or you can just look back at history.
"touchscreens suck, we want a PHYSICAL KEYBOARD" -2007
"websites don't load properly, we want FLASH" -2010
"we can't stream games from the cloud using Onlive because of the App Store, we want THIRD PARTY APP STORES" -2013
"i can't connect my headphones without a dongle, we want a HEADPHONE JACK" -2016
"iPhone looks ugly, REMOVE THE NOTCH" -2017
"lightning sucks, we want USB-C" -every year since lightning came out
yet Apple is selling iPhones and iPads juuuuuust fine.
That’s simplifying the question. Apple is frequently making radical changes, so certainly there will be very loud critiques every time. But there’s a difference between noise at introduction time and complains that are sustained in time.
Let’s take a look at the examples you cited. I agree apple was right on the first two examples. I’ll add to that list removing the floppy drive, then removing the dvd drive. There was also a lot of fuss about Jobs refusing to support blu ray. Macs weren’t better products for that, but in time it stopped being relevant.
Now, for the rest of your list. People complaining about app store are two subsets, those who genuinely want alternative software loading methods, and by now they must be on android, and epic and spotify ceos. Oh, and also Mark Zuckerberg. They have a clear interest on that side. So I wouldn’t qualify this one as customer complaining en masse.
Now, on the jack and usb-c, apple is doing a worse product. Everyone qould be better if we had the same charging standard, and we are getting nothing in return by being forced to use lightning. Those are not fatal flaws, and apple will keep selling lots and lots of phones in spite of that.
Now let’s go through some examples of complains and apple backtracking because customers were right.
The mac being neglected. At first, people who would defend apple no matter what refused to acknowledge said neglecting, often stating that what apple was selling was more than enough for anyone (some models unchanged in specs and pricing for years). Then the argument changed to “an ipad is all you’ll ever need, you’re stuck in the past”. Then the situation was so bad that even Cook had to send an internal memo to reassure apple’s workers that the mac was a very important part of the company and it will get attention once again.
Speaking of the mac, you possibly remember the amount of criticism the trashcan mac pro received. In a never before seen movement, apple publicly acknowledged they were wrong.
Lack of support for external drives on the ipad. After valid complaints they finally introduced it.
And last but not least, the not enough bashed butterfly keyboard. A design so atrocious that even using it in the vacuum wouldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t break, and so cleverly designed that a broken key would mean changing half the computer. After four years of stubbornly refusing to address the problem, apple had to reverse course.
So, is apple right disregarding every customer complaint? No, because they don’t. Apple is a company that is led by very smart people, who know that taking risks has some inherent criticism associated, but that also know how to listen to their customers.
I would categorize the touchbar as the headphone jack and usbc. It doesn’t make better the product, but it won’t harm the sales, so I guess we’re stuck with it at least until a major redesign.
