sell cards with.
By dontlaugh 2025-06-2917:23 I used one until last year and it worked even for most new games.
And yet it can capably power many classics. Skyrim. Portal 2. Witcher 3. The same argument made above about phone hardware is largely true for gaming. The hallmark of modern gaming (and increasingly television) is sadly one of eschewing artistic creation in favor of monetizing eyeballs and the construction of social phenomena, artificial scarcity.
By Tradenko 2025-06-2916:07 The comment they replied to was that a ten year old PC can do high end modern gaming. Skyrim and Portal 2 are 14 years old, and Witcher 3 is 10. I don't think a 970 could run Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
> I have a 6 year old phone that was cheap when it was new, and it still runs 100% of what I use my phone for, and most people use their phones for, perfectly.
Just to be clear your suggesting that your 6 year old iPhone runs a suit of social media apps, full graphics games like Minecraft (or whatever the hell people play these days I don’t know), fitness apps, connects to the latest audio devices like Apple’s AirPods Pro (as an example), works with CarPlay/Android Auto, has wireless charging capability, can place 3D objects in a room to help you plan out a new design, and allows you to use payments features like tap to pay? Plus equivalent camera and video quality?
Because if your phone doesn’t do all of those things and perform as well and have great battery life too, your 6 year old Android phone doesn’t really do what most people use their phones for today.
I don’t know anyone who uses their phone to play full graphics games or use it to plan out interior design, and for everything else, a 6 year old iPhone can most definitely do all of that. I know, because I did all of these things on an iPhone 11 up until earlier this year, and I only replaced it because the charging port was damaged.
By lightedman 2025-06-3012:331 reply "I don’t know anyone who uses their phone to play full graphics games or use it to plan out interior design"
I use mine to design mines so people underground don't get killed - way more intensive than interior decorating.
By xyzzyz 2025-07-010:46 Congrats man, but that's not really germane to the point, which is that a 6 year old iPhone adequately satisfies the needs of majority of the population.
By transcriptase 2025-06-2913:40 An iPhone 11 does indeed do all of those things easily. The only thing it lacks is LiDAR, which I would argue very few people use intentionally and was introduced the following year anyway. Camera of course not going to be equivalent, but still takes stunning photos.
Thinking about my previous iphones
> Just to be clear your suggesting that your 6 year old iPhone runs a suit of social media apps
No, I deleted them all - other than youtube (premium, no adverts). I used to have them 10 years ago though so a 10 year old phone would run them.
> full graphics games like Minecraft (or whatever the hell people play these days I don’t know)
I have a few games to pass the time in some cases, but a touchscreen is rubbish for proper gaming. Sadly some games I had (monkey island rings a bell) seem to have been removed.
> fitness apps
Alas I'm not particularly fit, however I do recall a fitness tracker on windows 3.1, so I imagine that the supercomputer in my pocket can keep track of my heart-rate with the right sensor. I am fairly sure these were all the rage when covid hit 5 years ago so it's a fair bet they'll work now.
> connects to the latest audio devices like Apple’s AirPods Pro (as an example)
Headphones? My 25 year old phone will do that. Bluetooth? I'm fairly sure my 3GS did that. Sadly modern phones don't do wired headphones any more, so have regressed on that metric.
> works with CarPlay/Android Auto
Yes, I had carplay in my 2016 car so any iphone since then will do carplay.
> has wireless charging capability
My 4 year old iphone does that, although I rarely use it. It came out 5 years ago.
> can place 3D objects in a room to help you plan out a new design
I have to admit I have never even considered doing that
> and allows you to use payments features like tap to pay?
Yes. It's face recognition so less convenient than the older phone it replaced which was a touch sensor and also did tap-to-pay, more like "double click, stare at phone, wait, then pay". Apple Pay came out over 10 years ago.
> Plus equivalent camera and video quality?
Equivalent to what? A decade ago Apple were doing big advertising spreads about how good iphones were. I assume phones released 4 years later were at least as good.
Nothing on your list is a feature a phone from about 2016 didn't have, other than magnetic charging, and the 2020 era iphone 12 had that.
You're thinking about how you use your phone, not how most people use their phone. The reason people continue to upgrade their phones isn't always mindless consumerism.
For example, when you write:
> Headphones? My 25 year old phone will do that. Bluetooth? I'm fairly sure my 3GS did that. Sadly modern phones don't do wired headphones any more, so have regressed on that metric.
You're already showing me how you don't understand what people are buying or why they are buying it. You're referencing wired headphones as if anyone besides a tiny group of people wants wired headphones anymore. People are buying AirPods and AirPods Pro - they want them connected to their Apple Watch so they can go for a run with them, and they want new health features that continue to be released for such devices.
Reading these responses reminds me of the "inverse Reddit stock pics". If I were to take these responses seriously, and I don't because they are nonsense, Apple and others would be out of business tomorrow because any old Joe just wants to use their wired headphones and their 10 year old iPhone is JuST aS G00d. It's rubbish.
Here's a good example haha:
> Alas I'm not particularly fit, however I do recall a fitness tracker on windows 3.1
Yea man. That feature existed on Windows 3.1, ergo nobody should or would want to buy the next iPhone. Give me a break. Even so you yourself said you're not particularly fit. What makes you think you know the first thing about why people are buying new phones or new devices as it relates to fitness activities or apps?
Nobody I know buys a new phone until the battery dies on the old one.
Are you saying that modern airpods don't do bluetooth? And aren't supported on the iphone 11? People have used bluetooth headphones for 20 years. Why would apply regress?
> Yea man. That feature existed on Windows 3.1, ergo nobody should or would want to buy the next iPhone.
The point is it's software, which will run just as fine on a supercomputer from 2 years ago as it will on today. What features does an iphone 15 (14? 16? whatever) have that an 11 doesn't have to allow these features?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxrv97djw9o
> The tech spec of every new handset camera is usually an improvement on the previous generation. But even this isn’t a guaranteed sales generator any more.
> “What is definitely happening is that people are holding on to their phones for longer. Back in 2013 there were 30 million phones sold annually,” adds Mr Wood. “This year it will be around 13.5 million.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/latest-smartphone-iphone-...
> Nearly nine in 10 adults think buying the latest smartphone is a “waste of money”. Research polling 2,000 Britons revealed more than half are “bored” of trying to keep up-to-date with the latest tech. And three in four are no longer willing to pay a fortune to get it. As a result, almost a third intend to spend less on smartphones and other gadgets over the next two years.
> Nobody I know buys a new phone until the battery dies on the old one.
Ok, well now you know one. I buy new phones even when they work just fine.
