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> Apple has offered products with little value over competitors

I'm genuinely surprised by this comment.

For example, I thought there was universal sentiment that apple silicon / M-series computers are pretty unmatched.

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The overwhelming volume of Apples sales comes from people who wouldn't notice if their device was running 2016 level hardware.

If software didn't keep getting worse this might be true but the average consumer notices if their computer is slow or dies too quickly.

It's sad how hardware improves leaps every year but software still does the same things but slower.

But competitors do the same

> The overwhelming volume of Apples sales comes from people who wouldn't notice if their device was running 2016 level hardware.

How could we possibly know this? This is just an argument from elitism, as though the plebes should be happy playing Farmville on their gateway computers, while us haughty developers sit in our ivory towers and herald in the end of the anthropocene using machines we can actually appreciate.


> How could we possibly know this?

They make a good point. Apple's most-popular device is a smartphone that doesn't handle workloads any heavier than Snapchat or Instagram. The value prop of the iPhone is not rooted in the performance or battery life (as Liquid Glass showed us) but just the branding.

Apple makes more money selling iPhone accessories than they make selling Macs. The desktop market share isn't going up, the Mac's lifeline is depreciation of old hardware to force Mac owners into the upgrade cycle: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...


> They make a good point. Apple's most-popular device is a smartphone that doesn't handle workloads any heavier than Snapchat or Instagram. The value prop of the iPhone is not rooted in the performance or battery life (as Liquid Glass showed us) but just the branding.

It's not a good point, it's an assumption based on elitism, just like your assumption that nobody is doing anything other than Snapchat or Instagram on their phones, or that they're only buying an iPhone because of the branding and not also the performance and battery life. In your head, what do you think the average iPhone user looks like? Are they drooling simpletons?

> Apple makes more money selling iPhone accessories than they make selling Macs. You look at the desktop market share in 2026 and it's very apparent that the Mac's regular upgrade cycle is driving Apple's sales, not direct competition: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...

What point are you trying to make here? People like the iPhone, the iPhone makes a shitload of money, so therefore people who have Macs don't appreciate the hardware? Or what?

Also, StatCounter is not an accurate website:

https://daringfireball.net/2026/01/ios_26_adoption_rate_is_n...

https://daringfireball.net/2026/02/apple_releases_ios_26_ado...


Almost nobody is doing anything other than Snapchat or Instagram on their iPhones. That's the point, "the overwhelming volume of Apple sales" was the original claim and they're absolutely right. Compare every single Apple product on volume and you will not approach the volume of iPhones being sold. Even cult-classic product lines like the Mac cannot hold a candle in comparison to Airpods sales volume.

If the iPhone was a branded Android device, then sure, maybe this would be an elitist argument. But the iPhone is a proprietary platform with a locked-down browser, locked-down store, locked-down GPU drivers and OTA updates that decide how long your battery lasts. It is not elitist to point out that Apple customers by-and-large ignore these facts, it's the objective circumstances of the smartphone market.


iPhones are some sci-fi magic computers. It's incredible how powerful they are.

Most smartphones are.


Be that as it may, I can guarantee you with complete confidence that 90% of iPhone owners are not engaged in heavy workloads.

The overwhelming majority of people just don't notice.


> For example, I thought there was universal sentiment that apple silicon / M-series computers are pretty unmatched.

5 years ago, sure, but the x86 world has come a long way since Apple dumped Intel. I'd certainly take a 2026 Intel machine over something with an M1-M3.


I think the point was supposed to be default apps in an OS, similar to default search engine.. What I am missing is that OpenAI is in no way that default. Every OS, browser, etc should be able to find a more profitable default than sending someone to OpenAI.



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