Maybe because... it IS a marketing page?
As much as I've also become an apple hater recently because of what they've done to iOS10 and the new macbook pro, I think criticizing a marketing copy for being a marketing copy is not fair.
As much as I've also become an apple hater recently because of what they've done to iOS10 and the new macbook pro, I think criticizing a marketing copy for being a marketing copy is not fair.
A pair of headphones a month later than they should be that look exactly like their old headphones
Because it IS an entry into a nascent market. Apple sees this as a new IO device, not a "pair of fucking headphones".
Take a look at the specs
There are not many wireless earbuds in this form-factor / category.
The AirPods honestly do seem like a somewhat unique entry into the market to me, but it's such a crowded market that I could have easily missed a competitor somewhere.
That said, the lack of any sort of wiring is actually a negative to me, because that's primarily what makes it seem like these will be so easy to lose.
https://www.amazon.com/Bragi-Truly-Wireless-Smart-Earphones/...
And eh, I realize that Apple almost never goes below MSRP/list, but don't act like the "after $50 off" is some special promotion. It's not a rebate, even an instant one, just 'cheaper than list'.
In reality, the only thing close costs markedly more, not at MSRP but at real selling price.
There's a reality distortion field, but it's inverted.
Not hilarious, just tedious.
Motorola VerveOnes - $150
SmartOmi Boots Mini - $75
Rowkin Bit Stereo - $110
Rowkin Mini Plus - $60
Sol Republic Amps Air - $150
Your lack of awareness of the market does not mean that it does not exist. It is not helpful to pretend that your unwillingness to do simple research on the matter makes you an expert.
I will now predict your next objections:
"I don't like these companies"
"These are not exactly the same product"
"The colors are off"
"The Apple Store doesn't carry them"
Even Reddit finds more plausible comps:
- Samsung Gear IconX ($200) 4GB of on-board storage+, fitness tracking+ -- 1.6 Hours
- Motorola VerveOnes ($200) Can look up last connected location if lost+ -- 2-3 Hours
- Bragi Dash ($300) Fitness tracking+, gesture control+, 4GB storage+, Audio passthrough+ -- 4 Hours
- Bragi Headphone ($150) Hardware buttons+, no case charging or BLE -- 6 Hours
- Earin M-1 ($200) claims good sound quality+, no mics- -- 3 Hours
- Jabra Elite Sport ($250) Fitness tracking+, waterproof+ -- 3 Hours
- Apple Airpods ($160) W1 Chip to quickly switch devices+, Can use either headphone independently+, 24 add hrs of charge in case, only comes in one size- -- 5 Hours
I'm not sure your list is made of nice things:
- "Sol Republic Amps Air Are Truly Wireless Earbuds That Kind of Suck" http://gizmodo.com/sol-republic-amps-air-are-truly-wireless-...
- "Review: Apple AirPods Are Pretty F--king Cool" http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/review-apple-airpods-are...
But it's irrelevant. You can say "apple's product is better." You can say "these other products are terrible." You can even say "I hate everything that is not from Cupertino." But the claim here is that these things are some kind of revolution. The claim we are trying to rebut is not "apple airpods suck and are not worth buying." I, and many others, are merely explaining that there is nothing magical or even particularly new about airpods. They are an iteration on an existing product segment.
You, so far, have done nothing to demonstrate otherwise.
Apple might have executed particularly well, but I see his point.
The problem with the MBP is its 10 hours of a 'light workload'. And it meets that. But a HEAVY workload may be 4 hours and they don't advertise that.
I don't remember reviewers saying anything bad about battery life on the AirPods back in October.
Let's wait to see what real world use looks like. I mean, if you take the emoji touch bar at face value it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. However, real world use indicates that it might not be as useful as Apple wants it to be.
The problem here is that Apple hasn't given numbers about what it's like under heavy load. Or really any load it all. If you stick to doing the kind of things Apple does in their battery life test you WILL get what they say.
Unfortunately as we seem to be finding out if you go outside of that you're screwed. Obviously harder workloads always hit the computer more, but this year the delta seems much much higher. They are cherry picking tests that make their battery life look reasonable.
I should also note that this is not the first time Apple did this. The quoted battery life on the iPhone 7 is basically the same as before, but they made a slight change to the wording. This year there tests are all with wireless headphones. This is likely because it's always been down that using the speaker on an iPhone to listen to music will lower your battery life pretty significantly, and now that the new iPhone 7 has a double speaker arrangement it's likely an even bigger effect than before.
Apples not lying like so many PC makers used to do, they're playing lawyer games and choosing their words incredibly carefully.
This is not a good turn. Apple giving real life accurate battery estimates used to be one of the things that put them above PC makers in my mind. If they're going to start redefining the workload to doing nothing on your computer... why bother?
Wireless headphones that "work well" don't cost $20. And especially in this form factor (separate).
