I feel Apple has lost its alignment with me and other long-time customers
47 comments
·September 16, 2025daemonologist
avidiax
Apple is a hostage of its own marketing.
A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
A convertible Macbook Air with a touch screen? It would be sold out.
Neckband-style airpods with all-day battery life? Might not sell out, but would be popular.
A best-in-class TV powered by Apple TV? Would probably sell well.
But all of these products would cannibalize sales of some other expensive iDevice.
jacobolus
> A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
No it wouldn't. This theoretical advantage would only appreciated by a trivially small proportion of customers, but the trade offs required (the phone would be more expensive, fatter, less robust, have less water resistance, etc.) would make the device significantly worse for everyone else.
> convertible Macbook Air with a touch screen
This would suck, just like the comparable Windows/Linux devices that have tried it already. Touchscreens don't work well with software is not designed for them. Just getting developer adoption of the 'touchbar' was apparently a bridge too far, let alone a fully supported alternative UI for every app. What would be nice is more investment of attention and effort by Apple in the Mac operating system and software, using the traditional user interface, which is already very effective for the tasks people use it for.
> Neckband-style airpods
I'm not quite sure what this is, but sounds like a niche market, probably already adequately addressed by existing products from other companies (including Beats, which is owned by Apple).
> best-in-class TV
What's wrong with TVs that already exist? Why would Apple be able to do better. Sounds like a low-margin product with limited market. (They have surely already considered this in depth and decided not to do it.)
> cannibalize sales
I doubt it.
epistasis
> A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
The number of people who might actually like this is very tiny. Most of them do product reviews. But their audience is not going to care. Think about your older uncle. Your niece in her 20s who loves to paint and read but doesn't want to replace hardware. That's what most people are like.
Those are the people who Jobs focused on impressing and enabling to do things they wouldn't do otherwise. That is the focus that has been lost without Jobs, IMHO, and it's the focus that makes the products better for people who want to get the most out of their products per unit of time invested in learning how to use it.
ssl-3
I am thinking about my older uncle and my niece in her 20s. They're smart-enough people, and they're quite aware that a modern phone can be very expensive to fix.
In particular, I'm thinking that I (a person of reasonable technical skill) would love to help them out by changing the designed-to-be-swapped screen on the phone they dropped instead of them paying someone else to conduct surgery on it.
khamidou
Unclear – I assume many in their audience also break their phones somewhat regularly, they'd probably appreciate not having to drop $99 or even more abroad for a battery replacement.
haijo2
spot on
xadhominemx
“A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it?”
Definitely not! This would be an inferior product in almost every respect for 95% of customers.
CobrastanJorji
I get your other examples, but a best-in-class TV seems like it'd be pretty good for Apple. It's an Apple TV device that's jammed into a television and doesn't come out, plus a premium price. Seems like it'd work out great. And everybody else buys the 'Apple TV 4K' standalone doohickey and plugs it into their regular TV.
avidiax
Would would buy an Apple Cinema Display if you could buy a color-accurate TV?
Animats
> modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
Go the other way. Hermetically sealed, no connectors, inductive charging, rugged, with a solid state battery that will outlive the rest of the phone. Solid state batteries are more expensive, but that's a cost issue for car-sized batteries, not phone-sized batteries for US$1000 phones.
Samsung expects to have 20-year battery life in 2026.
ceejayoz
> A modular iphone that has an easy to replace battery, easy to replace screen and is maybe 2mm thicker to account for it? That would be a sellout.
And probably a regression on the waterproofing efforts they've made over the last decade. If you're gonna make it thicker, just put a bigger battery in.
alililil
> This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though.
LiDAR was cool.
They could buy Oura and let you write apps with programmable micro LEDs, and that would’ve been cool.
If iPhones had Star Wars style holographic projector, that’d be cool.
They could just be content with keeping the lights on without unnecessary UX changes that literally no one asked for, and that would be cool.
I’m still happy with Apple, but the problem is that they now perceive staying relevant is wasting battery on visuals and making the phone thinner. Those are recycled old-ass ideas. They need to find the new Jony Ives.
piskov
Any decent earbuds have replaceable cables with standard two-pin connectors
danpalmer
This pretty much sums up my feeling on the new generation. I too don't understand what's "awe dropping" about it, and have finally switched from an iPhone 15 Pro to the Android ecosystem, where a flip phone is somewhat "awe dropping". I'm not fully convinced about it, but it's different, it's fun, it's clever, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
The only thing I disagree with here is about the Air. I think Apple's strategy with the Air is to split the Pro line. Previously the Pro phones were for people who wanted a premium feeling and who wanted premium features, but those are often in tension, and might hold each other back. Now the Air is for those who want premium feel (you might call it flashy, looks great, feels great, but has trade-offs), and now the Pro is an uncompromising set of features, at the expense of being bigger and having a comical camera ~bump~ ~plateau~ continent. This is the same as the Watch, where you have the stainless steel models for the premium feel, and the Ultra for the premium features.
