Another Day Has Come
daringfireball.net236 points by ndr42 a day ago
236 points by ndr42 a day ago
> “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.”
I just have to call out how much this impacted my mom’s life. She’s 100% blind and has access because of her iPhone and iPad. Yes she learned JAWSs and literally took classes to do it. Every single windows update has made it so she’d have to retake this class. The iOS updates a rocky but she isn’t literally hamstrung.
My dad, damn near 80, is still happily using his 2012 i7 Mac mini I set him up with before moving away.
Anyway, excited for the future of Apple under Ternus and a hardware guy at the helm. What kind of a11y does robotics have? https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive...
Blind person using Apple products here, and at least for phones, I agree. I wouldn't say it's exclusively because of iPhone, but a large part of my independence is definitely it. There have been problems, bugs that go unfixed for years, MacOS VoiceOver is quite a disaster even though I do still use and enjoy the platform overall, and anything worth using can be criticized I think. But iOS has so many features built in that help me every single day. VoiceOver, but also all of the features utilizing vision like door detection, OCR, etc. they're in the magnifier as well so you don't need VoiceOver enabled to play with them, and I think a number of them also require a lidar sensor?
Anyway, my phone is such an important companion wherever I go that I keep several magsafe batteries on me whenever I leave the house for a significant time. It has made an absolutely huge difference in confidence. It is definitely one of the single most important assistive tech devices I have together with my computer.
> MacOS VoiceOver is quite a disaster
I am curious as to why (definitely not arguing, but I’m not blind, and only use it for testing).
I write (Apple) apps to be accessible. I would be grateful for guidance in making them as useful as possible.
It is just random bugs. Switching punctuation schemes. The terminal doesn't read very well, VoiceOver loves to say "not responding" in Safari and locks up, live regions don't always read correctly, quick nav (basically automatically holding down the voiceover modifier so you can more quickly use navigate through the screen) adds random delay to each key press, it's just lots and lots and lots of small issues like this that compound. This is just a small list of them. None of them are a huge problem by itself, but combined they do make things frustrating sometimes. And then of course the ability to script badly behaving, or completely inaccessible, apps is just missing, so you can't fix apps even if you knew how to. And of course VoiceOver on the Mac is all you get. So if you don't like it, tough luck. You won't ever get a real alternative that can access what VoiceOver can.
> VoiceOver loves to say "not responding" in Safari and locks up,
I wonder, what's the correct solution for this ? Because so many apps I use including browser are definitely "not responding" multiple times per day for various reasons (full ram, internet stall, etc.)
Thanks!
I do my best to make my apps accessible, so feedback like this helps.
Will drop this here in case you’re not aware of it (but I’m guessing you probably are), sorry if a bit off-topic.
I’m low-vision and made great use of Microsoft Soundscape until it got discontinued. I’d been waiting for an alternative for ages and didn’t realise one actually got released and is on the app store!
VoiceVista:
I absolutely LOVE! Voice Vista. It is an amazing bit of software. I wasn't able to use SoundScape when it first came out because it was never made available in my region, but VV is, and I would never want to miss it anymore when traveling. I love it. A lot.
Excuse my language here but: I fucking love this! My mom pretty much mirrors your experience. I purposefully left out macOS and voiceover. I would almost call it unusable, sadly. The amount of key layering that voiceover and macOS in general has makes it very hard to use.
I’ve been hacking on a macOS app that leans on LLMs, vision use, and the AX macOS APIs to try and make voiceover less.. prickly haha. Hoping to visit in person soon to watch her use it :)
> bugs that go unfixed for years
For what it's worth, text selection has been badly broken on iOS for at least a decade and autocorrect has been steadily getting worse for probably the same amount of time, and these are features that affect the mainstream segment of Apple users on a daily basis. Apple seems generally happy to let bugs go unaddressed for years and years regardless of how many people they affect or how often.
How is text selection badly broken on iOS for at least a decade?
I seem to have it working just fine, though am not sure how I may have configured it to do such, without dedicating such to memory.
It’s really really inconsistent. Sometimes select all is available, sometimes not. Sometimes the handles don’t work. Selecting text in a scrollable region is fiddly, etc.
