Welcome to our Apple Breakfast column, which incorporates all the Apple information you missed final week in a useful bite-sized roundup. We name it Apple Breakfast as a result of we predict it goes nice with a morning cup of espresso or tea, but it surely’s cool if you wish to give it a learn throughout lunch or dinner hours too.
The cash of coloration
Video video games have modified in a number of constructive methods since I used to be mad at them within the Nineteen Nineties, from improved graphics to a broader outlook that caters, with solely a small quantity of acrimony, to hardcore and informal avid gamers alike. However one factor that’s acquired indisputably worse is the rising dominance of downloadable content material (DLC) tradition, the place studios shamelessly launch half-finished video games after which milk their most loyal followers with years of subscriptions and paid-for extras. It makes me nostalgic for the times while you solely needed to pay as soon as for an everlasting masterpiece like Cannon Fodder or Smart World of Soccer.
Why are you serious about DLC, David? As a result of this week Apple repeated its annual trick of launching a brand new coloration halfway via an iPhone technology, wowing followers with the joy of a yellow enclosure. I really feel about delayed coloration launches a lot the identical method I really feel about DLC. I don’t approve.
“Yellow” shouldn’t be a superb new invention that Apple has had its engineers engaged on for the previous six months. The corporate might very simply have launched the yellow iPhone 14 alongside the opposite coloration finishes final fall, but it surely determined to not for one easy cause: launching a brand new coloration is a intelligent technique to achieve consideration and enhance a product simply as gross sales are falling off. It’s a cynical technique to seize just a few headlines and flog just a few additional models.
The place does the shopper determine in all this, aside from as a income? Barely in any respect. Apple isn’t making an attempt to ship one of the best expertise to the most individuals, however to hamper their selection in a method that’s calculated to generate the utmost revenue.
In the event you have been shopping for an iPhone 14 final September and particularly like the colour yellow, you confronted a selection between two compromises: both purchase a telephone in a coloration you don’t like as a lot, or wait, hope Apple benevolently picks yellow as its bonus coloration this cycle, after which find yourself shopping for your new telephone at a time that’s much less handy. The identical selection confronted green-loving iPhone 13 consumers in 2022, and pro-purple iPhone 12 clients in 2021; compromise on coloration, or compromise on timing. And the identical might apply to these loyal early adopters who purchased the second-gen HomePod earlier this 12 months however—as was the case with the HomePod mini—might gaze longingly on the extra coloration choices that launch halfway via the product’s lifespan. It’s all deeply irritating and the polar reverse of placing the shopper first.
However this coverage, of intentionally holding again interesting components of a product so you possibly can promote the improve additional down the road, ties in with a broader technique of which Apple is usually suspected. Why did Apple take so lengthy to deliver a big display screen to the iPhone, or a stylus to the iPad? Why did widgets and night time mode land a lot afterward iOS than they did on Android? Perhaps it’s as a result of the corporate knew it might promote its gadgets with out these options within the brief time period, and that they’d be helpful afterward when it wanted to influence clients to purchase the following technology. Every Apple product is competing with its personal predecessor simply as a lot as with up to date merchandise from rival producers, and this implies the corporate is motivated to leak out helpful options as slowly as attainable: launch the proper iPhone tomorrow and also you’ve simply killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.
I don’t count on Apple to alter its methods any greater than I count on online game publishers to cease promoting DLC. There’s an excessive amount of of a monetary incentive; the market has spoken. But it surely does make me frown every spring when a brand new iPhone coloration seems and we’re all purported to be happy. What use is that this now, Tim Apple? What am I purported to do with this silly blue telephone I’ve been carrying round for six months? Do you suppose I’m made of cash?
Foundry
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The Mac is about to enter a efficiency supercycle like we’ve by no means seen.
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If Apple loves music a lot, why can’t it get streaming proper?
Apple Music Classical will launch on March 28 with the ‘world’s largest’ catalog.
From charging to Face ID, Michael Simon debunks 3 latest iPhone myths.
Apple Music Classical has arrived within the App Retailer eventually… but it surely’s nonetheless on “pre-order.”
The rumor mill
Does the yellow iPhone affirm there gained’t be an Apple spring occasion?
Apple’s rumored $700 worth hike for the iPad Professional is as ridiculous as rumors get.
The newest iPhone 15 leaks affirm main upgrades for all 4 fashions.
A HomePod with a display screen will reportedly launch within the first half of 2024.
Apple’s spring shock might be the early arrival of the M3 MacBook Air.
A new iMac may lastly arrive later this 12 months.
Podcast of the week
In Episode 831: Your sizzling takes on the yellow iPhone, Clear Power Charging, and upcoming new Macs.
You’ll be able to catch each episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our personal website.
Software program updates, bugs & issues
Apple has launched tvOS 16.3.3, which features a repair for a long-running Siri Distant disconnection drawback.
And with that, we’re performed for this week. In the event you’d prefer to get common roundups, join our newsletters. You can even observe us on Twitter or on Fb for dialogue of breaking Apple information tales. See you subsequent Saturday, take pleasure in the remainder of your weekend, and keep Appley.
