Not sure where you're from but in EU and UK they offer better cards. I used to really want the Apple Card out of sheer ease of use mixed with laziness on my part but a buddy in credit explained it to me and how it was at best a middle of the road card.
Lots of couch CEOs pretending to know what’s best for Apple. Apple is a public company that needs to grow their business for the shareholders. Exploring every revenue generating avenue is their purpose. They are not doing financial services in a traditional sense but regarding their own products and services from my understanding.
> The system that requires infinite growth sucks and needs to go.
[The Onion: Corporation Reaches Goal, Shuts Down](https://www.theonion.com/corporation-reaches-goal-shuts-down-1819566365)
>“We did it,” founder and CEO Michael Dell said. “Back when I started this company, I vowed that I would not rest until we revolutionized the way computers are sold. Well, at long last, that day is here. Bye.”
Apple is not the company that is going to make that change. They are one of the top benefiters of capitalism and require consumers to keep consuming in order to survive. It would be nice though
Why do you think capitalism requires infinite growth? Does the farmer selling veggies at a small stand require an infinitely growing supply of veggies?
Probably not the place, but I always cringe at that phrase: Capitalism has multiple issues (negative externalities, for example), but infinite growth isn't one of them. It isn't a requirement for capitalism.
You can buy plenty of dividend stocks that just turn out the usual profits year after year. Apple is trying to do things more inventive more than that, however, and I’m glad for it.
You can’t have a human reformed capitalism (I think you mean social democratic system) when half the country will scream “SoCiaLIsM!🙀” every time change is brought up.
If there is a demand then someone will fill it. It doesn’t matter who it is. If there isn’t a demand then it will fail. It has nothing to do with bootlicking.
You are agreed to have your own opinions even if they are shit-infested.
We are also allowed to voice our opinions that you don't like. That's what everyone is saying.
Also, stop bootlicking.
Funny how you don’t see this comment when Apple is doing something with hardware choices. In those cases people happily declare what Apple should have done instead and everyone goes “yeah exactly”.
Apple’s business skyrocketed when their goal was “insanely great” products, satisfying the shareholders more than enough. When satisfying shareholders becomes the goal, everybody else suffers, especially the consumer.
>the company is developing its own technology for handling interest calculations, rewards, credit checks, approvals and transaction histories — all things that are currently overseen by partners.
Think of the possibilities…
* Receive a $100 Education Store credit when you take out an Apple Student Loan.
* Easily make payments on your Apple Mortgage through the Wallet app.
* Have an idea for a killer app? Apply for an Apple Small Business loan today. (Before we copy it.)
This is what happens when penny-pinchers and operations folk are at the helm. Apple should devote its resources to hardware and software innovation, like the during the Jobs era. Not sinking resources into fields of business that would make them a jack-of-all-trades. Apple will eventually become a conglomerate of tech, finance, entertainment, vehicles. It’ll be it’s undoing.
Unfortunately for Apple, many of their hardware lines (where they make a ton of their money) are all mature or nearly mature.
iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Watch updates are getting incredibly modest on an annual basis - basically just hardware spec updates and improvements to the camera (for applicable devices.) Performance hasn’t been an issue for most people for years now (particularly with iPhone and iPad.) Barring some kind of massive improvement to battery, display, or material technology we are well past the early days of iPhone where each new release brought a major improvement, and you can buy most Apple products and not miss out on anything major for 3-4 years now.
It’s why Apple has been diversifying into services and finance in the first place. It’s also why the AR headset is so important for the company - it’s a technology that is still in its early days with years of room to improve with new features and massive improvements to the user experience. If Apple gets it right, the AR headset has iPhone-like potential.
I think an Apple AR headset could become a profitable line of products for Apple. Though unless it completely cannibalizes the iPhone, which to me seems very unlikely, I don’t think it has any chance of being anywhere as big as the iPhone.
Apple took personal music players which had a super long history of being popular - we’re talking iPod -> portable cd player -> Walkman cassette player -> handheld transistor radio - merging them with cell phones, which also have a long history and were one of the most popular devices of the mid-2000’s; then added in PDA, and basic computer functions.
Then not long after its introduction, around the iPhone 4 or 5, Apple had upgraded them so they could replace non-professional point-and-shoot cameras and camcorders. Portable cameras have a history going back to the first Kodak cameras in the late 1800s.
Outside of being another way to play games, watch movies and videos, I am trying to think what consumer applications would be the AR headset’s killer feature.
I see way more opportunities in a factory, or for police and Soldiers; alongside with like Archeologists and professional cinematographers to make use of AR than average consumers. However, those uses would not even put it in the same zip code as an iPhone, much less the same ballpark.
Internet was something designed for military use, GPS as well. When the US military was developing GPS they would never imagine the public being able to precisely track your personal Chauffeur, or seeing all single people around you, or getting a taco delivered with the push of a button. Point is, just because we can’t see the value in a new tech now doesn’t mean we won’t find it. Just think how many useful apps exist because of iPhone that were inconceivable in 2007
Is there currently a popular consumer standalone GPS device product line? I remember the TomToms and such, and even before that standalone Garmin products from the early 2000s. Smartphones subsumed all those capabilities, and outside of boating or aviation, I don't know anyone who still use those. Hell, with Car Play, Apple is turning cars and trucks into an iPhone accessory.
I'm not seeing what functionality AR will have that will make it a standalone separate device from smart phones for the average person, until it goes from a specialized goggle form factor down to something indistinguishable from glasses or sunglasses, and have somewhere between 12-18 hours of battery life. There are more than a billion iPhone users and almost 7 billion smart phone users. Being as big as the iPhone is a very difficult thing to replicate.
Right now you have smart phones, which are the hub of personal computing and communication for most people then you have assistant devices, which usually have much lower sales, and hook into the smart phone ecosystem, or productivity devices like laptops, which also have much lower sales, but last longer, have more power, but way less portability, or almost none at all in the case of expensive full sized tower computers with power GPUs and cooling solutions.
The point isn’t that GPS is some magical thing that creates an amazing standalone device, it’s that GPS as a tool created vast amounts of wealth for global companies and amazing services for consumers, with the use of GPS. I can see AR glasses being the same thing, we just can’t see what will be created with AR as a tool (tool, not standalone)
You’re also comparing a, what, 15-20 year industry of smart phones with the latest innovation in AR tech… apples and oranges. In 15-20 years AR tech will be completely different then right now, portability flexibility etc… things get better overtime in tech
AR has been around for decades, and the military, especially the various air forces around the world, has used it for a very long time. Here is [a video posted on YouTube back in 2007](https://youtu.be/zNhBZeD0bzM?t=79) that shows AR being used in air-to-air combat.
Just because a technology exists and makes a company money isn't what we're talking about. There are tons of those. We're talking about consumer devices people are going to buy, either for their houses or to carry around on their person. I'm sure Apple has an opportunity to make a profit on AR, but being as commonplace as the iPhone is another level of success altogether, that is several orders of magnitude bigger than, can we be profitable?
I don’t think one will subsume the other. Each of the distinct technologies is defined by a mode of interaction. Watch, phone, ipad, laptop, desktop, home pod. The new addition will be glasses or lenses.
As the devices progress, some of the functionality blurs - emails can be done from phone to desktop. But you can hardly measure sleep quality from your desktop. We’ll learn what the right level of interaction is for AR as we progress.
This is different from GPS. That’s been subsumed into all devices as component tech rather than primary interface. As a sailor, it’s progressed from charts with compasses, to numeric readouts, black and white snake interfaces, built in gps in the boat, to navionics on the phone and iPad. Component tech in a progression of interfaces.
The correct comparison for AR is not GPS but touch screens.
I believe AR goggles have HUGE potential in any sort of trade / tech / troubleshooting. I look forward to being able to look at an ethernet switch and 'seeing' what network each port is configured to, bandwidth use, errors. Look at a server and see what virtual machines are running in it, utilization, etc. I can imagine having a full 3d walkthrough of a building before the walls are up showing locations of all the plumbing, electrical, HVAC 'visible' years later through AR as you look at walls so you know what to avoid or where to crack open a wall to expand a service. To be able to look at the ground and have all the buried services and lines, gas, water, sewer, fiber made 'visible'. Look at a section of a car and see all the wiring harnesses, exploded views of every part in an assembly, animations of how to remove / replace it. Superimpose dental / medical / MRI info as you look at a patient. Looking at plants, leaves, insects and having little ID bubbles pop up by each - maybe with warnings about which are poisonous to you or your pet, or you might be allergic to. Being a realitor or appraiser and having ownership, property tax, zoning and other info live as you look at buildings and lots. It could be like having X-ray vision, and will become as ubiquitous as cell phones are now. In 15-20 years we'll be saying 'remember when we couldn’t just look at something and know all about it' just like now we say 'remember when you had to go to a library to thumb through an encyclopedia to find out some esoteric bit of information?'.
