Posted by schappim 7 days ago
*John Ternus to become Apple CEO*
Talk about burying the lede, lmao.
Among the dup stories submitted, this one has the best content but the worst title.
I still haven't scroll down to the bottom, I don't want to spoil my impression. But it's great to see a positive reaction. Good way to mark the moment. Tim has been CEO for 15 years roughly, since Steve's passing. This guy seems much younger than Tim was when he ascended. I hope he really takes it to the next level.
Got a feeling that Apple has some Amazing new hardware category-making products coming out of the 'skunkworks' over the next 3 years.
This being hackernews, I hope to be excused for siding with a white hat code-hacker over a trillion dollar corporate.
(And that's not getting into all the other morally questionable stuff they've done.)
oh i guess it's from a court hearing[2] when his company was suing apple over app store monopoly ("... they are talking about an iOS update that, quote, broke Cydia Impactor. Where they said, it feels too good to destroy someone's spirit. We did something else today that will kill him again with a little smiley emoticon.")
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Freeman [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
[2] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18730843/75/saurikit-ll...
I think I found the original comment I had read (featuring a reply by saurik himself): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43853055
The contempt for their customers is palpable these days.
Jokes aside, I have started to see Microslop as the lesser of two evils (two evils being MSFT and AAPL, Google being its own parallel universe abomination). Their commitment to backward compatibility really paved the way to cheap PCs for the masses. That said, every day Macroslop is working diligently to prove me wrong.
Since they can't charge a subscription for Windows (like Adobe does for its products), they don't care about it anymore.
On that topic, it’s always surprised me just how little Apple invest into their enterprise / business backend services. Everything about the way they integrate Macs into businesses is awkward. Apple could make so much money there if they wanted to. It’s a real missed opportunity.
Agreed! My $DAYJOB is an Apple shop and the Apple "Business" offerings are horrible. No support for a proper business developer account is annoying. A single human is responsible for this and when that human moves to a different company or role then you have to reassign the account to a different human. Configuring SSO is another trap. You have to capture a domain to add SSO but after you do that your users can't access the Apple App Store (for some reason).
There are so many places that Apple could improve their "Business" business, but they seem hell bent on not doing that. Maybe Mr. Ternus will address this issue.
I don’t even think Microsoft is all that adamant that their customers use it.
It’s just not competitive with Linux and that ship has sailed. Linux is better and costs $0. Microsoft lets you run .NET applications on Linux and they’re better there.
I think the same thing happened with SQL Server. Nobody’s choosing it for new projects, its niche is basically legacy software.
I agree that Apple is missing an opportunity with business and enterprise but I think the issue is that they’re so far behind that catching up would be a massive investment that might never pay off.
This is similar to saying that Microsoft missed an opportunity with smartphone ecosystems. They could spend billions on getting a smartphone back on the market and it would arrive and everyone would ask the question “why am I buying this when my iPhone has X million apps on its store and is a nearly perfect device?”
If Apple Enterprise Cloud was available today who is switching and why? Apple would have to undercut established players to convince businesses to switch via a massive migration effort.
If we look at Microsoft's revenue I think it's pretty clear that they do in fact care an awful lot about Windows Server - or at least should.
In fiscal year 2025, Microsoft Corporation's revenue by segment:
Devices: $17.31 B
Dynamics Products And Cloud Services: $7.83 B
Enterprise Services: $7.76 B
Gaming: $23.46 B
Linked In Corporation: $17.81 B
Microsoft Three Six Five Commercial Products And Cloud Services: $87.77 B
Microsoft Three Six Five Consumer Products and Cloud Services: $7.40 B
Other Products And Services: $72.00 M
Search Advertising: $13.88 B
Search And News Advertising: $13.88 B
Server Products And Cloud Services: $98.44 B
Server Products And Tools: $98.44 B
Windows: $17.31 BWhat’s the difference between “server products and cloud services” and “server products and tools?”
I assume the former is Azure and the latter is on-premise.
In that case if we lump 365 in with server products and cloud tools then it shows that 2/3 of the enterprise revenue is going to cloud and 1/3 is on-premise (and I assume that 1/3 is declining over time)
Windows Server is used for more than just directory services and web hosting though.
Hwat? How does LinkedIn generate revenue (as much as "Windows")?
Not sure about others, but I would switch if it meant I no longer needed to rely on Google Workspace.
However if you do want to talk about services outside of fleet management, then there are plenty of niches where Windows Server has a surprising foothold. Though typically they’re domains which haven’t been disrupted by “tech bros”, which is why you don’t read about it much on HN.
> This is similar to saying that Microsoft missed an opportunity with smartphone ecosystems.
They did. But we are talking specifically about fleet management and not any random tech-adjacent industry.