> Are you saying that modern airpods don't do bluetooth? And aren't supported on the iphone 11? People have used bluetooth headphones for 20 years. Why would apply regress?
You're not familiar with the products, are you? Folks buy products like AirPods Pro (https://www.apple.com/airpods-pro/) because they have features that they want which aren't necessarily compatible with older phones, for a variety of reasons.
> > Nearly nine in 10 adults think buying the latest smartphone is a “waste of money”. Research polling 2,000 Britons revealed more than half are “bored” of trying to keep up-to-date with the latest tech. And three in four are no longer willing to pay a fortune to get it. As a result, almost a third intend to spend less on smartphones and other gadgets over the next two years.
Most people say the same thing about social media but can't be bothered to delete the accounts that they supposedly never use. I don't think this is relevant to the main point I made which was that people do in fact use their phones for more than "the basics" and they (not me) justify the purchase of a new phone for new features. Your iPhone 11 isn't the same phone as an iPhone 16. The iPhone 16 has a better camera, has different chips, different and better features, etc. and many folks take advantage of those features.
> The point is it's software, which will run just as fine on a supercomputer from 2 years ago as it will on today. What features does an iphone 15 (14? 16? whatever) have that an 11 doesn't have to allow these features?
If you don't know what the difference is between an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 16, then why are you commenting here? You're basically saying "I don't know anything about these phones, but I am sure that people don't need the new one because it's no different, but I also can't tell you the difference or anything about them". Do you not see how asinine that is?
By BlueTemplar 2025-07-042:08 > Most people say the same thing about social media but can't be bothered to delete the accounts that they supposedly never use.
Well, yes, I guess it would be safer to delete them, but I presume most people just forget about having them once they stop using it (like you just reminded me that I do have several Facebook accounts).
But are any of those things a strong enough motivator to warrant the average person paying several hundred dollars more for an incrementally improved device?
You haven't really made a strong argument for why a user might upgrade specifically and immediately for those features, besides that they exist. Certainly the average person is upgrading over time as components break or fail, but why is it that you think the average person is still upgrading regularly for any of the things you listed?
By ericmay 2025-07-0218:24 The OP wrote:
> I have a 6 year old phone that was cheap when it was new, and it still runs 100% of what I use my phone for, and most people use their phones for, perfectly.
They made the claim, you should ask them for evidence instead.
Given that Apple continues to create new features that are only available on certain iPhones and market those functions and features heavily, we can guess that people buy new iPhones at least in part for those features.
We also know that not all features available on an iPhone today are available on all iPhones. For example, the original iPhone doesn't have the chipset required to do tap-to-pay transactions. The iPhone 11 (I'm guessing it's 6 years old and the one OP was referring to) can't play whatever the latest games are with the same performance with respect to graphics and battery life, as another example. While I don't care, many people do and spend quite a lot of money gaming on their iPhones. Think about all the new accessories that people use as well.
I don't want to suggest that I necessarily find those things valuable or that they are a reason to upgrade, but it seems very weak to suggest that other people don't value those things.
By simonklitj 2025-06-2913:401 reply My almost 5 year old iPhone 12 does all of this. No issues, no pull towards upgrading except for USB-C.
Not sure why I'd want USB-C and then have to spend a fortune to replace all my existing charger leads with the highly unreliable USB-C ecosystem.
With USB-C you don't actually have to pay the apple tax on cords or chargers, so in no way should it "cost a fortune".
I was in my local store on Friday looking for a new torch and had a quick browse of the chargers. USB-C cables were more expensive than lightning.
That's supply and demand I suppose. As demand for lightning dwindles due to a decreasing number of people actively using devices with lightning ports, the price will tend to drop. That's not an invalid reason to prefer lightning over USB-C, but it's not sustainable. Production of lightning accessories is probably at or near 0 at this point so the oversupply will not last forever. Enjoy the deals while you can!
By ta1243 2025-06-3010:13 The cables tend to cost the same, way more than the cost of manufacture.
If you're buying them in bulk on amazon, usb-c is still more expensive than lightning, but the vast majority of people tend to buy cables when they have either lost, forgotten, or broken their existing cables. Go to a shop at an airport or train station and they'll charge you £20 for a cable, and people but them.
The "apple tax" is irrelevant to the actual amount paid.
By simonklitj 2025-06-2917:251 reply My PS5, iPad, MacBook, Kindle all use USB-C. It sure would be nice to have just one charger.
My ipad uses ligtning, my kindle uses usb-mini, as does almost every other rechargable thing I have, from torches to portable fans.
My headphones are USB-C and by far the most unreliable. The switch uses USB-C too, but that sits in its dock.
My laptop will use USB-C, but only for some combinations of cables and chargers.
If USB-C was as reliable and dependable as USB-A I wouldn't have a problem.
By BlueTemplar 2025-07-042:12 Wasn't USB-A unreliable too in it's first years ?
By Fade_Dance 2025-06-2915:321 reply Frankly, you might as well. It's an inevitability that you'll have to do that.
If you're talking about charging a phone, the usb-c ecosystem is literally never going to give you even a single instance of annoyance. If you're talking about lightning and laptop sized power delivery then, yes the cables need better labeling, but all of those cables are going to work for charging a phone.
By ta1243 2025-06-2916:52 I have several USB-C chargers and cables, some of which work to charge my headphones, some of which don't.
How they managed to convert the simplicity and reliability of 20 years of USB-A into this mess is anyones guess.
By rocketvole 2025-06-2913:421 reply I have an iPhone 8. It does literally everything you've listed, and the battery is cheap/easy to replace. My lg v30, with a battery replacement is about the same (albiet with a custom os since androids didn't get many years of updates back then)
By ericmay 2025-07-0218:28 Can you do tap-to-pay on iPhone 8?
You can't play the latest games with the same performance and battery life on your iPhone 8 (if at all) as you can on the latest iPhone. You might not care about that but there are lots of people who do. Same with pictures. Do you have cinema mode on your iPhone 8? No you don't. For some that's a reason to upgrade - they really care about the features and quality of the camera.
I don't see what the debate is here. This is very obvious and become more obvious and true the older the iPhone is.
By dghlsakjg 2025-06-2914:32 My 2019 iPhone 11 does all that just fine. I chose to replace the battery when it 80% of original capacity a few months ago.
By BlueTemplar 2025-07-042:22 > full graphics games like Minecraft
Lol, this is a terrible example. Have you *seen* Minecraft ?!? (A game that came out 16 years ago and could already run on cheap hardware back then.)
> or whatever the hell people play these days I don’t know
Well, better, but then this will still be mostly simple 2D games like Candy Crush or Balatro :
By cardamomo 2025-06-2913:40 I didn't think it matters if they are an average smartphone user. They are still representative of a person of smartphone users.