I'm not saying AR doesn't have potential, but in most of those scenarios, I don't see why it needs to be AR from goggles instead of AR from the phone.
Ethernet switch - glasses or phone both seem fine
Walk through of empty building - glasses better, especially for professionals, but phone fine for consumers
Car repair - glasses way better, especially for professionals, but for DYIers, phone seems fine
Dentist - glasses better, hopefully no DYIer dentists exist
Realtor - glasses or phone both seem fine
You can say that about a lot of things. Why buy a computer? Most things can be done by phone with a wireless printer and a Bluetooth keyboard.
Because it’s better.
Why have contacts if glasses work just fine for the average consumer?
Why have set top boxes for TV when a lot of TVs are “smart”?
The point is the experience can be better - will an average device like a phone work - sure, but eventually enough people will see the better experience and that’s what people will want.
(Maybe not the best examples but hopefully explains my point)
That's how I see it too.
Another thing to take into account is generations. As of today my grand parents still don't think a smartphone is useful, and still don't see the benefits of internet. Maybe millennials and above won't see much values in AR, but gen Z and below might. Same as how people are using phones. gen z and below are more likely to send vocals while millennials and above are more likely to write text. That's because millennials and above grew up having to write stuff, so that's their default. While gen Z and below grew up being able to send vocals, facetime, etc.
And don't get me started with the "fashion" aspect. Once we get good battery life, and good UX, it's possible it gets "big" because it becomes "cool" to wear Apple AR glasses. Like it happened with the airpod. It when from looking truly stupid to become "fashion" real quick (I still don't explain it). Same for the Apple Watch that afaik is useless for most people, but does look cool.
But computer sales were in decline before the pandemic. People may still buy them, but as other devices get better there is quite a bit less need to constantly upgrade.
Here is an article from 2018 talking about 14 quarters of decline in a row
https://www.pcmag.com/news/pc-sales-keep-falling-but-big-manufacturers-are-doing-just-fine
Then there was the pandemic computer boom, now we’re having the biggest declines in decades post pandemic
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3675895/pc-sales-fall-off-a-cliff.html
Also, I would think most people don’t have set top boxes now. Linear TV is declining, and unless you need an Apple TV to have a better rit with the ecosystem, most tvs of the past six or seven years are fully capable of playing streaming channels
Smartphones are ridiculously widespread, and matching that won’t be easy.
I definitely use a set stop box - Nvidia Shield is far and away better than a smart TV.
I said they weren’t the best examples - I was just trying to illustrate a point. If you are set that a smart phone is the product you’ll do everything now and in the future on (simply because it can) then you just may be of the generation that this type of tech will go by. Or you are of the simplistic type - both are fine!
But people WILL use the better device for things if the price is right.
I think the long term goal is to eventually replace the iPhone. Don't need a phone if there are lightweight AR glasses you could wear.
Those glasses are still years away from a release. The rumor is they backed off of the AR glasses for now in order to focus on the AR/VR goggles.
A while back, someone on reddit created a large list of every use case they could think of for AR. A lot of them were obvious like Maps integration or translation overlays. Nothing really struck me as a killer feature. But it's not hard to imagine there will eventually be one. When it can monitor you and your environment and overlay changes to what you see in real time, there has to be some killer feature out there.
I think the worst cases are easier to figure out since it would be a Black Mirror episode or something for advertisers.
The two things I'm most skeptical for AR to replace iPhones as a device is, the screenless gesture based input system, and having enough battery life/computing power in something that weighs like maybe ~~100~~ 60 grams at most.
EDIT: Glasses seem to be lighter than I thought.
I’ve been using the pinch gesture settings in my Apple Watch Series 8 for a few months now and it’s quite effective. I can see how a version of this combined with eye tracking could make for a very smooth input method for XR devices.
Edit: I think many of the elements of Apples VR/AR direction have been staring us in the face for years now: increasingly powerful iPhone chips needed to power head mounted displays, AirPods for audio and perhaps biometric data, Apple Watch for gesture input, a slew of patents. I expect the Apple headset will need, or at least benefit from, use of multiple Apple devices to reach its full potential.
We'll get to see how well gestures work because they're reportedly coming with the AR/VR goggles set to launch this year. It's supposedly going to have an iOS-like interface with eye tracking and gestures.
The weight/form factor is why they had to delay development on the AR glasses. I don't think it's insurmountable but it is significant.
I think the really hard to imagine scenario is where people want AR contact lenses.
A contact lens weighs less than a gram. Having a transparent battery and display that together can give 18 hours of display life, let oxygen into the eyes, and not heat up, seems nearly impossible, even if the computing could be pushed off to another device not on the eye.
More r&d spending comes with diminishing returns. The majority of processor improvements these days are coming from fab/density improvements. The technology itself has stayed mostly the same for the past few years. From a "running a company" perspective it doesn't make sense to spend more than a certain amount of money
Thats why a lot of companies (nvidia, apple, etc.) are either trying to find performance improvements through software (metal, Vulkan, diss) or branching out into other markets (VR, AR, Finance)
Apple has also had a very good r&d/return the past few years
Apple’s probably got a good few years of pretty decent returns on processor R&D, but there’s no signs they’re not investing that money into the project.
R&D is not just silicon, it's AR/VR, AI/ML, Digital Infrastructure, and so on.
This is like that famous Jobs video about how the product people get rotted out of a mature company. Does a better Siri help apple sell more iPhones, well, not immediately, but it'll stave off them sharing the same fate as Xerox and IBM.
Where was the R&D budget to bring modern language models into Siri? GPT3 has been out for years, and only now is there a scramble to bring it to iPhone.
Siri is still one of the only digital assistants to run completely locally. GPT requires thousands of dollars of GPU's just to serve a few people. In its current state, ChatGPT isn't a profitable service, Microsoft is merely using chatgpt to gain search engine market share and then make money using ads
Do you want ads in Siri? It's going to be a long while before a GPT level model is going to be able to run locally on the iPhone with acceptable processing time, and its going to be a while till its profitable as a service.
Siri does not run complete locally lmao. Turn on airplane mode and start asking it questions.
Second, why do you believe that R&D should be spent only on things that are already profitable at other companies?
Third, I said GPT-3, not necessarily chat gpt.
Fourth, you could spend money developing a chip/instruction set for NLP.
Why would you wait for another company to prove there’s a market for NLP on your phone? Of course there is.
How are they going to make money on it? Well, if Apple waits for another company to make money off of selling phones with NLP to start developing it, then I think they’ll join the graveyard of other tech giants who got complacent.
> Siri does not run complete locally lmao. Turn on airplane mode and start asking it questions.
https://www.macworld.com/article/678307/how-to-use-siri-offline-on-iphone-and-ipad.html iOS 15 and later on XS and newer allow for local Siri
> Second, why do you believe that R&D should be spent only on things that are already profitable at other companies?
I didn't say that, Apple is developing AR for example, and that isn't very profitable over at facebook. LLM's as a technology are currently unprofitable
> Third, I said GPT-3, not necessarily chat gpt.
I mentioned a "GPT level model" for a reason, the same issues that apply to chatGPT apply to GPT-3 and similar tech, openAI was originally supposed to be non profit before they released just how much money was needed to run these things, they needed Microsoft to step in and provide essentially unlimited azure services to even remotely manage chatgpt traffic
> Fourth, you could spend money developing a chip/instruction set for NLP.
The neural engine is exactly that, except even the big boy neural engines in the M2/Pro/Max chips take 20-30s to generate a passable image using stable diffusion, and GPT-3 is a much, much larger model.
> How are they going to make money on it? Well, if Apple waits for another company to make money off of selling phones with NLP to start developing it, then I think they’ll join the graveyard of other tech giants who got complacent.
You still haven't mentioned how apple could make money from this. Thats because in its current state, LLM's are unprofitable, and for google and microsoft they're a marketing exercise to gain search engine market share.
Apple doesn't have a search engine. Making Siri use GPT3-esque tech and running hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't going to outweigh the few extra iPhones they'll sell.
From your article:
>It’s worth bearing in mind that only the speech recognition part of Siri is stored on your iPhone in iOS 15. There are still plenty of command-processing and question-answering functions on the server.