I’ve seen an insane drop in the quality of swipe typing recently as well. To the point where I’ll often go back to regular typing. I’ve made maybe six or more corrections just to this paragraph alone.
I think swipe typing suggests words inconsistent with any higher level language model, like word tuples, when proposing words which are possible matches for letter sequences swiped.
and it drives me crazy too.
I've just had good luck it seems with text select.
Have you found any way to do a Find within a span of text on iOS? That would be very useful, but I haven't seen it.
The first time I saw a blind person using an iPhone, I was blown away. I follow some Apple engineers who work on accessibility, and they all seem very passionate about their work. It’s an area where I truly believe Apple is doing it to help people, not just for profit.
I’m not blind, but I’m using accessibility features like Speak Screen, and the text-to-speech is pretty poor (mispronunciations abound, markup is ignored, punctuation is misinterpreted), usability is poor (can’t start at a user-selected location on a page for example), and it’s rather buggy, especially within Safari. It’s been that way for years, and it doesn’t seem like anyone at Apple is interested in making it a better experience.
Just an aside, it's a ton of work to make accessibility work on anything other than the most native looking apps, as different settings will move the UI unexpectedly and creates a lot of issues to be taken care of because of the screen size and different layouts.
The screen speak for example, sometimes you have to manually make sure they speak in the right order because of UI elements are placed non-standard way like if you have a label as name, and one as phone number side by side, the speak may start going down vertically, and you have to fix it by grouping it or force it speak it manually. Small example.
I struggle not to have a cynical take these days. Of course he cared about the ROI. The ROI is access to an underserved market, a halo effect, a new community of adherents, a new reason for customers to cross the moat into the ecosystem… a modest investment with a durable long term return in multiple categories.
I appreciate that it’s a win-win for Apple and for its customers, and I firmly believe that accessibility features serve everyone eventually. I’m glad that there are some billionaires who also see it that way.
I guess I just wish we didn’t have to rely on rare cases of billionaires finding it in their own best interest to happen to serve the rest of us. Especially when the actual accessibility work and everything else is actually done by a whole class of people that never make headlines just for leaving their jobs and being replaced.
You're arguing that the action had some positive effects and therefore it was ROI positive. That doesn't remotely follow.
And most companies did NOT make the choice to be as accessible as Apple, which rebuts your theory that this was done only for the ROI.
Effectively you're so cynical that there's nothing Tim Cook could say or do that would convince you he was ever acting sincerely. It is comfortable to blame and rage but it is hardly good analysis.
It's obvious he has to be somewhat concerned about the ROI (or LOI) - if it cost ten times the value of the company to implement accessibility for the blind, it's not going to get implemented.
But the whole point of leadership should be to say "this doesn't bean count out perfectly, but we'll do it".
I get what you’re saying but in my 15 year career the ONLY time I was allowed to meaningfully work on accessibility was when visa hired me to remediate visa checkout. And that was literally because a tier 1 bank was going to drop their contract over it.
The ROI Apple will get is when all of us turn 70 and need these features we’re ignoring now
He told the shareholder entity to get out of AAPL stock if they cared so much about ROI. That doesn't sound insincere.
I'm looking for a recording of that shareholder meeting, to see if he looked and sounded insincere at that time but YouTube is insisting on showing the latest news.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/03/07/why-tim...
Cook was an able steward of Apple. Under his leadership the hardware side continued to iteratively improve nicely. Apple Silicon is good stuff. I am firmly embedded in the entire Apple ecosystem and have no reason to leave.
I do wish Apple used some of its massive cash hoard and market power to do better in software. The iPad remains my favorite form factor to use in lots of my day but Apple never invested in killer app software optimized for it. Same with VisionPro although maybe that story is just early. The VisionPro store demo was the closest I felt to tech magic since I was a kid in the 80s. The price was high but not prohibitively so. Rather, I could tell that there was just no reason to use it day to day because there wasn't enough software optimized for it.
I've lost track of the Apple Cash hoard which was insane some years ago but it would have been better for Apple to proactively invest in developing killer apps/uses for it's admirable hardware versus going into producing TV shows and movies because Hollywood people are fun to hang out with.
Cook did his job. Apple's supply chain didn't collapse and almost kill the company like in the 90s. But I hope we see some of the old innovative spirit come back. I want that "wow" moment again where I don't just get an iteratively improved version of what I already have but something new!