I suspect many on HN may not differentiate between the premium features and feel as much – I know it's not what I jump to – because "design is how it works" and many here aren't as fashion conscious, but a lot of folks buy new phones based on the colour, or how thin it feels, or other details that are easily written off when you know more about the hardware. I think the Air might be a big hit, while getting very little of the enthusiast market.
svachalek
I don't know how widespread this is but in my little circle the orange Pro was the biggest draw, it's the first in the Pro line (or at least as far as I can remember) with real color to it. Most of them are grayscale or very muted colors. It's another "feel" thing but got more attention than the Air's thin body.
Analemma_
These are my thoughts exactly. I've seen a bunch of people who don't value thinness or lightness in a phone getting dismissive or outright angry at the existence of the Air, and I want to grab them and shake them until they get it. I don't want the Air at all, and that's exactly why I'm thrilled it exists: it will split the Pro buyers into form-valuers and function-valuers, so the function-valuers like me can get an iPhone with a huge battery and a vapor chamber in it.
If you're one of those people who goes "why can't they make the phone thicker and heavier with more battery life", you should be overjoyed at the Air, because now that those buyers are peeled off to a different SKU, the product line for you doesn't need to find a happy medium with them.
thaumasiotes
https://chainsawsuit.krisstraub.com/20161028.shtml
When "you can't use it outside anyhow" expands to phones, which are only useful because you can take them outside.
ksec
On iPhone Air
The C1, while slower, was a little more energy efficient. Signal Reception seems to be ok too. I am expecting the C1X to be even better.
Combined with A19 Pro, C1X, N1. I would expect Air to be more efficient than 16 Pro. So with that in mind,
The Air ~3100 mah, the 16 Pro ~3600 mach should have similar battery life, or may be just slightly less than 16 Pro, a little bit better than iPhone 15 Pro with 3274mah.
If that is the case I say Air is actually not bad. And we can look forward into the future for even more energy efficiency OLED, SoC and newer Battery Tech. That would make Air perfect.
Not to mention iPhone Air is a required training for foldable iPhone. Their competitors are already making foldable phone with one side at less than 5mm. And is currently being held back by USB-C port. Apple needs at least one or two generation of learning to move in that direction. And iPhone Air is exactly that.
I am really looking forward to al the iPhone review this year. It has been a long long time since the iPhone produce range was exciting.
List of iPhone Battery Capacity.
Model/Battery Life Battery Capacity (mAh)
iPhone 17 Pro Max: 5088 mAh (100%)
iPhone 16 Plus: 4,674 mAh
iPhone 15 Plus: 4,383 mAh
iPhone 17 Pro: 4252 mAh (84%)
iPhone 17: 3692 mAh (73%)
iPhone 16e: 4,005 mAh
iPhone 16 Pro: 3,582 mAh
iPhone 16: 3,561 mAh
iPhone 15 Pro: 3,274 mAh
iPhone 15: 3,349 mAh
iPhone 14 Pro: 3,200 mAh
iPhone Air: 3149 mAh (62%)
TheJoeMan
Reading the criticism, I just came to a completely opposite conclusion regarding the magsafe battery: is the iPhone Air the answer to the people complaining about no removable battery? Make the body thinner, still waterproof, and you can have multiple “external” batteries to clip on. Boom, battery life is “infinite”.
kristjansson
> these [AirPods and Apple Watch] are the Apple products I care the least, together with HomePods and Apple TV.
I won’t defend HomePods much, but skipping the other three misses a lot of the ecosystem value less technical consumers are getting. Turn your lights off with your TV remote. Go to a run with just your watch and headphones and take a call at mile 3. Approve a payment (or a sudo!) by double tapping your watch. Start a channel on your TV from Siri. And so on.
I’m not sure if Liquid Glass (that iOS 26 just insisted on capitalizing) is going to be worth anything, and definitely doesn’t merit the marquee. But the some of the design thinking is still there, beneath the surface, in the delightful interactions between parts of their ecosystem.
loughnane
I feel like these posts started popping up with increasing frequency over the last 10 years. At this point its almost a rite of passage to realize that Apple---though good in many ways---is far less than it's cracked up to be.
At least in tech circles.
acdha
Some of it is that the market has matured - going from not being connected to only connected on a desktop to everywhere on a phone with a real browser was a lot of changes you notice all day.
A child born on the day the first iPhone launched is old enough to vote now.
Many of those posts are being written by people who have been along for that ride, too, so it’s going to be hard to recapture that excitement after experiencing past hot products not changing your life. It’s like a middle aged American buying a new car - yeah, it’s nice but fundamentally nothing changes in your life and you’re never reclaiming the excitement of being 18 and going from marooned in a boring suburb to being able to travel, which is a transformative change even if it was in a clunky old hand-me-down.
jfengel
Tech circles have never particularly liked Apple. Sometimes they're right; sometimes they're just grumpy that non-techies like things that they don't.
I've been hearing that since before Slashdot dubbed the iPod lame. So I just kinda tune it out and wait to see whether people buy it or not.
notatoad
yeah, at some point every apple fanboy comes to the realization that the company isn't some magical force doing revolutionary things, they're just another tech company making consumer products. some of them are good, some of them are mediocre, all of them are designed to evoke an emotional response to extract more money from your wallet than the product is probably worth.
there's two responses to that realization: "oh, apple has lost it's way, this is the beginning of the end" or "oh, i was a bit silly for thinking apple was so special". the essays with no self-awareness are a bit tiresome.