By gausswho 2025-06-2913:57 I'd argue the that most people with phones use them largely for social apps, messengers, and the camera. Maybe social signaling.
The whole forcing a U2 album onto people’s devices thing, which happened shortly after Jobs died, was the first time I, a former Apple fan, sat up and realized “wow, these guys are really losing their taste/tact!” Weird to think that was over a decade ago!
By qwerpy 2025-06-2915:05 They learned from this but still couldn’t help themselves. There’s massive full screen ads in Apple Music to “preload the F1 the movie album”. At least it’s a choice to load it or not this time, but it’s still extremely disappointing that people paying for Apple Music get shown these ads. I had recently canceled my Spotify subscription because of sponsored content in their app.
By iambateman 2025-06-2913:182 reply I think Jobs makes the same mistake with U2 even if he is at the helm. But I think he would’ve been more effective at handling the fall out.
Apple had enjoyed having world-leading crisis communications embodied within Steve and didn’t immediately know what to do when he was gone.
>But I think he would’ve been more effective at handling the fall out.
"You're holding it wrong" was about the worst case of "handling the fall out" that I can remember in computing history. Jobs was an absolute laughing stock after he said that.
Yeah, I don't think Jobs was well-equipped for the imminent era of Apple's complete dominance. You could tell he was confused by antennagate, bothered by media coverage, and wished everyone would shut up about it. He's the Underdog CEO, not Monopoly CEO.
By SlowTao 2025-06-301:34 I know that wouldn't be a popular opinion but I think you are right.
I do wonder that with Job's bowing out when he did may have been the best thing that could happen to Apples. The visionary made way for the logistic guys to let the next 20 years or so boom.
Job's departed just as most technology fields were starting to move into a more mature state, not entirely there but definitely past peak innovation. This is why I think the Apple Watch is the only thing that I think Job's would have absolutely loved out of Apple over the last decade or so. Would have thought Apple TV+ is very cool but risky, and be disappointed in the lack of progress on iPhone and might have down right hated the Apple Vision due to the hardware limits (bulk).
By hylaride 2025-06-2916:34 > I think Jobs makes the same mistake with U2 even if he is at the helm. But I think he would’ve been more effective at handling the fall out.
Perhaps, but there probably would have been more thought over it than just shoving it onto everybody's phone. The problem, I think, is that Apple is *mostly* run by white men over 50 - a demographic that sees U2 as the pinnacle of the rock band. They probably don't even realize that rock bands aren't "cool" anymore. I remember when Apple Music was first announced and Eddy Cue spent far too long "demonstrating" his music library and it fell flat even to the press in his age range. Usually you're best off demonstrating with "timeless" music as music tastes are so personal.
By matthewmc3 2025-06-2913:56 That album still shows up today in jarring ways in Apple Music when you use the Create Station feature because it was on everyone’s phones and their algorithm still isn’t good enough to recognize when one of these things is not like the others.
By andyferris 2025-06-2913:112 reply I agree that was weird - but it was never forced onto your device unless you chose to download that album (it would be like saying a particular album was "forced" onto your spotify when they are ALL available and free - this was just the first "spotify"-style album designed to be streamed not purchased).
By alwa 2025-06-2917:47 It was forced onto your device to the extent that any other of your library songs or iTunes purchases were, whether that worked out to be streamed on demand or downloaded locally. Space was never the issue, forcing bad music in my shuffle play was.
I remember distinctly, because after trying patiently for months then years to get rid of it through official channels, I rage-quit iTunes when that whiny man’s voice started playing again the moment I connected my phone in a rental car. I still won’t touch Apple Music to this day.
For that matter, it still comes back from time to time all these years later:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/13kc29l/...
Apparently, since they have taken down their dedicated removal tool from 11 years ago [0], your remaining recourse is to contact Apple Support and persist through upsell attempts to paid support.
It was automatically added to your library, so if you shuffle your recently added or your whole library it got included.
By iinnPP 2025-06-2913:26 Wow. Depending on the timing, that's a brand ending event for me. Though I am definitely not the norm.
By hshshshshsh 2025-06-2910:095 reply Yeah. One thing I learned working at a Big company is that companies are full of parasites who are there to get their promotion or salary increase and don't give a cat shit about users or mission or values. Honestly it sucked any joy out of my life but I am stuck here because of visa.
By breckenedge 2025-06-2912:47 Happens at small companies too, especially those owned by private equity.
By noisy_boy 2025-06-2913:31 Until a company fully supports the combination of top-class engineering + top-class user experience to the exclusion and expulsion of political parasites, this is inevitable. Unfortunately, the ever-expanding blind profit chasing, at the exclusion of everything else, kills the chance of that happening.
By bombcar 2025-06-2912:28 You almost need (not going to be definitive because some big companies just need to execute the same operations for hundreds of years) a Jobs or Gates or someone who doesn't believe their own bullshit and is willing to say "this sucks, we're shitcanning it."
Otherwise you get generic slop, eventually.
By surgical_fire 2025-06-2916:533 reply You described any regular workplace.
You are not supposed to find joy in work. Work is something that you do so you can afford to find joy elsewhere.
You're not supposed to do anything.
Why on earth would you discourage someone from finding joy in their work? It's possible.
By surgical_fire 2025-06-2920:311 reply > Why on earth would you discourage someone from finding joy in their work?
For the same reason I discourage people believing in Santa Claus or in the Easter Bunny
Finding joy in their work is a cute idea. But it is cute and false, believing in it will lead to nothing but frustration and lower income.
I'm sure believing that helps you if that's been your own experience. But it's demonstrably possible, at least for people for are not you.
Like, are you reading "find joy" as "find a job doing what you already love"? Those are different things.
This affectation of weary cynicism is so easy and popular. I'm over it.
By surgical_fire 2025-06-302:00 > Like, are you reading "find joy" as "find a job doing what you already love"?
Absolutely not.
Work with what you love, and you will never love anything again.
By hshshshshsh 2025-06-2917:561 reply But isn't that a bad way to live life? Spending the best years of life working a job that you don't like so that you get weekends free?
By surgical_fire 2025-06-2918:091 reply Starving is worse.
Try to find a job that is tolerable and devote your free time to things that make you happy - family, friends, hobbies, etc
You're both not wrong.
What @surgical_fire is describing is the "minimum viable product" for a career. It's the thing that serves the basics on Maslow's Hierarchy.
What @hshshshshsh is describing is anything past that. We briefly exist sandwiched between two eternities -- shouldn't we care about the quality of our time during the thing that takes up the largest quantity of our time?
