Lengthy-time readers of his column will know that the Macalope is just not above grazing on low-hanging fruit. Removed from it. To begin with, who doesn’t like a pleasant piece of fruit? Second, it’s proper there. At mouth degree.
C’mon.
So, you may suppose he’s going to chomp right into a mouthful of Mark Zuckerberg’s feedback about Apple on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Sure, the man who acquired Instagram and purchased Oculus and purchased WhatsApp and purchased Messenger thinks Apple doesn’t invent something anymore.
Okay.
No, the Macalope goes to eschew Zuckerberg’s bitter barbs and as an alternative check out, effectively, another low-hanging fruit: Dell’s rebranding effort. (Look, the Macalope’s not fabricated from stone. In the event that they don’t need the Macalope to graze on it, cease hanging it so low.)
For an organization that doesn’t make something anymore, Apple certain will get copied lots. This time, nonetheless, it’s names.
Dell introduced that it’s ditching names like “Inspiron” and “Latitude” in favor of some it completely got here up with by itself, what are you even speaking about, they resent the suggestion: Dell, Dell Professional, and, um, Dell Professional Max.
Any similarity to current product names, residing or lifeless, is solely coincidental.
Michael Dell even obtained right into a huff when referred to as out on it:
… I requested CEO Michael Dell a easy query: “What does Dell acquire by copying Apple?” For sure, he didn’t look happy.
He all the time seems like that. He’s obtained resting Michael Dell face.
This obtained the Macalope desirous about firms copying Apple, from smartphones to laptop computer designs to even product naming conventions. We snigger about it, nevertheless it actually does a disservice to the trade as a complete.
And, to be clear, it’s not simply different firms copying Apple, though they definitely take their cues from Apple. Let’s be beneficiant and name it extra of a herd mentality. The market is meant to offer us selection, however fairly often it settles on a selected kind of product and everybody makes small variations of it. (Firms even herd on how a lot to donate to incoming U.S. presidential administrations which have mentioned they’ll put tariffs on firms that don’t play ball.)
IDG
Let’s discuss small telephones.
Sure, once more.
No, you recover from it.
Not solely does Apple not make a small cellphone anymore, nevertheless it continues to bump its current display screen sizes each couple of years. Reportedly, the scale of the bottom iPhone 17–the present one, at a not-insubstantial 6.1 inches, having been ranked by Marques Brownlee as one of the best small cellphone of 2024–will enhance to six.3 inches.
The Macalope is perhaps tempted to huff dramatically and recommend that he’ll merely take his enterprise elsewhere (like he would actually do this aside from as a stunt), however he merely can’t. There aren’t any. All of those firms making smartphones and you’ll’t get a small one.
Nicely, that’s not fully true. You possibly can’t get a name-brand small cellphone. Some considerably fly-by-night firms promote telephones with screens as small as 4 inches, however they’ve slower processors, decrease high quality supplies, and poor to no assist.
Android Authority helpfully offers lists of one of the best small smartphones of no matter 12 months of our Lord it occurs to be. The issue is, the definition of “small” has turn out to be so warped by the present obsession with making plane carrier-sized telephones that every one the telephones on the checklist have screens which might be 6.1 inches or bigger.
That’s not a small cellphone.
Residing within the Apple ecosystem has all the time meant coping with fewer decisions, however the entire name-brand smartphone producers have merely determined that each cellphone needs to be massive. As Apple got here comparatively late to bigger telephones, lets say this was an occasion of the corporate copying others. However nonetheless you chicken-and-egg this, nobody is focusing on individuals who may need smaller telephones. The Macalope bit the bullet and upgraded to the 6.1-inch iPhone 16 this previous fall, now he’s listening to he must go a 6.3-inch cellphone if he desires to improve once more?
Ungulates are often all for herding, however that is getting ridiculous.
