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We did a bunch of user testing, and it turned out that it didn't work. Touch surfaces should not be vertical. It looks great during a demonstration, but you get tired quickly, and after a long time the hand just falls off. This doesn't work. This is terrible from an ergonomic point of view. This is Steve Jobs in 2010 explaining why Apple would never make a touchscreen in a Mac. His argument, as you saw, was simple. Try holding your hand in front of your laptop screen for a few minutes and you'll understand why. But recently Apple released this. This was the third new product that Apple introduced in October. On the 13th, it was a smart home display. The design is beautiful and the watch faces
look great, but I'm sure everyone has a phone at home, and probably a Bluetooth speaker. So personally I would choose them, but maybe I'm not understanding something. why did they create it? I've been using this for almost the entire day and I can't figure out what group of people it's actually perfect for. On the 23rd-a foldable phone priced from $2,000. I'm walking to the car, I heard this sound when I opened it, and oh no. Oh, I thought he survived. And recently in Los Angeles-a MacBook Pro that you can touch. That's three completely different product categories in four weeks. Apple hasn't acted this fast in
over a decade. Of course, it's easy to look at this and say, "Wow, Apple really lost its way." or something like: "John Turnus doesn't know what he's doing." But I don't think that's entirely true. Think about this. Apple has once again overtaken Nvidia and become the most valuable company in the world. As I write this, all AI-related stocks are falling. Despite all the complexity of what artificial intelligence means for technology , it seems that Apple believes in the bright future of hardware and is finally experimenting again to understand what works. While some are excited about the iPhone Duo, it's clear that these experiments have some growing pains. People are breaking
Duo screens with little effort, and there has been a wave of returns on this $2,000 device. It's not the best start, but in the long run, betting on equipment may be the right decision. I'll go into more detail on this later in the release. And something else in this conversation. While everyone is cutting out that part of Jobs' 2010 presentation about the touch laptop, less is said about the fact that the man who runs Apple today also said that a touch Mac was not needed. John Turnus told The Wall Street Journal in 2021: "We are, quote, building the world's best touchscreen computer-it's the iPad. Mac is fully optimized for indirect input. We see no reason to change that." End of quote. John was just one of many
who had been against the touchscreen laptop for years, but Apple released it anyway. So, what has changed? Why does Apple, the largest company in the world, do so many unusual things at the same time? Let's find out. You are watching ColdFusion TV. In the late 90s, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company was 90 days away from bankruptcy, and the product line had degenerated into an incomprehensible mess. For example, there were a dozen Macintosh models with names like Performa 6400 and Quadra 950. What's the difference between them? Who knows? And that was the problem.
Consumers were confused and profits were falling. Steve Jobs saw this chaos in the product line and genuinely hated it. It is known that he drew a simple two-by- two grid on a blackboard. The segments were as follows: consumer and professional, stationary and portable. Only four squares, and everything that didn't fit into them was eliminated. This decision became the foundation of everything Apple has become. The idea is to say "no" and produce fewer products, but refine them to perfection. This has become a doctrine. Apple comes late, but comes with a perfect product.
Never release a compromise or something you're not 100% sure about. So it's only natural that now that Apple has released a version of the MacBook that Jobs had spoken out against so directly and almost vehemently, it's become news. But I think this shouldn't be news anymore, because Apple has repeatedly broken Jobs' rules before. For example, he said that 7-inch tablets are doomed to failure, and the iPad mini is still in the lineup. In fact, a new form of rule-breaking is expected at almost every presentation. Steve Jobs resisted big phones, and then the Plus and Max models became some of the best- selling phones in history. And now, well, we have Vision Pro. But this October felt different because not
only did they break Jobs' fundamental rules for products, they did it at three presentations in one month. And this is just a few months after John Turnus took over the company. So, instead of breaking one of Steve Jobs' rules once every few years, they did it three times in one month, which begs the obvious question: why now? The iPhone is 19 years old. It still generates the majority of Apple's revenue, and Apple is a company with revenue of over $400 billion a year. So, the iPhone is, by almost any measure, the most successful consumer product in history. But on the other hand, the iPhone was the last product that changed everything, not just for Apple, but for the entire industry.
