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sam henri gold

just a heads up for anyone with an apple card: they’re doing 10% cash back on groceries through the end of the month. i didn’t know this was a thing until i got $7 back from stop and shop 🤯 offers.applecard.apple/grocery

20 comments
Mike Beasley

@samhenrigold guessing instacart probably won’t count

[DATA EXPUNGED]
Chance Miller

@samhenrigold @MikeBeas i think (uness it's changed) the offer is targeted, so not everyone is eligible

Григорий Клюшников

Slightly offtopic — am I the only one who's mildly annoyed that Apple, the company that made itself famous by building outstanding computer hardware and software, is now also a bank and a movie studio? Steve must be spinning in his grave so furiously.

sam henri gold

@grishka It's perfectly valid; their services push has definitely hurt UX overall stevestreza.com/2020/02/17/ios

D. Griffin Jones

@grishka Why? Apple can be all of those things. Steve’s Apple has always been about outstanding hardware + software + services; Tim only gave services a promotion to top billing.

Steve had iTunes, iTools & .Mac, MobileMe, iAd and an iPhoto printing service. He also literally tried to make a credit card himself back in 2004:

kensegall.com/2019/05/20/the-g

sam henri gold

@dgriffinjones @grishka I feel like those examples under Steve could be grouped into three distinct categories: "digital hub", "enhancing the mac experience", and "developer". So everything felt targeted and purposeful even if the execution was a bit shit. But here it feels more...aimless? Like a high yield savings account or actually running a production studio for feature films and then vying for academy awards. I just find it weird for the brand; it's Colgate Lasagna.

Григорий Клюшников

sam henri gold, Colgate Lasagna! That's a neat phrase. It makes me imagine something that looks like a lasagna but is in cold colors and tastes like toothpaste.

It's almost like Apple Car... oh wait.

D. Griffin Jones

@samhenrigold @grishka I think Apple’s philosophy has always been to enter a product category if they believe they can do markedly better than the competition, either in strategy or design. They weren’t into personal electronics until the iPod, because they could do better than the crap MP3 players. They weren’t into selling music until the iTunes Music Store, because they envisioned the online era of buying music that record labels refused to make. They weren’t into cellphones until the iPhone, because, well, everyone knows that story.

The Apple Card feels like a natural extension of Apple Pay to me, making a better credit card experience than the predatory shit that’s common in fintech. Apple Arcade is a natural extension of the App Store, making a better experience than the IAP monster they actually created themselves earlier.

@samhenrigold @grishka I think Apple’s philosophy has always been to enter a product category if they believe they can do markedly better than the competition, either in strategy or design. They weren’t into personal electronics until the iPod, because they could do better than the crap MP3 players. They weren’t into selling music until the iTunes Music Store, because they envisioned the online era of buying music that record labels refused to make. They weren’t into cellphones until the iPhone,...

D. Griffin Jones

@samhenrigold @grishka I’ll admit, the only one it doesn’t work for is Apple TV+. People praised them upon launch for mimicking the HBO strategy of quality-over-quantity, but clearly that was out of necessity of starting from zero, not because they wanted to. They’re shoveling out shows at an incredible pace and some have been real stinkers. Same as anyone else.

Григорий Клюшников

D. Griffin Jones, but you do have to draw the line somewhere, don't you? I have to admit, I very much dislike the modern IT industry for how nothing ever has a limited, well-defined scope. The scope always expands. No one builds a product that does one thing outstandingly well and then just... stops, and goes on to work on other, unrelated projects, sometimes fixing bugs that users encounter. No, now your taxi app also delivers food (natural extension kinda, right?), your social media app pivots to entertainment so hard you can't just ignore it, your music streaming app starts doing podcasts, etc etc.

What you end up with is this. It used to be a Middle Eastern taxi app. It's now this monster of a super-app that tries to encompass all possible transportation-/delivery-related services and then some:

D. Griffin Jones, but you do have to draw the line somewhere, don't you? I have to admit, I very much dislike the modern IT industry for how nothing ever has a limited, well-defined scope. The scope always expands. No one builds a product that does one thing outstandingly well and then just... stops, and goes on to work on other, unrelated projects, sometimes fixing bugs that users encounter. No, now your taxi app also delivers food (natural extension kinda, right?), your social media app pivots...

Григорий Клюшников

Григорий, so yeah, the software I'm writing this from, Smithereen, does have a limited scope. I plan to call it complete at some point and then just stop actively developing it. I do have lots of features planned, most of which no one has attempted in a federated social media service before, but it's still a finite number. Like photo albums with tagging. Or global search for users with bloom filters for peer servers (this needs testing in practice).

Григорий Клюшников

D. Griffin Jones, I feel obliged to point out that your pixel-art profile picture fits pixel-perfectly into my comment layout.

D. Griffin Jones

@grishka It’s 32 × 32! It’s as big of an icon as one could ever possibly need

Sören

@grishka @samhenrigold hard to say. Many of the mantras he applied at Apple were because he was trying to reform a failing company, ca. 1997. Dramatically simplified line-up and all.

By 2011, the company had grown, but the massive growth spurt happened right after his death. So it’s difficult to extrapolate how he would’ve run a 2023 Apple.

Sören

@grishka @samhenrigold he was also against music subscriptions, for example. He thought music was something you wanted to own; something very personal. But perhaps he would’ve eventually understood, with Spotify’s rise, that this was a very 1960s take for a 2020s world.

yakkoj 🦊

@samhenrigold it appears that this offer is only valid if you pay using Apple Pay, which excludes Walmart in-store because Walmart is STUPID and doesn't support tap to pay at all.

(I hope I'm wrong and you can get this offer by using the physical card with EMV.)

(((Jann Gobble)))🏳️‍🌈

@samhenrigold @mikebrew You spent $70 at Stop & Shop? (Isn’t that a convenience store?)

Real question, sorry…no offense.

sam henri gold

@jann @mikebrew none taken!! and it’s a proper grocery store here in new england, with an in-house delivery service (Peapod) and everything. i bought breakfast and salad stuff to prep for the week so it was a little more than when i normally buy food for a day or two

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