Tag: apple

The Fallen Apple

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From Matt Gemmell:

Whatever the nuance, Apple’s old and hard-won reputation just doesn’t ring true now. The company feels like a performance of itself, diverging farther and farther from the original, shuddering with escalating dysfunction, and held together by the sheer, grotesque extent of its indentured income.

Brutal, but fair takedown of what it is like to be an Apple “fan” right now. The hardware is great, the software is generally getting worse, the “services” are getting more entrenched in the ecosystem, and the general cozying up to the government is a huge turn off.

For me, the following things need to happen to help rebuild my hope that I don’t need to reboot my “should I ditch Apple stuff?” blog subgenre:

  • Show small but meaningful progress towards design that is usable. Bring back some whimsy into your brand identity.
  • Find a way to make the developer community happy by making changes that are EU regulator-friendly & dev friendly. This could be commission simplification and reduction, opening up key parts of their OSes, and allowing categories of apps that are currently impossible to build on their platforms.
  • Finding a way to humanize the company better. I know it sounds silly to say “live keynotes will fix everything” but the Apple leadership slinking away to their ivory tower over the past few years has been unfortunate timing.
  • Don’t make it so easy to identify yourself as part of the Oligarchy. I don’t expect a public break from the Trump admin but maybe don’t go to the Meliana movie premiere on the same night that ICE murders someone. Find ways to tactfully distance yourself while still doing right by your shareholders. I get that it’s tough, but what’s happening right now is sleazy.

I want to be optimistic about Apple and feel confident that my investment of time, money, and attention is still worthwhile. But the trend line isn’t encouraging.

Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union – Apple

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From The Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store impacting developers’ apps in the European Union (EU) to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The changes include more than 600 new APIs, expanded app analytics, functionality for alternative browser engines, and options for processing app payments and distributing iOS apps. Across every change, Apple is introducing new safeguards that reduce — but don’t eliminate — new risks the DMA poses to EU users. With these steps, Apple will continue to deliver the best, most secure experience possible for EU users.

I love how Apple frames these changes as introducing risks to users. A few other items of note:

Corporations Are Not To Be Loved

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From Brent Simmons:

Apple doesn’t care about you personally in the least tiny bit, and if you were in their way somehow, they would do whatever their might — effectively infinite compared to your own — enables them to deal with you.

Companies like Apple love to fashion themselves as a lifestyle or an identity brand, because they know that if people watch their specific actions too closely they’ll be reminded they’re simply a business that needs to keep growing to keep their shareholders happy. I think it’s great to admire a company and certainly to have strong preferences about where you spend your money, but go into it with your eyes open.

I think Apple’s struggles with bringing 3rd party developers on board to build apps for the Vision Pro have a lot of causes but it certainly appears that the App Store chickens have come home to roost a bit. Gruber covered this a bit as well, but it just feels like we’ve hit an inflection point where Apple’s behavior is getting almost no support because there’s really no logical defense aside from the fact that Apple wants to make as much money as possible. Good for them.

WWDC 2023 Wish Lists

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Michael Tsai has posted his annual roundup of WWDC 2023 Wish Lists. As always, it’s a good mix of consumer facing and developer-centric asks.

The one common theme seems to be around quality and stability. iOS and iPadOS are nearly 2 decades old, MacOS is closing in on 25 years, and even WatchOS and tvOS are nearly a decade old. These are mature platforms that can stand to have a year of spit and polish applied while Apple (likely) rolls out a new OS. Let’s hope that’s the case.

WWDC 2023 Wishlist

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A few things I hope to see this year at WWDC: A general theme on speed and reliability at the OS and app level. Especially Mail and Music. iPadOS battery management (charge to 80% and hold) Siri audiobook integration. My kids have Alexa devices in their rooms and I’d love to upgrade them to HomePod […]

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