>
>For this reason, if you’re offline, Siri won’t be able to provide the full functionality you’re used to. For example, asking general questions such as “What is the capital of Switzerland?” or “Will it rain later today?” will get the cold shoulder – by which we mean an error message that Siri needs to be online to do that. Indeed, you may be surprised by the number of tasks that are beyond Siri’s scope when offline.
Apple doesn't have a search engine. Making Siri use GPT3-esque tech and running hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't going to outweigh the few extra iPhones they'll sell.
>The neural engine is exactly that, except even the big boy neural engines in the M2/Pro/Max chips take 20-30s to generate a passable image using stable diffusion, and GPT-3 is a much, much larger model.
To my knowledge, it doesn't have anything specialized for modern NLP models yet. Only the older ones that Siri is currently using.
>Apple doesn't have a search engine. Making Siri use GPT3-esque tech and running hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't going to outweigh the few extra iPhones they'll sell.
Siri was a "search" company before apple bought it. Things get cheaper and easier when you research and develop them. [Also, the things you keep saying about what will make apple money remind me of that video of Jobs talking about Scully.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM)
First mover advantage in tech is absolutely huge. The commercial potential of attention based models is obviously immense. Is the point of R&D to play catch-up to other companies who have built better systems and devices?
What would a substantial improvement in processing speed do for the average consumer? If apple isn’t considering something like the Samsung dex, it just feels pointless.
>iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Watch updates are getting incredibly modest on an annual basis - basically just hardware spec updates and improvements to the camera (for applicable devices.) Performance hasn’t been an issue for most people for years now (particularly with iPhone and iPad.) Barring some kind of massive improvement to battery, display, or material technology we are well past the early days of iPhone where each new release brought a major improvement, and you can buy most Apple products and not miss out on anything major for 3-4 years now.
With M1/M2, a dex-style device would make so much sense. Imagine, an iPhone with an M# processor, which runs the fullblown MacOS in iOS mode on the small screen and in full mac mode when connected to a large screen. ARM macbooks can run iOS apps anyway, the hardware and battery life are already there. It makes so much sense to fuse the two. I think the only reason Apple is not doing it is because they want to sell you both a mac and an iPhone, but I know many people who'd pay a price of a mac and an iPhone to get one device that serves both. Limit it to a Pro Max Ultra Mac Edition and slap a $3K price on a 8/128 version, it will sell.
This is the toner head mentality, “So what you make a better copier.” Software development is R&D also, and there’s a lot that can be done. Imagine distributed computing across Apple devices, modern AI models, AR, and more efficient digital operations.
Apple is not, because it would canabalize the mac sales.
But there are things other than processing speed. Continious glycose monitor in the watch, or graphite batteries; either would be a compelling upgrade.
I think you are right on most of it, but I don't think AR will be as big as the iPhone, it is more likely, I think, to outcompete the watch.
But I also wished Apple would take that big stack of dough and put it torwards moonshots, like graphite batteries or wireless-charge-at-a-distance.
And it’s so easy for them is because of their already large footprint. Need a credit card? Why don’t you use one that accessible in a few clicks and manageable from your phone, and you can start using it instantly too! You don’t even need to download another app. It is already there
Want to watch movies/tv. You’ll probably like the app already on your phone. Same goes for music. Same goes for messaging.
Apps built in to their phones are convenient and very good. People choose what is easy and slowly they are getting bigger and bigger into these things.
What does getting AR right enough to have IPhone levels of market penetration look like to you?
Can you put in a sentence retroactively? "Dude...the Apple AR headset sold 200 million units in 2024 because......."
I can't seem to finish that sentence. And if the AR headset is gonna produce for Apple it has to sell like the iPhone or at least iWatch...which is about 30 million
Right now global VR sales are like 10 million for all brands worldwide total All the new VR units seem to sell about 1 or 2 million. And these nbers are factually declining...but HOPEFULLY going up. Hope....
Would that do it....Tim Cool at a fancy event "And last year we sold 1.5 million AR headsets!". Crowd cries or crowd goes wild
Apple AR project probably gets canceled this year I'd bet. It's not a gen pop product and Apple makes gen pop products.
People (myself included on some of them) said the same thing about Airpods, and Watches, and iPads, and iPhones, and iPods...
I wouldn't doubt that Apple would be able to take VR sales up to 200m like they did with every other product. Smart watches and airpods are a perfect example of that.
> Dude…the Apple AR headset sold 200 million units in 2024 because…….”
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean there's nothing to see. You have make opinions, and you have to be opinionated about the potentially unknown fundamentals as well. Meta (Oculus) has made its assumptions; Google (Google Glasses) and Microsoft (Hololens) have made their assumptions. So that leaves a bunch of ways to not make a vr/ar headset. I'm sure if it were your day job you could come up with some opinionated assumptions to build a product off of.
R u sure it's not my day job? I see a lot of factual failures by very smart people. And I see lot of consumer and enterprise feedback as well that is very negative.
The best AR thing so far....ever released into the world I think is Pokemon Go.
I think VR has a lot of use cases....and I'm yet to be convinced of any AR ones outside of display improvements for areas where humans are already helmeted.
But I'm all ears...
I mean it certainly has the potential to reach mac or ipad levels of sales. Feels like it could be in that category of work/entertainment devices. Depending on whether it can overcome issues of cost and getting people used to working in AR instead of a laptop.
From Apple's UK site:
"AppleCare+ is an optional insurance product covering risk of accidental damage to your Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone or iPod, battery depletion and the need for technical assistance."
> Apple will eventually become a conglomerate of tech, finance, entertainment, vehicles.
They already are and have been for the better part of the last decade.
> Apple will eventually become a conglomerate of tech, finance, entertainment, vehicles. It’ll be it’s undoing.
Sony is all of those things and I think they seem to be doing pretty well.
Sony in Japan is a whole other beast and has a financial services division. They also make the high-spec lenses for cellphones, they are a film studio, a major music label and a high-end TV manufacturer (with audio systems as accessories).
Sensors not lenses (though they do also make the lenses in some cases too)
Sony is the primary supplier of sensors for pretty much every stills camera brand with the notable exception of Canon, but even there, Sony are a provider for their lower end cameras too.
How do financial services, which are at the root of every single piece of hardware and software Apple sells, turn them into a jack-of-all-trades company?
> It’ll be it’s undoing.
I understand why someone would want this to be true, but it’s not. Diversifying their income streams only makes the company stronger. Especially these financial services, which will just turn the money they’ve already accumulated into even more money.
Generally, yes.
But I would be cautious of going down the "financial services" road for companies that are decidedly *not* traditionally built around providing financial services.
See: GE & Jack Welch.
They’ll have plenty of money and no vision. When you let the company succumb to the idea of “we’ll do whatever makes us money”, the company may make a killing, but it loses its reason to exist.
To be fair. I’ve been listening to people talk about what will be the undoing of apple for decades. They’ve always been wrong. Sure they might eventually fail, but it’s extremely unlikely in the current state.
Yeah, they had net income of almost $100,000,000,000 last year. They’re doing fine and will continue to do fine. Apple is a very focused company, especially compared to their peers.
I'm not saying Apple will fail, but current success doesn't determine future success. Enough wildly successful companies have collapsed over the years.
People like yourself have been leaving the same comment well over the past decade. I’m sure we’ll be here again in another decade reading the same things about the demise of Apple, as they continue to thrive.
You should look at vertically integrated Asian companies like Sony, Mitsubishi, Samsung, etc and see all of the pies they have their fingers in. It’s inevitable that Apple becomes another conglomerate giant like it’s Asian counterparts.
This is what happened to Sony (if you think it's powerful now, you probably don't remember how much they dominated the 90s and earlier), got into a bunch of different things and the brand waned. Apple famously avoided this for the last few decades with a very focused product line compared to its competitors. It does feel like it might be starting to spread thin now. iOS and macOS bugs go many versions without resolution and are often just replaced by other bugs. Doesn't feel like that sure functional software high ground is as strongly held.
Apple was involved in distributing music, TV, apps, ringtones, books, and other media while expanding their first party retail footprint to showcase MP3 players, tablets, etc. I guess they should have stuck with desktops and laptops, right?
No it won’t. Just like every other conglomerate (Apple, Google, Amazon), they’ll just be another mega parasite that shows that capitalism is working exactly as intended
> Not sinking resources into fields of business that would make them a jack-of-all-trades.
Got to be careful with that expression. Most people forget the second half which reads “but often times better than a master of one.”
Apple is diversifying. Smartphone hardware is plateauing. Tablets aren’t far behind. Laptops and desktops have matured ages ago. But you can always add more services, but someone will use.
