It’s increasingly hard to be critical in tech

A couple of weeks ago I published two articles about Apple Vision Pro, the AR/VR headset Apple presented at WWDC23 at the beginning of June. In those articles I expressed and explained my general scepticism towards the product, but mostly towards the vision behind it, which I find — at least currently — lacking and unconvincing.

That’s not the first time I’ve criticised Apple, far from it, and therefore it’s not the first time I have had to deal with the subsequent backlash via email and private messages. I can deal with disagreements. I don’t expect every one of my readers (usual or new) to agree with me all the time. When the person who took the time to write me expresses their disagreement in a cogent, articulate manner, I’m very eager to listen. I’m not infallible and I might have missed some huge things in my analyses. It happens, and I can change my mind and opinions on something. If you write me to insult me or to say dumb things at me, you’re wasting your time, you’re showing me your colours, and the impact of what you say is less than zero.

But the negative emails and messages I’ve received after speaking my mind about Vision Pro are worth mentioning. Not because they’re particularly intelligent or articulate (most aren’t, I’m sorry to report), but because they’re emblematic of the way certain tech discourse is degrading nowadays.

I have used Apple products since the late 1980s. Back then, Apple wasn’t a giant, but an underdog, and I’ve experienced some of the worst moments in Apple’s history, when the company was actually doomed. Being a Mac user back then, when the platform was truly niche in a world surrounded by Windows and IBM PC-compatible hardware, was an interesting experience for sure. It created a strong community culture, because every time there was debate, we were always on the defensive. It was often frustrating, because back then the Mac was a demonstrably better platform, but convincing people to adopt it over the path of least resistance (Windows and the PC) was hard.

This, I think, created the basis of a ‘defence culture’ when it comes to Apple. The ‘other side’ called us zealots, drew religious parallelisms, called us a ‘cult’, and so forth. And sure, there were Mac users who really displayed a nasty, prejudiced, and even combative attitude towards the ‘PC Windows guys’, but for the most part (at least in my experience) Mac User Groups were occasions for like-minded people to meet and help one another, sharing tips and experiences, pointing people to certain software applications that might fit their needs and that they were unaware of. And the banter with Windows users was generally non-toxic (again, in my experience). And while I myself have been a so-called ‘Apple evangelist’ for a few years in the 1990s, my approach in trying to make the Mac platform more known and appreciated wasn’t blunt or confrontational. I always tried to demonstrate how certain tasks could be carried out more efficiently with a Mac, and how so many myths about incompatibilities between the Mac and the PC were indeed myths. But if someone was not convinced or simply could not afford to switch their entire business to the Mac (especially in the 1990s, where there was great uncertainty about the future of Apple as a company), I didn’t think less of them; I didn’t look down on them; and I certainly didn’t storm out of their offices insulting them for using Windows and PCs.

But that defence culture I mentioned before — it persisted over the years and grew stronger, layer after layer. And today we can see it at work every time there’s any kind of criticism or scepticism towards Apple or any of their products. A lot of die-hard Apple fans today display a level of close-mindedness and zealotry that sometimes is downright concerning. I’ve had interactions with some fans who literally represent the dictionary definition of fanatic (“a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause”). People who will defend Apple no matter what, even when certain Apple practices can be consumer-hostile; even when certain design decisions (in hardware and software) are demonstrably misguided. People who consider whatever Apple makes to be the best product, the right product. People who essentially consider Apple a sort of infallible entity even when faced with obvious Apple screw-ups like bending iPhones or atrocious laptop keyboard design. They act like those religious fundamentalists who justify the evil in this world by telling you that their God operates in mysterious ways we mere mortals cannot comprehend, and that it’s all part of the plan.

This fanaticism and the toxicity it brings, this impoverishment of intelligent discourse in tech (in general, but especially when Apple is concerned) is extremely tiring and unproductive. Back to certain feedback I received about my articles on Vision Pro, let’s observe a couple of examples.

The first trend in some of the responses is people who are offended because they think that, in criticising Vision Pro, I want to put myself in a holier-than-thou position. One wrote me: It’s like telling me I’m a moron for loving Vision Pro and for thinking AR is the future. In this case, I wrote back: If this is your sole takeaway from my articles, then yes, you’re kind of a moron.

