2016 was a bad year. New iPhone has been the worst selling one in relative numbers since the iPhone. New MacBooks has several issues and controversial choices, while not bringing anything substantial to the table. New Watch changes are so small, nobody noticed an update.
i fear they are going into a mid-late 1990s period of stagnation and product confusion, but this time there's no steve jobs.
It's all relatively minor in isolation; voicemail consistently fails to load messages multiple times before it succeeds, voicemail occasionally crashes, apps get stuck halfway down the screen after I swipe to check the notification screen, texts and iMessages sometimes show up hours or days late, notifications appear on the lock screen but are missing when I unlock the phone, the weather app sometimes displays a blank temperature, web sites have broken behavior with auto-playing, the state of the device when using volume controls changes unpredictably, and so on.
Most of these are undoubtedly caused by my service provider, or a 3rd party app, or me fat-thumbing an interface, or my complete misperception of a UI paradigm, or are otherwise not Apple's fault. But that's entirely besides the point, because we're talking about my emotional reaction, not reality, and we're talking about something Apple used to bend over backwards to control.
If the common narrative about Apple's modern successes being rooted in design sensibilities is correct, I don't see them being able to sustain leadership in the areas where they've been leading. The good news for Apple is that there still aren't better alternatives for customers who are heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem. The bad news is that there eventually will be, and also that there is material economic harm in keeping customers but losing their enthusiasm.
Also the audio jack on the bottom: can no longer use headphones and prop the phone up on a desk when using FaceTime (which is surely a common use-case)
1. What do you mean relative numbers?
2. Any stats to back this up, as I've seen conflicting data?
Regardless, of course it's not going to be a big seller. It's the 10th(?) generation of a device everybody already owns. It's also the third year running the design hasn't changed at all (presumably as they want to make a big splash on next years 10th anniversary).
As for the MacBook's, in my experience ordinary people don't really put all that much decision making into buying a computer. They want something that looks nice and almost any computer on the market has the power they need for Word, Facebook, and email. The touch bar is something all my non-tech friends think is really cool and makes them want a new MacBook.
The Watch update may not have amounted to much but you're completely ignoring watchOS 3 - that was huge. They managed to make a pretty crappy device really good with only a software update. Early adopters don't need to splash out another load of cash on a piece of hardware, they can get most of the benefit through a free software update.
While I agree there has been nothing mind blowing I also haven't seen anything mind blowing on an Android device or software update, a PC, or any wearable device. Also, I really struggle to find things that my iPhone/Mac don't do that I need them to do. What substantial new features did you seek from the new MacBook?
If they just kept making the same stuff with minor hardware updates, you would hear much less criticism, if any at all.
As a proof, look at the complaints about their newest products, here or elsewhere. They all focus on the new features. Nobody is complaining that Apple is not trying to bring new stuff to the table. On the contrary, the problem is that they are trying hard to innovate on something that should stay in "maintenance mode."
It may be a cultural American thing, because I really don't understand why they are doing it. I think they are shooting themselves in the foot.
New iPhone 7 Data Suggests Sales Slower Than iPhone 6S - http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2016/10/03/iphone-7-s...
[edit] You have actually more data here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-ipho...
If you compare 2016 Q4 to 2015 Q4, iPhone sales are retracting. Same for 2016 Q3 against 2015 Q3. I don't get what the debate is. It's public data.
Apart from promoting the the App Store, has Apple done anything to promote or enhance it's cloud offerings? I don't recall hearing anything about iCloud in a very long time.
> voicemail consistently fails to load messages
AT&T? I've noticed this to be the case for AT&T users regardless of whether it's iOS or Android. Their visual voicemail is unreliable.
> or me fat-thumbing an interface
I routinely run into issues trying to use iOS on iPhone 5/SE test devices for work. The touch targets are so small I have cock my fingers at weird angles to be able to hit buttons. The App Store purchase buttons are some of the worst offenders. It's almost like Apple stopped testing their UI on small screens after the iPhone 6 came out.
No worries here. I'm happy the landscape is getting more competitive.
Though, who actually cares about this and why?
Anyway, I recently switched to iOS for an experiment and my biggest gripe is: no back button. Instead of a conveniently placed button, I have to always reach up to the upper left corner of the app to go back.
My second biggest gripe is that links from Apple's shitty programs only want to open in Safari instead of my browser.
And third, I can't organize my icons the way I want to. Typical Apple: No choices. Their way or the highway. Fuck you power-users and people who know what they want.
1. Try finding a close-up of the keyboard of the function key model on the MacBook Pro website. It seems it is just not there or I'm failing to find it. Previously Apple used to have a design section where you could see the products from all angles.
