Every time I visit the Apple I leave Underwhelmed

[maflynn]

I'm generally pleased when going to the apple store. If I had any disappointment, its that I cannot afford all of the great stuff there.

Has Apple hit it out of the park with every update? No of course not, does every product garner the same level of giddy excitement, nope. But what I like, want and sometimes, need - Apple has some pretty awesome products.

My excitement has ebbed and waned, during the dark times (2016 - 2020), thier laptops were just a very poor fit for me, awful keyboards, horrible touchbar, no function keys. handicapped cpu, i.e., poor performance. With that said, their phones, tablets and other products were still great.

 

[mansplains]

- Unnecessarily (and ugly) complex digital displays making simple functions complicated. Climate control functions are no longer simple and straightforward. Listening to music is a hassle.
- Customizable displays are also ridiculously stupid. It’s a CAR, not a video game.

I agree with the rest of your post, but these two points seem at odds. I hate the infotainment because you can't customize, there's additional steps for music, climate control etc; a chore like you mention. Let alone things you'll never use, my Subaru has an app you can link to the infotainment system, but it's no longer on the App Store even if I wanted to use it.

The new carplay aims to make this experience better. It's not only aesthetics like changing speedometer from analog to digital, but having the climate controls at a tap, rather than five knobs and multiple steps.

 

[Warped9]

My climate control is set the temperature you want and leave it. It’s just like the system in the house. If the temperature goes above a set temperature the air conditioning will automatically come on. Or if the temperature drops below a set temperature than the heat will come on.

And my car is 18 years old. You can play with the vents and fan speed if you really want to, but you usually just adjust temperature and whether you want the system ON or OFF. It’s dead simple.

 

[RUGERMAN]

Apple products are more like a car or a bike now: they should last you quite a number of years. If anything, Apple products still lack longevity in comparison.

HUH? I have a 12 yr old iMac that I still use every day and is on 24/7, runs just fine and does everything I need to do.

 

[Warped9]

HUH? I have a 12 yr old iMac that I still use every day and is on 24/7, runs just fine and does everything I need to do.

My 2011 iMac is 11 years old, going on 12. My 18 year old car is a 2004 Crown Victoria. Both run perfectly.

 

[daabido]

Is "the Apple" some kind of oracle and who or what is Underwhelmed?

 

[Mr. Dee]

I'm generally pleased when going to the apple store. If I had any disappointment, its that I cannot afford all of the great stuff there.

Has Apple hit it out of the park with every update? No of course not, does every product garner the same level of giddy excitement, nope. But what I like, want and sometimes, need - Apple has some pretty awesome products.

My excitement has ebbed and waned, during the dark times (2016 - 2020), thier laptops were just a very poor fit for me, awful keyboards, horrible touchbar, no function keys. handicapped cpu, i.e., poor performance. With that said, their phones, tablets and other products were still great.

My disappointment is just that I am not excited enough to upgrade as often anymore. Sure, if you showed me todays product lineup to me in 2007 I would be flabbergasted. But I don't see anything life changing in todays product lineup anymore. Apple has pretty much conquered most of what I would consider life changing: Internet in your pocket, syncing thousands of songs on a small mobile device you take with you anywhere, taking high resolution images, the ability to face time with anyone thousands of miles away, stream any song, video and access information anytime anywhere.

Maybe the glass is no longer half empty for me.

 

[HDFan]

Apple has pretty much conquered most of what I would consider life changing:

There are some life saving features still in the works that will have a major impact for at least some segments of the population. Blood sugar monitoring, if they can get it to work could be significant for 1/2 billion people or more worldwide - if they could afford it. Who knows what else they are working on.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

There are some life saving features still in the works that will have a major impact for at least some segments of the population. Blood sugar monitoring, if they can get it to work could be significant for 1/2 billion people or more worldwide - if they could afford it. Who knows what else they are working on.

Surely the Apple Watch would need direct contact with blood for that to work. Every diabetic I know with these sorts of devices has a one that penetrates the skin via a small needle and I can’t see that being done by Apple. Unless they can come up with a revolutionary technology medical device firms haven’t and design a blood scanning sensor. I think we are many years off that though.

 

[HDFan]

Unless they can come up with a revolutionary technology medical device firms haven’t and design a blood scanning sensor. I think we are many years off that though.

It will be revolutionary if/when (?) they can do it. It is years away. Gurman in April 2022:

"In terms of new health sensors on the Apple Watch, there are three that everyone is waiting for: body temperature, blood pressure and glucose. Apple is working on all of these features, but they won’t be ready at the same time. Body temperature and accompanying features should start to arrive this year, with blood pressure following in 2024 or 2025. I wouldn’t expect blood-sugar monitoring until later this decade. "

They are checking things off of their new features list. Temperature is now here, next one looks like blood pressure.

 

[Warped9]

It will be revolutionary if/when (?) they can do it. It is years away. Gurman in April 2022:

"In terms of new health sensors on the Apple Watch, there are three that everyone is waiting for: body temperature, blood pressure and glucose. Apple is working on all of these features, but they won’t be ready at the same time. Body temperature and accompanying features should start to arrive this year, with blood pressure following in 2024 or 2025. I wouldn’t expect blood-sugar monitoring until later this decade. "

They are checking things off of their new features list. Temperature is now here, next one looks like blood pressure.

“My son, man is at the pinnacle of his achievement. There is nothing left for him to invent anymore.”

I’m paraphrasing the words of a father to his son after visiting the world’s fair in the 1890s.