Capacitive multitouch and installing Mac OS software on the phone were real breakthroughs, as noted earlier on Cold Fusion. But since then, silence has reigned here. The Apple Watch and AirPods have become hits, but they are more of accessories than revolutionary products. However, it cannot be said that Apple is not trying. The Apple car project lasted almost a decade before it was shut down. According to some reports, $10 billion went down the drain. You can watch my episode about it here. The Vision Pro, while technically impressive, was largely a $3,500 flop. Apple's home products performed worse compared to Amazon and Google. And the new HomePod in 2026 is considered by many to be a confusing product
. It's stuck between the Apple Watch and the iPad, being neither. Speaking of the iPad, Apple declared 10 years ago that it was the future of computing. Hey, what are you doing on your computer? And what is a computer? But now they seem to be trying not to cannibalize iPad sales, even though they're doing it anyway: creating a foldable device the size of an iPad Mini without iPad software and a touchscreen MacBook that doesn't run iPad apps is evidence of just that. So, in short, after the iPhone became obsolete and the iPad failed to become the next big thing, Apple is experimenting again. They are no longer afraid to take risks, and
that is only for the better. Of course, there is another part to this story. This is everyone's favorite - AI. Apple remained silent while every competitor released models at a frankly exhausting rate. The optimistic interpretation is that the doctrine works exactly as intended. Just look around. China's AI sector has already collapsed, and the US AI sector is also in the process of collapsing. Almost a trillion dollars was lost in a few days. Since this is a stock market, it will likely recover soon, but the macroeconomic picture doesn't look good. OpenAI is trying to raise money. Interest rates are rising. Once- profitable companies are going into debt to finance AI data centers, but ironically, investors are starting to see building such
centers as too risky. Because of this, investors demand higher interest rates on loans, which is a real "grenade" for the financial health of the industry. The thing is, there is no significant financial return from artificial intelligence yet. Apple was just waiting to see what would happen with artificial intelligence, and so far their signal has been to stay away, at least in the realm of advanced models. I believe Apple is betting that the future won't be entirely about artificial intelligence alone. They're betting that the next platform will be a device you hold in your hands, tastefully integrated with AI. So unobtrusive that users don't even have to be aware that AI is running in the background
. But all of this brings me back to John Turnus, as his leadership style is known for saying "no" a lot, yet this feels like the complete opposite. He may have said no to diving headfirst into AI, but the flurry of new products feels like the complete opposite of his usual stance. On September 1 of this year, John Turnus became the fourth CEO in Apple's history. Tim Cook has moved to the position of executive chairman. You can learn more about it here. Cook was somewhat the opposite of John. His strength was supply chains. Tim was probably the greatest supply chain professional who ever lived. John Turnus, meanwhile, is a hardware engineer. He managed hardware for years. Since 2011,
consumers and the public have been wondering what great hardware Apple will bring next. John Turnus was the most likely person to make this happen. And the first thing he did was start closing projects. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo , Ternus has completely removed the Vision Pro successors from Apple's roadmap. The lighter and cheaper Vision Air was canceled, and development of the Vision Pro 2 was frozen. These resources are now being redirected to smart glasses. The Vision product group has already been disbanded. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Ternus was always internally against the Vision Pro, and it is known that it also opposed the creation of an Apple car. Gurman claims that Ternus plans to be a sole
decision-maker, instead of managing products through committees, which is almost verbatim replica of how people have described Steve Jobs. So, ultimately, that's the difference. Steve Jobs was closing products because Apple was creating too many of them. And John Turnus is expanding into new categories because Apple hasn't found the next " big thing" after the iPhone. But is this a good strategy? The result can be anything. A series of product failures could damage Apple's brand. But, on the other hand, experiments can bring them success. What's really unclear here is whether such a large company can still find a breakthrough simply by looking for one. Will the " try everything and see what
happens" method work? The difference with Jobs was that he wasn't looking. He would have an idea, and then he would force his staff to make it happen. He bet everything on it. Today, Apple has the resources to test everything. This is definitely an advantage, but it can also be something that prevents any individual bet from getting the confidence it needs. Overall, however, this is not just an Apple problem. The world is changing rapidly on all fronts. With the rise of artificial intelligence and a general sense of stagnation in technology, it is harder than ever for industry leaders to see the future. In 2005, when the development of the iPhone began, technology, like the world itself, was much simpler. Therefore,
the vision of the future product was clearer. So, what do you think? Is Apple acting boldly or is it confused and doesn't know what to do next? Times are tough right now, because when a new product comes out, society as a whole starts to think: " Nobody asked for this." Let me know what you think in the comments. If you want to catch up or get ahead of others in math or programming, you should try Brilliant. Instead of simply giving you an answer, the service asks leading questions, provides visual clues, and pushes you to solve the problem yourself. For example, I was taking their Python thinking course and got stuck on one problem. Instead of searching for an answer, I could immediately ask for help, and that's what I really
like. Brilliant sees what you're working on, explains where you might have gone wrong, and helps you understand the logic behind the solution. Brilliant also makes learning more practical with interactive tasks that adapt to your progress. It's like having a personal tutor available anytime, without the need to schedule lessons or pay for individual sessions. And personally, I think this is a much more interesting approach to education. Instead of simply memorizing answers, you are actually developing the ability to solve problems on your own. You can get started with Brilliant for free by clicking the link below or scanning the QR code on the screen. You can upgrade to the premium version or full tutor support with unlimited access to all
Brilliant content. And now, Cold Fusion viewers can save 20% on an annual subscription at brilliant.org/coldfusion. I'll leave you with one more thought. Steve Jobs realized that every one of his successors would take his words about products as the ultimate truth. At the end of his life, he wanted to stop it. During a speech to Apple employees at Jobs' memorial service in 2011, Tim Cook revealed that Steve gave him one last piece of advice. Never ask yourself the question: "What would Steve Jobs do?" So, that's all I wanted to say. My name is Dagogo, you watched Cold Fusion and I will see you soon in the next episode. Goodbye, friends. Have a nice day.
Cold Fusion is a new way of thinking.