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/
2. The online shop is just horrible. Even finding the store takes a while and the icons look like clip-art. Complete mess.
http://www.apple.com/shop/accessories/all-accessories
3. This is how the Apple Pencil and the Mighty Mouse are supposed to be charged:
https://i.imgur.com/CvcaGze.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/P8M8pqO.jpg
The Mighty Mouse is also an ergonomic disaster.
4. The iPhone case with battery pack has an aweful design. Who would ever let this pass?
https://i.imgur.com/DyvTE3w.jpg
5. It also feels like the "Designed by Apple in California" book was published 20 years early. It's just like the new Star Wars movie, all those recent sequels of the n-th iteration and Marvel comic adaptations. Nobody innovates anymore and people just replicate what worked well before or only improve it incrementally.
I only meant in the strategic sense. If the future of personal computing is to be lightweight terminals and hardware requirements pushed into the cloud, Mac hardware and macOS might provide less growth opportunity than other business units. This is completely debatable, but is at least plausible.
> voicemail
Verizon for me.
> fat-thumbing an interface
I should also mention I have it set to the largest interface settings, and I'm a 32 year old with 20/20 vision.
I wasn't trying to make a massive deal about it, for what it's worth. Every phone I've had for probably 8 years has had the jack on the top instead of the bottom where I'd want it. It's fine. I was just chiming in to say there are legitimate reasons why it's not necessarily obvious that there's a correct answer.
You can swipe from the left corner of the screen to go back (do this with 3D touch and it switches to your previous app). You don't need to reach the top for the back button every time.
Apple's differential has always been the UX. If they lose that, they'll need to be the best in something else.
The charging port on the back of the mouse is done to stop people from using it with it plugged in, which ruins the overall design, and since most people are lazy, they'll leave it plugged in all the time. Apple designs its products by thinking of an ideal use case first. Then they will try their hardest to make people use it in that ideal scenario.
I don't quite see the WTF here. I understand Apple's design decision and think it's actually quite clever, despite what it looks like at first glance.
I had an Android for awhile and the hardware back button made no sense to me. I thought most phones eventually moved to a software back button. I never really knew if I would be going back inside the app, to the last app I had open, to the home screen, or if I was at the end of the queue and it did nothing. Apple took much longer to add it, but I prefer the context their implementation has and gestures for it.
> And third, I can't organize my icons the way I want to.
I have no idea what you're talking about. This is what it sounds like you're talking about[1]. I don't think it was in the original iPhone (2007), but I see references dating back to Jan 2008.
[1] http://i0.wp.com/content.screencast.com/users/Fosteronomo/fo...
You can plug it into an iPad, but you really don't have to.
Currently I don't see anyone at Apple who's an innovator. They're all talented execution guys, but they're not inventors.
There's a difference between invention and refinement. Apple has been doing a lot of refinement, but very little invention. And increasingly even the refinement is kind of sketchy.
There were definitely missed opportunities.
Apple could have turned Apple TV into Alexa - which would not only have been very cool, but would also have given everyone a reason to buy Apple TV.
Apple could have owned the domestic IoT space and added a layer of security and reassurance that's missing from current products.
Apple could have taken podcasting and created the video and audio creator's market now owned by YouTube.
Don't like these? There were others.
Instead we got bigger, smaller, thinner, shinier... Plus a payment system which is kind of limping along, a failed car project, a not very attractive watch, and increasingly un-special hardware and software that's actively frustrating influential professional users.
The debate is that these public data don't tell much, if anything at all. Slower sales than 6S is not bad, since that had record sales anyway. Second, Xmas are not yet here. Third, there are also other news, like:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/11/28/apple-killing-it-i...
Or the news that the new MacBook Pro retina had the most orders than any MBP on its arrival.
You can see why I might think that forcing phone number to equal identify might be a bad idea.
I understand that I'm an unusual case, but I'm sure plenty of other people go through something similar this every couple years if and when they switch phone numbers or providers or move.
Question: how do people you haven't been in contact with manage to find you, if you change your number every 2 years?
The Android OS implements the software back button, not the apps...and it's always at the bottom of the screen where I can easily reach it. iOS does not implement any such back button - each app has to implement its own and the convention on iOS is to place that back button all the way in the upper left corner of the screen which is very inconvenient to reach for.
> I have no idea what you're talking about. (re: organizing icons)
So, let's imagine that you have 3 app icons on one of your home screens in iOS...
Can you put one of them in the lower right corner? Nope.
Can you put one of them all the way on the right side while the other 2 stay on the left? Nope.
Can you do anything to position them absolutely? No you cannot.
You must resort to jailbreaking or other hackery (like blank icons) to make this work.
People contact me via email. Apple's iMessage is the only chat client I've been able to use effectively, because they tie identity to email, not phone number.
