What would make you leave Apple?

[CookeeTim]

I agree : I don't believe Apple to be 'expensive' , they just cost what they cost , and the competitors which are in one way or another inferior are simply cheaper products , because 'you get what you pay for' .

In the same way , I have over the last 50 years driven only Mercedes-Benz , ever since having a bad crash in 1978 in my dad's 220/8 and walking away from it , after a drunk driver in a stolen Ford came around a bend on the wrong side of the road and crashed head on into me - the crumple zone and passenger safety cell did its job , I was able to open my door and step out unhurt ; while the guy in the Capri broke three limbs , several ribs , his nose and facial lacerations , besides being trapped in the car which had folded up like a pack of cards and had to be cut out by the fire brigade - and no hydraulic cutting equipment back then - it was hacksaws , crowbars , hammers etc . You simply cannot put a price on technology that saves your life , and Mercedes-Benz pioneered automotive safety in the 1930s and still make the safest cars in the world today , despite what the likes of Volvo , who also make safe cars , might claim .

I could draw comparisons between many products I have chosen down the years , never the cheapest , but always justifiably better than competitors : Quad Hi-Fi , Michell Turntables , SME pickup arms , Omega watches ......

Pay for quality and you buy once ; buy cheap and you buy again and again ...

I wish a lot of folks could share this vision, but alas, even if we wanted to, a lot of us cant afford a Mercedes. I'm all in for investing in security and the like, but they (like Apple) have decided they only want to compete on the upper schelon of the market.

This is why other brands like Toyota, Kia, Honda have gotten marketshare around the world, because they made something for everyone. Be it a cheap college kid car (Yaris, Fit, Civic, Soul), family cars (Santa Fe, Rav4, CR-V, Sorento/Sportage), to "high-end" cars (Crown, Accord, whatever Kia does for high-end lol).

I love how the Audi Q7 2010s looks, and I have found some at a good price, but their maintenance costs means it will be more of a headache than what might be worth it for me. Nowadays, a lot of cars have gotten pretty good at security, Ford included with their Explorer model, so that's no longer a huge concern like it was years ago.

Your Mercedes probably focused on security due to its target market. Not a good public PR being known as the car that killed X millionaire or the car where a certain Prince died.

 

[sleep/to/dream]

Privacy. With AI/Flock/mass surveillance and everything happening in the world right now, I want them to lean into privacy hard. Make the AI on-device. Make local backups even easier with improvements to Time Machine or maybe give us a product that sets up a local iCloud service. I feel like people would pay big money to get off of cloud services nowadays

If there comes a time when I can't trust them when it comes to privacy I won't be going to Android, I’ll be going to a dumbphone and Linux

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Fair, I do think Apple's devices and services are hard to beat when keeping it inside the ecosystem.

FWIW idea of switching is NOT about "teaching Apple CEO a lesson", it's about opening up my options and not being over reliant on one platform.

As I mentioned, I feel Apple is taking steps away from what I like the most about them, so I'd like to know I can have access to my photos without having to use the Photos mac app for example, if I need to change.

That above is one of the things that bothers me greatly. I can understand why Apple is closing all the loopholes in its ecosystem or bubble since it is done to protect itself as a business, but at the same time "I feel" that I am being controlled or being lead by the nose to stay in the bubble.

I could very well afford stepping out of the ecosystem, but I know that once one has become accustomed to a system, in this case Apple devices and their OS's, it would take quite a lot of time and effort for one to learn another system. This specially true as one does not want or can't waste more time or money.

There are various ways for one to access one's photos without using iPhoto, but Apple makes it a little difficult.

 

[capamac]

Apple's become more focused on shareholders and their stock price than on its customers.

Jobs had the good sense to balance these competing claims. The current Apple leadership the last few years ... not so much.

The old Apple had a sense of scrappiness and fighting for customers. The current Apple has become wealthy, greedy and out of touch. It's fallen victim to its own success. Getting high on their own supply. Apple today is too comfortable (a bad thing.)

