For the past few years, the wonderful Jason Snell (of Six Colors and Upgrade Podcast fame) has been compiling a list of grades from people in the Apple community. I find the results fascinating to look through every year.
Be sure to check out his Apple in 2021: The Six Colors Report Card article. I’m going to throw my own grades out there as well.
Mac: B
I’m giving the Mac a B because while the hardware has (almost) never been better, I desperately want a monitor that’s affordable and works, and I’m concerned about declining software quality.
Apple really needs to offer a realistic monitor option for its users. The XDR is simply too expensive and too niche for most people. There are no other good options out there, and this is a glaring hole in the market. I badly need a good display for my new M1 laptops, and there just isn’t one available.
Frustrations with Apple killing the AirPort and Cinema Display aside, the rest of the hardware story is really great.
The real issue is on the software side. Apple used to be known for its fantastic software. Easy to use, reliable, fun, superbly designed software is what kept me on the Mac all these years.
Sadly, Apple is seemingly becoming a company that makes really great hardware with mediocre software. And as they continue to lean harder into their services business, the software suffers more.
I could get into specific software issues here, but I’ll save those for more dedicated posts. Suffice to say, Apple really needs to adjust their priorities when it comes to software.
iPhone: A
I honestly don’t have much to say about the iPhone. And that’s probably a good thing. It works well, continues to improve, and does everything I need it to do just fine. An easy A from me.
iPad: C
Once again, we get to the familiar story as of late from Apple: fantastic hardware, lousy software. I continue to struggle with the multitasking features of iPad, and find that it gets in my way more than helps me.
Even worse — I have an iPad Pro with a gorgeous display and a stupidly fast M1 processor. Where are the pro apps for this thing? Can you believe almost 12 years later, Apple still hasn’t released one single pro app for the iPad?
A lot of developers struggle with how to tackle this problem. In the past, we used Apple as a beacon, showing developers examples of how to do things in innovative ways. But how can we expect third party developers to create stellar pro apps for iPad when Apple themselves won’t (can’t?) even do it?
Wearables: B+
I use Apple Watch and AirPods every single day, and they’re good. I’m on an older Apple Watch because the last couple of updates haven’t been extremely exciting, but they’re fine. I’m hoping for more medical sensors to continue being added.
Apple TV: C+
I haven’t had cable TV or any set-top box other than Apple TV since 2006, when the first one came out. That’s really rather incredible to think about. Almost 16 years!
Obviously I love Apple TV. I use it daily, and solely, for all entertainment. The new remote really is a huge improvement over the old one. And yet, I can’t help but think it could be so much better.
It’s still too hard to find what I was watching and continue on. The TV app is a mess. Apple TV+ content is hard to find. Streaming apps are bad.
But it is the overall strategy of Apple TV that frustrates me. Apple has such an incredible opportunity to turn it into something great. Imagine if Apple TVs acted like WiFi range extenders and smart speakers? And really slick control panels for your smart home stuff?
It could simultaneously be Apple’s answer to home networking, smart home automation, and smart home assistants. All in one easily scalable product. And then it would be worth its current price tag.
Barring all of that, just drop the price by $100 and give me a quick option to blacken the screen when I’m listening to music or falling asleep to my favorite TV show. Seriously – why isn’t this a thing yet?
Services: D-
I’m of two minds when evaluating services. Firstly, how good are they? Answer: decent. Apple Music is a complete and total mess. iCloud storage space is still way too expensive. Apple TV+ hasn’t excited me, beyond Ted Lasso. But I haven’t really watched anything else on there yet. iCloud syncing is getting better.
More often on my mind these days is the second concern: Apple is aggressively moving into the services space to the detriment of their users. Why? Let’s take a look.
First, they are becoming spammy. I never thought I’d see the day where Apple peppered me with full-screen ads, notifications, and emails hounding me to sign up for this new service nonstop. It’s gross. It feels like Windows and Google in the 2000s. It is not Apple-like at all.
Second, I feel like they are spending way too much time and money on services, and not enough on quality software. It seems like their priority is on services, on their software is suffering.
Apple used to be known for high quality software, beautifully designed to just get out of your way and work. I don’t know if services are to blame, but ever since they began pushing them, their software has become the polar opposite. Bloated, nagging, poorly designed, buggy, and seemingly built to funnel more and more people into their monthly subscriptions.
I’m extremely nervous about how this bodes for the future of Apple.
HomeKit: B-
HomeKit is fine. I love the security and privacy considerations. I use HomeKit throughout my house and it mostly works most of the time. The Home app on iOS and Mac is absolutely terrible. It desperately needs a redesign, and more automation features.
That being said, I do use it regularly and enjoy it. But it could be much better.
Hardware Reliability: A
I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a piece of Apple hardware have an issue. And on the rare occasion when I need them to service something (for example the battery in my 2012 MacBook Air), they do so promptly with fantastic service.
Software Quality: C
Overall, software quality isn’t actually terrible at Apple. My main concern is how it seems to be getting worse and not getting better. If they don’t course correct on this soon, one day it will be terrible.
I experience frustrating bugs with Finder, file sharing, Safari, iOS, Apple Music, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pages, and more every day. This stuff used to just work.
It’s not just bugs, either. I’m against the no-contrast ultra-minimalistic design trend of Apple software these days as well. Apple needs to seriously reevaluate their priorities and start focusing on software that works and looks better.
Developer Relations: D-
This is a minefield. Apple’s recent behavior has shown again and again that they are fine being petulant, gross, and greedy. They seem to have very little appreciation of their developers, who literally make their computers, phones and tablets worth buying.
They’ll get on stage and rattle off a bunch of empty fluff about how much they love their developers. It’s all PR nonsense. If they truly cared about their developers, they wouldn’t nickel and dime them to death, while simultaneously making them jump through flaming hoops.
They wouldn’t allow their App Store to be overrun with scammy copy-cat apps that harm good developers. They wouldn’t half-ass their developer documentation. They wouldn’t play chicken with governments and risk having their developer platform regulated. They wouldn’t… well, I could go on. But you get the point.
Social & Societal Impact: C
I feel like Apple does a decent job here. They’re certainly not great, but they’re fine. Their work from home policies during the pandemic have been okay, but their communication hasn’t been great.
They still rely on China for basically their entire supply line, and I really hope they’re working on changing that sooner rather than later.
They continue to consider the environment, but they could and should do better.