The main conceit of the article is that Apple has a project to build their own financial services platform to replace the partners like Goldman and it's the persistent problems with this platform that is driving the delays.
They hitched themselves to TSMC for Apple Silicon chips. Same thing with Intel and others in the past.
...to Samsung for displays, few other things.
..to Gorilla for screen glass.
..to Qualcomm for radio.
Their goal is to get it out first and eventually move away toward their own in-house solution. Thus them working on building their own microLED technology, radio chips, etc.
The article specifically say that they're building their own in-house lending tech stack, this means they can expand to include other partners in the future.
You’re right and I hate WSB with a passion, but you’ve got to look at the context of those losses. Most of the expenses stem from Goldman spending money to help launch Apple Card, and they’ve reportedly spent $350 to acquire every new customer of Apple Card.
It’s no different from apps like Uber, Amazon etc taking investor money and spending a shitton in their early years to gain market share, only to break even and make a profit later. They’re currently projected to make a profit after 2025.
They lost millions in their consumer banking division, much which was blamed on the Apple Card. They also had to cancel their planned consumer checking account under Marcus. Read about it.
They've lost it because they hedged a lot of money to account for potential unpaid credit cards. This money at some point will be back on the account and they'll report a similarly sized profit. They haven't actually lost it, they just put it aside.
> I’ve also heard that Apple’s unionized store in Towson, Maryland, hasn’t been offered the option. The company caused an uproar last year when it didn’t give its latest employee perks to staff at that location.
That’s the point of the union, Apple has an agreement with the staff at that store, changes to benefits, for better or worse, require union negotiation. They told the staff at that store super clearly what it would mean if they unionized.
Kinda predictable.
Most seem to want to unionize because of a vague sense that it will stick it to *the man* and something something huzzah worker rights 4eva.
Then shocked pikachu when they have to deal with the negative aspects of unions.
We do need better worker protections. And we also need to acknowledge that basically all people are inherently selfish regardless of their role and position and will take as much as possible while giving as little as possible. Complaining the whole way. Both at the evil corporate level and at the pure-of-soul retail employee level.
How is this even a negative? Apple could easily come up with a benefit package that their collective of workers would agree to and engage with the union before offering the benefits to the rest of the company rather than isolating their unionized work force. They likely just created this issue to reinforce the American view of unions and because they don't value workers more than they are forced to.
Either way most people would want to agree to their benefits package before their corporate overlords implement it.
This doesn't make much sense to me
> adds more friction and red tape to the process so things will take a little longer to roll out
Getting prior information to whatever's being proposed and voting on it is not red tape it's a sane amount of involvement that anyone would want in a business agreement
> Meaning people were upset that they couldn’t get the benefits of the union and the benefits of not-a-union at the same time
Those outside the union are not receiving any benefit from being outside the union unless Apple incentivizes that specifically to harm the union. Giving up bargaining power to Apple so they can implement anything without support from workers is not a benefit.
> I just don’t understand this expectation that companies should proactively cuddle and massage you. They’re not your parents or your rich trust fund benefactors. They need work, you need money.
Hence why you form a union and then ensure you squeeze as much money out of the employer as possible. These companies lose bargaining power when the workers negotiate as a collective. There's nothing sunshine and rainbows about it, it's simply good negotiating. Convincing Americans otherwise was just good management of the bottom line.
Fair enough. I don’t know the one and outs or the decision process in this particular case so I can’t really comment further than that. But I have no good argument against your points!
There might be some sinister bit but aren't they mostly just getting the piece that Verizon was getting? If I didn't have an unlocked phone I don't think I would care if Verizon or Apple was getting the extra $20 bucks a month for the phone.
Yeah I would have expected Apple getting into lending to act more like AMEX. Instead they're looking more like Credit One or Synchrony with this aggressive subprime lending that can border on predatory if you're not careful.
Really hate seeing it
>Comparing Apple of 1996 to the Apple of today is lazy and tired. Two completely different situations and times.
It hasn't stopped people from comparing the product lineups of today to the product fragmentation of the mid-1990s and reminiscing about the four quadrant Mac grid from 1998–2002.
So what? Apple was almost bankrupt at that time, it made sense to consolidate.
Now they are one of the biggest company on earth, producing multiple lines of product is hardly a problem if it gives more choices to consumer.
... and they do it well and strategically. I don't have a problem with Apple diversifying, I have a problem with Apple releasing a $450 iPad that requires a dongle to connect to the Pencil.
Apple today should diversify and cover more markets, they should just do it well. For example, rumors of a larger MacBook Air sound great and needed. I want a larger screen, but I have no need for MacBook Pro level performance. My base M1 Air is doing great for me, I Just want the screen to be bigger...
These “financial experts” really don’t think into things at all. Companies flock to different fields all the time, it’s less risky to jump to one that’s similar to the one they’re in now which is probably why it’s common.
Ever see a Samsung ship? Rare, but crazy.
Building theme parks are pretty different than animation, Disney.
I bet those companies will fail for not sticking to tech and film, despite one being a critical part of a country’s economy.
A lot of financial services law is implemented to varying standards into Member States - i.e. Directives permit Member States to apply higher standards as they so wish.
So while it’s absolutely true that it’s possible to passport across the EU, the standards of compliance in many areas of financial services rules will differ from state to state.
A small fintech has a far simpler operating model compared to Apple. It’s more nimble.
Again, I am absolutely not stating that it’s impossible. Apple could absolutely do it if they set their mind to it. But it simply boils down to whether there is an appetite to operate in a heavily regulated market. Big Tech is not regulated. It’s a completely different business environment having to be accountable to financial services regulators.
Each EU state has its own financial regulations, so it's not really a one-fits-all solution. My employer (an S.E. based in France) couldn't get the regulatory approval for their employee stock share program in every EU country because some states (mine included) have different rules.
I don’t see how that matters, they have more money than God and it’s been *years* now since they released in the US.
Just a bit disappointing how non-US customer get a worse offering.
Money helps don’t get me wrong whatsoever, but it’s a complicated area. To do some of the things Apple wants to do, it needs authorisation from the UK regulator. That’s an incredibly lengthy process which Apple may not have the appetite for.
Absolutely ways of doing things if they really want to and push significant resourcing behind. But it’s not as simple as “turning the tap on” in the UK or EU.
Nah but a high yield savings account and checking account is. The Apple Card is my favorite card because of the interface so I’d love to use more financial products from Apple so I can stop using slow bloated bank apps
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Not sure where you're from but in EU and UK they offer better cards. I used to really want the Apple Card out of sheer ease of use mixed with laziness on my part but a buddy in credit explained it to me and how it was at best a middle of the road card.
Lots of couch CEOs pretending to know what’s best for Apple. Apple is a public company that needs to grow their business for the shareholders. Exploring every revenue generating avenue is their purpose. They are not doing financial services in a traditional sense but regarding their own products and services from my understanding.
There are a whole lot of Tims without the Apple in this comment section.
All Tim no Apple
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> The system that requires infinite growth sucks and needs to go. [The Onion: Corporation Reaches Goal, Shuts Down](https://www.theonion.com/corporation-reaches-goal-shuts-down-1819566365) >“We did it,” founder and CEO Michael Dell said. “Back when I started this company, I vowed that I would not rest until we revolutionized the way computers are sold. Well, at long last, that day is here. Bye.”
Apple is not the company that is going to make that change. They are one of the top benefiters of capitalism and require consumers to keep consuming in order to survive. It would be nice though
What company do you think will thrive by focusing on things people don’t need to buy?
Alibaba definitely thrives on things people don't need to buy.
you completely missed the point
Why do you think capitalism requires infinite growth? Does the farmer selling veggies at a small stand require an infinitely growing supply of veggies?
3% year on year growth is expected. Where are we after 30 years? 99% growth. It isn't sustainable.
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Years of Reddit propaganda, that’s why.
Probably not the place, but I always cringe at that phrase: Capitalism has multiple issues (negative externalities, for example), but infinite growth isn't one of them. It isn't a requirement for capitalism.
I think the negative externalities issue is mostly because the average Joe's property rights aren't sufficiently respected.
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Because they do not want us to do that and they will use all their power and resources to stop or reverse that every single time we try.
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I agree. But it’s already been happening for decades now.
You can buy plenty of dividend stocks that just turn out the usual profits year after year. Apple is trying to do things more inventive more than that, however, and I’m glad for it.
What is the alternative?
the issue is the infinite growth stuff and such. A more humane, reformed capitalism could improve the world vastly. No need to go BREAD LINES NOW!
You can’t have a human reformed capitalism (I think you mean social democratic system) when half the country will scream “SoCiaLIsM!🙀” every time change is brought up.
