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I replaced the battery on my ancient 3GS the other day. 2 screws and a guitar pick and I was done. Aaaah the good old days
 
Larger iPhones I believe we would, because ultimately that's what people wanted and I'm not sure Jobs would have resisted to that. But I also believe we would had ONE larger iPhone and not a two/three sizes line-up like now.

Regarding iOS, I don't think it's more colorful now than before. It's just another design approach, but here again, there was a trend change a few years ago pointing to the flat design style, and I don't think it was dictated by Apple. So I think Jobs would have follow the trend. Maybe not in the same way as we have now, but I think he would.

I agree about the wide lineup of products. Way too much iPhones, iPads and Macs. He wouldn't allow that.

It’s hard to say if or when Jobs would implement a larger iPhone. But interviews and comments from those who worked closely for him, highlight the importance of a one-handed use for an iPhone. Jobs might have to give in to the idea of having a larger iPhone but definitely not in 2014 - the year where the 6/6 Plus broke sales records. It wouldn’t have happened if Apple isn’t under Cook’s leadership.

All I’m saying is, Cook has enabled Apple to make products for the masses, rather than pleasing the loyal and hardcore Apple fanbase like how Apple used to operate. I think we should give Apple credit for that.
 
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Complete nonsense. You still have all the flexibility with expansion cards/storage/etc. Yes, you can't upgrade the RAM or the GPU. But it's not because "Apple decided to make it highly limited". It's a consequence of their hardware architecture. They literally can't offer you these things without making the product either much more expensive or messing up the rest of their computer line. Maybe a future revision will address this shortcoming. Maybe it won't. But you can't cherrypick on one change without looking at the full context.

And yes, I agree, M2 Mac Pro is a pointless machine as it is. It's likely just a placeholder until more powerful hardware comes along. They had to do something, and that's what they chose.
Bull crap. They can absolutely design their silicon architecture to be expandable. They choose not to because they’re arrogant and greedy.

And updating RAM and GPU are THE TWO BIGGEST UPGRADES for pro users. Removing those options makes the machine HIGHLY limited for pros.
 
Honestly, I have had very little issues myself.
  1. Iphone 13 Pro was running like new when trading in for Iphone 15 Pro
  2. Macbook Pro M1 14 inch is easily one of the best devices apple has made in years
  3. Ipad Mini 6 needs a better screen. But still useful for portability
I think my biggest gripe was the launch of IOS with Iphone 13 Pro was a mess. But that was off a COVID year. I have had very little issues otherwise.

Most of their devices run like-new for me besides the usual battery degradation. The Ipad Mini I see has the most opportunity for upside.
 
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Apple has always had control of the workflow. Even more so during the early Jobs’ days of leading Apple. Jobs is known for creating products for die-hard Apple fans. However Cook has made Apple’s products attainable to the masses - and open to things that most consumers want. Do you think we would have had large iPhones, colourful iOS and wide product lineups if Jobs was leading Apple in 2023? No.
Size and colors don’t actually get things done for people.
 
To be fair people have been saying this for a long time. Even back when I first joined MR about 2008 time, people were lamenting Apple's supposed downward trend in quality (think MobileMe, cracking polycarbonate MacBooks, Guest accounts in Snow Leopard causing a complete wipe of user data thanks to a nasty glitch).

That being said - I agree with you regarding HomePod mini. They are the most head-bangingly frustrating devices I've ever had to use in all my time using Apple products. If I had just one on it's own, I reckon it'd be fine. It's when you start adding more to the mix and trying to do stereo pairs and multi-room audio it all falls apart.

Today's Apple has issues just as yesterday's Apple did, but because their product portfolio is much wider, they have many more plates spinning at once than they used to say, ten to fifteen years ago. Therefore the percentage of quality issues is probably the same, but because the of amount of products and services they have, that figure becomes much more widespread than it used to be.
 
Nah, don’t agree. The volume of their products has gone up tremendously, and I frankly find it amazing they can keep their standards so high. I have used many of their products for over 20 years, and the quality has been steadily improving for me. And if there was something wrong (because that did happen), Apple has always provided a good solution to me.

To be sure, Apple is not perfect, and they make some funny choices now and then. But overall I‘m very happy.
 
Bull crap. They can absolutely design their silicon architecture to be expandable. They choose not to because they’re arrogant and greedy.

And updating RAM and GPU are THE TWO BIGGEST UPGRADES for pro users. Removing those options makes the machine HIGHLY limited for pros.

Of course they could. How much are you willing to pay for it and how big is the target market?

The only even remotely comparable architecture on the market is Nvidias grace/hopper. Where a single compute board costs somewhere between 20 and 40k. And the carrier board is around 80-100k. Sure, it’s an entirely different performance category but the baseline technology is expensive.
 
I think their hardware build quality is amazing, probably the best out there.
However their software seems to be getting worse and worse.
In saying that, I think Sonoma has been one of the most stable MacOS releases in years, so lol...

What annoys me the most with their software is that they appear to have lost a central design team. They also break their ownUX guidelines. Their software feels a lot more fragmented and inconsistent than it was back in the Steve Jobs era.

I personally hate a lot of the UI navigation choices in the last few years.
Whoever removed a bunch of the tab navigation buttons in apps such as Home, News, Music, needs to be fired....out of a canon into the Sun. Someone was hell bent on having no more than 3 tabs down the bottom. Thankfully this has started to improve.

