I’m hoping for Apple to turn things around. They have the money and resources to be so much more awesome than they are and it’s maddening.
I’m planning to always check out the rumors. I can’t guarantee I’ll always be active on this site. I did leave for a year before and may wander off again, but this site is my favorite morning coffee read.
But I feel Apple has been a bit untrustworthy of late. There was the whole thing with the batteries. A friend of mine almost really got screwed over with that. The news broke just in time and she then knew to just replace her battery instead of her whole danged phone that had gone completely batpoop after she updated to iOS 11.
They took away the headphone jack and tried to sell it as “courage” and “the future” and claimed they needed space and it would help with waterproofing. But Samsung manages to keep the headphone jack and keep the phones slim and waterproof. Teardowns revealed they didn’t even use the space saved at first. It is all too easy to suspect the whole move was just to sell more wireless Beats and AirPods. And the customer gets inconvenienced and left with one less option.
I just didn’t like the smell of the stuff they were shoveling to sell us on that decision. Also, many people pointed out this isn’t exactly an environmentally friendly move, which kind of makes Apple look a bit hypocritical on that front as well.
And then, well I have my doubts that they only ever meant to come out just with Face ID no matter what Hairforce One claims. Something about that just doesn’t ring true and some folks here swear they heard talk from Apple peeps to the contrary. Yeah that’s just hearsay, but it wouldn’t shock me if it were true. There’s just enough sheen of malarkey floating around from Apple these days that it’s easier to be more cynical about these things now.
I think they did know it was going to be cool, but I think they meant to also give us in-display Touch ID. I think a couple of things happened though to change the course of things. The bad news: they couldn’t get Touch ID to work in the display. They admitted that. What they won’t admit is that it was ever an important goal for them. The good news: Face ID didn’t suck. I’m sure they were relieved and sacrificed a few pocket calculators to the technology gods in thanks for that.
But when they couldn’t pull in-display Touch ID off, they went too far in my book by dissing the whole concept to the point they’d look like doofuses if they were to try to offer it now. And they also relegated other forms of Touch ID to the scrap heap of history. Which again leaves the customer with one less option. Such arrogance. Bah. It’s also a savvy marketing ploy to plant the idea that manufacturers who do still offer Touch ID and headphone jacks are dated and living in the past.
Pfft. I’m no sheep and I ain’t buying that marketing crap. I know what I like. I know what I want. I’m not paying more for fewer options or options that cost more to have and insure, but do only the same damn thing I did with the older refined and economical technology.
With Android you know somebody is going to try and give you everything and the kitchen sink. I’m very happy so far with my S9+. And Android OS just kept getting more smooth and reliable since I started trying it in the Marshmallow days.
Meanwhile so much of my time now is spent troubleshooting iOS shenanigans for myself and the kids. There’s some weird bugs happening to my kids’ iMessages I can’t even begin to sort out.
I also am tired of being channeled into an ecosystem that’s grown increasingly sloppy and less elegant and less user friendly. It’s confusing for a family with an iPhone 7 Plus, an iphone SE, and iPhone X and an IPhone 8 Plus to have all these different ways of rebooting a phone despite them all being on the same version of iOS. Good Lord, who thought that was a good idea?
Oh you don’t want to see the struggles the kids and I have with the new Apple TV. I’m glad many people like theirs but ours is just plain snakebit. Between that twitchy stupid remote and the bugs infesting that thing nobody wants to watch tv. We were a family of readers anyway and now we are even more so. Even my engineer husband cusses that thing out because we will sit down to watch a program or movie together and some bug will crop up with sound or something else. WTH? “It just works” my right butt cheek.
I respect that ipads work pretty well because Android tablets are being left to die by Google. Chromebooks are cool but they are a different animal.
Yeah, I’m kind of over the walled garden for now. They can reel me back in. I’ll never say never. They just need to rededicate themselves to really giving the customer the best possible experience their engineers and designers can create. People will pay big bucks to have the best made by the best in the business. Steve Jobs knew that. Tim Cook forgot that.
They need to back off designing for the beans (and the shareholders). I’m sick of feeling shaken down for every last bit of loose change in my pockets and my sofa cushions. And for what? Less than I had in 2016? Pfft!
Well I agree with the others, damit Grumpy that was well said! Somehow you really managed to put the finger on a lot of things I've had trouble expressing. I bolded my fave parts.
The headphone jack removal was just cheap and is one of the big ones for me. I regret getting the 7+ last year mainly because of those moments especially while traveling where I simply can't continue listening to music on my sweet Bose noice cancellers because the battery runs out and oh right, I have to do it all using that one lightning port! And no I'm not about to shell out another $350 just to get a wireless version of the same headphones.
At those moments I've really felt cheated. That's unnecessary man, to force me into that situation just because you wanna make another buck on bluetooth peripherals. Boo. Because like you said, many other phones are just as slim but guess what they have both USB C and headphone jack.
As for my 15" MBP, I love it in many ways but man the supposed "ecosystem" benefits give me mostly headaches honestly. I can't tell you how many times I've had iMessage sync, password sync, Apple Watch unlock, even a simple thing as the hotspot, etc etc. start to glitch out on me. And no getting those to work again is not always as simple as some would have it. It was taking me so much time and was so un-straightforward in many cases that at this point I've simply dropped writing and reading iMessages on the MBP, that benefit is no longer worth all the headache I spent on fixing it.
And lastly, there's Siri. 90% of the time all she's good for is a joke. And I mean literally. I'll be having a dinner conversation, something comes up which I wanna do a quick fact check on, I whip up the AW to impress my dinner guests but mid sentence remember what usually happens and sure enough all I get is "I'm not sure I understand" or better yet some doofus version of what I just said that can only be used as a stupid little joke to deflect the embarrassment of what I just attempted. "Haha guys, look how stupid this god damn thing is!" is usually the result of my asking Siri something.
Except the egg timer. She pulls that one off very well.
Meanwhile, Google Assistant is just blowing it out of the water. Hey Apple, how's that for revolutionary future vision?
Anyway sorry, now I'm getting into rant mode. It's just that you hit such good points Grumpy that it made me realise how much crap I'm putting up with by keeping up my hope that my Apple stuff will just start delivering at some point. All this while I've been drooling over the Note 8 for some time but being held back by my slight dislike of the curved edges and previous frustration over Samsung's os... So it lead me to reassess my situation in public hah.
Speaking of which, as an aside, Grumpy I see that you really like the S9, did you like the Note 8 as much but just move to the S9 to get the latest n greatest or how was it? Just looking for all the takes on the Note 8 I can find before I possibly take the leap (would choose that one first because I want maximum display size + love the S Pen).
On top of that, I suffer a couple of ailments, like TMJ problems, that prevent me from talking at all for days or even weeks at a time. Then I just shrug a lot and throw some stink eye around. 