They could absolutely be better, if for example, the charge lasted two weeks, or the sound was higher quality (I'm no audiophile but I'm sure if I was I'd find they could be better) but they're Good Enough.
> Because it IS an entry into a nascent market. Apple sees this as a new IO device, not a "pair of fucking headphones".
It really is just a pair of headphones. This isn't a new market.
Hope this answers your question.
I've had a set of $25 Motorola wireless (Bluetooth) headphones that I use on my daily walking commute to and from work for many years. They work and sound great. They double as a wireless microphone and playback controls. I charge them every day via a USB cable. Woohoo.
I can't see anything specs-wise with the Apple headphones that is interesting. Auto-pause? Okay, cool, but I can press the pause button on my Bluetooth headphones from 2010. Switching between devices? I can enable or disable Bluetooth on my devices, I guess, if I had wanted to use the headphones with more than my phone (though I do not want that).
These new features seem incremental at best. The clamor for these—and the fact that their availability is a high-ranking news item on HN—seems to suggest I am missing something very fundamental. And yet, it feels that I am not. These are wireless headphones with a couple incremental features and an Apple logo.
Auto-mono: I guess I see some people listening in only one ear sometimes, but that's not my way of listening to music or podcasts. The cheap Motorola headphones I use are traditional "headphones" and not earbuds. I prefer headphones over earbuds. But even if I used earbuds, I'm not interested in single-ear listening.
Carrying case: This is a big deal? On my walks, I "carry" my headphones on my ears. When I get home, I charge via a USB cable.
Whatever; I suppose I don't begrudge anyone for being excited by Apple headphones. I just find the hype level amusing and silly.
They're from ~2009 or thereabouts. Traditional headphone form factor. Works great for my use case (pedestrian commutes to and from the office).
That said, I'm not a fan of earbuds, wired or otherwise. So whether removing the bridge wire is a revolution is lost on me since I'm not interested either way.
The whole point of the brand is that you're getting a quality, consistent product.
But I understand you. If you've not previously used wireless headphones and you're satisfied with Apple quality, this new offering is a known quantity. I'm still not really feeling the innovation. Except of course, as someone pointed out, this is a subtle redefinition of "wireless" to mean not just removing the wire to the device, but also any bridge between the two ears. For me, that bridge isn't something I care to remove. But okay, that's cool.
They're tiny, they pair to multiple devices trivially, and are well designed. They're one of the big reasons Apple is supposed to have removed the headphone jack off the iPhone 7. "You don't need it, let us show you why" kind of thing.
The other reason is that this is releasing MONTHS LATE. It was supposed to be released at the end of October, now it's coming out end of December. That's HUGE.
When was the last time Apple screwed up the launch of something big like this? The biggest one people can recall is the white iPhone 4 which basically released 9 months late. At that point most people just waited the extra 4-5 months for the iPhone 4s.
Ignoring that they're neat little headphones, this is big news today because APPLE SHIPPED LATE. That just doesn't happen. Maybe quantities are low (Apple watch), but not a flat out delay on a major product after announcing a release date.
It's months late, it's still not here yet, AND there's a "big" warning on the page that even when it is here it will only be in limited quantities and that prospective buyers are "advised" to check online for stocking levels... very un-Apple.
I believe modern Bluetooth headphones are indistinguishable from equivalent non-Bluetooth headphones. If you can tell whether headphones are Bluetooth or not—the other components being equal—then you have particularly acute hearing. And if that's you, then you are probably a FLAC aficionado.
For what it's worth, I listen to MP3s on Bluetooth headphones and they sound great.
(Though to be clear, I've not actually researched the bit rate of Bluetooth, though I suspect it's high enough for 44 KHz stereo. To my ears, Bluetooth is indistinguishable from an analog 3.5mm connection.)
Again, that's my point. Bluetooth has a undeserved/outdated bad reputation for adversely affecting audio. I contend that, all else being equal, I could not distinguish a modern Bluetooth wireless headphone from a wired headphone.
Yes, as you point out, they also need a DAC. So I will clarify my contention: all else being equal, I could not distinguish a Bluetooth wireless headphone from a wired USB headphone that uses the same DAC.
The effective remaining bandwidth fell far short of what the default Bluetooth codec, SBC, required. SBC was already pretty low end, more like MPEG Layer-1 audio. Even so, for point to point streaming if the devices cooperated well there was enough bandwidth for fairly good audio quality. It's just that it was a crapshoot what any pair of devices would get you.
The other big issue is that there wasn't, at least at the time, any standardized method for synchronizing the audio sampling rates of the source and sink. This could have been achieved by slaving the audio PLL to the connection master's frequency hopping clock, which the slave has to follow to even maintain a connection, but there wasn't any requirement to do so. Plus it'd be a massive layer violation in the Bluetooth stack. We basically ran a software PLL on the sink side to try to match what the source was giving us, but packet retransmissions due to loss could gum up the timing. You could get a pitch-bending effect as a connection was starting up, or had just suffered a lot of loss.
