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What's wrong with Apple?

They dropped the ball with their latest map app. Now they updated iTunes to something (version 11) you don't feel like using at all, like they don't want you to buy anything anymore with it.

Somehow I have the feeling since the passing of Steve Jobs, a lot of the different thinking, or just plain thinking for that matter, has been lost at the "fruit company."

I guess they want Microsoft to get back into the boxing ring. :D It's so lonely at the top.

Comments

  • itunes 11 is a huge improvement over 10 imho. I tunes 10 I never wanted open on my computer. 11 I can live with. :)

    Maps....yea, ball dropped.
  • StingrayStingray Elite Ranger
    I can see how that is an improvement to you. :D

    To me who was used to iTunes 10, it's not. But then, I don't use it that much, but I fear this may pull us from the beaten path. You don't want to alienate your customers.
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    Let me ask: What don't you like about iTunes 11? From my brief peruse through it just now, it looks easier to use, actually. The one thing that I think was an oops was not turning on the sidebar by default.

    As for the maps app, the VP who was in charge of that was fired along with the manager that ran it, and one of their senior VPs (one of the ones that came to Apple from Next with Jobs) has taken over the project and is working to fix all the problems.
  • StingrayStingray Elite Ranger
    I just have a hard time getting used to Apple's way of updating between versions.

    One could also take this in a positive light as a way of them reacting to user feedback.

    My question is, what was wrong with iTunes 10 that they felt the need to change it? ;)
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    [QUOTE=Stingray;196675]My question is, what was wrong with iTunes 10 that they felt the need to change it? ;)[/QUOTE]

    This is not my personal opinion, but the most-commonly-stated opinion on news sites seems to be that in version 10, it was very hard to find new content to buy. For something that's supposed to be a shop (from Apple's point of view), this wasn't really a good thing. The new interface is based on the work of a company they bought who produced a site to search and display iTunes content in a "better" way.
  • ShadowDancerShadowDancer When I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie." London, UK
    To be honest I don't really notice much difference with the new iTunes. There's a few new little features that are nice, but using the store still has the same slightly clunky feeling to me as it had before.

    Saying that however, I don't often buy anything through it. I mostly use it just for playing music and syncing my idevices; if I ever want to buy anything from the store I usually do it through my ipad
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    iTunes is what i hated most about my iPhone/iPod, thanks be for Jailbreaks...

    As for Whats wrong with apple? I think you will start to see more apple failures over the next several years as Steve Jobs is no longer approving everything they put out, he had a knack for knowing what to send to market and what to NOT send to market.
  • StingrayStingray Elite Ranger
    [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79/stingray_b5/wwsjd.jpg[/IMG]

    [IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79/stingray_b5/wwmgd.gif[/IMG]

    :D
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    I've never been a huge fan of Apple as a company, I just don't like the way they did things, but Steve Jobs had an uncanny grasp of his market, I like to compare him to Barnum, the man could sell anything. He was a showman.
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    [QUOTE=Imhotep;196686]We know the quality issue has already shown it will be an issue with the maps app situation. There is no way if Jobs were alive that app would have seen the light of day, as he would have put it off until it was really ready to be released.[/quote]

    I'm not sure. The Maps switch was in the works for years (Apple started gobbling up mapping companies back in '09), and Jobs was always super-pissed at Google for revamping Android after the iPhone was announced. Add to that the fact that Google wouldn't bring turn-by-turn directions or vector maps to iOS without big concessions on user privacy, and Apple may have been willing to go into a sink-or-swim situation on Maps rather than continue to fall behind. And let's not fetishize Jobs's sense of polish. He let .Mac out the door. And then Mobile.Me. And then there's the G4 Cube with the cracked cases, and the hockey puck mouse...

    [QUOTE=Imhotep;196686]Apple is lucky that Jobs spent the last years of his life working on a future roadmap for the company, but the problem is without his involvement it will be hard to carry out any of these without his direct input. Though I am sure Tim Cook has little note on his desk that says WWSJD. In case you don't know what that means, "What Would Steve Jobs Do".[/QUOTE]

    He better not. Jobs's told Tim Cook in so many words to [url=http://www.macworld.com/article/1167008/tim_cook_at_d10_in_his_own_words.html]never think like that.[/url]

    [QUOTE=Entil'Zha;196689]I've never been a huge fan of Apple as a company, I just don't like the way they did things, but Steve Jobs had an uncanny grasp of his market, I like to compare him to Barnum, the man could sell anything. He was a showman.[/QUOTE]

    I object to that characterization. I'd say Jobs had an infectious enthusiasm, but he couldn't sell anything he didn't love (and him loving it didn't mean even he could make it sell; seriously, the G4 Cube). Take a look at him showing off the Motorola ROKR, [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWSRgsk2oaw]starting about three minutes in.[/url]. It doesn't make me want to buy this much-speculated-on "iPhone." It makes me think it's a piece of crap. Even Mr. Personal Computer Revolution can't find the damn play button.