> The iPad remains my favorite form factor to use in lots of my day but Apple never invested in killer app software optimized for it.
Apple doesn't received much credit for making iPhoto for iPad back in 2012 (https://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/07/apple-launches-iphoto-f...), or more recently Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. I think they really have invested in building pro software for iPads, probably on the order of millions of dollars, less for the vanishingly small segments of their user base but to make the case that the platform can be used for serious work.
The problem though is that the platform itself creates friction compared to macOS that, even at the best of times, makes the user at least slightly less productive. So I can't imagine myself picking up an iPad to do any actual creative work.
Not to mention the best-in-class keyboard cases, over-engineered stylus, mouse support, multitasking support, and on and on. It almost seems desperate that they keep trying to find "the thing" to crack this problem.
> Rather, I could tell that there was just no reason to use it day to day because there wasn't enough software optimized for it.
I think you can get rid of the "because there wasn't enough software optimized for it" part.
It's simply a product without a defining use case, and most people do not want to live life literally behind a screen with giant goggles strapped to their face. I think VR/AR goggles may certainly have a place in some time-limited uses like gaming, but this idea that it would be "the next big computing platform" is just bunk. Even if it had a limitless supply of the best software ever made, I challenge anyone to say why people would actually want to use it for extended periods.
Yes, just like spreadsheets and email have been the ultimate killers of many startups run by smart people; the modern smartphone, laptop, and to a lesser extent tablet, have been the killer of many cool hardware ideas.
After a ~decade of very serious investment from multiple huge corporations, there's still not a compelling use case for VR goggles that's not achievable for the vast majority of people with either a laptop or their iphone.
Look around on any public transit ride anywhere in the world, we already live in the metaverse. It's just small glass rectangles + headphones instead of headsets because that's a better form factor for most people.
> versus going into producing TV shows and movies because Hollywood people are fun to hang out with
I disagree with this take quite a bit. Yes, software could be better, but Apple TV+ has given dozens of shows the budget and freedom to produce some truly generation-defining art. Ted Lasso, Severance, and For All Mankind are huge stand-outs in their scope, depth, and ambition. For instance, the latter is produced by Sony, yet you see nearly zero product placement, which has been a hallmark of the studio for over a decade now. Putting gobs of money into storytelling yields purer, and therefore more compelling, narratives that will hold up well over time and represent the best of what we are capable of. At the same time, Apple TV+ as a subscription service is also a very convenient way for Apple to weather any ups and downs in the physical product categories.
The TV shows and stuff were never in competition for their money, they spent over $700 billion on stock buybacks in the last decade that's where it went, and they certainly could have spent a miniscule portion of that to ignite the iPad and AVP software scene. It will be interesting to see if they change approach with the folding iPhone, the rumour mill says it won't support iPad apps so it is primed for the same problem.
I know they spent time catering to companies to build iPad apps. I worked on some stuff where Apple had reached out to build our existing desktop apps to be optimized for iPad's specific use cases. To be honest, I don't think our team did a very good job of focusing on iPad's unique features and the contexts in which it was/could be used, but I was also fairly confident that iPad was very limited for work (especially then).
Some of the user research was around the mental models behind switching to do deep work on a desktop/laptop—though they're still blurry with younger phone-first (or phone-only) users. It's not unlike why the UI for work software should be different than consumer stuff. If you're there everyday, you don't need stuff hidden and progressively disclosed. You'll learn it, adding extra clicks is worse. The cockpit is better this way. It's not clutter. Obviously, with a laptop you get a full keyboard too whereas the iPad's addition is the touch screen, which has it's merits, but is a much blunter fat-fingery input. And people would talk about how you can add a keyboard, but you know, if the user is doing that, should they not just bring their laptop?
I remember at the time trying to pitch a mindset that a laptop is a portable device. Sure it doesn't fit in a pocket, but neither does an iPad. So even the use cases you'd have away from your desk aren't exactly carve outs for an iPad experience.
You can't throw money at software and get better software on the other side, see Meta(verse). Better software requires focus, which may mean spending less money instead of more.
iPad is the best consumption device in existence. Reading, video, casual games, it handles all without breaking a sweat. And as speech recognition and translation into intent using LLMs and other tools continues to improve, the keyboard will become less critical and so will be the shortage of screen real estate.