Excitement comes from the unexpected. A lot of our contemporary technology has become commonplace. A lot of it isn’t revolutionarily new anymore and manufacturers are left tweaking and finessing the tech in incremental ways. Much of the science fiction tech many of us grew up with from the mid to late 20th century has been realized and is already here.

The modern computer and familiar computer devices are the resultant refinements of technology introduced during the first half of the 20th century: the telephone, radio and television. You can add computers to that list. All of it was developed 70-130 or so years ago. It’s been essentially tweaking and finding new applications ever since.

Once something becomes even only seemingly commonplace people tend to get blasé about it. Landing on the Moon only fifty years after man had achieved powered flight was a seriously big deal and captivated people around the world in 1969. But soon after when astronauts could get to the Moon almost routinely the wide spread fascination largely faded. Today people going to space is seen as no real big deal particularly when you don’t even need to be an astronaut anymore—you just need big money. Maybe people going to Mars might get attention, but I wonder given how successfully science fiction has made space travel look so easy.

New gimmicks don’t make your life better. At best new gimmicks might make some part of your life more convenient. A smartphone is the ultimate refinement of telephone, radio and television merged together in an extremely compact device. It was a revolutionary application of existing technologies. A tablet is a variation of that new application that addresses some needs more conveniently than the smartphone. An Apple Watch is largely an expensive toy that most if not all people could easily live without.

 

[JapanApple]

It will be revolutionary if/when (?) they can do it. It is years away. Gurman in April 2022:

"In terms of new health sensors on the Apple Watch, there are three that everyone is waiting for: body temperature, blood pressure and glucose. Apple is working on all of these features, but they won’t be ready at the same time. Body temperature and accompanying features should start to arrive this year, with blood pressure following in 2024 or 2025. I wouldn’t expect blood-sugar monitoring until later this decade. "

They are checking things off of their new features list. Temperature is now here, next one looks like blood pressure.

I have a working knowledge of medical systems. Apple`s watch chants of medical advances and health monitoring are just Assumptions guestimation body bioreading. Nothing replaces a doctor's evaluation EKG etc. It's just an overpriced toy. I own an apple 4 watch I am happy. But I wouldn't assume my life over its reading of my bio readings. reference to health is the only.

 

[maflynn]

My disappointment is just that I am not excited enough to upgrade as often anymore.

Not every update that rolls out of Apple is going to be grand slam, many product updates can be considered minor. Consider the impending M2 update to the MBP - its most likely going to be a minor revision. I'm not going to get giddy and excited when I already have an M1. Its all about perspective and contentment imo

 

[XboxEvolved]

So your mad that you aren't wasting money? I don't understand what this is about. Wait another few months and waste $2500 on their headset I guess?

 

[Mr. Dee]

So your mad that you aren't wasting money? I don't understand what this is about. Wait another few months and waste $2500 on their headset I guess?

I don't know how anyone could equate 'underwhelmed' with being 'mad'. I simply noted, I am not excited as I use to be, that could simply be contentment, maturity, growth. But I compare my excitement when Apple was just a Computer company and still had ways to excite consumers: whether that was the G4 iMac design, quicksilver G4 Power Macs, OS X revisions with 150 features. I would translate my view now of these products as just mainstream that no longer drive upgrade, for upgrade sake. And maybe that is a good thing. My life didn't get worse because I didn't upgrade to a 5G iPhone 12, I didn't miss out because I didn't upgrade for a 120 Hz screen.

Life changing:

2001 - iPod - I could walk around with my entire music collection and kept getting better
2002 - iLife - manage my huge photo collection, create movies and share them easily
2003 - 64 bit computing to the mainstream
2006 - Intel - best of both worlds, OS X, x86 architecture
2007 - iPhone - Internet in my pocket, iPod, email on the go
2008 - 3G - faster Internet, app store
2010 - Retina - sharper images, Facetime
2012 - Retina MacBook Pro - gorgeous screen, thin design
2013 - A7 - desktop class performance in the iPhone 5s - I still see people using this phone
2014 - Larger screen, iPhone felt just right for the first time, a true desktop replacement on the go
2017 - iPhone X - amazing all in one screen design, OLED, Face ID, truly a game changer and the A11 Bionic
2018 - iPad Pro - gorgeous screen, Face ID, A12
2020 - M1 (Apple Silicon) - amazing battery life, super fast

Beyond that, its good stuff, just not exciting as they use to seem. And I guess its partly due to Apple's own competitors preempting and delivering some innovation first too. But Apple has really had a good run over the past 20 years.

 

[XboxEvolved]

Apples competition was generally poor in comparison in most aspects from 1998 to 2010. They’re now comparable but not really outdoing them in much. PC and Android cater to the high end mid-range and lower-end. Apple mostly just has high-end machines and we get lucky every few years when the competition has to copy the success of those products as much as they can. Most recently, having the jump on ARM SoCS which is ultimately where the industry is going.

 

[monstermash]

Reason for being underwhelmed...existing products do what I need to do perfectly adequately. New products don't do anything existing products don't already do perfectly adequately.

I don't care if you increase the top speed of the car to 250 mph, up from 225 mph. I'm only going 100 mph anyway.

 

[bruinsrme]

If most people were to buy Apple products only when they need it Apple would not be worth 2.3 Trillion.

I think that goes for a lot of things.
As far as the excitement levels going into the store. I agree. When getting a new item, shipped to me or bought in store, it's always set it up in a store. I enjoy watching others less techie setting up their devices and asking questions. Not once have I left without learning a new or being reminded of a feature.