> If Apple Enterprise Cloud was available today who is switching and why? Apple would have to undercut established players to convince businesses to switch via a massive migration effort.
The existing players only exist because Apples default offering is basically non-existent. Apple wouldn’t need to undercut them, just be comparably priced. The reason being that if you already have a business account with Apple then you don’t need to go through the pan of getting a new supplier approved by the board (etc).
As for existing businesses, if they’re already large enough that fleet management is a concern then they’re large enough to have people on payroll who manage that fleet. And thus to perform that migration. It might even be part of their laptop refresh program.
And if Apple had an enterprise fleet management service then they’d be able to offer tools that are locked to their fleet management (eg remote wipe). Which would heavily incentivise businesses not to go with 3rd parties.
Once there's friction there, it'll make other friction seem less bad.
But if, say, AAPL had won the PC wars, we'd be staring at a much more locked-down, much more expensive OS experience.
Wipe if you think you can do better :) It can and has been done.
But then came Java and Wap. You could, in theory, download a jar from a site and try to run it. God knows if it would run. But it wasn't a locked-down app store that bypassing would land you in hot water.
"Sometimes" doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Nokia had an app store, and before you could see the available apps you have to first choose your phone: because even with-in Nokia's own product range there was so much variation in screens, keyboards, and general capabilities that they had to pre-apply a filter to show you what would actually work.
Wow. Just… wow.
Excuse me while I get permission from sixteen levels of managers inside Cingular, U.S. Cellular, Cincinnati Bell, PrimeCo, and the fifty different regional carriers calling themselves "Cellular One" to offer my app on their networks.
I'm not claiming that iPhones are open to the extent that HN griefers want it to be, but you must have been freshly hatched in the years before the iPhone to think the ecosystem was open.
I say this as someone who developed some of the first mobile phone weather apps. (Before "app" was even a word.)
I could flash my Nokia 6210 with whatever firmware I wanted, but I guess that doesn't count, because Nokia and Ericsson aren't American companies.
My experience with a Nokia 6210 was very much the opposite of what you describe.
And yet it happens in dozens of other countries that are not America.
You may be surprised to learn that the whole world is not Europe. The colonial era is dead.
with Apple, MSFT and Google at the forefront
None of those companies had phones in the era we're discussing.
The discussion is about Apple. Which is an American company.
But if taking discussions off-topic is what gets you off, have at it.
What marketing does to people
> What marketing does to people
I'm sorry, are my MacBooks Pro, Air, and (my spouse's) Neo not some of the best built laptops you can buy? Maybe there's something better, but these are inarguably some of the best. Absolute top of the line.
See the Verge (I think) reviewing similarly priced laptops priced around the Neo. They were plastic crap, even if they had better specs elsewhere.
MacOS might not be your preferred way of working, and you might prefer cheaper options or USB-A ports, but there is really nothing you could arguably call bad craftmanship in those machines.
my 2 bad craftsmanship cents:
laptop keyboard leaves marks on screen. laptop's sharp edges leaves marks on wrists.
I don't think this has been a thing in years.
Sharp edges on wrists is true.
My wrists, conversely, are fine, but I suppose I rarely use it in a 'classic' desk position that would cause that.
Their software craftsmanship has really suffered in the last 10 years.
I think a better implementation might have been to have it be an alternate mode for the trackpad and sell external trackpads that also had it so it could be used everywhere. But I get why that didn’t happen, the touchbar was basically being run with a mini Apple Watch SOC built into the MacBook Pro, and it’s primary use was to have the Secure Enclave on it. The touchbar itself was a deal where they could find a use for having an otherwise idle smartwatch’s worth of computing power in there, but that wouldn’t be doable if it’s sold as an external device.
The Macbook Air, the best computer for most people, starts at $1099. I paid something like $2,700 for my computer, which I brought to college in 2002. That's about $5,000 in today's money.
Affordable, ethical. You can only choose one.
> This guy seems much younger than Tim was when he ascended.
Ternus just looks a bit younger. He’ll be 51, and half a year older than Cook was when he became CEO in 2011.
In other words, nothing insightful or worth talking about. I don't want to read news for feelgood vibes.
(I am not claiming the top comment is AI generated, only that an AI generated summarization of the thread can function just as well in its stead, despite the occasional inaccuracies)
I find your reaction strange, do you read news to be angry and/or afraid? :)
Saying it is disagreeable is like saying that honestly is disagreeable. Sure, it can be, but it is not an inherent feature, and a lot depends on how it is delivered.
Yes, as algorithmic engagement has proven, most people want to read the news to get angry about stuff.
But I don't like hanging around that. I'd rather talk about tech news with nerds (old HN) and not just talk about coastal filter-bubble US politics with big tech worker bees (new HN).