I'm excited about the future of the tablet form factors.
As an outsider I still can't believe anybody gets this emotional about Apple.
I snicker at it as well, but then I also get emotional when people mention SGI, Commodore, Nintendo, SEGA.. so, there's that. Key difference, from my angle, is mostly the lack of people idols in the latter vs the former. Yes, there _are_ key people, but emphasis is more on products they made. Who knows. Interesting phenomenon in any case.
I get emotional whenever I see anyone with enough good sense to pass the baton at the proper time rather than die in office, letting it drop and clatter to the ground.
Find it comical to read things like
He is the ultimate company man at the ultimate company.I can understand a "deeper bond with the product."
This is just blandly glazing a CEO.
"Cook has transformed Apple in his own image. The company is much more predictable now than it ever was, or could have been, under Jobs."
Not precisely what I would call "praise."
When I read these posts, my mind always pictures a teenage girl fawning over here crush. It just feel immature, childish and overly dramatic.
That is a generous assessment of Tim Cook’s reign at Apple and especially of his character. I found it a real pleasure to read.
This guy has also been generous, and incredibly wrong, about other leaders too. Go look at his glazing posts of someone throughout Q3/Q4 of 2024, especially on Nov 3rd.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t a post in the Daring Fireball archive on Nov 3.
People want peaceful transfer of power :)
Nah the execs want feudalism, they should get all the things that come with feudalism.
Feudalism includes heirs and successors. Sometimes the transition is peaceful, sometimes not.
> The transition Apple and Tim Cook announced today is entirely different. No one’s hand was forced.
I don't follow Apple very closely, but given this is coming right after the AI leadership shakeup and at a time where Apple's AI story is being debated, the thought did pop into my mind...
This reminds me of Ballmer leaving Microsoft. Strictly by the numbers, he was a very good steward of the company at the time, but for various reasons (in his case, at least partially related to optics) he was considered unsuitable to lead Microsoft in its cloud era, and so he left and cleaned up a lot of house in the process.
I honestly don't know what the best AI story is for Apple, but I appreciate that they are pushing the envelope on on-device inference, however under-utilizied it may be at the moment. I think this is going to be essential to keep AI widely accessible in the long term, because everyone else is incentivized to try to lock it up in their data centers.
> “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.”
This made me sad. I moved out to Silicon Valley a few months after Jobs passed. I remember feeling so hopeful and inspired that technology could make the world a better place, and I saw the same in other founders. Today I look around and feel ashamed of the tech industry. The founders don’t talk about changing the world anymore, they just have dollar signs in their eyes. It’s been a long time since I saw any technology that felt inspiring the same way it used to feel.
Tim Cook, 2014:
> When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI
Tim Cook, 2023:
> Lawyers suggested Cook himself was involved with how the warning to App Store customers would appear, recommending an update to the text that appears when the external links were clicked. In one version, that link warned customers they were “no longer transacting with Apple.” Later, the link was updated to subtly suggest there could be privacy or security risks with purchases made on the web.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/24/apple-exec-phil-schiller-t...
Could you clarify your intended meaning in placing these quotes side by side?
Seems like they're just mentioning one action from Tim Cook take they personally didn't approve of.
By "one action" you mean the systematic war against 3rd party app stores and payments in the EU and elsewhere? By actions like this they made them so unappealing they basically destroyed any chance of success. Very anti-competitive and nasty behaviour, I think.
That's a perfectly reasonable opinion for you to have.
It is. We need to stop holding up these mortal men as saviors, especially those that have no qualms working with tyrants across the globe. The only reason Apple cares about a11y is due to being legally compelled to by the ADA. Maybe uphold the US activists that fought to make accessibility a thing the people of the United States cares about and enshrined into law (fun fact, this went on to inspire other countries to pass ADA like legislation as well).
Also a11y lawsuits are not only a great way to make an easy $10k a pop, it's a even better way to organize with your local legal teams. They always like easy money IME.
Oh don't forget that you can get sued for the same violation multiple times by different people at once, nice way to collect some money and if you want to attack big tech.
