Tag: apple

Mental Accounting: Joy

MIKE2 Comments

When message board posters wondered about how much money Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak might have if he hadn’t sold his stock he told them.

But in his accounting:

“I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.”

https://m.slashdot.org/story/445414

AI taking our Jobs (to be done)

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From Ben Thompson speaking on Sharp Tech in June 2024 about the Apple Intelligence demo from WWDC.

“No, what I found striking from the Apple event was it was a vision of how this will work in normal people’s lives, and it was a clearly articulated vision. Like if Siri cannot ingest all your old text messages and tell you what someone’s address is, or if Siri can work across emails and calendars.

That was the single best demo, was the woman who needed to pick up her mom…And there was information scattered across text messages and email. It was so relatable. Like we have all been in that situation.

What time is the flight? Where was the dinner reservation? Having to sort of go across apps and just being able to find the stuff.”

Thompson references this video, where Steve Jobs notes what Apple needs to do: “and the Apple brand has clearly suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years, and we need to bring it back. The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and feeds, it’s not to talk about bits and megahertz, it’s not to talk about why we’re better than windows.”

The economics of iPhone cases

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I tried, and failed, to get a photo of this issue.

For Christmas my youngest daughter got an iPhone. It was BOGO when you add a line, so I got a new iPhone too. For simplicity sake I ordered us Apple cases with the phones. And my case sucks. The silicon marigold iPhone 13 case is the worst I’ve ever owned.

But why?

Apple products are good. The computer I’m typing this on is an Apple product. If it’s read on a phone odds are one-in-three it’s an iPhone. Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world – and has been for many years. What’s going on?

Well first, value is relative. If something is bad, it’s bad relative to what? My previous Smartish and Speck ($12 & $8 respectively) cases were more durable and provided prolonged protection on earlier inferior designed products. I think Apple cases are bad because they lack competition.

Apple, like Aldi, competes in a special way. Both are A+ companies and both compete outside the store. The goal is to get people inside, and if customers come in, they’ve got them. So Apple doesn’t convince me to buy the silicon marigold case rather than the leather case. No, Apple just wants me to buy Apple.

Aldi cereal is a visual example of this model, the boxes are bland (here in B&W) because they don’t have to grab the customer’s attention in the store. Contrast this with Walmart or Amazon where the competition is both inside and outside.

Smartish or Speck compete in the bedlam of Amazon. These cases have to throw sharp elbows in the arena of good, fast, and cheap. I found the Smartish case via a Wirecutter review, so it has to stand out as well. Ditto for Speck.

That said, I don’t know if the Apple case should even be good. Apple’s advantage is packaged hardware and software, not being best in class on accessories. Apple doesn’t sell a great phone case, instead the JTBD is ease and brand.