a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  291 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: For when the nerd helmet isn’t nerdy enough

I wouldn't take that bet. Apple has always shown a much tighter control of their manufacturing chain than Microsoft, Nvidia or Sony - things got away from them a little during the pandemic but not compared to their peers.

I think there's exactly as many nerd helmets as they think they'll sell - and I'll bet they took the under rather than the over. It's a "developer" device, it's supported by the phones but not essential to the phones, and there is nothing - nothing - about that device that ties into their ecosystem.

The one thing Apple has always been willing to suck at? Gaming. Gaming has always been a commodified low-profit mess full of tweaker fanboyz with minimal loyalty and that's the polar opposite of typical apple buyers. So when I see Apple selling a device at a loss whose obvious, immediate, overarching use case is gaming? I can extrapolate without trepidation that they aren't making many 'cuz they aren't planning on selling many.

And sure. Someone out there may come up with a killer app. But when you've already locked out porn you're telling the world that any innovations will fit in your ecosystem, and your ecosystem is the most tightly controlled in the world.