One of the most classic examples was Copy/Paste or Apps. I remember so many Apple users telling me that Copy/Paste was unnecessary on an iPhone or that WebApps were good enough (something I completely disagreed with) only to see them change their tune completely once Apple released those functionalities.

I remember how 5G was supposed to be an albatross of a feature until Apple released their phones supporting 5G.

Or how digital pens weren’t needed at all, until Apple released an iPad with a digital pen and then it was just raves about how digital pens are awesome.

How can one forget larger screens! I remember how 3.5” was THE perfect phone screen size and now you can’t even buy a phone that size from Apple.

Multitasking!

I’ve tried switching to Android but never been successful. I simply don’t like it and enjoy iOS too much. That doesn’t mean I need to be blind to all the missing iOS functionality and pretend my I wouldnt be happier if they weren’t missing. I just find that the upsides are more than worth the downsides. That doesn’t mean I need to pretend those downsides don’t exist.

Nowadays the keyboards break. The UI is full of arcane non-discoverable features. Upgrading is a total crap shoot. It might make things better, or it might make things that have been running reliably for years suddenly stop working. And if that happens, it's really hard to go back. (On an iOS device it is usually impossible.)

The competition is even worse. No one makes a computer that Just Works any more. And that makes me sad.

1) Apple had iPod and iPhone, 2 massive hits, most companies are lucky to get one. The hangover will be long.

2) There doesn't seem to be a lot of 'meta' thinking. Watches have been around. Cars - definitely a big lateral move, but what does the car do that is special? Is Apple able to make initiatives that are more than the sum of it's parts?

3) Apple would not exist without tech foundations. Engineers delve into areas that are boring to designers. Without engineering leadership ... the designers won't have the building blocks they need.

4) Software. Software at Apple is lagging. So much focus on physicality, and UX. What about that the fact that my 'Notes' app on Mac is a POS and doesn't work? It's broken. iTunes is slow and crappy. The UX keeps changing in odd ways. Weird things happen on my Mac. Are there problems in the foundation?

There, I said it.

I made the mistake of buying a Macbook with a touch bar because I thought it was kind of cool when I finally got to see it in person. The novelty that came from this cheap gimmick wore off in a matter of minutes, even though the technical obstacles that had to be overcome must've been great.

The face-tracking cameras in the latest iPhones and iPads? Impressive on their own, but Apple has failed to do anything really fascinating with them besides using them to unlock your device or to puppet an emoji.

Apple invents only for the sake of creating additional cheap gimmicks without creating genuinely exciting products. As I fumble with the awful keyboard on my Macbook I question just how capable they are of even creating quality products.

Then Facebook and the rest became staples of iDevices, Apple focused on stupid slim design rather than pushing the product envelope, and risk their yearly mobile cash cow.

Their EarPods were not exactly the first BT earbuds, HomePod was well after Alexa.

For the most part they are doing the same with hardware; changing up housing but emphasizing their own chips.

MS aped Apple laptop quality with Surface, bombed mightily with Windows Phone, is doing fine with Azure; again all products that came as a response to others.

We’re beyond the bootstrap phase of technology. Something truly innovative to the user is still in some lab.

My money is on bio-tech mutant; custom drugs and high res simulation to embed an experience so real you think it happened. I dunno something that’s focused on more than b2b apps/ads deals and phone update cycles.

I mean there is no point to any of this. There’s no higher calling for people. One generation being addicted to computers as we know them is not necessarily a forever trend for the species. It’s just math. shrug

I haven’t felt that way in a while. There’s nothing really new that apple is doing at the moment. Thinner devices that’s im going to wrap in a case are great. A higher resolution is nice. Deeper blacks and face recognition instead of passwords? Okay cool. Certainly not worth $1000 to me.

Don’t get me started about the MacBook Pro. Some how apple managed to take a very fine machine and in 2016 decided, “You know what? Let’s just take a massive dump on this thing and add a Touch Bar.”

What I think Apple lacks at the moment, is any new just-mature technology on which to base its 'next big thing'. That's not to say Steve Jobs didn't have a huge roll in making all their previous products a big hit, just that there is nothing new on the scene at the moment with which to craft a break through tech hit.

Apple had Siri out and was in the lead with voice control, then they wasted it. I never use Siri, she is nearly worthless, but I do use Alexa multiple times a day. Amazon is Leading the voice assistant market, and Google is right on their heels.

Home automation was supposed to get better with HomeKit but arrived basically stalled. They announced all these partners and sold their products at the Apple Store. Then when HomeKit finally was ready none of those products worked with HomeKit. You had to buy newer versions that had some proprietary Apple chip in it.

Apple's cloud offering is confusing and hard to manage, also it doesn't work with other platforms besides their own. Amazon and Google both do this much better.

AppleTv is a great product but Apple can't seem to really work with partners to make it actually innovative. The TV app is a cool idea, but I've yet to find any reason to actually use it.

It just seems like they've been wondering aimlessly and dropping half products out there then never iterating and finishing them. Is there some other hidden project (car?) taking all their top talent? Is there some sort of corporate culture issue that has driven all the best and brightest brightest elsewhere? Is there a lot of mismanagement and mixed signals coming down from above?

They don't make the most bleeding edge phones anymore (Samsung is pushing the envelope with foldables).