Back in the old days, you could choose what functions you wanted in your apps. For example, in the Music app, you could remove Radio and replace it with Genres, or Songs, or basically anything from the library.

In the Home app some ******* idiot decided to remove the Rooms tab and replace is with Discover. Which is completely useless as it links to the Apple Store to buy accessories. And in my country of Australia, we have all of about 4 home products on sale at the Apple Store. What a joke... And again why? Why be hell bent on having 3 icons when you could easily fit 4 items (if you really want to have Discover).

News app is the same story, though that's improved a fair bit over the last couple of years.
At one point you could get to your Saved Stories from a tab button. Then they moved it to be the LAST ITEM under the Channels tab, so you had to scroll for ages. However, now you can quickly get to your saves stories under the Following Tab, then it's the second item (which is a huge improvement, that was fixed last year I think?).

It took them years to get even the basics of navigation right in Apple Music. Even then its still a bit ****.

Anywhere the **** is continuity handoff for Apple Music on MacOS?!!!!!
Like seriously, how hard is it to start playing something on my iPhone, and resume on my Mac? I expect to be able to transition to the exact second of a song in a playlist moving between any Apple device.

Apple also bang on about catalyst apps and how easy it is to make an app for iOS to MacOS, yet release new apps like Journal without an iPad or MacOS version, or Health on MacOS, or calculator on iPad etc etc.

Anyway, poor UI design and a ******** of bugs is how I feel about their software.

Some idiot also wrecked notification functionality on MacOS.
I forget the release, but at one point, you could reply to an iMessage inline from the notification button.
Now reply is under a more button and then its reply, like wtf?

We finally get to version iOS X.5 when things get stable, then its about time to upgrade to the new major iOS version where everything that worked before is once again broken, even for features that didn't get an upgrade. Such as bluetooth, wifi etc.

/rant
 
I've been using Apple computers/devices (for personal use) since the Macintosh Performa 630cd. On both the hardware and software fronts, I've only seen things getting much better. There's been some wild hiccups along the way, but I remember using System 7 - 9 and the early years of Mac OS X (10). It wasn't great. Different, exciting... but not great. I won't even talk about the Macintosh clones that were floating around in university computer labs or the extremely exciting/advanced OS release(s) that never happened, hockey puck mouse... I could go on... 😬

We've honestly seen a TON of progress in a very short time and with that... a lot of (realistically expected) issues along the way. The main difference that I see now, is the user-base is significantly larger and younger and didn't have to suffer through the earlier years of Apple, or tech in general.

It is nice to see that Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field" lives on, and I kind of love it.
 
I haven't noticed that Apple's hardware quality has decreased. However, I sometimes disagree with the materials Apple uses -- such as titanium. The software is more buggy but it's also more complex
 
I've been using Apple computers/devices (for personal use) since the Macintosh Performa 630cd. On both the hardware and software fronts, I've only seen things getting much better. There's been some wild hiccups along the way, but I remember using System 7 - 9 and the early years of Mac OS X (10). It wasn't great. Different, exciting... but not great. I won't even talk about the Macintosh clones that were floating around in university computer labs or the extremely exciting/advanced OS release(s) that never happened, hockey puck mouse... I could go on... 😬

We've honestly seen a TON of progress in a very short time and with that... a lot of (realistically expected) issues along the way. The main difference that I see now, is the user-base is significantly larger and younger and didn't have to suffer through the earlier years of Apple, or tech in general.

It is nice to see that Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field" lives on, and I kind of love it.
Exactly what I wanted to say. Have been using Apple stuff from 1995 or so and it has got MUCH better over time. And complex. System 7-9 was crashing ~2x day for me. Now, Windows 3 at that time was also crashing routinely. Over time OS systems were getting better and hardware has improved astronomically. My current MBP is so much better and more reliable than my 2008 MBP. Do you remember all the "gates" - keyboard, graphic card, multiple touch pads, cables to display, screen covering flaking,... Every generation of Apple stuff did have its share of problem and every time people yelled that APple is getting worse.
The problem are expectations - for some reason people think Apple stuff should be perfect - and ability to complain today compared to even few years ago. My expectations are that there will be bugs & problems, these are tools made in millions and complex code chanegs all the time... But today people for some reason expect perfection, which is impossible.
 
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I've not noticed any decrease in quality. Hardware is as good as ever (I'd say it's better).

Software is also probably as good as it ever was if we account for included functions or lines of code or some other metric of complexity. There might be more bugs because it does a lot more than it used to do and there are a lot more Apple users than in the past who are doing more random things (including using various 3rd party apps / applications). So, unless someone has a number for software bugs accounting for some other metric, it's tough to say and not really fair to compare the present to the past from a software (or even hardware) perspective.
 
Agree 1000% and the reason their software is so buggy and garbage lies at the foot of one man - Craig Federighi. Ever since he was given the reigns of Mac OSX & iOS the quality has plummeted and the number of bugs and issues has skyrocketed. Every major release people wait for the .1 and even .2 release to upgrade. Hell people who update when it's released are essentially beta testers.

Why Craig hasn't been fired yet I'll never know.
 
You could say that they went downhill on many issues, but they're still not as bad as the others.

If they would test software and hardware and apps in the App Store better, things might actually work better. For being one of the most valuable companies (on paper) in the world, they don't put enough effort into avoiding problems for their customers.
 
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