Hey, I went into HN search myself to pull these quotes! It was actually quite fun, I recommend scrolling the old threads.
In all seriousness, I think it is helpful context that people have ridiculed every Apple product launch since the iPhone.
In all seriousness, I think it is helpful context that people have ridiculed every Apple product launch since the iPhone.
Probably earlier: I remember people mocking the colorful iMacs. I’m sure you could dig up some pc magazine articles from the 90s dunking on the iMacs and iBooks :).
That being said, I think it is interesting context to remind people of the immediate reactions to the other Apple launches of the recent past. Especially the headphone jack hits home for me, because I'm still a huge fan of the 3,5mn connector, but it fairly quickly became clear that the early widespread stance of 'I'll never buy a phone without a headphone jack!' soon turned into a somewhat lonely fight.
That's actually exactly the reaction I was going for.
I feel like the people at Apple (and similar companies) are pushing their imaginations and very obviously taking a huge risk, whereas all the nay-sayers are just sitting comfortably in the boundaries of the world as they understand it, and passing judgement accordingly.
I have no idea if Vision Pro will succeed, but as a technologist, I'll spend today thinking of ways it might surprise me for the better, rather than the ways in which it may fall short.
How would you expect progress to occur? Company releases a product users criticize it and make fun of it company/competitors either drop the idea or come up with an improved version. What's wrong about that? Why would anyone care about hurting a massive corporation's feelings? Let's not anthropomorphize them...
> just sitting comfortably in the boundaries of the world as they understand it,
Well it's pretty clear that Vision Pro is very expensive and has no clear use cases. And most criticism is almost entirely focused on these two aspects.
> I'll spend today thinking of ways it might surprise me for the better, rather than the ways in which it may fall short.
So instead of thinking of ways how something could be improved you'll just try to figure out how to make the best of what you have? Best approaches are perfectly viable and reasonable depending on the situation.
This is obviously a very challenging value-proposition. No one is confused about how risky this is. It was undoubtedly on the Apple chopping block many many times.
But I find it infinitely more useful when people see a challenging problem and push themselves to think how it might possibly be useful, over what seems to be just quick and obvious dismissals.
The passive aggression is ugly, it's not a healthy environment for discussion and (as the kids say) simping for a massive company is just plain disgusting.
But the commentary that happens every time they launch a new product is not very predictive of success.