Free software (BSD, Linux) has more of that scrappy fighting spirit these days.

Apple's a software company first. But their UI with Liquid Glass is fairly pointless eye candy, like Compiz. Another user noted macOS 27 was overly heavy on LLM use that apparently cannot be turned off -- a bad sign.

Too much telemetry. Need to get back to the basics: clean OS, functional, details attended to, fewer features more basics. Forget about the shareholders. Let the stock price fall. Focus on customers. Won't happen but it would be nice. Apple's become overly financialized now.

 

[eyoungren]

There are various ways for one to access one's photos without using iPhoto, but Apple makes it a little difficult.

And, third party services neutralize that fact.

I take a photo, I open Dropbox. Dropbox is set to automatically upload new photos. Bam, photo appears inside the Camera Uploads folder on every device (including Macs and PCs) that is running Dropbox under my account.

It is immediately available in the Finder on my Macs. No iPhoto, no Photos app, no dealing with anything Apple. It's just there.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

TL;DR: Apple Maps ads triggered me, a step away from what I liked most about them, no ads and privacy, so time to explore alternatives.

I have been happily living in the "walled garden" for many years, deeply invested in the ecosystem with icloud photos, files and backups, etc. I have been happy to pay extra for Apple devices just because things work so well.

But recently a few of Apple's decisions have are making me second-guess if I should explore alternatives, for example adding ads to the App Store and Maps. Also, whenever I use my Linux computers, the friction of trying to use Apple services from those is very high, sometimes totally impractical (photos from the iCloud web interface kinda suck) or impossible (no AirDrop in Linux).

I am currently testing a few things: using Immich for personal/local cloud photos, got an old cheap pixel phone to try out "degoogling" it as much as I can, using Proton services for calendar+mail+cloud files, KDE Connect and LocalSend for sending files between devices, even testing Asahi linux on one of my macs (those guys are wizards!). The experience so far varies from "OK" to "janky", but usable, and at least I have control moving forward.

So where do you draw the line? What would make you switch?

“Privacy” is not real and Apple has made up a fake cause to rally behind.

And ads make the world go round. Apple runs ads. Ads are how companies make sales and consumers discover new products.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

If they were to stop making products I enjoy using. Or, if anyone else were to make products I enjoy using more. But, it’s not limited to Apple, it applies to any company making products I currently use.

 

[-BigMac-]

TL;DR: Apple Maps ads triggered me, a step away from what I liked most about them, no ads and privacy, so time to explore alternatives.

I have been happily living in the "walled garden" for many years, deeply invested in the ecosystem with icloud photos, files and backups, etc. I have been happy to pay extra for Apple devices just because things work so well.

But recently a few of Apple's decisions have are making me second-guess if I should explore alternatives, for example adding ads to the App Store and Maps. Also, whenever I use my Linux computers, the friction of trying to use Apple services from those is very high, sometimes totally impractical (photos from the iCloud web interface kinda suck) or impossible (no AirDrop in Linux).

I am currently testing a few things: using Immich for personal/local cloud photos, got an old cheap pixel phone to try out "degoogling" it as much as I can, using Proton services for calendar+mail+cloud files, KDE Connect and LocalSend for sending files between devices, even testing Asahi linux on one of my macs (those guys are wizards!). The experience so far varies from "OK" to "janky", but usable, and at least I have control moving forward.

So where do you draw the line? What would make you switch?

Honestly, just someone else doing it better. I’ve got the whole Apple setup, but I’d sell it tomorrow if something better came along. It’s a phone, not a religion. Grown adults being emotionally loyal to a multi trillion-dollar company is just weird🙃

 

[skeptech]

I left Apple in March 1997 … when they laid me off after 8.5 years working at the Cupertino HQ on Internet stuff from almost Apple's earliest days on the net:

What are some reasons why employees leave Apple?

I continue to buy the products & some of the services as they suit my needs (for now), but I'm unhappy that none of the Apple Silicon has ECC RAM. Still running a 2019 Mac Pro for primary desktop but Apple has made clear that its days are numbered.