All I want from Apple is a drastic simplification of their systems across the platforms and a radical redesign, but done right and with proper care and some inspiration this time. I feel strongly that the user has been put in behind and technology forward. You can see it throughout their systems where there's something that's doing something but looking and controlling like it was made for different device and by different people. Apple is not fun anymore because they rush things and are ok with good enough work. They're lazy. And I agree that they seek profit first.
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Disenchanted After a Decade
- Thread starter djlythium
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I have a PowerBook 180 that still boots and functions.... The build quality on Mac's has gone down detectably over the years, but they're still better than the competition IMO.
As someone who has been committed to the Apple ecosystem for three decades, my perspective is that the state of the ecosystem is better now than it has been for most of that time.
Do I wish Siri was usable? Yes!
Do I wish I could use an iPad without feeling like one hand is tied behind my back? Yes!
Am I really unhappy with Mail.app data loss? Absolutely.
Still, there is so much that is better now, and it looks to me like it is moving in the right direction.
Do I wish Siri was usable? Yes!
Do I wish I could use an iPad without feeling like one hand is tied behind my back? Yes!
Am I really unhappy with Mail.app data loss? Absolutely.
Still, there is so much that is better now, and it looks to me like it is moving in the right direction.
Sure I get that, but after using and buying Apple products since the Lisa, I'd say my investment in the company should be recognised. Moreover, I have an interest in Apple sustaining good corporate health, because if the company went bust I would lose my investment in hardware, software, and training. And I note it is not as though Apple has a crystal ball. They have seriously misjudged things in the past, and not paying attention to customers is hubris. Jobs is gone - they can't get away with the same behaviour they used to.
And as a customer, I'd say there are things they haven't cleaned up for decades: For instance, the Finder cannot be set permanently to dynamically resize a pane to display full file names. Instead, Finder windows default to showing abbreviated versions of long names (with ellipses in the middle) in spite of displaying blank panes that take up as much as 50% of the window without showing one iota of information. You have to click on a control each time a Finder window is open to make it show full names. This is a pain for those of us who are scientists because datafile names tend to be long. I get the feeling that Apple designs the machines that fit with its corporate lifestyle, and is gradually losing touch with customers outside that environment as a consequence. Just my 2 cents...
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And I had a 2012 MBA that ran just as well as the day I bought it that I just sold to someone else who will likely use it for years more to come. We can all share good and bad anecdotes about both older and newer Macs. That's my point - the quality is consistent IMO. You also have to consider that people are more vocal about issues these days with social media than in the past, and of course the majority of people are using newer Macs, not older ones, so it stands to reason you have heard and are going to hear about problems with new Macs more often than old ones. That doesn't mean the build quality is lesser. And of course more newer Macs have been manufactured than older ones.
Likewise. Still using a 2015 MBA loaded with OS12 beta (Monterey)
If Apple were to place customers on its Board of Directors, how do you think Apple should select candidates? How many board seats do you think should be allocated to customers?
I'm not trying to troll you. I'm truly interested in hearing how you believe such a move should be implemented and how all the interests of Apple's global and heterogenous customer base could be effectively represented.
Personally, I don't think Apple has a great board as it is. Al Gore, for example, doesn't bring much to the table other than a marquee name (with only second or third billing these days!). But replacing him with, say, a professional activist or an iPhone influencer from YouTube probably would be detrimental to the goal of pursuing "good corporate health", particularly in matters of strategy, mergers and acquisitions, financial policy, and long term planning. At least Al Gore mostly stays out of the way.
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Edited to fix a misspelling and for clarity.
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I was a full-time Mac user from 1986 through 2013. I've also used MS-DOS and various versions of Windows, from 3.1 through Windows 7, and then Windows 10. When I stopped being a full-time Mac user, I became a full-time Linux user. I still consider Linux (and in particular, Linux Mint) to be my primary, daily-driver OS. Now, I have an M1 MacBook Air.
In parallel with all of the above, I've used several different major release versions of Android on numerous phones, starting with a Samsung Moment (total garbage) and currently a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra (amazing device). I also have a Samsung Galaxy Active2 and Galaxy Watch 3 smart watches. Way back when, I also owned an iPhone 4S and used whatever version(s) of iOS it ran for the ~2 years I had it.