FWIW, i pre-ordered an iPhone air. i'm not expecting it to be revolutionary, i just think it's neat. i needed a new phone this year and i'm fortunate enough that spending $300 more than the base model on "neat" seems reasonable.
jofzar
> As for the AirPods, and true wireless earbuds in general, I find this product category to be the most wasteful. Unless someone comes up with a type of earbuds that have easily replaceable batteries, I’m not interested in buying something that’s bound to become e‑waste in a relatively short period of time.
I'm not a apple fan (been windows most of my life till moving to a new company that is Mac only, and have been on android for about 13 years at this point) but the airpods pro are maybe apples greatest product in a while (other then the M1 macbooks).
The audio quality+noise cancellation+transparency quality made them a super easy buy and I would buy the app3 as soon as my app2 die that's how much I love them as a android user. This is coming from someone who owns multiple iems and very expensive over the ears.
From everything reported so far, the app3 look like a solid spec bump at the same price, there isn't many products that keep that formula.
Edit: I am disappointed that the OP didn't talk about how all the iPhones now have "pro-motion" aka high refresh rate screens.
This is (personally) one of the biggest step up in quality, I would never buy a baseline iPhone because 60 Hz just looks gross to me now, it's immediately noticeable.
chrisdelrosario
Re: “Sob stories” it’s easy to cynically dismiss this as just another marketing ploy, but I see two other ways to see it.
1. It’s primarily for the people at Apple and their partner manufacturers to realize and be reminded of the value of the work that they do.
2. It’s a message to the broader tech community that if you’re going to copy most of what we do, here’s a few that actually save lives.
Now will it sell more watches… probably. Is it a net positive? I think so.
esafak
OpenAI did the same thing in the GPT-5 launch. https://youtu.be/0Uu_VJeVVfo?t=2079
dcchambers
> What really got on my nerves during the Apple Watch segment of the event, though, is this: Apple always, always inserts a montage of sob stories about how the Apple Watch has saved lives, and what an indispensable life-saving device it is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad those lives were saved. But this kind of ‘showcase’ every year is made in such poor taste. It’s clear to me that it’s all marketing above everything else, that they just want to sell the product, and these people’s stories end up being used as a marketing tactic. It’s depressing.
Yeah, the trauma porn in Apple events has become quite annoying. We get it - if you don't have an Apple watch you're going to die.
DecoPerson
Some small carriers in Australia don't support eSIMs, even though they're required for Apple Watches and other devices, and also second phone numbers in phones without dual SIM card trays.
I'm hoping that the iPhone Air will make them prioritise eSIM support!
zeristor
Some carriers in the UK have been on the brink of providing eSIM support for several years, maybe Apple as often is the case can drive this forward.
I’m not sure what the issue is though, could it be a standards issue? Government tracking phone users? Someone being cut out of the money?
Answers please on a postcard.
jofzar
Seriously? Which ones don't support it, I actually have found more that are "esim only" these days (but I am someone who churns through ozbargain deals)
tra3
In the original announcement thread there was some speculation that the air is a precursor to folding models down the line. I hope that’s true.
layer8
A foldable iPhone has been pretty firmly rumored for fall 2026 for a while now, I think you can take it as virtually certain: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/foldable-iphone/
I don't think the Air is merely a precursor to the foldable, however. It's rather that the technological evolution that allowed for the 5mm thin iPad Pro last year allows for the Air this year and helps with the foldable next year (and thinner MacBooks are rumored as well). But the Air is probably there to stay as a separate form factor, assuming that it doesn't flop in terms of sales. The foldable will be much heavier and bulkier, more resembling a Pro Max.
avidiax
I want that speculation to be true, but I also don't think that the Air is a stepping stone towards that. The risky parts on a folding phone are the bending screen and the hinge and the software features.
The iPhone Air tests none of those things.
altern8tif
Seems a possibility for the medium term.
I've also seen speculation that it's an engineering experiment to see if they can squeeze all the essential components of a high-powered computer into a space the size of the camera plateau. Which may eventually lead to viable AR Glasses (or a cheaper Vision).
AIorNot
As a counterpoint: Apples has gotten so big that its user and customer base is not techies, they have moved into supporting our mainstream society as it operates today. They don't care about techies (at least primarily)
busymom0
I think that the awe actually dropped when Apple stopped doing in person live events instead of recorded ones.
The title is appropriate, in that it feels to me that most of the awe has gone out of these products/keynotes. This is maybe down more to the maturity of the category(/ies) than any fault of Apple's though. Perhaps they can be blamed for failing to introduce exciting products in new categories.
I do find that wireless earbuds actually last much longer than the wired variety, despite the non-replaceable batteries. Back in the day I went through one or two sets of earbuds a year because the wire failed internally, whereas I've only had two TWS pairs in ~six years (admittedly, it was the battery that became a problem in the first set). There's undoubtedly a lot more e-waste gubbins in each though.