He micro-managed minimizing the cost of developers using third party payments in apps, so his nonchalance to ROI is likely overstated - or changed significantly since 2014.
That’s a pretty non sequitur. Nobody said he wasn’t concerned with ROI. He’s said that not every decision is based on ROI.
So long Tim Apple
Now if only members of our representative government would follow his lead to voluntarily retire when it's time, hand off the baton to a new generation, we'd all be so much better off.
> The transition Apple and Tim Cook announced today is entirely different. No one’s hand was forced. There is nothing unpleasant.
Tim Cook is a master of supply chain logistics and was the perfect choice to scale Apple into global production.
As global supply chains collapse; as Apple fights for fab space with Nvidia, and loses; and as Apple releases products like the five-core Neo, which can monetize a stock of six-core phone chips with single-core faults, and they're still stocking out; transitioning to a CEO with a hardware background will enable a different set of strategic choices.
Mr. Cook is jumping before Apple is pushed, but that's not the same thing as a move being unforced.
You know it's big news when Gruber makes the HN homepage.
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How does that link discredit what Gruber said there? It seems to me to back it up.
FWIW, Gruber consistently condemns Trump, and portrayed Cook's obsequious sycophancy as lamentable and highly questionable "take one for the team" acts Cook chose to do for the sake of Apple.
It strikes me as a fairly plausible analysis.
Go read what Gruber says about Trump on his social media, or even on the very blog you were just on. Safe to say he isn’t a fan. I think what he’s saying is that Cook has been quite effective at stroking Trump’s ego enough that the admin leaves Apple alone, which is absolutely true in my opinion.
In a different world where Cook messed up, it might be Apple (a Big Tech company with uber-liberal employees, marketing, and vibes, and an openly gay CEO!) being designated a supply chain risk, not Anthropic.
Regardless of whether you agree with his opinions, Gruber invented Markdown. The world would be a very different place today without it.
I have to give props for him for keeping basically a simple blog with the same layout and still consistently pulling in over $40,000/month in weekly sponsorships after 20+ years.
No drama, never in the spotlight much nowadays, just posting on his blog and raking in insane money.
> Regardless of whether you agree with his opinions, Gruber invented Markdown. The world would be a very different place today without it.
So?
And also...with substantial contributions from Aaron Swartz.
Not solely Gruber.
Gruber is only known for his Daring Fireball blog amongst everyone important, only techies care about his Markdown 'invention'.
Markdown is just a side project for him.
I had no idea Markdown had an inventor (but obviously someone had to do it) - I guess I thought it evolved from usenet on its own.
And I only knew of Gruber as "the Mac guy" and (am embarrassed to admit) that I thought the daring fireball was another Mac guy.
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Here's the full context of that quote:
> In August 2011, Steve Jobs was sick. For years he’d managed to stay a step, sometimes two, ahead of the pancreatic cancer he’d been battling since 2003, but no more.
I read two steps as a physical metaphor—i.e., it was following him closely—and not like a chess metaphor—I.e., two moves ahead.
I agree that I have no idea why people read this guy... Like in a "I must be genuinely out of the loop" type way. I feel like it's really romanticizing or fanboying.
Like I enjoy my apple products, and I'm sure glad Apple wasn't run by a psycho like Musk, and didn't put Ads in the OS like Microsoft. But I don't think any of this is heroic or anything. Like if anybody's a hero it's probably the open-source guys who do it for no money at all.
I read him because I frequently learn useful things from him that I didn't learn about anywhere else, and I enjoy his writing style.
Prior to 2016, he was better. Since then, he regularly posts about Trump, and whatever you think of Trump, those posts are seldom more than random ranting: devoid of substance or insight. Other times, they're just links to someone else's random, substanceless Trump rant.
It's a real shame, because he can be genuinely insightful when it comes to computing topics (and Apple in particular, obviously). That said, I do find his podcast much more bearable. Not zero-Trump, but less Trump.
Ignoring the Stever Jobs quip, I agree - I really don't think we should care of his opinions on Apple (or on most things).
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I don’t know what I would be need to be paid (via ad income or whatever means) to be a life and times of Big Tech X chronicler.
Lick a butt that you like and you will not need to work a day in your life.