The problem is that, the issue that @hshshshshsh is pointing out is precisely what makes the minimum @surgical_fire is describing damn near impossible to find.
Because no one gives a shit about users, values, mission, etc, the company suffers and turns into a shit-show, incentivizing people to become more selfish so that they don't get sucked into the vortex of shit.
In order to reach the minimum of a "tolerable" job that doesn't suck up all your free time or make your time there a living hell, the company _must_ engage with at least some of what @hshshshshsh is describing.
This requires some amount of good faith from the majority involved. This is a tricky and fragile thing. It's easy to lose. And thus the cycle begins anew.
Ultimately, we need more people thinking like @hshshshshsh so that we can get what @surgical_fire is describing.
By hshshshshsh 2025-06-3014:04 You should consider doing standup comedy. That made me smile.
By soderfoo 2025-06-2913:17 Visionaries and solution oriented devs can’t deliver the kind of quarterly “profitability” that careerist, KPI-chasing, promotion-hungry product managers love to promise.
Apple employee pre, during and post Steve. I was in a lot of meetings with VPs whose tasteless suggestions were shut down immediately with the usual Steve critiques attached.
My recollection is that Eddy Cue got the most critiques, Phil Schiller the least and the rest were in between. Eddy would push back and still get shut down.
When Steve left the last time, it was knives out between these guys with Scott Forstall taking a fall as Tim Cook got ultimatums from everyone including Jony. I imagine loud voices with bad taste are pushing Tim hard. Apple can be an investor darling but Tim has needed to consider an exit and find a strong successor that knows what made Apple great in other ways.
> I was in a lot of meetings with VPs whose tasteless suggestions were shut down immediately with the usual Steve critiques attached.
Was it common for lower-level employees to take part in C-suite meetings and arguments?
By diskzero 2025-06-2917:52 Apple was fairly flat under Steve and meetings could have a fair number of interested parties involved. I can recall numerous weekly UI meetings with several of the people listed above there. Also note that Jony, Eddy and others weren’t always high level. Steve handed out his harsh comments regardless of concern for your level. Steve was a micromanager and was involved in anything that the user came in contact with and more.
To directly address your question, the answer was yes in that if you developed a feature, a demo, or anything Steve wanted to see, you would end up in a forum with a bunch a various levels of employees.
Thinking of C suite meetings happening when Steve was around cracks me up. Steve was always on the move, making edicts, rejecting things, walking into offices, having lunch with people, etc. There was no Jira, Confluence, Agile or any of that. It was a fight to ship by an imposed date or die trying.
Sounds like he’s been around awhile, might not be as lower-level as you think.
By SSLy 2025-06-2916:04 > Phil Schiller
Rings a bell.
>Tim Cook asserted his control over the company, putting his own personnel in place, and now his authority is absolute. Even those few others who remain from the Jobs era, such as “Apple Fellow” Phil Schiller, are overridden by Cook
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/5/6.html by way of https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/05/23/apple-turnaround/
Jobs was no angel, but he did follow "build great things and profits will come" philosophy. Apple these days is run for profit: profits are clearly first, and good things might accidentally come as well as a side effect.
That would be ok, because competition, except these days the moat is huge: it is very difficult for a new entrant to compete.
They did loads of tacky things back in the day, we’ve just forgotten about them.
Modern Apple can't even do tacky things.
Tacky things under Jobs were failed experiments. Modern Apple doesn't believe in either experiments or failed experiments.
> Modern Apple doesn't believe in either experiments
Apple Vision Pro qualifies here.
By jama211 2025-06-2919:29 Well that’s just demonstrably false, even aside from the fact that that’s a fairly large goalpost move.
I think back then their stock was so bad that anything to make it go up was a good thing.
Now Apple is a multi trillion dollar company and they can’t take as much risk.
Given the Vision Pro, and the many billions spent on the now-defunct car project, I’m not so sure this is true.
By moomoo11 2025-06-2918:07 True but I guess I don’t find those visionary at all.
Historically Apple refines something common that already exists and makes it cool. The last big thing they made cool was the smartphone, followed by the AirPod pros. I think AirPods really pushed headphones ahead. Do you remember how bad wireless headphones used to be?
So I guess I want that sort of Apple experience. If Apple turned ordinary hardware experiences into premium, that would be nice. AR googles are not ordinary experiences. Smartphones were.
That’s just my opinion though.
By Fade_Dance 2025-06-2915:392 reply I agree about project titan/cars. That was a behemoth of a failed experiment experiment.
As for vision pro though and I guess even to a little extent the car exploration, it's sort of "safe" and derivative conceptually.
Steve's experiments were often seemingly directly at odds with profitability. Like, one day he may have looked at the extensive lineup with the "Pro Max" etc, and made the call to cut back down to one iPhone model. Or he would, you know, do something ridiculous like make the next Imac's screen round or something.
It's decisions like that which primarily profit driven mega corporations just can't do.
By layer8 2025-06-2916:09 They could do “tacky things” without affecting a whole product category. Arguably they are doing potentially unprofitable experiments in their main product lines, like with the iPhone mini and the upcoming iPhone Air. They just aren’t “tacky”. I think they could go a bit more outside the comfort zone without immediately jeopardizing profitability and incurring the wrath of the shareholders.
Yep, the fundamental design of the iMac hasn't changed much since the iMac G5 in 2004. Yes, it is thinner, a new material and more refined but it is still a box on a stand with a screen.
They are either turbo sensible or doing silly things like Titan/Vision.
By troupo 2025-06-3013:53 > Yes, it is thinner,
And this has been the only design style they have been going for for 15 years at least: it's now thinner. There are almost no other considerations.
By renegade-otter 2025-06-2913:40 You mean the old classic way of doing business where the company focuses on the product and the customer and not the shareholder? What a shocking and novel idea.
By aspenmayer 2025-06-2911:58 I had a 3rd party band-aid sticker on the iPhone 4 I waited in line to buy at the flagship Apple Store in San Francisco. I remember Square handing out aux-input cardreaders for free to me and other line-con attendees pre-purchase. This was jailbreakme times. Cydia pre-exists the Apple App Store on iOS, in case anyone was unaware. Cydia and the wider jb scene used to keep Apple honeset, as Cydia is the original App Store. How the mighty have fallen.
Jobs hated ads. You're right that he never wouldve done what Apple is doing now.
Cook needs to stop listening to investors, like Warren Buffett, because he's letting them wreck Apple's integrity for the sake of making a buck. Apple just isnt user focused like they used to be and it's crappy.
By bluedevilzn 2025-06-2910:332 reply Jobs created iAd. He hated bad ads.