Now, wisecracking remarks apart, it’s fascinating to me how these people are projecting my criticism towards a product and transforming it into a criticism towards their personal choices and towards them as people. It’s as if they’re worried that, by criticising a product they love, you (and others who criticise it) directly hurt the enjoyment they get out of it, or even contribute to its future failure or disappearance. I hope you realise how this kind of reaction strongly reminds of children’s behaviour.

I always tend to be specific and explicit in my analyses. If I had wanted to criticise or mock those who unconditionally love Vision Pro and the idea behind it, I would have clearly done so. My doubts about Vision Pro are mine and mine only. The fact that this thing, and the ‘vision’ behind it, has yet to convince me is something entirely subjective. But at least I have tried to analyse and express why I find it lacking and unconvincing. Instead, all the negative reactions to my criticism have been simplistic, dogmatic, aggressive, black-or-white stances.

And we come to the second trend in such responses, exemplified by what another guy wrote me: How can you be so sure Vision Pro’s gonna be a flop? Note, I never wrote or implied that Vision Pro is going to be a flop. But I appreciate the doubting attitude and the search for an honest exchange of views. The problem is his next sentence: Vision Pro will definitely be a success like the iPhone. You see what the problem is here, right? I am not allowed to be ‘so sure’ about something (I’m not, by the way), but this guy, oh he is certain Vision Pro will be a success. It feels indeed like arguing with a member of a cult. There is no further elaboration past the dogmatic stance. You’re interacting with someone who’s covering their ears and going la-la-la while you’re trying to have a discussion.

Tech discourse today is progressively going down the drain, and for many reasons. Here are a few I have noticed, in no particular order of importance:

Many tech pundits aren’t candid or candid enough in their observations because they don’t want to lose access with big tech companies. They tread carefully. While I understand this to an extent, on the other hand it’s not helpful or conducive to a healthy debate. Prominent tech pundits are read and followed by many people, and whether they like it or not, they’re influencers. And if a company — especially Apple — introduces questionable changes in its hardware or software, such issues have to be surfaced and criticised. Instead, it’s not infrequent that I read opinion pieces where the pundit of the day basically makes excuses for the company. When some aspects of a product aren’t particularly strong, the pundit will often observe that the company knows what they’re doing, and that they’ll straighten things out eventually.

Some tech pundits also tend to avoid making certain critiques that sound too stark and countercurrent because they don’t want to look like fools when they later find themselves on the wrong side of history. So, instead of openly calling bullshit on certain things, they prefer a more concessive approach. “I’m not much of a fan of this new feature, change, etc., but it’s no big deal and I can adapt”, “We have to remember that this is just beta software / a first-generation product, and surely it’ll get better with time”, and so forth. So, when design atrocities like the notch on the iPhone or on MacBooks become non-issues because the public largely doesn’t care (and even if customers cared the only option for them would be to not purchase the product — and many people just cave when faced with this all-or-nothing proposition), they can say I told you it wasn’t a big deal. Hey, good job pundit, here’s the medal you wanted so badly. I’ll get back to this point later.

As Josh Calvetti quite aptly put it in a Mastodon reply, people assume opinions are inherently an attack on their preferences, and thus them. This reflects an even bigger problem — the inability to engage in critical thinking, which starts by taking the time to read and understand what’s in front of you before broadcasting your knee-jerk reaction. I’m not a sociologist, I don’t know if this problem is connected with the fact that today the way people consume content and the way their attention is constantly fragmented leads them to favour shorter and simpler stuff that is easy to digest and therefore easy to react to in a similarly superficial way, but I’ve been noticing an increasing avoidance of deeper discussions or deeper conversations. Long-form pieces are a bore — hence the infamous TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) acronym — so people seem to always want the Cliff’s Notes version. There can’t be meaningful debate when one part doesn’t even want to actually listen to the other. Put simply, it’s tribalism.

Back to point 2 above, and back to Vision Pro specifically, another type of feedback I received about my criticism of the headset is from people who sort of want to defuse the whole discussion by saying essentially that any criticism towards Vision Pro is moot. Why? They cite past Apple products that were initially criticised for this or that reason, and say that such products became huge successes anyway, so the pattern is bound to repeat once again for Vision Pro. Remember the reactions and the criticism when the first Mac was introduced? Remember what journalists and the competition said about the first iPod? Remember those fools who criticised the iPhone for not having a physical keyboard? — they say — Haha, where are those people now?