Very true. :)
But I’m afraid the initial phase of tolerated negativity is over for this thread. Now we ought to nurture some corporate positivity.
I’ve recently expanded my meditation routine to sending gratitude and love to investors. I call it Mutual Profit Meditation. I visualize myself in a state of lovingly implementing whatever I’m currently doing at work (currently this is internal surveillance software, but that’s just arbitrary). I visualize myself in a Flow State, implementing tickets with ease and grace; meanwhile my manager is also thriving with whatever he is doing (currently managing implementing internal surveillance software, but this is arbitrary—could be anything); and I imagine investors in a Flow State golfing while their personal assistant says their stocks just went up.
A better world is possible. You could also not have to work a single day in your life.
Until now Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades. That's one human generation, and it is also the span of time between when something first hits and when it sees its first retro revival. That isn't a coincidence.
I'm starting to get a little excited! This is going to be quite a decade.
> Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades
What a wild take. I guess that explains the massive and growing popularity of iOS over that same time period.
> What a wild take. I guess that explains the massive and growing popularity of iOS over that same time period.
Wild take, indeed.
I seem to recall something about Apple releasing a sub-$600 laptop so popular that weeks after it was announced it's backordered for more than 30 days.
Something something MacBook Neue or other…
> Until now Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades.
Going back to 2008:
> But the most fun on the conference call came when he parried analysts’ questions about new product areas that Apple might or might not enter. A recurring question among Apple watchers for decades has been, “When is Apple going to introduce a low-cost computer?
> Mr. Jobs answered that decades-old complaint by stating, “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” He argued instead that the company’s mission was to add more value for customers at current price points.
* https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/2...
USD(2008) 500 = USD(2026) 760:
* https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
which is about what the Neo costs.
There is more to it than just accounting for inflation. Apple has done a number of other things in the meantime, including designing and manufacturing their own chips, that have changed the economies of this. Until the very recent RAM price explosion, a sub $500 computer in 2008 was probably more like a sub $350 computer today.
Inflation goes up - someone who could buy a $500 computer in 2008 should be able to buy a $766 or so computer today (cite: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com)
But today, if you can finagle the EDU discount, you can get a MacBook Neo for $499 ($600 without) which apparently isn't really compromised in any major way.
> Inflation goes up - someone who could buy a $500 computer in 2008 should be able to buy a $766 or so computer today
It should also be noted that technological advances tend to be deflationary in general: regardless of real or nominal dollars, the chips/storage/etc you can buy today were sometimes not even available in the past at any price.
Edit: e.g., see 1991 Radio Shack add:
* https://www.trendingbuffalo.com/life/uncle-steves-buffalo/ev...
True, a high-end 386 would have cost upwards of $10k when it first came out, but a MacBook Neo probably beats the pants off a supercomputer from the same era.
An old Radio Shack ad from 1991 that often makes the rounds is illustrative:
* https://www.trendingbuffalo.com/life/uncle-steves-buffalo/ev...
Yes, I'm aware how inflation works, you missed my point. Many technology things have effectively gotten cheaper over time, when you account for overall performance/specs/capabilities/etc. The "we don't know how to make a $500 computer that doesn't suck" statement of today would be more like "we don't know how to make a $350 computer that doesn't suck".
People want another "iphone"-level impact. I would bet there never will be. A device that does everything that we carry with us will also be like an evolution of the smart phone.
The only possibility I can imagine is a home robot that takes off.
The iPhone was basically the apotheosis of the Internet. I don’t think we will ever see another consumer product able to have an impact like that unless there is some other kind of “substructure” technology with a vast amount of untapped potential lying around.
Even other transformational technological advancements, like home robotics, I don’t think will be encompassed by a single device the way smartphones could. Home robots will be scattered across a bunch of different robotic devices doing independent activities. You’ll have purpose-built laundry robots, vacuum robots, cooking robots, driving robots, etc. but not a single company doing a single thing.
They're now building the best cheap laptop ever made. That feels mass market to me.
I was thinking about the upcoming regulation about replaceable batteries in the EU, and couldn't help but think that if I were Apple's CEO this would be a great time to make an orderly exit. Make no mistake, I'm not a fan of i-Devices' non-replaceable batteries, but I can't remember a single device with a lid for batteries on the back that was aesthetically in the same league as an iPhone.