Here’s him announcing and talking about ads in WWDC: https://youtu.be/eY3BZzzLaaM?si=Dttc5eJJ1B7Zf3sB
he was vocal about his opposition to intrusive ads in particular. he'd say "You’re either the customer or you’re the product." he believed users paid a premium for apple products and that they should not be subjected to compromises with advertising.
iAd was something that happened right at the end of his life because devs were putting ads in apple apps anyway and he wanted to control how that was done.
this is meant to add context to what bluedevilzn said, btw. it is not a refutation.
By rchaud 2025-06-2918:10 Jobs disliked anything where Apple wasn't getting a cut. Flash games and Google ads being two of the biggest offenders in his eyes.
He also "hated" the small tablets Samsung were making, saying in a keynote that you'd have to file your finger down to use it. He said this knowing full well Apple were launching the iPad Mini in 12 months' time.
I really hope one day Jobs' marketer-speak soundbites stop being repeated like like biblical pronouncements. The App Store, Apple News, Stocks and other properties are filled with hideous Google-like ads today, and Jobs likely wouldn't bat an eye, because they brought in money.
By simonh 2025-06-2915:02 I think Jobs recognised that ads are intrusions into people’s lives. The advertiser has a responsibility to respect the audience. They don’t have a natural right to that attention, and have to earn it.
Thats why the F1 wallet add is such a bad move. It’s disrespectful and intrusive.
iAD was supposed to be about innovative, informative, well designed high quality adverts. It never really worked out though.
By JumpCrisscross 2025-06-2914:111 reply Yeah, “Jobs hated ads” is a such a wild rewriting of the history of one of industry’s greatest marketers and, yes, ad men. (1984 commercial. Mac vs PC.)
By jmsdnns 2025-06-2914:25 please check my other comment. it's not a wild rewriting, just needed clarification.
By Nemi 2025-06-2917:06 I am curious what you attribute that Warren Buffett is asking Tim Cook to do? Warren is notorious for being hands-off with operations. I can't imagine him having ANY commentary on what Tim Cook should be doing with Apple other than with capital allocation.
By jameshart 2025-06-2915:32 Jobs paid for some of the most iconic ads of all time - 1984, Think Different, Rip Mix Burn, dancing iPod silhouettes, I’m a PC…
Cook is an operations person. He makes the logistics work. He's no visionary. Jobs is a visionary, but is not a logistics person. Apple struck lightning when both existed, to provide complimentary ideas and counterbalances.
Lighting doesnt strike twice imho.
By hylaride 2025-06-2916:39 Same with Ive and Jobs. Ive was a great designer, but no usability expert. Jobs put practical limits on and as soon as Jobs was gone, Ive got total control. The result is some of the least-popular Mac laptops ever.
By mattmaroon 2025-06-2910:38 Tell that to Van Halen!
By yomismoaqui 2025-06-2916:192 reply > Apple without Ive and Jobs increasingly has a taste problem
Sorry, having seen the sappy photo of Ive & Altman I cannot trust his taste.
https://in.mashable.com/tech/94502/sam-altman-taps-worlds-gr...
By diego_sandoval 2025-07-095:58 When I saw that photo I thought someoneone on X had made it as a joke.
I realized it was official as I read your comment.
By roughly 2025-06-2916:50 Nor should you. OP should’ve said Apple without Jobs - Ive had artistic taste, but not product or human taste.
By AdamN 2025-06-2912:43 I remember when Jobs killed the Herald Square Apple Store even though the lease had been signed and it 'made sense' on paper. When visiting the location it's clear it's a dump and no Apple store will fix that. He put his brand before short term revenue.
By surgical_fire 2025-06-2916:071 reply There was that event where everyone's iTunes suddenly had a U2 album on it. I don't really see a difference.
Truth is Apple was always like that, but Apple in particular has a lot of fans willing to play the white knight in its name.
By keiferski 2025-06-2916:10 I would consider that the beginning of the problem - and it happened shortly after Jobs died.
By hcarvalhoalves 2025-06-2913:04 Company takeover by bean counters and clowns. It happens with every company, sooner or later.
Apple remains on the edge with hardware though. I guess the show is still ran by the engineers at this department.
By librasteve 2025-06-2913:242 reply Tim Cook needs to get a grip on this. If Apple loses the privacy advocate reputation, then they will lose a lot of customers.
By newAccount2025 2025-06-2914:03 Will they though? Where does a privacy-conscious consumer turn? The only other serious option is Android, where Google will eagerly track all the things.
By 2OEH8eoCRo0 2025-06-2914:481 reply I doubt it. They might lose a few nerds but no casual consumer gives a shit.
By int_19h 2025-06-3019:37 Casual consumers get pretty annoyed by undesired ads popping up in unexpected places.
Whether they'll do anything about it is a different question.
By necovek 2025-06-2912:24 Until it shows up in the bottom line, they will have all the metrics and data they need to continue pushing this way.
The old adage of "vote with your (physical?) wallet" holds double here.
By alwa 2025-06-2919:16 I feel like there’s a taste aspect and also a focus/discipline kind of dimension to it. For the longest, they’d essentialize everything almost brutally: like that whole thing about the iPhone coming with no manual since you didn’t need it. The design only afforded you one right way to find and do things.
This is a toaster, it makes toast. This is Apple TV, it plays TV. This is Apple Wallet, it does what your wallet does.
And that was the magic! Of course the simplicity masked kaleidoscopic technical, commercial, and functional complexity—that’s not new!
This weird cross-promotion is the latest, most crass, symptom; but it almost reads as the metastasis of a deeper disease—namely this urge to cross-pollute between little functional fiefdoms from inside the megacorp, instead of prioritizing the perspective of one user on one tool for one purpose at a time.
By Zafira 2025-06-2920:59 I’m actually curious how they were able to exactly filter some of their less promising impulses.
Ive famously wanted the Apple Watch to be a standalone luxury product.
> Jony Ive envisioned the future of the Apple Watch as a luxury product. Not only did he want to build a $25 million lavish white tent to promote the first Watch, but he “regarded a rave from Vogue as more important than any tech reviewer’s opinion.” According to Mickle, “the tent was critical to making the event as glamorous as a high-end fashion show.”
Meanwhile Jobs always seemed to have an obsession with cubes (NeXTcube, Power Mac G4 Cube), no fans and nobody touching his products (the original iPhone “SDK” announcement was a badly received joke).
Ive wanted to get rid of all the ports on everything! Thank goodness he's gone and we now have MagSafe, HDMI, and SD card readers back on portables.
