Seems I’m on a trajectory that is taking me from Apple evangelist to Apple apologist and beyond.
My history and affection for Apple products goes back to computer art classes in the early ’90s. There was a ton of innovation going on and every month you could do something new on a Mac that you wouldn’t have thought possible. It was in early 2001, when Mac OS X came out that I fell in love with Apple. My computer stopped crashing once I installed it. It was more beautiful and user friendly but the most important thing was that it had a level of quality that was far and above everything else available for a busy graphic designer.
I was so impressed that I started investing in their stock. That has worked out really well.
We all know what game changers the iPod, then the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch were. It was a fantastic experience to use any of those devices as they were released.
Eventually, Steve Jobs got sick. He seemed to be doing all he could to pass on a culture of innovation in the time he had left. I wanted to believe that the company could continue as well without his guidance but I’m afraid I’m just not seeing it these days.
What am I seeing?
- The glass quality on the iPhones/iPod touches seems to be deteriorating. My daughter’s 5th generation iPod touch fell no more than 3 feet onto a wood floor with a rubberized case and the glass shattered.
- Piss poor design decisions. Look at the power button on the iPhone 5, 6, and 6s. Obviously, poorly placed so that it is difficult to operate without also interacting with the volume buttons and getting unexpected behaviors. Should be a simple fix but 2 releases later, it’s still in the same lousy spot.
- Accelerated deprecation of hardware. No statistics on this, but it seems that OS updates are requiring me to buy new hardware at an accelerated rate. I used to be able to write this off as the cost of early adoption and technical advancement but there hasn’t been a lot gained with my new products over the old ones and, frankly, the latest OS for my phone and my Macs have been somewhat unstable.
So, what am I left with? A company that is riding it’s own coat tails. Fortunately for Apple, no one is obviously outshining them on the quality and innovation front. There are always opportunities out there to make revolutionary designs and I for one am less inclined to look to Apple for inspiration.