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Comment by thehoagie | Hacker News Reader

The short answer? $2T can buy a lot of secrecy and extensive QA.

The long answer is I don't think either of these statements are necessarily true? Apple products usually leak before their official launch. And as for quality while generally ok... Apple has had some poor launches including: Apple Maps, Safari on Windows, butterfly keyboard mechanisms. And other issues are user unfriendly product design like the mouse that has as charging port on the bottom rendering it unusable. And still more quality issues stem from lack of transparency like Battery Gate.

I personally think Apple has a strong fanbase that overlooks these issues and is quick to forget

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> I personally think Apple has a strong fanbase that overlooks these issues and is quick to forget

Apple has a strong core of two users, in my opinion

- people who couldn't give a shit less about the actual software, the UX, or whatever else it provides, they just know that it can take photos, browse the internet, and that Apple products are associated to "premium" and they want to be premium. This trickles down to the younger generation through their favorite movie stars, singers, tiktok influencers all use Iphones, so they want to use Iphones. The "rich" kids at school have Iphones and if they see you have the green bubble instead of the blue Imessage bubble in group chat, you'll get made fun of. (I just had this exact scenario happen with one of my friend's daughter, who took my old Iphone 8+ off my hands to replace their Galaxy)

- users who have grown to realize all consumer tech is essentially trash, and recognize the marginal utility that Apple products uniquely offer: namely the fact that their products have resaleability, have a pretty well connected ecosystem, and at the end of the day, a physical store near you that you can take your product to.

I am in the latter boat, having used PCs my entire life, modding custom setups, rolling my own linux distros, installing the latest de-googled android OS, logitech, the 40 brands of headphones and headsets, and all of that fun (miserable) stuff. You could tell me right now the latest X1 carbon is 994234% faster than my M1 mac, with a graphics card capable of running the latest AAA games, and I wouldn't give a shit. I just don't give a shit anymore. I want something that will work 99% of the time, and let me do my job wherever. Apple products have done that for me much more often than when I relied on whatever other amalgamations of Dells/Samsungs/Lennovos/Blackberrys/etc, whether its getting frustrated with wifi connectivity, not having my passwords or photos sync across devices, or fumbling with bluetooth headsets and devices from god knows how many vendors and companies. Give me an Iphone, a Mac, some Airpods and I will deal with whatever minor inconveniences like having to charge my mouse upside down.

Thank for articulating what has been in my head for years but I couldn't express as well as you. This is how I think a lot Apple users feel. I came from the same background as you and ended up in the same conclusion.

>You could tell me right now the latest X1 carbon is 994234% faster than my M1 mac, with a graphics card capable of running the latest AAA games, and I wouldn't give a shit.

You could have your cake and eat it too as I hear the M1s are pretty competitive with most PC laptops.

It's just not something that can be articulated, I am afraid, because admittedly, there is a degree of subjectivity to it. It's the value of being frustrated and hassled the least amount of possible by low grade consumer tech which is intruding into more aspects of our lives each passing moment. This isn't saying Apple products aren't frustrating, but the combination of using their products together is less frustrating and less hassle than the alternatives.

I couldn't agree more. As I've gotten older I care far less about being on the bleeding edge or pushing a system to its limits and more about just being able to sit down and work. I don't have the time or energy to configure a linux DE and keep it updated/working and Windows isn't something I care to ever touch again if I can help it. Mac gives me a unix-y (FreeBSD) environment that feels sane and most of the time it "just works".

I think a lot of people write off the (G)UI/UX of macOS as toy-like but one thing I've also learned is I like looking at pretty things. Sue me. I like my apps to look nice, I like my UI to look nice, and I like when it all feels connected/consistent. Of course there are outliers but far fewer than when I look over the wall at linux/windows. It really comes down to (for me) "where do you want to spend your time?". For myself I want to spend it producing and doing the things I love, not endlessly configuring or fighting my OS, macOS lets me do that. It's not perfect and I won't pretend it is, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of the competition when it comes to things that matter to me.

One quick anecdote, when my sisters went to college my dad got them Macs (after being a windows-only household growing up and him only starting to using Apple products after I did) and he still tells me how happy he was with that decision. He will say "Do you know how many times I got called to do tech support? Zero, not once". He and I both had the "tech support" role in our friends/family groups so we both knew what a windows computer would have resulted in, we had lived it for other relatives in and out of college, heck I rebuilt a ton of friends computers when I was in college due to virus/malware/slow/etc. The people that would buy a new $400-$500 dollar bargain bin laptop every 1-2 years in college when their previous one fell apart yet would make fun of the cost of Apple computers drove me up a wall seeing how I had the same laptop all 4 years and it cost ~$1K (and it felt great to carry and looked good to boot).

Do I believe that you can game better on windows or customize linux to be your personal nirvana? Absolutely, but neither of those things matter to me, I just want to be able to sit down and produce, not be digging in config files to figure out why my graphics card isn't working.

> - users who have grown to realize all consumer tech is essentially trash, and recognize the marginal utility that Apple products uniquely offer: namely the fact that their products have resaleability, have a pretty well connected ecosystem, and at the end of the day, a physical store near you that you can take your product to.

This is a great point. A couple of my mates have had issues with their laptops and had to talk to the manufacturer, send it across the world at their own cost and wait forever to get it fixed. I've had plenty of issues with my macbook pro and it's not covered by warranty anymore, but the people in the store are happy to fix it for free out of goodwill and the repair is always fast.

> user unfriendly product design like the mouse that has as charging port on the bottom rendering it unusable.

That was a feature according to Apple not a bug.

No it wasn't and it's pretty obvious it wasn't. The Magic Trackpad 2 and Magic Keyboard released at the exact same time as the Magic Mouse 2 yet both actually let you use them wired, not just charging but actually with signals going over USB and not Bluetooth.

If Apple had a serious hard-on for getting rid of cables as is claimed from everyone's desk they would have done the same thing to those devices. It's much more likely they just wanted to recycle the old Magic Mouse chassis, parts and tooling and this was the only way.

The most famous bad launch might be the "you're holding it wrong" antennagate. Which has a clear line to the secrecy.

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