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Comment by crakhamster01 | Hacker News Reader

Haha yea maybe my glasses are a little tinted, but I think you're conflating two different points. Apple has released flawed products in the past, but they rarely (never?) include emerging tech that isn't polished enough for mainstream consumption. I say this as a former Android user who loved touting that "Android had that feature first", but it's hard to deny that features like mobile payments have just been executed better by Apple.

Also, since when are foldable OLEDs hugely popular?

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> Apple has released flawed products in the past, but they rarely (never?) include emerging tech that isn't polished enough for mainstream consumption.

I'm not sure "they screw up well-established and fully-functional tech rather than new, innovative, and risky tech" is really that good a compliment.

Eh, I'm not sure it's fair to suggest that they screw up well-established tech — at least in a significant way. They've certainly had a few misses, but they've had a ton of at-bats.

sure, but the original topic was whether or not the misses exceed zero, not the batting average

They also keep questioning the status quo with what's already established, which is something I really like. Most are stuck with local maxima because they're afraid to change things that "work" (badly) while Apple dares to change things for (in their opinion) the better.

It's usually small things, but they add up over time and now they have a massive edge.

... oh, in the last few generations they also managed to integrate "normal" stuff like double tap to wake to iPhones as well, I was pretty pleased to find that that just worked.

AirPower is the example you're looking for. They decided to cancel it instead of shipping a product that'd not be up to their standards.

> I say this as a former Android user who loved touting that "Android had that feature first", but it's hard to deny that features like mobile payments have just been executed better by Apple.

This, but like 10x. It's like most non-Apple manufacturers just bash shit together without ever looking whether it even works and then lose interest in 1 or 2 generations.

Apple eventually comes along and uses the technology to provide actual value and people on HN are surprised that this time people actually like it.

Apple have rarely been the first to do stuff in the past 10/20 years. They have, however, been frequently the first to do something really well.

Apple is still far behind on pro tablet game. I had an iPad Pro and it was extremely clunky to use. Multitasking is a mess with three different systems to learn [1], people resort to bizarre hacks to get the keyboard to work at different angles [2], the app ecosystem is still lacking, etc. Sure it fits some people's use cases, but you could say that about the Asus and Samsung folding screen products too. The idea that Apple always gets things right and "provides value" to the masses is absurd.

Oh, and let's not forget about 3D touch, or the macbook touch bar. How did those do after 1-2 years?

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFgYGBtJLnI

[2]: https://twitter.com/mattgemmell/status/1252612743942885376

> Apple is still far behind on pro tablet game

Their market share and their pro customers (artists, photographers, videographers, and more) would all disagree.

Seriously, when was the last time you saw someone actually use an android table for anything professional other than in a cheap point-of-sale terminal?

Android tablets are behind too. I'm talking about the Surface line, which has sales on par

The Galaxy Z Flip 3 has been a massive hit, and the much more expensive Fold 3 has likewise seen unexpectedly high sales: https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/samsung-sold-more-foldables...

How do you define "massive hit"? That article cited an estimate of 9M foldable smartphones being sold in 2021 - compared to 1.4B total smartphone sales last year (~1.12B just looking at Android).

That's less than 1%, no?

You should compare them to the ultra premium category. These devices aren't competing with the massive majority of cheap androids.

Given that Samsung sold around 20-25 million S21s, it is absolutely a massive hit.

Apple sold 240M iPhones in 2021 - 15x as many as the 'massive hit' of foldables... I think you're living in a bit of a bubble if you think they're that popular.

Again, not comparable. You're comparing two models against an entire company. It's really Android vs iPhone, and in the Android world those numbers mainly in one model is a massive success.

How is that anything but a massive hit? It's a new emerging technology. Selling multiple millions is insane.

Fair point!

I’ve seen plenty of people round my way sporting those phones.

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