By prewett 2025-06-2918:52 I loved MagSafe, but after the USB C power, I don't love it. USB C power could go on either side of the laptop, and if I stepped on the cable it still easily disconnected, but MagSafe only goes on one side, which frequently means the cord needs to wrap around the back.
By graemep 2025-06-2917:26 Is that lack of competence, or lack of motive? Is it a problem from their point of view.
Apple's main user base is not like HN users - not even like the Apple users/advocates here. I have come across many who are too deeply convinced that Apple is hugely ahead of other OSes (often because they assume other OSes capabilities are what they were years ago), and they do not want to adjust to anything that is different from what they are familiar with. They will stay will Apple almost whatever Apple do. Some examples of things Apple users I know have said were advantages of their products:
1. I can copy and paste between my phone and my desktop!
2. There is a terminal app that is so amazing you will want to buy a Mac just to use it. It was roughly similar to terminal apps I have used over many years.
3. If you buy a ticket on your laptop instead of your phone you will have to bring your laptop out to scan at the gate. When I explained my phone syncs selected folders with my laptop the reply was "that is so complicated".
Only the first comment came from a person who is not comfortable with technology - obviously in the case of the second comment!
I have been reading the book “apple in China” after hearing the author on a podcast. It has fundamentally altered my view of apple as a company. From a consumer perspective, I thought it was a an amazing company. But looking behind the scenes, I came to understand how morally compromised it has been for a very long time. In retrospect, I feel complicit in things I didn’t understand I was part of.
By Schiendelman 2025-06-2916:08 Anything looks worse when you see behind the curtain. The question is in comparison - who produces technology you want without that behind the scenes behavior (or being dependent on someone else's behind the scenes behavior!)?
Jobs has been gone for almost 15 years. From what I know Ive had nothing to do with anything but design aesthetic.
I am not sure either of these people have anything to do with ads on Apple Wallet. Or even Apple Wallet…
By bobbylarrybobby 2025-06-2910:022 reply The point is, when Jobs was around, there was an overarching (unstated?) policy at Apple of “nobody do anything to make us look like cheap tasteless shits”. Whereas now, Tim Cook is very happy to sell out for a quick buck. He's a logistics guy, not a product guy, and at his core is a bean counter; he neither has taste nor appreciates that it has value unto itself.
There were ~60M iPhone users when Jobs was the CEO. There are about ~1.4B right now. Both respectively accomplished very respectable things. It’s not selling for a quick buck if he was able to scale the business to such degrees. That being said, I agree that Apple makes a lot of wrongs.
> There are about ~1.4B right now.
What are you basing this on, the total number of iPhones sold since 2007? If so, it doesn't account for the users that have bought multiple iPhones.
By jama211 2025-06-2911:22 One google shows that’s considered the “current active user” count, not total sales. 2.3 billion by Jan 2024 (so more now) is the estimate for total sales.
I did quick Googling, and it sounded about right. Roughly 50% USA, 20% China, 50% Japan, 30% Europe, 3% India already is a big number.
By lodovic 2025-06-2912:27 I used a llm to sum your percentages and counted only 785,644,479 people. That's just over half the 1.4B claim. However, it also linked to articles that showed that as of 2025, there are approximately 1.38 to 1.56 billion active iPhone users worldwide. So the percentages may be misleading but the number is correct.
Part of the appeal of Apple was that not everyone and their mom just had an Apple device. They heavily played on that, similar to how fashion does. That "exclusivity" (sort of) is gone now, and it shows with Apple trying to create likable, noncontroversial designs for the larger crowd. They try to make up for it with prices, but it misses the point.
By danaris 2025-06-2912:50 Maybe that was part of the appeal to you.
To most of us, the appeal of Apple has always been primarily that it does what it does well.
I don't think Apple themselves thinks their appeal depends on exclusivity, but rather on a premium experience.
By dghlsakjg 2025-06-2914:38 I promise you, in 2005, everyone and their mom had an iPod. If you couldn’t afford the full fat iPod, you bought any of the various cheaper stripped down models. If anything, Apple has gotten more exclusive through their pricing.
By moomoo11 2025-06-2912:27 Apple became Gucci
Jobs had won complete cultural dominance of desktop pcs with the iMac 27". If you saw a desktop on a tv show for the past 20 years it was an iMac 27". Tim saw they could cancel it and go against their policy of minimal cords and sell separate Mac minis and Mac Studio displays.
By orangecat 2025-06-2916:39 Tim saw they could cancel it and go against their policy of minimal cords and sell separate Mac minis and Mac Studio displays.
I much prefer being able to use third-party displays and not having to get rid of perfectly good screens when getting a new computer.
By simonh 2025-06-2915:27 My current and previous machines were 27” iMacs. The first one, a first gen 5k bought in 2014, is in our kitchen and still heavily used.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I need a new personal machine.
The entire reason Apple made devices that were a level above competitors is because the design wasn’t just the aesthetic. Ive was chief designer and so obviously had a key impact.
By pqtyw 2025-06-2917:28 It might be a complete misinterpretation but it seems like Ive went completely haywire when Job's was gone with the ultra thin, portless, overheating Macs with a crappy keyboards and pointless touch bars that sort of looked cool but provided no other real value.
By nottorp 2025-06-2912:30 Key impact like the shit emoji keyboard that couldn't survive a single speck of dust?
By hshshshshsh 2025-06-2910:531 reply How do you know Ive had a key impact? Do you know it or read somewhere online?
“How do you know that <primary responsible person> had impact”.
Do you hear yourself?
By hshshshshsh 2025-06-2910:582 reply Then all OP is saying key impact person had key impact. Doesn't add any substance to discussion.
By exe34 2025-06-2912:14 Neither did your second sentence, and you still wrote it. Sometimes we write things down to draw attention to the fact, not to inform a naive audience of facts that they did not know.
By tempaccount420 2025-06-2913:26 3x Boosted?
By dkersten 2025-06-2910:53 > I know Ive had nothing to do with
Ok you haven’t but what about Ive?
By skeeter2020 2025-06-2916:03 Is this really that different than pushing an immutable U2 album into your itunes account years ago? "liking Apple" is a weird position; they're several generations away from when you could identify the company with actual people, and anthropomorphizing the company at this point seems wild.
By pjmlp 2025-06-309:20 Those of us that have been long enough around, see this Apple like the one when Steve Jobs was busy at NeXT.
The only difference is that now they are decades away to ever worry about insolvency, yet the lack of direction and management entitlement as being the best, feels quite similar.
By thrashh 2025-06-2916:30 A lot of people like Apple because it was built on Jobs’ taste and they liked Jobs’ taste.