As far as I know it should be pretty easy for Apple to comply with the regulation. The battery needs to be replaceable with standard or freely available tools and without adhesives. Many of Apple’s devices already meet this standard.
Edit: I'm not sure on the adhesives part. Apple uses an electrically-releasable adhesive in some of their newer products. The MacBook Neo doesn't use battery adhesive at all.
There are considerations in the law for water proofing, device safety, and battery durability (maintaining 80% capacity at 1000 cycles, which Apple already does). They do not require a pop open battery door on every device like it's 2005 again.
Apple already provides repair tools, guides, and replacement parts both to end users and third party technicians.
These regulations are complicated, but they aren't new and Apple isn't being blindsided with some catastrophe here.
I don't think any of the iPhone or iPads do. Their design is pretty tightly coupled to weird shaped, permanently attached batteries, from what I've heard.
I've read that Apple's products fall outside the scope of the regulation because their product batteries can do 1000 cycles and still hit the 80% benchmark.
Even if they can't right now, they certainly can by downrating them a bit.
I'd still like to see them comply with the spirit and make it easy to replace.
I don't know whether the newer electrically-releasing battery adhesives would count, but they do allow cleanly removing and replacing the battery without proprietary tools.
They’re not proprietary but some of them are expensive and somewhat specialized. I don’t think it’ll be really economical for most normal people to self-service many repairs, but it’ll be very viable to have a corner hardware store that can do it for you for cheap. Self-servicing battery replacements ought to be doable with an eyeglass screwdriver though.
And what, exactly, is your knowledge based on? I take it you've designed and shipped a working phone that meets IP68 standards for water intrusion?
Reading some articles about the EU law, which is more complicated than the seemingly popular interpretation that all phones are now going to have tool-free battery doors on the back like it's 2005 again.
What? Which? Huh? Absolutely not. So many of them have adhesives I dont think almost any of them meet your criteria.
To be clear, replaceable battery doesn't mean a lid like phones used to have. It means that you should be able to take the device apart with simple tools and remove the battery and pop in another one.
It actually probably affects other phone companies more than it affects Apple, as some of the others have very poor repairability
The Microsoft Lumia 540 looks remarkably like a modern phone still and it had a fairly easily replaceable battery, because it allowed you to replace the back cover.
There's also the Lumia 920, which is arguably a nicer looking phone than anything Apple current have, also have a fairly easily replaceable battery, requiring you to remove just two screws.
The battery thing doesn’t apply to water resistant devices, so doesn’t matter for iPhone/Apple Watch.
There’s rumors that upcoming iPad models are water resistant, I suspect that’s the motivation for it.
> The battery thing doesn’t apply to water resistant devices, so doesn’t matter for iPhone/Apple Watch.
I think that is not true. If you look at article 11.2 b it talks about
"appliances specifically designed to operate primarily in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion, and that are intended to be washable or rinseable"
I don't think that applies to Apple devices. Also these special devices still need a battery replaceable by a professional.
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-2-2023-INIT...
Apple Watch seems to apply (it's a dive watch at least sometimes) - but it would be a change to the iPhone to make it a dive phone.
Unlikely they'd want to develop all that just to avoid some battery redesign - the phones last so long now that they should have some headroom.
It’s no secret that Apple has for decades wanted a device with no ports at all.
I does apply.
Battery should be sold for 5 years+ after EoS and it still must be replaceable without proprietary tools, nor proprietary parts.
Or out-of-warranty replacement should be available for a rate not to be above X% of the original price for 5+ years after last sale.
Of course the latter can be gamed where they refuse to replace the battery on a cracked phone, even though it could be done and probably work.
Didn't the Apple Faithful say the same for usb-c?
I'm not sure how they are related. USB-C was not really a technical challenge or had trade-offs. I'm not a hardware engineer but from what I've read, having an easily replaceable battery would degrade the water resistance of the phone.
Same type of concerns were raised about usb-c: more dust collects, worse connector design, would make the phones too thick, etc etc.
Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of people in the more toxic parts of Apple's fanbase decrying USB-C for appearing too fragile, for being forced on them, for having a confusing set of standards (that last one is a fair point).