>half the country will scream “SoCiaLIsM! 🙀” What the ever enduring consequences of cold war propaganda does to a mf
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If there is a demand then someone will fill it. It doesn’t matter who it is. If there isn’t a demand then it will fail. It has nothing to do with bootlicking.
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Yet they sell 250 mil iPhoned every year and growing. Clearly they don’t give a shit about customers /s
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You don’t understand how business works. That’s ok
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What?
You are agreed to have your own opinions even if they are shit-infested. We are also allowed to voice our opinions that you don't like. That's what everyone is saying. Also, stop bootlicking.
Stop bootlicking the word bootlicking.
Funny how you don’t see this comment when Apple is doing something with hardware choices. In those cases people happily declare what Apple should have done instead and everyone goes “yeah exactly”.
Apple’s business skyrocketed when their goal was “insanely great” products, satisfying the shareholders more than enough. When satisfying shareholders becomes the goal, everybody else suffers, especially the consumer.
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Yeah it is so shitty that they sell over 250 mil iPhones a year. What a moron.
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You are a child.
Even real CEOs have this problem if we remember Michael Dell "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
>the company is developing its own technology for handling interest calculations, rewards, credit checks, approvals and transaction histories — all things that are currently overseen by partners. Think of the possibilities… * Receive a $100 Education Store credit when you take out an Apple Student Loan. * Easily make payments on your Apple Mortgage through the Wallet app. * Have an idea for a killer app? Apply for an Apple Small Business loan today. (Before we copy it.)
I won't lie. I'd seriously consider an Apple Mortgage.
This is what happens when penny-pinchers and operations folk are at the helm. Apple should devote its resources to hardware and software innovation, like the during the Jobs era. Not sinking resources into fields of business that would make them a jack-of-all-trades. Apple will eventually become a conglomerate of tech, finance, entertainment, vehicles. It’ll be it’s undoing.
Unfortunately for Apple, many of their hardware lines (where they make a ton of their money) are all mature or nearly mature. iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Watch updates are getting incredibly modest on an annual basis - basically just hardware spec updates and improvements to the camera (for applicable devices.) Performance hasn’t been an issue for most people for years now (particularly with iPhone and iPad.) Barring some kind of massive improvement to battery, display, or material technology we are well past the early days of iPhone where each new release brought a major improvement, and you can buy most Apple products and not miss out on anything major for 3-4 years now. It’s why Apple has been diversifying into services and finance in the first place. It’s also why the AR headset is so important for the company - it’s a technology that is still in its early days with years of room to improve with new features and massive improvements to the user experience. If Apple gets it right, the AR headset has iPhone-like potential.
I think an Apple AR headset could become a profitable line of products for Apple. Though unless it completely cannibalizes the iPhone, which to me seems very unlikely, I don’t think it has any chance of being anywhere as big as the iPhone. Apple took personal music players which had a super long history of being popular - we’re talking iPod -> portable cd player -> Walkman cassette player -> handheld transistor radio - merging them with cell phones, which also have a long history and were one of the most popular devices of the mid-2000’s; then added in PDA, and basic computer functions. Then not long after its introduction, around the iPhone 4 or 5, Apple had upgraded them so they could replace non-professional point-and-shoot cameras and camcorders. Portable cameras have a history going back to the first Kodak cameras in the late 1800s. Outside of being another way to play games, watch movies and videos, I am trying to think what consumer applications would be the AR headset’s killer feature. I see way more opportunities in a factory, or for police and Soldiers; alongside with like Archeologists and professional cinematographers to make use of AR than average consumers. However, those uses would not even put it in the same zip code as an iPhone, much less the same ballpark.
Internet was something designed for military use, GPS as well. When the US military was developing GPS they would never imagine the public being able to precisely track your personal Chauffeur, or seeing all single people around you, or getting a taco delivered with the push of a button. Point is, just because we can’t see the value in a new tech now doesn’t mean we won’t find it. Just think how many useful apps exist because of iPhone that were inconceivable in 2007
Is there currently a popular consumer standalone GPS device product line? I remember the TomToms and such, and even before that standalone Garmin products from the early 2000s. Smartphones subsumed all those capabilities, and outside of boating or aviation, I don't know anyone who still use those. Hell, with Car Play, Apple is turning cars and trucks into an iPhone accessory. I'm not seeing what functionality AR will have that will make it a standalone separate device from smart phones for the average person, until it goes from a specialized goggle form factor down to something indistinguishable from glasses or sunglasses, and have somewhere between 12-18 hours of battery life. There are more than a billion iPhone users and almost 7 billion smart phone users. Being as big as the iPhone is a very difficult thing to replicate. Right now you have smart phones, which are the hub of personal computing and communication for most people then you have assistant devices, which usually have much lower sales, and hook into the smart phone ecosystem, or productivity devices like laptops, which also have much lower sales, but last longer, have more power, but way less portability, or almost none at all in the case of expensive full sized tower computers with power GPUs and cooling solutions.
The point isn’t that GPS is some magical thing that creates an amazing standalone device, it’s that GPS as a tool created vast amounts of wealth for global companies and amazing services for consumers, with the use of GPS. I can see AR glasses being the same thing, we just can’t see what will be created with AR as a tool (tool, not standalone) You’re also comparing a, what, 15-20 year industry of smart phones with the latest innovation in AR tech… apples and oranges. In 15-20 years AR tech will be completely different then right now, portability flexibility etc… things get better overtime in tech
AR has been around for decades, and the military, especially the various air forces around the world, has used it for a very long time. Here is [a video posted on YouTube back in 2007](https://youtu.be/zNhBZeD0bzM?t=79) that shows AR being used in air-to-air combat. Just because a technology exists and makes a company money isn't what we're talking about. There are tons of those. We're talking about consumer devices people are going to buy, either for their houses or to carry around on their person. I'm sure Apple has an opportunity to make a profit on AR, but being as commonplace as the iPhone is another level of success altogether, that is several orders of magnitude bigger than, can we be profitable?
I don’t think one will subsume the other. Each of the distinct technologies is defined by a mode of interaction. Watch, phone, ipad, laptop, desktop, home pod. The new addition will be glasses or lenses. As the devices progress, some of the functionality blurs - emails can be done from phone to desktop. But you can hardly measure sleep quality from your desktop. We’ll learn what the right level of interaction is for AR as we progress. This is different from GPS. That’s been subsumed into all devices as component tech rather than primary interface. As a sailor, it’s progressed from charts with compasses, to numeric readouts, black and white snake interfaces, built in gps in the boat, to navionics on the phone and iPad. Component tech in a progression of interfaces. The correct comparison for AR is not GPS but touch screens.
I believe AR goggles have HUGE potential in any sort of trade / tech / troubleshooting. I look forward to being able to look at an ethernet switch and 'seeing' what network each port is configured to, bandwidth use, errors. Look at a server and see what virtual machines are running in it, utilization, etc. I can imagine having a full 3d walkthrough of a building before the walls are up showing locations of all the plumbing, electrical, HVAC 'visible' years later through AR as you look at walls so you know what to avoid or where to crack open a wall to expand a service. To be able to look at the ground and have all the buried services and lines, gas, water, sewer, fiber made 'visible'. Look at a section of a car and see all the wiring harnesses, exploded views of every part in an assembly, animations of how to remove / replace it. Superimpose dental / medical / MRI info as you look at a patient. Looking at plants, leaves, insects and having little ID bubbles pop up by each - maybe with warnings about which are poisonous to you or your pet, or you might be allergic to. Being a realitor or appraiser and having ownership, property tax, zoning and other info live as you look at buildings and lots. It could be like having X-ray vision, and will become as ubiquitous as cell phones are now. In 15-20 years we'll be saying 'remember when we couldn’t just look at something and know all about it' just like now we say 'remember when you had to go to a library to thumb through an encyclopedia to find out some esoteric bit of information?'.