As far as the quality of tech, which is in essence what djlythium (who, I presume, is a Star Trek nerd kind of person) started this thread out talking about, I think Apple is running up against the limits of its deeply-ingrained philosophies, as basically given to it by Steve Jobs. They are constrained by the fact that they want to be a hyper-profitable business with its own ecosystem and as close to total control over it as they can get away with (in the sense of Economics 101 and the marketplace) or are allowed to have over it (in the sense of statutory and regulatory restrictions on business). Are their users ill-served by this? Yes, I think they are.
Are they catastrophically ill-served by this? Well, I think that's a bit more complicated of a question to answer, and requires some significant nuance.
In my view, the only OS which presently exists which is truly worthy of full and unflinching respect is the libre-licensed, open-sourced GNU+Linux OS. In my view, no OS (and really, no individual software project) is worthy of too much respect if it restricts its users' rights to do what they will with it, and also to be able to peer-review its code on an "any time, anywhere" basis. The flip side of that coin is that, in certain specific situations like the mainstream palmtop form factor space, Apple's stance on user data privacy, restriction of ads and marketing, etc., make it ethically less bad than, for example, Alphabet's own stance. It's not a perfect situation, and it's also not a circumstance where end users can, let's say, eat their cake and have it to (to go back to the source of that expression) because other platforms which do a "perfect" job with user privacy and rights respect and defense (Purism, for example) do not also offer mainstreamness to their users, meaning the average user would have serious issues trying to use them in lieu of an Android OS- or iOS-based device.
I cannot speak to macOS 10.14.0 → 11.1 (or thereabouts; not sure precisely which version was initially loaded "OOB" on my M1 MBA), and in fact I can only minimally speak to 10.7 → 10.13.6. However, what I have used has always been pretty stable and reliable, though I am aware of their being many issues Mac users have faced in recent times, on both the software and hardware sides of the platform.
I'd also add to that that I think much of what Apple's put out on the "business and professional" side of the house is laughable compared with similarly-spec'd hardware running a real server OS like Debian, Red Hat, etc.
In parallel with all of the above, I've used several different major release versions of Android on numerous phones, starting with a Samsung Moment (total garbage) and currently a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra (amazing device). I also have a Samsung Galaxy Active2 and Galaxy Watch 3 smart watches. Way back when, I also owned an iPhone 4S and used whatever version(s) of iOS it ran for the ~2 years I had it.
As far as the quality of tech, which is in essence what djlythium (who, I presume, is a Star Trek nerd kind of person) started this thread out talking about, I think Apple is running up against the limits of its deeply-ingrained philosophies, as basically given to it by Steve Jobs. They are constrained by the fact that they want to be a hyper-profitable business with its own ecosystem and as close to total control over it as they can get away with (in the sense of Economics 101 and the marketplace) or are allowed to have over it (in the sense of statutory and regulatory restrictions on business). Are their users ill-served by this? Yes, I think they are.
Are they catastrophically ill-served by this? Well, I think that's a bit more complicated of a question to answer, and requires some significant nuance.
In my view, the only OS which presently exists which is truly worthy of full and unflinching respect is the libre-licensed, open-sourced GNU+Linux OS. In my view, no OS (and really, no individual software project) is worthy of too much respect if it restricts its users' rights to do what they will with it, and also to be able to peer-review its code on an "any time, anywhere" basis. The flip side of that coin is that, in certain specific situations like the mainstream palmtop form factor space, Apple's stance on user data privacy, restriction of ads and marketing, etc., make it ethically less bad than, for example, Alphabet's own stance. It's not a perfect situation, and it's also not a circumstance where end users can, let's say, eat their cake and have it to (to go back to the source of that expression) because other platforms which do a "perfect" job with user privacy and rights respect and defense (Purism, for example) do not also offer mainstreamness to their users, meaning the average user would have serious issues trying to use them in lieu of an Android OS- or iOS-based device.
I cannot speak to macOS 10.14.0 → 11.1 (or thereabouts; not sure precisely which version was initially loaded "OOB" on my M1 MBA), and in fact I can only minimally speak to 10.7 → 10.13.6. However, what I have used has always been pretty stable and reliable, though I am aware of their being many issues Mac users have faced in recent times, on both the software and hardware sides of the platform.
I'd also add to that that I think much of what Apple's put out on the "business and professional" side of the house is laughable compared with similarly-spec'd hardware running a real server OS like Debian, Red Hat, etc.