They don't make the best looking wireless earbuds.

They don't make the best looking smartwatches.

They don't make the best looking tablets.

On the software front, Google has caught up on Android's UI and has the same polish as iOS. Apple is no longer the software design leader.

The only area that Apple is truly ahead is in chip design. Does that mean Apple is now a chip company first and design second? Also, does that mean Apple no longer attracts the very best designers and instead attracts the best chip designers?

It's useless to argue against and pure waste of time. Don't but their products and don't argue. They are just another greedy, dominating corporate. Nothing more, nothing less. It's how they project in people's mind is good they are. All other stuff of innovation, fantastic product etc etc is just pure marketing gimmick. Nothing works beyond a few years and one still needs to upgrade. Take a ThinkPad and throw it in dust and it still functions even after 12 - 13 yrs with the latest upgraded OS support.

Can anyone show a single apple product that exists? Oh no! They don't have any product that had so much life or upgrade ability since apple sucks cash from time to time from their beloved fanbois!

And yet folks compare it against other products missing the core discussion here about the mind altering behaviour and how apple drives the consumer base while commanding a premium for the silliest of the silly feature or upgrade. That's the command they've over the ecosystem and once one gets caught, there's no turning back.

It's like Hotel California. You can check in anytime, but you can never leave and you pay with your soul.

Why are we here? People have decided with their pockets, Apple is now the biggest company in the history of humanity. Don't get me wrong, Apple has done a lot of stuff right, the amount of design and engineering behind the original iPhone it's incredible, and yes maybe a lot of the technology already existed but they polished the combined products until they got something that worked in such a nice fashion; that's the "magic" behind their products but from there is downhill.

iPad: bigger iphone. iPad mini: mini- bigger iphone. MacBook Air: let's trade some some performance and take away the capability of upgrade the machine in a pursuit of a more thinner machine. MacBook: let's take the least powerful CPU from Intel (the reason behind the no-fan design"), cripple the typing experience, take away all upgrade-ability, cripple the semantics of touch from the track pad, take away all the ports.... WTF.. charge for the hub... and make it more expensive.....

But I think the problem is not Apple but the people buying their products and how they use them. It's a super glorified version of "I belong to the better group" psychology.

now that I type all this... it could make some sense to start looking all this not as a computer... or apple as a computer and software company but a boutique selling accessories.

I would love to tell you that thinkpads still make sense but the "no leds" and "screw keyboard" may prove me wrong.

The numbers are excellent at Apple but you have to ask whether this is Apple's work or the demands of the marketplace. Everyone wants a mobile phone, although a tough market to be in for the likes of HTC/Nokia/Blackberry (who got it majorly wrong), could Apple have done better?

Same with computers. Everyone has one but could Apple have done better had they listened to the customers?

Steve Jobs was right to get rid of the floppy disk and Flash even though that was deeply upsetting to some people. That set a bit of a trend with Apple being prepared to get rid of some features that people really liked such as the MagSafe power adaptor. Then there were the dongles. In ten years time people will look back on that not as a bold but correct decision. Ultimately many people were quite inconvenienced by that unilateral decision.

There are products such as the Mac Pro that are nonsensical. Then when it comes to actual computers rather than lifestyle accessories, Apple don't really do server things. So if you are an Apple shop then you don't have rack-mounted Apple computers, they come from somewhere else.

There are lots of people that cuss the mice, the keyboards and much else. If you are a PC or Linux user then these mutterings are kept to oneself. You just know that you don't question these things as the loyal followers of the cult are okay with these things.

Sometimes it requires someone to be moved sideways to take a revisionist view grounded in realism. We have been worshipping false gods. Apple have been pissing off the true faithful in the developer community. The choir might not have the numbers of the congregation but they are a key demographic for getting the congregation to show up. As a developer myself I have never been converted to the Apple flock. So I have a little bit of perspective and I am not blinded by the Apple Way. But Apple could have got this market entirely to themselves, all they needed was to have just the one developer grade laptop and just the one developer grade desktop.

Developer grade? It just means having a case you can open and upgrade, the required ports and a user interface (hw + sw) that 'just works'. Even if there isn't the same margin made on these products they are 'halo', the rewards come when every developer moves on to spec. Apple for their respective companies and friends/family.

China is a bit of a problem for Apple. Huawei products are getting a bit of press at the moment but if you look at the quality and design you can see some incredible stuff going on. It is hard to say Apple are the best in comparison.

Anyway, Apple is a forward thinking company and whatever the real reasons they have mutually agreed to let the design boss go and to take a different direction. I am hopeful that the customer rather than the designer will come first and that we will be seeing great products come out of Cupertino that don't get non-Apple people like me in silly arguments about Apple design hubris.

I get the sense that people like us tend to want to see lots of changes, and are too quick to write things off just because they don't look that different from last year's model.

All that said, I certainly don't think iOS is perfect. I think Apple needs to add user accounts to the iPad, and allow for some IPC and replacement of system components on iOS, among other things.

[1] cf. this god-awful skeumorphic thing that is finally being put out to pasture. And the Flower Power and Dalmatian iMacs. And that whole "It's called iTools, not wait .Mac, no wait MobileMe, no wait iCloud!" thing has been a total disaster.