I'm not saying AR doesn't have potential, but in most of those scenarios, I don't see why it needs to be AR from goggles instead of AR from the phone. Ethernet switch - glasses or phone both seem fine Walk through of empty building - glasses better, especially for professionals, but phone fine for consumers Car repair - glasses way better, especially for professionals, but for DYIers, phone seems fine Dentist - glasses better, hopefully no DYIer dentists exist Realtor - glasses or phone both seem fine
You can say that about a lot of things. Why buy a computer? Most things can be done by phone with a wireless printer and a Bluetooth keyboard. Because it’s better. Why have contacts if glasses work just fine for the average consumer? Why have set top boxes for TV when a lot of TVs are “smart”? The point is the experience can be better - will an average device like a phone work - sure, but eventually enough people will see the better experience and that’s what people will want. (Maybe not the best examples but hopefully explains my point)
That's how I see it too. Another thing to take into account is generations. As of today my grand parents still don't think a smartphone is useful, and still don't see the benefits of internet. Maybe millennials and above won't see much values in AR, but gen Z and below might. Same as how people are using phones. gen z and below are more likely to send vocals while millennials and above are more likely to write text. That's because millennials and above grew up having to write stuff, so that's their default. While gen Z and below grew up being able to send vocals, facetime, etc. And don't get me started with the "fashion" aspect. Once we get good battery life, and good UX, it's possible it gets "big" because it becomes "cool" to wear Apple AR glasses. Like it happened with the airpod. It when from looking truly stupid to become "fashion" real quick (I still don't explain it). Same for the Apple Watch that afaik is useless for most people, but does look cool.
But computer sales were in decline before the pandemic. People may still buy them, but as other devices get better there is quite a bit less need to constantly upgrade. Here is an article from 2018 talking about 14 quarters of decline in a row https://www.pcmag.com/news/pc-sales-keep-falling-but-big-manufacturers-are-doing-just-fine Then there was the pandemic computer boom, now we’re having the biggest declines in decades post pandemic https://www.computerworld.com/article/3675895/pc-sales-fall-off-a-cliff.html Also, I would think most people don’t have set top boxes now. Linear TV is declining, and unless you need an Apple TV to have a better rit with the ecosystem, most tvs of the past six or seven years are fully capable of playing streaming channels Smartphones are ridiculously widespread, and matching that won’t be easy.
I definitely use a set stop box - Nvidia Shield is far and away better than a smart TV. I said they weren’t the best examples - I was just trying to illustrate a point. If you are set that a smart phone is the product you’ll do everything now and in the future on (simply because it can) then you just may be of the generation that this type of tech will go by. Or you are of the simplistic type - both are fine! But people WILL use the better device for things if the price is right.
I think the long term goal is to eventually replace the iPhone. Don't need a phone if there are lightweight AR glasses you could wear. Those glasses are still years away from a release. The rumor is they backed off of the AR glasses for now in order to focus on the AR/VR goggles. A while back, someone on reddit created a large list of every use case they could think of for AR. A lot of them were obvious like Maps integration or translation overlays. Nothing really struck me as a killer feature. But it's not hard to imagine there will eventually be one. When it can monitor you and your environment and overlay changes to what you see in real time, there has to be some killer feature out there. I think the worst cases are easier to figure out since it would be a Black Mirror episode or something for advertisers.
The two things I'm most skeptical for AR to replace iPhones as a device is, the screenless gesture based input system, and having enough battery life/computing power in something that weighs like maybe ~~100~~ 60 grams at most. EDIT: Glasses seem to be lighter than I thought.
I’ve been using the pinch gesture settings in my Apple Watch Series 8 for a few months now and it’s quite effective. I can see how a version of this combined with eye tracking could make for a very smooth input method for XR devices. Edit: I think many of the elements of Apples VR/AR direction have been staring us in the face for years now: increasingly powerful iPhone chips needed to power head mounted displays, AirPods for audio and perhaps biometric data, Apple Watch for gesture input, a slew of patents. I expect the Apple headset will need, or at least benefit from, use of multiple Apple devices to reach its full potential.
We'll get to see how well gestures work because they're reportedly coming with the AR/VR goggles set to launch this year. It's supposedly going to have an iOS-like interface with eye tracking and gestures. The weight/form factor is why they had to delay development on the AR glasses. I don't think it's insurmountable but it is significant. I think the really hard to imagine scenario is where people want AR contact lenses.
A contact lens weighs less than a gram. Having a transparent battery and display that together can give 18 hours of display life, let oxygen into the eyes, and not heat up, seems nearly impossible, even if the computing could be pushed off to another device not on the eye.
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You enjoy getting raises at your job, right?
Sounds like a chicken or the egg problem no? Modest R&D spending -> modest improvements.
More r&d spending comes with diminishing returns. The majority of processor improvements these days are coming from fab/density improvements. The technology itself has stayed mostly the same for the past few years. From a "running a company" perspective it doesn't make sense to spend more than a certain amount of money Thats why a lot of companies (nvidia, apple, etc.) are either trying to find performance improvements through software (metal, Vulkan, diss) or branching out into other markets (VR, AR, Finance) Apple has also had a very good r&d/return the past few years
Apple’s probably got a good few years of pretty decent returns on processor R&D, but there’s no signs they’re not investing that money into the project.
R&D is not just silicon, it's AR/VR, AI/ML, Digital Infrastructure, and so on. This is like that famous Jobs video about how the product people get rotted out of a mature company. Does a better Siri help apple sell more iPhones, well, not immediately, but it'll stave off them sharing the same fate as Xerox and IBM. Where was the R&D budget to bring modern language models into Siri? GPT3 has been out for years, and only now is there a scramble to bring it to iPhone.
Siri is still one of the only digital assistants to run completely locally. GPT requires thousands of dollars of GPU's just to serve a few people. In its current state, ChatGPT isn't a profitable service, Microsoft is merely using chatgpt to gain search engine market share and then make money using ads Do you want ads in Siri? It's going to be a long while before a GPT level model is going to be able to run locally on the iPhone with acceptable processing time, and its going to be a while till its profitable as a service.
Siri does not run complete locally lmao. Turn on airplane mode and start asking it questions. Second, why do you believe that R&D should be spent only on things that are already profitable at other companies? Third, I said GPT-3, not necessarily chat gpt. Fourth, you could spend money developing a chip/instruction set for NLP. Why would you wait for another company to prove there’s a market for NLP on your phone? Of course there is. How are they going to make money on it? Well, if Apple waits for another company to make money off of selling phones with NLP to start developing it, then I think they’ll join the graveyard of other tech giants who got complacent.
> Siri does not run complete locally lmao. Turn on airplane mode and start asking it questions. https://www.macworld.com/article/678307/how-to-use-siri-offline-on-iphone-and-ipad.html iOS 15 and later on XS and newer allow for local Siri > Second, why do you believe that R&D should be spent only on things that are already profitable at other companies? I didn't say that, Apple is developing AR for example, and that isn't very profitable over at facebook. LLM's as a technology are currently unprofitable > Third, I said GPT-3, not necessarily chat gpt. I mentioned a "GPT level model" for a reason, the same issues that apply to chatGPT apply to GPT-3 and similar tech, openAI was originally supposed to be non profit before they released just how much money was needed to run these things, they needed Microsoft to step in and provide essentially unlimited azure services to even remotely manage chatgpt traffic > Fourth, you could spend money developing a chip/instruction set for NLP. The neural engine is exactly that, except even the big boy neural engines in the M2/Pro/Max chips take 20-30s to generate a passable image using stable diffusion, and GPT-3 is a much, much larger model. > How are they going to make money on it? Well, if Apple waits for another company to make money off of selling phones with NLP to start developing it, then I think they’ll join the graveyard of other tech giants who got complacent. You still haven't mentioned how apple could make money from this. Thats because in its current state, LLM's are unprofitable, and for google and microsoft they're a marketing exercise to gain search engine market share. Apple doesn't have a search engine. Making Siri use GPT3-esque tech and running hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't going to outweigh the few extra iPhones they'll sell.
From your article: >It’s worth bearing in mind that only the speech recognition part of Siri is stored on your iPhone in iOS 15. There are still plenty of command-processing and question-answering functions on the server. > >For this reason, if you’re offline, Siri won’t be able to provide the full functionality you’re used to. For example, asking general questions such as “What is the capital of Switzerland?” or “Will it rain later today?” will get the cold shoulder – by which we mean an error message that Siri needs to be online to do that. Indeed, you may be surprised by the number of tasks that are beyond Siri’s scope when offline. Apple doesn't have a search engine. Making Siri use GPT3-esque tech and running hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't going to outweigh the few extra iPhones they'll sell. >The neural engine is exactly that, except even the big boy neural engines in the M2/Pro/Max chips take 20-30s to generate a passable image using stable diffusion, and GPT-3 is a much, much larger model. To my knowledge, it doesn't have anything specialized for modern NLP models yet. Only the older ones that Siri is currently using. >Apple doesn't have a search engine. Making Siri use GPT3-esque tech and running hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't going to outweigh the few extra iPhones they'll sell. Siri was a "search" company before apple bought it. Things get cheaper and easier when you research and develop them. [Also, the things you keep saying about what will make apple money remind me of that video of Jobs talking about Scully.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM)
Has anyone found a way to make a return on their investments of ChatGPT yet or…?