With Jobs gone, it still has a taste but it someone else’s taste.
That said, I think some people have developed their own original taste but some people’s tastes are just an amalgamation of the people around them.
The company is donezo to be honest.
Without the huge hold of the cloud and business markets Microsoft enjoys they only have hardware.
And besides their excellent laptops you can forget of the existence of any other of their products.
By epolanski 2025-06-2916:41 Neither of those products is really hard to replace with competitor's products.
By Fade_Dance 2025-06-2915:42 Apple services revenue has gone from 10 to 30 billion within the last 5 years. They are seeing extremely strong services growth.
By caycep 2025-06-2914:59 one would've hoped w/ Angela Ahrendts Bosom St John but I guess not a cultural/operational fit.
By DidYaWipe 2025-06-2915:13 It has become increasingly clear that Apple needs a management housecleaning. Their purposeful antagonism of entire geopolitical blocs with anti-developer douchebaggery alone should have resulted in heads rolling.
But Jony Ive was part of the problem. His "taste level" resulted in the embarrassing emoji bar forced on "pro" users, a grossly defective keyboard that crippled Apple computers for five years, a computer with no available ports on it, regressive UI that made products less useful with every revision, battery life so poor that people were crouching in the corners of cafes next to outlets before lunch, the removal of headphone jacks from the best-selling music players... Ive is pompous hack with no ideas for the advancement of products.
Meanwhile, lazy and ignorant pundits have incorrectly lumped Apple into "big tech" with Google, Amazon, and Meta because they can't be bothered to inform themselves (or even think) about the fact that those companies are all gatekeepers to huge swaths of the Internet; Apple is not. And their continual whining about Apple being "behind on AI" further testifies to their laziness and lack of critical thinking.
Nonetheless, Apple has forfeited the high road. They're now another asshole in the club, inviting scrutiny and crackdowns that threaten the value of the company. What are the owners going to do about it?
Ads are planed to come to every single wallet out there. Card companies, merchants, and tech companies are working on this together. Apple just thought it would be a good idea to be the first to launch it. Soon it will be a norm and everyone will forget about it or even find it useful.
I have never said and rarely thought this before, but I really hope the person who came up with / approved this idea got fired for it. It’s rare that you see something so unbelievably stupid and destructive of the shared pool of trust, which Apple spent 30 years building, only for one self-interested PM to blow a chunk of it up for no gain.
If the person who came up with this reads this site, I hope they see this comment and think about how screwed the industry would be if everyone acted the way they did.
I think the person who came up with this shouldn't be fired, the person who _approved_ it should be reprimanded.
There's some intersection point between who "owns" the wallet and who is coming up with ways to generate marketing revenue.
Whoever lives at that intersection point is the real shot caller here aren't they?
Imo you don't fire people for generating bad ideas, that just creates a culture of not thinking outside the box. But the person who is filtering those ideas is the critical lynch pin.
Why not fire them both?
> Imo you don't fire people for generating bad ideas,
If an idea is that bad, at the very least they should be transfered into a role that doesn't involve coming up with good ideas, since obviously that is outside of their skill set. And what's the argument for not firing the chain of people who approved it? Their job was to stop bad ideas and they catastrophically failed.
By HelloMcFly 2025-06-2916:131 reply > at the very least they should be transfered into a role that doesn't involve coming up with good ideas, since obviously that is outside of their skill set.
Proposing one bad idea is not unusual for people whose job is idea-driven. When ideas are the primary currency of your occupation, you'll necessarily generate some losers. But in a company of Apple's size, that's why you rely on colleagues and - critically - a more robust approval process to move from idea to deliverable.
I hate your idea of firing (from org. or role) the idea person based on one bad idea. I don't hate the idea of firing (from org. or role) the leaders accountable for getting this idea into the world.
Job security seems to hold higher esteem than prison.
Social norms exist outside of criminal law, and a single extremely poor decision is reason enough for people to lose their freedom.
Why shouldn’t it be possible for people to lose their jobs?
By HelloMcFly 2025-06-3015:291 reply > Why shouldn’t it be possible for people to lose their jobs?
This is a strawman argument that seems made in bad faith, but I'll bite anyway: I am not saying that no single bad idea or mistake should result in the loss of a job. I am saying that most of the time such a response would be an extreme reaction, especially when directed at the lower-level source of the ideas vs. the more senior accountable parties who are paid to know better.
Magnitude matters, as does accountability. Creating this world of extremes where one mistake of poor idea leads to termination is a pretty quick way to a toxic and non-productive work environment. Enact accountability where it sits, not across the entire chain.
By dijit 2025-06-3015:32 I think you and I are saying the same thing honestly.
The parent seems to be of the mind that it's never a viable option for someone to lose their jobs for something; which I find an extreme position in itself.
I'm not sure how this context is lost, as precisely this point is what I'm getting at. I'm not jumping to extremes as some imply (including you), I'm saying it should be on the table for the most hopeless egregious offences.
You're seriously comparing a single advertisement to crimes like murder? Crimes that land you in prison are generally crimes that even children can understand are wrong. You're using "extremely poor decision" for 2 wildly different things, and if you think they're remotely equivalent, perhaps you should reflect on why you think that.
I am seriously suggesting that a single bad decision (like taking some money from the cash register) can land you in prison, why do we hold jobs to a higher standard?
Learning from our mistakes is one thing, slip ups happen after all, but I’m just drawing a comparison to “a single misjudgement”.
If you don't know societies values (stealing is wrong) or a companies values (tarnishing the brand by looking cheap and desperate) the outcome should probably be the same: expulsion or exclusion.
Also, don’t go to the most extreme negative interpretation of what someone says, it’s against guidelines.
> the outcome should probably be the same
Why exactly besides the fact that you like extreme solutions?
By dijit 2025-06-2921:51 Because accountability?
Either you’re suggesting jail is too punitive a punishment or that being fired should never be a viable option.
I’m not saying we should jump to extremes, I’m saying that the option should be on the table if you violate the core principles of the company, especially in a way that causes loss of consumer trust.
Whats the difference between defrauding Ford out of $200M and causing $200M in damages because I decided that every new Ford will include the word “I solemnly swear I will shit on the American flag when requested”?
In essence, in either case I am putting my own needs above the needs of the company and above the needs of the consumer - in a way that undermines future sales for the company too.
By clickety_clack 2025-06-2917:11 There’s bad ideas like “it wasn’t possible to execute this the way we thought we could”, and bad ideas like “this goes against the core values of what this company is”.
The first is something that might have gone better in better circumstances, so it’s a learning opportunity. The second shows you either don’t understand the company and decided to carry on despite that, or you just don’t care about the company, but either way it reflects poorly enough on an individual that a firing should be on the table.
