![]() ![]() A watch or, say, a car strike me as even more difficult to turn into a smash hit. And the latest iPhones also seem to suffer from a lack of proper innovation that has mass-market appeal. But already with the iPad and Apple TV that seems more difficult. The iPod and iPhone and MacBook are the kinds of products everyone needs, wants, and is willing to pay a decent chunk of money for. The first iteration of the latter was clearly just for the fancy few, but eventually its innovations (unibody, thinness) became core to their more affordable range. The same happened with iPods, and the MacBook Air is an even better example. But around the 3GS (I think?) this changed and it became a mass-market thing. I remember the first iPhone felt like a bit of an excess, and few people around me bought it other than die-hard fans and people with more disposable income (often techies). The usual approach Apple takes, or so it seems to me, is to first release a 'luxury' iteration of a product and eventually make it accessible to a broader market. It's like they decided the original MacBook Air customer is now their primary one, or at least more important than before.Īnother less cynical reason why Apple might be 'changing' is that their usual approach to things just doesn't work as well as it used to. The whole things seems to mostly aimed at the affluent than the pro users: thinness at the expense of everything else, a touchbar that looks cool but is the last thing pro users want, and removal of ports which strikes me as exactly the kind of thing that wouldn't bother a fancy executive with a gold iWatch, but cause major trouble for most power users. This is also around the period they released their weirdly pretentious/impractical cylindrical Mac Pro, and moved to the new, generally-disliked-by-the-pro-audiences MacBook Pro's (to the point where I'm about to buy a 2015 model in the near future).ĮDIT: actually, the new MacBooks are a great example of why I feel there's been a 'shift' of sorts. I'd say for timeline the Apple Watch (so about three years ago?) is probably when I started feeling this way. Yeah, that's a fair point, but my feeling is mostly that they've become more catering to wealthier over time. ![]() I remember reading an interesting BBC article that argued the 'techies', who I suppose are both the creators and primary audience of a lot of this stuff, are becoming a class of their own, and one economically above what we would traditionally call the working class. (let me add that perhaps it's more that, in a broader sense, the 'tech/gadget/digital lifestyle' world seems to be moving/aiming upwards in society somehow. I do mean to investigate this properly sometime, because aside from a slight 'sadness' I also find it fascinating. And again, it's more of a feeling than something I'm utterly convinced of. There's a few other things that made me feel like they were changing direction, but they've slipped my mind. I mean, the thing is basically Apple's entry into the jewelry world. ![]() And even the cheapest version is one very few people I know would by unless they had plenty of disposable income (or bad with money / huge Apple fans). As far as I can remember, it's the first of their products that offered insanely expensive versions (and wristbands) that couldn't be justified as 'pro user stuff'. The Apple Watch is perhaps the best example of how it feels Apple is shifting their focus. The slightly older iPads are sort of like this, but I know quite a few people who do have one of those lying around, I suppose because they're both cheap and useful enough. But even those wouldn't bother with much of this because they lack the house/space or lifestyle for it. It's mostly the few techies (that make well above median wage) and more well-off friends (couples or otherwise) that can afford these kinds of 'extravagances' or care enough to make the expense. ![]() The Airpods, Apple Watch, Apple TV and the HomePod are products that relatively few people around me bother with. I'll admit it's more a feeling than something I'm convinced of, but I'll try. ![]()
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