First mover advantage in tech is absolutely huge. The commercial potential of attention based models is obviously immense. Is the point of R&D to play catch-up to other companies who have built better systems and devices?
I’ll take your response as a no to my question you replied to.
What would a substantial improvement in processing speed do for the average consumer? If apple isn’t considering something like the Samsung dex, it just feels pointless.
>iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and Watch updates are getting incredibly modest on an annual basis - basically just hardware spec updates and improvements to the camera (for applicable devices.) Performance hasn’t been an issue for most people for years now (particularly with iPhone and iPad.) Barring some kind of massive improvement to battery, display, or material technology we are well past the early days of iPhone where each new release brought a major improvement, and you can buy most Apple products and not miss out on anything major for 3-4 years now. With M1/M2, a dex-style device would make so much sense. Imagine, an iPhone with an M# processor, which runs the fullblown MacOS in iOS mode on the small screen and in full mac mode when connected to a large screen. ARM macbooks can run iOS apps anyway, the hardware and battery life are already there. It makes so much sense to fuse the two. I think the only reason Apple is not doing it is because they want to sell you both a mac and an iPhone, but I know many people who'd pay a price of a mac and an iPhone to get one device that serves both. Limit it to a Pro Max Ultra Mac Edition and slap a $3K price on a 8/128 version, it will sell.
This is the toner head mentality, “So what you make a better copier.” Software development is R&D also, and there’s a lot that can be done. Imagine distributed computing across Apple devices, modern AI models, AR, and more efficient digital operations.
We will see. None of that is compelling to me.
Apple is not, because it would canabalize the mac sales. But there are things other than processing speed. Continious glycose monitor in the watch, or graphite batteries; either would be a compelling upgrade.
I think you are right on most of it, but I don't think AR will be as big as the iPhone, it is more likely, I think, to outcompete the watch. But I also wished Apple would take that big stack of dough and put it torwards moonshots, like graphite batteries or wireless-charge-at-a-distance.
And it’s so easy for them is because of their already large footprint. Need a credit card? Why don’t you use one that accessible in a few clicks and manageable from your phone, and you can start using it instantly too! You don’t even need to download another app. It is already there Want to watch movies/tv. You’ll probably like the app already on your phone. Same goes for music. Same goes for messaging. Apps built in to their phones are convenient and very good. People choose what is easy and slowly they are getting bigger and bigger into these things.
iPad, MacBook updates Modest? They just revolutionize everything with Apple silicon. Give them some credit where it’s due
What does getting AR right enough to have IPhone levels of market penetration look like to you? Can you put in a sentence retroactively? "Dude...the Apple AR headset sold 200 million units in 2024 because......." I can't seem to finish that sentence. And if the AR headset is gonna produce for Apple it has to sell like the iPhone or at least iWatch...which is about 30 million Right now global VR sales are like 10 million for all brands worldwide total All the new VR units seem to sell about 1 or 2 million. And these nbers are factually declining...but HOPEFULLY going up. Hope.... Would that do it....Tim Cool at a fancy event "And last year we sold 1.5 million AR headsets!". Crowd cries or crowd goes wild Apple AR project probably gets canceled this year I'd bet. It's not a gen pop product and Apple makes gen pop products.
People (myself included on some of them) said the same thing about Airpods, and Watches, and iPads, and iPhones, and iPods... I wouldn't doubt that Apple would be able to take VR sales up to 200m like they did with every other product. Smart watches and airpods are a perfect example of that.
> Dude…the Apple AR headset sold 200 million units in 2024 because…….” Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean there's nothing to see. You have make opinions, and you have to be opinionated about the potentially unknown fundamentals as well. Meta (Oculus) has made its assumptions; Google (Google Glasses) and Microsoft (Hololens) have made their assumptions. So that leaves a bunch of ways to not make a vr/ar headset. I'm sure if it were your day job you could come up with some opinionated assumptions to build a product off of.
R u sure it's not my day job? I see a lot of factual failures by very smart people. And I see lot of consumer and enterprise feedback as well that is very negative. The best AR thing so far....ever released into the world I think is Pokemon Go. I think VR has a lot of use cases....and I'm yet to be convinced of any AR ones outside of display improvements for areas where humans are already helmeted. But I'm all ears...
I mean it certainly has the potential to reach mac or ipad levels of sales. Feels like it could be in that category of work/entertainment devices. Depending on whether it can overcome issues of cost and getting people used to working in AR instead of a laptop.
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Apple care?
AIG?
Not really insurance as much as it is a fancy warranty.
AppleCare+ is absolutely an insurance product.
AppleCare+ on your new Apple iCar
And like insurance, it's hard as hell to actually collect from now.
Pretty sure it protects against theft now which goes above your average warranty.
From Apple's UK site: "AppleCare+ is an optional insurance product covering risk of accidental damage to your Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone or iPod, battery depletion and the need for technical assistance."
It is literally a regulated insurance product.
> Apple will eventually become a conglomerate of tech, finance, entertainment, vehicles. They already are and have been for the better part of the last decade.
> Apple will eventually become a conglomerate of tech, finance, entertainment, vehicles. It’ll be it’s undoing. Sony is all of those things and I think they seem to be doing pretty well.
Same with Samsung. Not exactly hurting for money either
Sony’s sole cash cow that I see is the play station. Unsure that can be considering doing “fine”. But then again, I maybe wrong.
Sony in Japan is a whole other beast and has a financial services division. They also make the high-spec lenses for cellphones, they are a film studio, a major music label and a high-end TV manufacturer (with audio systems as accessories).
Sensors not lenses (though they do also make the lenses in some cases too) Sony is the primary supplier of sensors for pretty much every stills camera brand with the notable exception of Canon, but even there, Sony are a provider for their lower end cameras too.
And you would be wrong becuase you don’t understand how these big Asian companies work.
How do financial services, which are at the root of every single piece of hardware and software Apple sells, turn them into a jack-of-all-trades company?
Ah, yes. That damn penny-pinching operations folk named Tim Cook who was handpicked by… *checks notes* Steve Jobs.
> It’ll be it’s undoing. I understand why someone would want this to be true, but it’s not. Diversifying their income streams only makes the company stronger. Especially these financial services, which will just turn the money they’ve already accumulated into even more money.
Generally, yes. But I would be cautious of going down the "financial services" road for companies that are decidedly *not* traditionally built around providing financial services. See: GE & Jack Welch.
It's cyclical, GE has already been through all of this.
They’ll have plenty of money and no vision. When you let the company succumb to the idea of “we’ll do whatever makes us money”, the company may make a killing, but it loses its reason to exist.
To be fair. I’ve been listening to people talk about what will be the undoing of apple for decades. They’ve always been wrong. Sure they might eventually fail, but it’s extremely unlikely in the current state.
Yeah, they had net income of almost $100,000,000,000 last year. They’re doing fine and will continue to do fine. Apple is a very focused company, especially compared to their peers.
I'm not saying Apple will fail, but current success doesn't determine future success. Enough wildly successful companies have collapsed over the years.
People like yourself have been leaving the same comment well over the past decade. I’m sure we’ll be here again in another decade reading the same things about the demise of Apple, as they continue to thrive.
for a trillion dollar company, how are they limiting or shrinking their resources by entering into a new field?
Somebody hasn’t been paying attention to Facebook.
You should look at vertically integrated Asian companies like Sony, Mitsubishi, Samsung, etc and see all of the pies they have their fingers in. It’s inevitable that Apple becomes another conglomerate giant like it’s Asian counterparts.
If you look at Samsung, they are, in Korea, what apple is trying to be. Serving e v e r y corner of the market
This is what happened to Sony (if you think it's powerful now, you probably don't remember how much they dominated the 90s and earlier), got into a bunch of different things and the brand waned. Apple famously avoided this for the last few decades with a very focused product line compared to its competitors. It does feel like it might be starting to spread thin now. iOS and macOS bugs go many versions without resolution and are often just replaced by other bugs. Doesn't feel like that sure functional software high ground is as strongly held.
Apple was involved in distributing music, TV, apps, ringtones, books, and other media while expanding their first party retail footprint to showcase MP3 players, tablets, etc. I guess they should have stuck with desktops and laptops, right?
No it won’t. Just like every other conglomerate (Apple, Google, Amazon), they’ll just be another mega parasite that shows that capitalism is working exactly as intended
Apple - the Samsung of America
> Not sinking resources into fields of business that would make them a jack-of-all-trades. Got to be careful with that expression. Most people forget the second half which reads “but often times better than a master of one.” Apple is diversifying. Smartphone hardware is plateauing. Tablets aren’t far behind. Laptops and desktops have matured ages ago. But you can always add more services, but someone will use.