By kortilla 2025-06-2919:56 You definitely fire people for pitching ideas that are against the ethos of the company. Otherwise you have no culture. It shouldn’t come down to one approver on the wallet side to see how dumb this was
> Imo you don't fire people for generating bad ideas, that just creates a culture of not thinking outside the box.
No, you fire people for generating ideas that are shady and against your own policies.
By lurking_swe 2025-06-2919:521 reply disagree. brainstorming should never be seen as a negative. trying to _promote_ and _act_ on shady ideas is the problem.
“What if we just charge a bunch of hidden recurring fees?”
Some ideas are so bad they indicate that you aren’t aligned with the goals of the company
By lurking_swe 2025-06-308:43 ok, i agree that an idea that’s actively malicious toward your customer should maybe be a fireable offense. That’s extreme but we can agree. :)
By Den_VR 2025-06-300:38 Agreed, even when brainstorming there needs to be left and right bounds. It needs to be constructive and it needs to align to the vision.
By t8sr 2025-06-2916:53 Yes, but there’s nuance. We each assume a version of events and nobody really knows. In my experience, big tech companies attract a certain type of person (among others) who will not only think of stuff like this, but actively fight for it and consequences to the long term be damned. VPs who actually approve this stuff will have limited time to think about it and a lot depends on the proposal.
This looks like a group PM level decision. Bluntly, at that level we get paid enough to exercise good judgement.
By jasonlotito 2025-06-2916:471 reply Tim Cook is in charge. This wasn't decided in a bubble. A single person can't do this. It takes a lot of people to do this. A culture that allows this. This wasn't a mistake. It wasn't malicious. It wasn't even the first time.
Tim Cook did this, and anyone that can't put the blame on him is lying to themselves.
By al_borland 2025-06-2917:231 reply You’d think he would have learned after that U2 album disaster 11 years ago, clearly not. He’s been doing this kind of stuff since he took over.
It seemed like Jobs used the products and was trying to make stuff that he would want to use. Cook seems like he doesn’t use any of these products, and is willing to sacrifice the user experience to try and make a few extra bucks.
It seems time for some new blood leading Apple. A product person who can get the company back to the core of trying to make insanely great products that people want to use, without compromise.
By xeonmc 2025-06-300:15 As the saying goes:
“Never attribute to incompetence that which is adequately explained by profit motives.”
By jader201 2025-06-2914:58 Then you’re in agreement with the article:
> I try very seldom to call for anyone to be fired, but I think whoever authorized this movie ad through Wallet push notifications ought to be canned.
By timewizard 2025-06-2918:51 Apple should be sued for this. This is their responsibility. They built it, left it unsupervised, and allowed the obvious to happen.
This is not the fault of ONE low level worker and there is no reason to punish them and then walk away like you've accomplished /anything/ meaningful in the long term.
These are precisely the types of public cases that should be brought against them. It would lend a lot of aid to the anti trust efforts against them as well. They clearly privilege themselves and see the devices and app store as their asset, not something they maintain on behalf of customers and developers.
By madeofpalk 2025-06-2917:202 reply > destructive of the shared pool of trust
Will there actually be any short, mediumm, or long term consequences for Apple? What real, tangible trust has Apple lost that could lead to meaningful harm to them?
The only thing I can come up with is people who hold Apple to some kind of high-minded ideal, that they constantly run foul of for other reasons already.
By danaris 2025-06-3012:25 Threads like this one are a short-term consequence for Apple.
People here, discussing it, a) demonstrate that they find the act to represent a breach of trust, and b) spread that understanding and opinion among those who read it.
That's not, in itself, a direct consequence for Apple, but it is something they need to be, and I genuinely believe are, worried about, because losing trust in them is precisely the kind of thing that will get people to stop buying their products. This is especially true given the way they've positioned themselves as a more trustworthy actor in the privacy field.
By kridsdale3 2025-06-2920:411 reply Apple does a lot of things that are not allowed by any of the 3p developers. Someone like EU could look at that (for instance in this case a direct to consumer marketing channel that they are using to favor their own properties) and say it violates the DMA.
Google is being forced to take Google Flights links out of Search results, for instance.
By madeofpalk 2025-06-2923:09 Apple’s behind of curve of its third party ecosystem. All of the apps on the App Store send spam notifications, violating Apple’s own guidelines that it has no intention of enforcing.
By partiallypro 2025-06-2915:591 reply The thing is, while we care about it here at HN, most people don't really care. Apple is a cult among consumers and they aren't going to switch even if they started putting in way more ads. They know, similar to Windows, that they have an ecosystem lock in and people aren't going to escape it.
By al_borland 2025-06-2917:401 reply People think they don’t care, or they tolerate it, but it still has an impact on the experience. It comes in the form of fewer glowing reviews, fewer recommendations to friends, more complaints and less forgiveness for problems. The pressure builds up over time, and then they snap.
Windows is the perfect example against the claim that Apple should be comfortable to abuse their users. Windows marketshare has been steadily dropping for the last 15 years. People are tired of the abuse, and slowly but surely leaving the platform. We now have people like PewDiePie making videos about switching to Arch Linux and self hosting, large companies offering employees a choice of Windows or Mac… things that would have sounded extremely unlikely 10+ years ago.
I’m pretty deep in the Apple ecosystem, having been in it since 2003. I could transition out of it within a week if I had to. There are some things I’d miss, for sure, but I’d live.
By nixpulvis 2025-06-2918:28 Exactly. Just because someone says they don't care, or they don't even consciously see it, doesn't mean it's not internalized in some way. A lot of the time it simply degrades the importance of the notification, making them more likely to be passively ignored in the future, however it probably runs deeper too.
By bhickey 2025-06-302:58 I assume that this was approved by the CMO or at very least at the VP level. Previously I was the eng TL for house ads at a big co. We would've run anytime vaguely controversial all the way up the chain.
By jonplackett 2025-06-2921:222 reply It shows they must be REALLY worried about this movie. All the reviews I’ve read say it sucks. I’m an f1 fan and from what I’ve read it sounds all pretty dumb and fake.
By zitsarethecure 2025-06-3011:54 I saw it last night. The cinematography of the racing sequences was interesting. The races they actually depicted were not, though. The human story line was trash, just a really hokey "old guy uses gut feeling to beat young people using science" movie plot. And Pitt did himself no favours in this movie with his acting.
By x3n0ph3n3 2025-06-2923:52 It was fun in IMAX. It's not cinema
By croes 2025-06-2917:20 >if everyone acted the way they did.
Everyone with the power like Apple does
