What’s interesting is that the Apple ecosystem back then was far more unfriendly than it is now. The workplace vibe was always something like, “Apple? That won’t work here.” Yet none of that stopped us from getting things done. Ironically, what wears you down today isn’t anything grand — it’s ordinary, unavoidable stuff. You just keep enduring it, and that persistent thought keeps coming back, more and more often.
Then you’ll remember:
- The segmented nonsense of the Performa line, often slow and missing features, but still expensive.
- Steve’s precious cube that cracked and overheated, and was swiftly cancelled.
- Steve shrugging and saying ”you’re holding it wrong”.
- The painfully slow Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah release that had a lickable liquid interface, but lacked standard features such as DVD playback and printer support.
- The common full-system freezes of the pre-X systems.
- Project Pink and Copland.
- Butterfly keyboards.
- Apple Maps.
I think both of you are correct! Apple’s had a ton of missteps, and continues to, but it’s also always maintained its own direction, out of stubbornness or strong vision, regardless of how things turned out.
Back when the Mac community was smaller, it really
felt like a community. People discussed problems, shared fixes, and understood that Apple products rare played nicely outside the ecosystem, you had to be ready for some configuration. That was part of the fun for me. I started with OSX 10.4.6, a polished version of Tiger. I remember hunting down unique and fun Mac apps that could replicate and go beyond what I used on Windows. Apps like Adium, Transmission, Transit, and the iLife suite had this cohesive look and feel that didn't really exist on Windows at the time. Winamp had a bunch of unique skins, XP was themeable with some manual tweaks, but you still had a bunch of legacy stuff (.dlls, driver issues, etc) you needed to deal with.
I remember the iPhone 4 and the 11″ MacBook Air launches in 2010. To me, those marked the moment when Apple started broadening its audience, not designing primarily for the tech-enthusiast crowd but instead for the mass publice. The iPhone 4 was functional and beautiful, and the 11″ Air looked like Apple’s netbook in response to the fad that peaked near the end of the 2000s, but before tablets got powerful and light enough to become primary consumption devices.
I’d say that’s around when Apple’s vision started to shift. The company
(who's main goal is to make money, let's not forget that) had to adapt to hundreds of millions of casual users who cared more about simplicity and fashion instead of low-level configuration. I think the success of the MacBook Air says a lot about that, and the first couple Apple Generations' Edition versions. Since then, the marketing focus has leaned heavily on aesthetic and lifestyle.
I think we see this too in the developer tools and frameworks that have expanded enormously after the app store became a huge revenue source for Apple. Apple’s still innovating, I think the iPhone and Mac integration is incredible, but it’s no longer a niche platform with a tight-knit user base and culture. It’s a global ecosystem now and that comes with a loss in community feel, but it also comes with expectations that the software released isn't buggy enough for the laymen to notice.
I think you can see Apple’s old enthusiast era in Home Assistant. It’s still rough around the edges, community-driven, and full of passionate tinkerers solving problems for the joy of it.