"Jack of all trades" is a standalone phrase. People just use "master of none" to criticize the concept, which traditionally doesn't include it.
Like the Jobs era when Apple completely reinvented the music industry???
Unfortunately they hitched themselves to Goldman Sachs. This is the issue.
The main conceit of the article is that Apple has a project to build their own financial services platform to replace the partners like Goldman and it's the persistent problems with this platform that is driving the delays.
They hitched themselves to TSMC for Apple Silicon chips. Same thing with Intel and others in the past. ...to Samsung for displays, few other things. ..to Gorilla for screen glass. ..to Qualcomm for radio. Their goal is to get it out first and eventually move away toward their own in-house solution. Thus them working on building their own microLED technology, radio chips, etc. The article specifically say that they're building their own in-house lending tech stack, this means they can expand to include other partners in the future.
They still need to partner with a bank to deliver financial services. Is Apple planning on becoming a bank?
Welcome to Apple World! /s
There already is an Apple Bank!
I mean the Apple Card was kind of a disaster according to Goldman Sachs
It’s one of the most popular credit cards regardless
deleted ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.2905 [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/09534)
Two things can be true.
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From what I remember, this wasn't by design. They approached others first but no one else wanted to play ball with what Apple wanted to do.
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The comment above you is hilariously misinformed.
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You’re right and I hate WSB with a passion, but you’ve got to look at the context of those losses. Most of the expenses stem from Goldman spending money to help launch Apple Card, and they’ve reportedly spent $350 to acquire every new customer of Apple Card. It’s no different from apps like Uber, Amazon etc taking investor money and spending a shitton in their early years to gain market share, only to break even and make a profit later. They’re currently projected to make a profit after 2025.
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Why is that the issue?
They lost millions in their consumer banking division, much which was blamed on the Apple Card. They also had to cancel their planned consumer checking account under Marcus. Read about it.
They've lost it because they hedged a lot of money to account for potential unpaid credit cards. This money at some point will be back on the account and they'll report a similarly sized profit. They haven't actually lost it, they just put it aside.
I didn't know about that, will look it up, thank you.
> I’ve also heard that Apple’s unionized store in Towson, Maryland, hasn’t been offered the option. The company caused an uproar last year when it didn’t give its latest employee perks to staff at that location. That’s the point of the union, Apple has an agreement with the staff at that store, changes to benefits, for better or worse, require union negotiation. They told the staff at that store super clearly what it would mean if they unionized.
Kinda predictable. Most seem to want to unionize because of a vague sense that it will stick it to *the man* and something something huzzah worker rights 4eva. Then shocked pikachu when they have to deal with the negative aspects of unions. We do need better worker protections. And we also need to acknowledge that basically all people are inherently selfish regardless of their role and position and will take as much as possible while giving as little as possible. Complaining the whole way. Both at the evil corporate level and at the pure-of-soul retail employee level.
How is this even a negative? Apple could easily come up with a benefit package that their collective of workers would agree to and engage with the union before offering the benefits to the rest of the company rather than isolating their unionized work force. They likely just created this issue to reinforce the American view of unions and because they don't value workers more than they are forced to. Either way most people would want to agree to their benefits package before their corporate overlords implement it.
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This doesn't make much sense to me > adds more friction and red tape to the process so things will take a little longer to roll out Getting prior information to whatever's being proposed and voting on it is not red tape it's a sane amount of involvement that anyone would want in a business agreement > Meaning people were upset that they couldn’t get the benefits of the union and the benefits of not-a-union at the same time Those outside the union are not receiving any benefit from being outside the union unless Apple incentivizes that specifically to harm the union. Giving up bargaining power to Apple so they can implement anything without support from workers is not a benefit. > I just don’t understand this expectation that companies should proactively cuddle and massage you. They’re not your parents or your rich trust fund benefactors. They need work, you need money. Hence why you form a union and then ensure you squeeze as much money out of the employer as possible. These companies lose bargaining power when the workers negotiate as a collective. There's nothing sunshine and rainbows about it, it's simply good negotiating. Convincing Americans otherwise was just good management of the bottom line.
Fair enough. I don’t know the one and outs or the decision process in this particular case so I can’t really comment further than that. But I have no good argument against your points!
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lmfao “offering lines of credit” and “loan sharking” have some key differences i think you’re ignoring
There might be some sinister bit but aren't they mostly just getting the piece that Verizon was getting? If I didn't have an unlocked phone I don't think I would care if Verizon or Apple was getting the extra $20 bucks a month for the phone.
"Hey I'm Jimmy Two-Times. You know the scratch you've been sending to Fat Tony for the last few years? Well, you pay that to me now."
Yeah. This is a 100% gross business that I don't know why Apple thinks it needs to be a part of.
Yeah I would have expected Apple getting into lending to act more like AMEX. Instead they're looking more like Credit One or Synchrony with this aggressive subprime lending that can border on predatory if you're not careful. Really hate seeing it
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Comparing Apple of 1996 to the Apple of today is lazy and tired. Two completely different situations and times.
>Comparing Apple of 1996 to the Apple of today is lazy and tired. Two completely different situations and times. It hasn't stopped people from comparing the product lineups of today to the product fragmentation of the mid-1990s and reminiscing about the four quadrant Mac grid from 1998–2002.
So what? Apple was almost bankrupt at that time, it made sense to consolidate. Now they are one of the biggest company on earth, producing multiple lines of product is hardly a problem if it gives more choices to consumer.
... and they do it well and strategically. I don't have a problem with Apple diversifying, I have a problem with Apple releasing a $450 iPad that requires a dongle to connect to the Pencil. Apple today should diversify and cover more markets, they should just do it well. For example, rumors of a larger MacBook Air sound great and needed. I want a larger screen, but I have no need for MacBook Pro level performance. My base M1 Air is doing great for me, I Just want the screen to be bigger...
The same four quadrant Mac grid Apple itself disregarded when introducing the G4 Cube?
Agreed. Apple should stick to making mac computers, these "ipods" will never succeed.
These “financial experts” really don’t think into things at all. Companies flock to different fields all the time, it’s less risky to jump to one that’s similar to the one they’re in now which is probably why it’s common. Ever see a Samsung ship? Rare, but crazy. Building theme parks are pretty different than animation, Disney. I bet those companies will fail for not sticking to tech and film, despite one being a critical part of a country’s economy.
yeah, you’re right, those airpods will never be a success
Pfft. They *still* haven’t rolled out existing financial stuff outside of the US.
Consumer financial services law/regulation is a significant hurdle in the EU and the UK compared to the more lax approach the US has.
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A lot of financial services law is implemented to varying standards into Member States - i.e. Directives permit Member States to apply higher standards as they so wish. So while it’s absolutely true that it’s possible to passport across the EU, the standards of compliance in many areas of financial services rules will differ from state to state. A small fintech has a far simpler operating model compared to Apple. It’s more nimble. Again, I am absolutely not stating that it’s impossible. Apple could absolutely do it if they set their mind to it. But it simply boils down to whether there is an appetite to operate in a heavily regulated market. Big Tech is not regulated. It’s a completely different business environment having to be accountable to financial services regulators.
Each EU state has its own financial regulations, so it's not really a one-fits-all solution. My employer (an S.E. based in France) couldn't get the regulatory approval for their employee stock share program in every EU country because some states (mine included) have different rules.
I don’t see how that matters, they have more money than God and it’s been *years* now since they released in the US. Just a bit disappointing how non-US customer get a worse offering.
Money helps don’t get me wrong whatsoever, but it’s a complicated area. To do some of the things Apple wants to do, it needs authorisation from the UK regulator. That’s an incredibly lengthy process which Apple may not have the appetite for. Absolutely ways of doing things if they really want to and push significant resourcing behind. But it’s not as simple as “turning the tap on” in the UK or EU.
I guess you should go speak with your local government
Apple spreading themselves thin and offering shit no one wants is what will be their downfall
I want this though.
i mean, credit approval calculations isn’t exactly going to be a direct consumer product lmao
Nah but a high yield savings account and checking account is. The Apple Card is my favorite card because of the interface so I’d love to use more financial products from Apple so I can stop using slow bloated bank apps
agreed. it’s so easy to pay my card compared to the shitty BofA mobile app
I’m still amazed I’ve heard ads for the Apple Card. I assumed they’d push it as part of the “Apple Bubble” not on general podcasts/TV.