US politics has definitely captured the crowd here lately. Half of the comment threads somehow devolve from discussions of Javascript frameworks into hysterical left-populist struggle sessions over the perceived political injustice of the day.
Maybe some feel good vibes and some apolitical news for the day aren't a bad thing.
In general, I'd say it's about confirmation bias and having a fluffy statement that confirms preconceived notions is hardly interesting to me. If there is anything of substance that contradicts any narrative or general consensus than I find the signal in the noise highly valuable.
But I can't speak for the general case because I don't use any social media and find rage bate quite cumbersome.
All those statements are psychological manipulation. Being too positive or too negative makes people blind and mendable by silently suppressing their will to be themselves.
> With a new boss, Apple may be showing its strategic interest in deeper integration of AI into its hardware, said Hubbard. "The very strengths that made Apple dominant - their discipline, polish, and control - could become constraints if the next era rewards openness and faster iteration," he said.
The opposite of the basic human interface quality and consistency improvements that several commenters here hope for.
(Admittedly "Hubbard" here is just the first pundit they could grab, an Assistant Professor of Management and Organization, so this isn't the best informed prognostication.)
That makes me wonder why people love Apple but hate all other big companies.
In the case of all of them, they may make some questionably ethical business decisions but at the same time do genuinely care about the craft they're in, pushing boundaries and making quality products.
You can see a similar thing in the 3D printing world with Bambu Lab - people love the product (my A1 has been excellent value, very reliable, and I despite preferring my fancy more expensive toy for most tasks I would still recommend it to those starting out without specific needs that such a design can't provide), and any concern about the company behind it (slowly closing off the ecosystem, initially trying to make out that their obviously-inspired-by-the-fullspectrum-scorca-fork colour mixing option was their own original stroke of genius) doesn't matter to them.
With both Bambu and Apple part of why they get this attention is the end-to-end polish that people feel in the product experience (to be fair is a valid reason to choose those products) and a certain amount of luck in them bringing their show to market at the right time, where other companies are seen as producing more interchangeable commodity items. Without that distinction giving people a higher view of the product range, the other companies struggle to get away from the fact that we don't naturally, for good reason, trust nor love commercial entities.
The other thing working in favour of some companies is momentum: some were worthy of some adoration for higher quality products and/or greater customer care than the competition, but are no longer and it takes a while for everyone to realise how much things have changed. Disney is definitely a company that I would add to this pile, and there are others.
Another big company that seems to get a lot more adoration than any of their competition is Nintendo, though I'm not in the gaming market any more so I don't know how much of that they still earn and how much of it is just that at least they aren't Sony or Microsoft!
They also made a good unix based OS that was easy to purchase on decent hardware (esp laptops).
"A lot of love for Apple" is not evidence of wisdom or merit. It is evidence that Apple has been extraordinarily successful at converting ordinary consumer electronics into a moral aesthetic identity for its customers... Once that happens, public praise stops being about products and starts being about selfregard.
That is why Apple gets discussed in a register normally reserved for institutions that have actually earned public affection. In reality, it is a company that charges luxury prices for tightly controlled products, then persuades customers that the control is sophistication and the markup is virtue. :-)
This is mostly a case study in prestige bias. People are not just evaluating a company but protecting a status hierarchy in which buying Apple signifies discernment.
And the something amazing must be in the skunkworks line is the usual theology that means when the present is overpriced iteration, redemption is always scheduled for a few years from now.
I remember the iPhone launch queues...as in the strangest ritual in consumer tech. People camping overnight for a device that will be sitting on shelves in unlimited quantities the following week. Like queueing up for a vacuum cleaner and pretending it's the moon landing.:-)
Oh the love for a company, with the battery gate ($500M settlement for throttling phones customers already owned), the CSAM on-device scanning proposal, a decade of Irish tax routing, active lobbying against right to repair, repeated supply chain findings on child and forced labor... and a CEO who hands Trump gold while going quiet on the causes Apple used to grandstand about.
So much much to love on this company. Its poised with assholery of Steve Jobs to its core, and has no salvation. If I want luxury, I buy a laptop from Cartier...
The worst is the tell that an all Apple setup is a the near perfect filter for not a hacker. The ecosystem is engineered against the instincts that define hacking, no sideloading without ceremony, no real repair, no low level access without fighting the OS, no running what you want without Apple permission, no swapping parts that haven't been blessed with the right serial number.
Its computing for consumers, not tinkerers. Which is fine, except the culture around it borrows the prestige of technical sophistication while actively opting out of it. :-)
The Mac in the coffee shop is a lifestyle object. The ThinkPad running Linux next to it is a tool.