This is a shallow and childish stance. It’s like starting to watch a superhero movie, then quickly skipping to the end and declaring See? The good guys won anyway, eventually. Yeah, they did. But what about the characters’ development? What about the choices they made? What about their flaws? A hero can win in the end, but their character’s flaws remain. A product can be a huge success eventually, or even relatively quickly, but that doesn’t mean it’s flawless.

Again, I’ve owned Apple products since the late 1980s, and I had used Apple products even before that. I read negative articles about the first Mac, the first portable Mac, the first RISC Mac, the iMac G3 (which was the first Mac after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997), the first iPod, the first iPhone, the first iPad, the first Apple Watch… Some criticism was indeed superficial, uninformed, misguided and even downright trollish. But some critics also made valid points. The fact that those Apple products became successful later doesn’t make such points less valid.

Criticism isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s not a matter of winning and losing. A successful product may be successful despite having some design flaws. Its success may make some of such flaws less relevant, but it doesn’t make them disappear. And pointing out those flaws doesn’t make someone ‘wrong’. And pointing out those flaws doesn’t mean someone ‘doesn’t get technology’.

People also often react to criticism as if the critic were just posturing and taking a contrarian stance simply for the sake of sounding different than the mainstream choir of opinions. And while it’s true that there are quite the contrarians out there who share their hot takes betting on the chance that a product might actually fail, to then gloat and bask in their I‑told-you-so attitude, there are also people — like yours truly — who prefer to share their doubts and criticism towards what they have before their eyes right now, and aren’t even concerned whether the product will be a success or not.

Example 1: When the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were announced, I criticised them for being too big. I thought their size would make them more difficult to handle, and the interface more awkward for one-hand use. Those iPhones were a huge success commercially, and initiated the unstoppable trend of big iPhones that continues to this day. And big iPhones are still a success, but that doesn’t invalidate my initial criticism directed at the iPhone 6 and especially at the 6 Plus. The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max are still difficult to handle, and their interface remains awkward for one-hand use. You can barely take a photo using just one hand with these beasts.

Example 2: The notch, both on iPhones and especially MacBooks, is a terrible design element and a terrible design decision (as I pointed out here and here). No one denies the great success both notched phones and laptops have had, but that doesn’t automatically make their notch a good design element or decision. The Dynamic Island is an ingenious workaround for sure, but I’d vastly prefer to see and interact with a display devoid of interfering elements.

And another thing: criticism — as far as I’m concerned, and especially when writing about Apple stuff — is never intended to be an attack against what you like, or your preferences, or you as a person. Usually the subject of my criticism is specified right there in the article I’m writing, without subterfuge or intellectual dishonesty. When I wrote those aforementioned pieces criticising the notch in MacBooks, I remember getting some feedback like this: Your piece sort of makes me feel judged by deciding to purchase a MacBook with a notch, almost as if I were told that I have bad taste when it comes to design. I can understand that someone might feel like this, but in cases like this, if you stop and think about it, it’s clear that the sole target of my criticism is Apple. It’s their design decision. It’s they who force their design choices on customers in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion.

In a recent conversation with a friend, he asked me tongue-in-cheek, Aren’t you tired of being a tech critic? And I jokingly replied that It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. On a more serious note, it’s not that I love to always look for something to criticise and I still do enjoy technology and tech gadgets. I’m very happy with my new M2 Pro Mac mini, and just the other day I’ve finally upgraded my Sony WH-1000MX3 noise-cancelling headphones by getting the WH-1000MX5 — and I’m really satisfied with them: they’re a noticeable improvement over the MX3 with regard to noise-cancelling technology and sound quality.

However, what I’m noticing nowadays more and more frequently is just how uncritically accepting so many people are when it comes to technology and tech products/services. I personally feel it’s a dangerous attitude that leads to technology and big tech companies controlling our lives, where the opposite should be true (that’s why I’m generally in favour of legislation regulating what tech companies are allowed to do). And before we get to yet another misunderstanding: no, I’m not judging you and your love for all kind of tech gadgets. But if your position is to tell me I should just ‘enjoy life’ and approach these things in the same uncritical way as you do, then I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree.