A brief summary of why I’m less enthusiastic about Apple than I used to be

Revisiting the feedback I privately received throughout 2019, I’d say that most of it revolves around a central subject: what’s my beef with Apple? And why has my position towards the company become so critical recently?

If I were to explain things in detail, I would probably have to write a book. Or at least one of those academic papers filled with quotes, footnotes, diagrams, and the like.

But since I’m summing up a series of points I’ve already addressed here at length, I’ll just make a bulleted list, so that we can start 2020 with this out of the way.

The fundamental reason behind my diminished enthusiasm about Apple lies in the company’s change of direction and priorities after Steve Jobs’s passing. This isn’t a matter of Apple is doing it wrong and they should listen to me. It’s more like when your favourite rock band changes a band member and/or makes their music ‘evolve’ in ways you don’t like. In ways that make you worry they’ll lose a not-insignificant part of their fanbase. You rationally understand that some things have to change, but that doesn’t mean you have to like them. The big difference is that with a rock band you can simply stop buying their music, and that’s it. With Apple it’s not as simple; especially if you’ve been using their ecosystem for decades.

The worsening of Apple’s software quality. I’d like to say that this is mostly a Mac OS problem, but iOS 11 and what I’ve seen of iOS 13 so far have definitely made me a cautious iOS user as well. Apple seems to lack ideas for new, interesting and useful first-party apps. The ones they currently offer appear to be more in a state of maintenance than development. Old bugs in the operating system itself remain unfixed. Sometimes there seems to be an attitude behind the tackling of issues that feels like, This is too complicated to resolve, let’s wipe the slate clean, but that often solves the problem for Apple, not for the customers.

The diminishing of Apple’s hardware excellence. Don’t get me wrong, I recognise an engineering and hardware design feat when I see one (the Mac Pro), but the MacBook’s keyboard fiasco is too big to ignore. I used to purchase Apple machines and not even bother to get AppleCare, certain of their reliability. If I were to buy a Mac today, I would add the AppleCare option without thinking twice.

Apple’s increased hostility towards repairability. If Apple could sell you a completely sealed device with no user-replaceable parts, and handle all repairs themselves (meaning, they recycle your broken device and give you a new one), they would. And I still think this is their ultimate goal.

Apple’s increasing emphasis on Services. This wouldn’t necessarily bother me that much if their Services included actually good, worthwhile offerings and related apps. So far, it’s all weak tea. What’s worse, is that it’s weak tea that dilutes the whole Apple sauce (if you pardon these atrocious analogies). I still cannot shake the feeling that, in an attempt to be everywhere at all costs, Apple is spreading their resources thin and struggles to maintain a level of quality in all of their platforms that goes above ‘good enough’.

One of the most marked differences between Jobs’s Apple and Cook’s Apple, in my opinion, is that under Jobs Apple cultivated a strong identity and a way of doing things that differentiated Apple from every other tech company. Jobs managed to make Apple successful without necessarily playing by the tech industry’s rules. The essence of Thinking different was this, I think. Jobs was like, “Here’s our take on what a computer (or phone, or tablet, or accessory) should be and work; we think it’s better than the competition because we operate at higher standards”. It didn’t always work, and I’m aware that not every product manufactured under Jobs’s tenure was perfect. But it was crystal clear that there was a genuine effort to adhere to such standards nonetheless. It was evident in both hardware and software.

Jobs’s figure was unique because, in a product’s life cycle, he was crucially present both at the conception stage and as a final user. He had a clear idea of how something should work, and that helped immensely in creating user-friendly products that ‘just worked’. I still see some of that thinking-different attitude and ‘Apple’s way’ in today’s Apple, especially when it comes to privacy and security. But generally speaking, Cook’s Apple appears to be less focused on what makes it a unique player in the tech industry, and more interested in doing things many other companies are doing, entering markets where the competition has clearly more experience and offers more compelling products. Apple’s reputation as main differentiator here can only work for so long.