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To tag onto what you said, as both just a "person in the world" as well as someone who has in times past spent a bunch of it in tech support, I can tell you that as much as their are legitimate cases of bugs in code and bad designs or lemons in the build process, there's also a LOT of idiots out there who contribute to what I believe are the bulk of "My computer has problems" instances through serious, sometimes even next-level, PEBCAKing.
I'm assuming the "j" in your name is intended to be pronounced like an English "y", or "i".
Hence, dilithium.
Dilithium Crystals
Star Trek reference.
Am I a Star Trek nerd? **** yeah I'm a Star Trek nerd.
It actually isn’t! ? That said, I appreciate your critical-thinking, and your Trekiness. ??
I'm not a "Star Trek nerd" per se but even I thought it was a reference 
The constant need of having some new HW/SW feature for the next Keynote logically leads to rushing things and postponing some of them to the later iteration.
I really liked the simplicity and "lightness" of Apple's software, not having much options but the SW was rock solid and if there was a new feature, it made sense for productivity. Now it feels like Apple is redesigning and adding stuff just for the sake of it.
I really liked the simplicity and "lightness" of Apple's software, not having much options but the SW was rock solid and if there was a new feature, it made sense for productivity. Now it feels like Apple is redesigning and adding stuff just for the sake of it.
Advice: Tired of the Apple way of doing things? Switch to a platform that is better than Apple's.
Such as?
Counter-point: How might it be possible to stay within a system, and still be critical of it? What might be the benefits of doing so?
Now that's a good counter-point. It's certainly better than frittering away time fruitlessly trying to find a better platform.
Honestly that’s the only way we expand our knowledge: by knowing the good and bad of what we choose to purchase.
Indeed. I would argue that the only way our systems have improved is through critique, not abandonment.
I agree. I'm feeling this way especially about "syncing" between devices, i.e. the way that the Podcasts app displays different podcasts on Apple TV, MacBook Pro, and iPhone (and can't keep track of which episodes are played on the Apple TV anymore). It's not a huge issue, and this is just one example, but the "ecosystem" is becoming increasingly unstable for me to the point that I've been thinking about "escaping" more lately. Then on my MBP, graphics switching has completely stopped working since updating to Big Sur, the computer feels slower than ever, it overheats just from browsing Apple Music...
I'm sick of bugs persisting for months and months; I keep hoping the new update will fix these, but it never does and often introduces more issues.
Meh. I'm not giving up on Apple (and not saying Windows or Android are any better) but I've been disappointed recently. It seems like with Apple Silicon, Apple's moving in the direction of better integration and communication between devices, but I don't know. Some of it doesn't seem to be working as promised and some of these bugs have been around forever.
I'm sick of bugs persisting for months and months; I keep hoping the new update will fix these, but it never does and often introduces more issues.
Meh. I'm not giving up on Apple (and not saying Windows or Android are any better) but I've been disappointed recently. It seems like with Apple Silicon, Apple's moving in the direction of better integration and communication between devices, but I don't know. Some of it doesn't seem to be working as promised and some of these bugs have been around forever.
Thanks for sharing! Exactly, there are so many small issues that they've been adding up for a while now.
Apple used to be the company that empowered users. Now, in the services-oriented always-connected world of 2021, their products are designed to control users.
To wit: I want to stream SiriusXM on a HomePod; the only way I can do it is through my iPhone via Airplay. By contrast, on my Amazon Echo, I downloaded the skill and can now stream/control SXM from across the room using my voice. Or, Apple's nifty new privacy features are nice, but require you to use only *their* products, services, and platforms and you can bet they'll block other apps from using it. Want to use something else than Photos to store/upload your pictures? Fine, but you can't upload them in the background like Photos unless you've done something else like enabling Location Services for the competing app. Look how long it took them to let users pick their own default apps on IOS - and that was pretty much due to the dangers of an antitrust suit if they didn't. Etc, etc, etc.
The only truly 'frictionless' experience for Apple users these days is if you go all-in on Apple's ecosystem. IMO their vaunted committment to the 'user experience' is just another form of user control and/or lock-in to maximize profits (understandable) while limiting user choice... which is why this lifelong Apple user still isn't 100% into their ecosystem.
There are lots of us that prefer the relatively frictionless nature of the ecosystem to all the inferior (from our perspective) alternatives. Are there some compromises? Sure! Worth it? Absolutely!