    Compare that to when he seemed to forget he was on stage while he was reading stuff on the first iPad.
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    But he could sell what you didn't need, Thats why I call him a showman, Honestly, Very few of apples products did anything that could not be handled (sometimes better and cheaper) by another device. But Steve Jobs had an amazing way of convincing people that Apples products were better. I still think he could sell iIce to Eskimo's,

    (well maybe not now, being dead and all)
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    Well, that depends on what you mean by "don't need." To use an extreme example, is it flim-flammery to sell someone a new car for $30,000 when they could get all the car they "need" from some $500 1985 jalopy they bought off of a curb next to an old flea-bag couch?
  • StingrayStingray Elite Ranger
    I'm sorry, but I disagree also with Steve Jobs being a good show/salesman. I never purchased a single Apple product in my life. I'm using Apple products because of work and I appreciate them for what they can do and how you can do those things with them.

    The iPhone sucks as a phone, but it is the sweetest pocket computer I have ever used and that has nothing to do with Jobsian marketing ploys or showmanship. The iPhone is just a pleasure to use and you actually take care of the darn thing. I am assuming that he did get closely involved in the decisions developing the whole product line and related services, but that was mostly happening behind the curtains.

    Now that he is gone, all Tim Cook can do is try to look back and figure out the magic recipe for success, if he doesn't already know it. In retrospect, Steve Ballmer is in a similar situation, except Bill Gates is still alive, but I'm afraid MS made far too many mistakes in the past. There is one rule that is true for all, you don't f*ck with the customer, period. We adapt, but we never forget. They can play with everything they want to, Apple and MS, but they should never try to fix which isn't broken.

    Windows 8 hasn't been out for a month, now there is talk about Windows Blue!! What??

    And you know what, I didn't even know much about Windows 8 when I first tried it and there were a few things I didn't like immediately, that was the Metro interface and that darn stupid LOGO when it starts up. Can you believe it? :D Well, and then I tried to use it and I just don't like how they took away certain interface features like the start button and how you power down the darn thing. Anyway, I digress.
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    Well i'll disagree with your disagreeing, I love my iPhone as a phone, Prefer an android as a pocket computer, lol, although, since i'm using it on a 10 inch tablet, I've got to have huge pockets!

    I honestly don't believe that anything the iPod/iPhone did was revolutionary, other phones/music players did the exact same job just as well (if not better in some cases) and yet Jobs was able to convince people that his product was better. Mostly through an amazing grasp of marketing and knowing which products to send to market, and which to hold back on.
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    And I have to disagree with EntilZha. When the original iPhone came out, there was nothing like it on the market. Blackberry had very basic menu driven screens and a web browser that would have made Windows 3.1 feel proud. Other smart phones weren't any better off. When the iPhone debuted, it was packed with a touch screen GUI that no one had seen the like of before. Sure, there had been failed experiments with pen-driven touch screens previously, but none of them had the integration or the form factor that the iPhone supplied.

    About a year later, Android appeared, and it took about three years before it got the polish needed to truly compete with the iPhone GUI. Microsoft took even longer than Android, only really coming out with a solution in the last two years, and it's still being polished. Everyone else, including RIM, essentially gave up.

    There are many aspects of the iPhone I don't like - the biggest one being the locked down OS that doesn't let me play with the innards. To me, that is one of the huge benefit of OSX - a great, user friendly GUI on the surface and yet all the power of a *nix OS underneath (based on BSD). Unfortunately, it is the one thing that every OS vendor seems to want to do away with...
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    From my perspective, all Apple did was take the idea of a PocketPC and turn it into a phone. I had a touchscreen pocket PC long before the iPhone came out. Look i'm not knocking apple's products, i currently own 4 Macs, 4 iphones and 2 ipods. I just don't drink the Apple KoolAid that makes people think their products are any better than other products on the market. I love the products, I dislike the company.
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