But I think, among Apple fans, USB-C has generally been a point of 'pride' for the past decade. Designed by Apple, put in a laptop first by Apple, best $10 USB-C-to-3.5mm DAC by Apple, etc.
Whether correct or not, I think Apple fans anticipate more severe tradeoff ramifications with a replacable battery. I think they're different things. (I don't think it's impossible though- the Fairphone has IP 55, I bet Apple can improve on that).
The Apple Faithful will always defend whatever Apple does, it's not terribly useful to listen to them.
It's the Apple Faithful who criticize Apple that are worth listening to.
Lightning is a superior physical design to USB-C (can't speak to the electrical part). Much like every major tech battle in history, however [1], the worse solution won because of ubiquity. I'm not particularly thrilled because I've had a USB-C connector irretrievably break off in a port once on a laptop but I'll make that trade for being able to use a single cable for all of my devices.
- Not an "Apple Faithful"
[1] VHS vs Beta, Doom vs Marathon, Zergling vs human, etc
I've never had trouble with usb-c, but have had lightning connectors short out and burn one of the leads, or stop working from dust. Not sure I'd say one is better than the other, but individual experience can really vary on these kind of things. Tough to say one is clearly better imo.
My experience that lighting was by far the best - when everything lightning I had was made by Apple.
As things became available in the after-market quality began to vary.
My biggest issue with USB-C right now is I have some devices that need a really long "tongue" and I can't find a cable with such.
Yeah it seems to be really up to individual experience. I had two apple-made lightning cables that shorted and burned out the leads on the male end of the connector.
> Yeah it seems to be really up to individual experience.
Sure does. Never had a single issue with a lightning cable. Don’t know literally anyone who ever has.
Some individuals I guess just get unlucky.
The iPhone 4 was easily disassembled with screwdrivers...
The iPhone 4 was not water resistant. I remember owning one and being absolutely freaked out about it getting wet. Talk about an expensive paperweight.
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Personal attacks like this are not acceptable on HN, no matter who or what they're about. The guidelines are clear that we expect better than this...
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.
you met john gruber at apple?
Many times, yes. He's on campus a few times a year and almost always attends WWDC, the private parties, etc.
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What's the grift?
By "rebuke" do you mean the thing where they didn't send any of their execs to be a guest on his WWDC podcast episode, presumably in retribution for his "Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino" post?
I don't see how that makes him irrelevant - I think it strengthens his credibility as someone willing to hold Apple accountable when he disagrees with their direction.
Apple prefers tech influencers / YouTubers like Marques Brownlee and the like who actually resonate with audiences (and don't harp on about Trump every week) rather than irrelevant bloggers.
> I don't see how that makes him irrelevant - I think it strengthens his credibility as someone willing to hold Apple accountable when he disagrees with their direction.
???
Accountable to what? Do you actually think Apple cares now about a random blogger who makes a living critiquing them?
That is the grift and by the looks of it I would say he is irrelevant since Apple declined his invitation.
Gruber needs Apple more than Apple needs him.
> Do you actually think Apple cares now about a random blogger who makes a living critiquing them?
Yes.
I mean, they clearly care enough to pull their execs from his podcast supposedly in response to something he wrote.
So is "the grift" the fact that he makes a living writing a blog? Who are the victims of this particular grift?
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Why should my opinion of how credible he is as a writer about Apple be affected by people who work at Apple not liking him?
Because there are very specific reasons why people (who actually know his relationship to Apple) don't view him as credible. I don't know how else to communicate that point.
> I don't know how else to communicate that point
It's not you, your points are clear.
Simon is sealioning [0] you.
He knows the answer but he just keeps asking the same question.
I have genuinely no idea how I'm sealioning here.
The answer to my question appears to be "it's a secret, I'll tell you in private, everyone at Apple thinks like this".
I know at least one person who works at Apple who respects Gruber, so I'm already suspicious of the confidence being expressed here.
> The answer to my question appears to be "it's a secret, I'll tell you in private, everyone at Apple thinks like this".
Because that is the truth. I have no intention of sharing confidential information publicly.
Your take is "someone won't betray their previous employer publicly, so they must be lying."
I offered to share my thoughts, work experience, and other details with you privately. I've lost all respect for you as a journalist.