←back to thread

405 points Bogdanp | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
steve_adams_86 ◴[] No.45021167[source]
> The problem isn’t that one little bird has died. The problem is that the bird might be dead because the whole mine is filling with deadly carbon monoxide or highly flammable methane gas

This is where I'm at with Apple at the moment.

I know this sounds crazy or stupid, and people on reddit made sure to tell me as much, but the recent iOS, macOS, and watchOS betas have actually caused me to abandon the Apple ecosystem. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't one bird dead, but a whole bunch of birds. I suppose I'm a little more sensitive than Gruber. I find the design language (or lack thereof?) in Apple's recent work to be largely void of life, inspiration, purpose, craft, or anything else I'd come to expect over the last 25 years of using their platform. The quality in terms of performance, efficiency, bugs, intuitive user interfaces, and so on has been dropping for years now. The last OS revision is exemplary of this decline in a deeply concerning way.

I've been so disheartened by things like this, and I'm confident it represents the end of an era so to speak, that I've already come to terms with it and started moving off of Apple's ecosystem.

For me, the move is a matter of pursuing systems which allow me a bit more freedom. Apple has restricted me in ways that I permitted for decades now, but I permitted it because the compromise was worth it. I don't see it being worth it in 5 or 10 years, so I'm starting the transition now. I sold my watch, gave away my iPhone, and started shopping for a ThinkPad.

It's hard to give up macOS and Apple hardware (the value prop has become kind of insane, really), but seeing their recent OS work takes the sting away. I'd love to see them recognize their mistakes and correct course, but... I don't think I'm their target customer anymore, frankly. The people who think I'm an idiot on reddit are their target market, I suppose. That's fine. I'll learn to love Linux and Windows for different reasons and regain some privacy and control over my machines.

My family will certainly stay on Apple's ecosystem.

replies(4): >>45021247 #>>45021438 #>>45021701 #>>45025437 #
1. strange_quark ◴[] No.45021247[source]
I agree that a lot of Apple stuff has gotten worse recently, both in terms of objective quality in the number of bugs, incomplete features that don't work properly when shipped, and in terms of the company trying to coerce even more control over its platforms and simultaneously enshittifiying them. It's ridiculous that they region lock OS-level stuff like 3rd party app stores and alternative browser engines.

But from where I'm sitting, everyone else is doing what Apple's doing times 100. The latest Windows releases are aesthetically groetesque, both Google and Microsoft are trying to jam chatbots into everything, both Windows and Android are jammed full of ads and nagging "suggestions" to try some useless feature. Now Google is cracking down on Android sideloading.

Desktop Linux I guess? I don't have time for that, and the hardware is so much worse than a MacBook.

There's simply no winning, unfortunately.

replies(1): >>45026142 #
2. steve_adams_86 ◴[] No.45026142[source]
> There's simply no winning, unfortunately.

This is the hard truth, I think. All options available require significant compromises.