I imagine they've sorted most of that out by now.
I think they have. Giving some leeway to my bluetooth Motorola headphones since they are super-aural, to my ears—and I feel I am fairly picky—they are not significantly worse than my circumaural Sennheiser HD 380 pros on my workstation. I suspect the principal reason I feel my circumaural headphones sound a bit better is simply that they are circumaural.
Just go grab a pair of BT headphones with aptX support and you should be fine. Unless you are a tube amp and $1.5k headphone kind of person - then you most definitely aren't in the target segment.
A few features that make them new/innovative:
• Smart switching between multiple devices logged into iCloud. You need only pair with one of your iCloud devices and the rest will auto pair.
• Auto-pause when removed from ears.
• Auto-mono when only one is in your ear.
• Carrying case that charges them rapidly and keeps them safe in your pocket.
Edit: I said AirPods when I meant EarPods (the current wired ones). I don't currently have the AirPods.
Edit 2: Another reason I'm excited about these: I absolutely abhor talking on the phone (like holding the phone up to my ear) and find single ear bluetooth devices to be lame in both function and appearance. I might be a smidge hard of hearing, so I much prefer to have both ears in on the action. I've tried a handful of Bluetooth headsets in the past, and they've all left me seriously wanting. Connectivity isn't consistent. Audio quality isn't great. If something doesn't just work like my wired headphones, I'm not going to switch. If these turn out to have the same issues, I'll gladly report how inaccurate Apple's marketing was and how disappointed I am.
http://www.plantronics.com/us/product/voyager-legend-case
(I know that this product is not specifically music-oriented, but the operation principle is there still).
This Plantronics case isn't that great. You have to open it with two hands in front of you, and carefully place the awkwardly shaped headset in. You probably have to look at it while doing so. It's rather large, and the clear plastic cover looks like it can break pretty easily. It's also only one ear, and it's a $30 accessory.
The AirPods can be opened one-handed while in your pocket, and you can place them in without looking. They're also smaller, the case looks quite a bit more durable, and they work with the charger you already have as an iPhone user (lightning). The AirPods and case were designed with a broader UX scope - the entire user experience, from opening to listening to putting away - as one unified product.
The process that most hardware teams typically take is more narrowly focused on the core product hardware, rather than the entire scope of its use. If Plantronics had designed their headset with a broader UX scope in mind, they probably would have designed the headset itself differently, because its awkwardly shaped and hard to store. Instead I imagine they optimized the headset design for solely when its on-ear, and then asked how they could make a case for that shape. Such are the little differences that distinguish between regular products and category-defining ones (see also: iPod with iTunes).
I've got a pair of Bose QC 35s and though their pairing experience is standard annoying bluetooth pairing, their support of multiple devices/easily switching between them is the best I've seen in bluetooth headphones I've purchased. The AirPods are, apparently, comparable to the Bose in this regard, with a better onboarding experience.
From who? They're not available, not even any pre-release reviews around.
I'm probably not switching soon because I love my Atomic Floyd's sound quality (don't get me started on their customer service) but I'm just curious how they did with the sound quality aspect, which feels like the most important thing to me.
I've never been able to use the traditional wired Apple earbuds because my ear is too small and they start hurting after 5-10 mins of use.
Then at some point the design of the earphone changed and I had the same problem as you ever since:-( I was quite disappointed at the time
Genuine feature, and a neat one at that. Previously I had to rely on stuff like NFC or saved pairs, which is still more than 1 pair.
>• Auto-pause when removed from ears.
Also a genuine feature. Takes some real thinking to make that a priority in the UX.
>• Auto-mono when only one is in your ear.
Is that really a feature? I mean I guess that's cool, but it seems like a play on the previous feature sensing if in use or not.
>• Carrying case that charges them rapidly and keeps them safe in your pocket.
This is a necessity rather than a feature per say.
Wired headphones don't need to be charged. Wireless headphones with a headphone port for backup also don't require a charge.
Most modern headphones are a single unit, so they don't need a case to be kept from getting lost.
That said, many have cases to keep them from getting tangled or damaged in transport, the latter which is true for the airpods, however if your case were damaged, so is your charger.
> If these turn out to have the same issues, I'll gladly report how inaccurate Apple's marketing was and how disappointed I am.
If they have the same issues as other Bluetooth devices, hopefully you find out about it before you spend your money on some expensive tech.
I think the distinction is that its not just turning off one of the phones. Its switching from stereo to mono so you can still hear everything you previously required both sides of the stereo mix (left + right) for. Definitely not a big jump from the other feature, but still goes to show how they are thinking about the small details.
I don't think however people were having a "crippled" xp when using just one wired earbud in "mono" rather than "combined stereo"
I think the feature really should be "senses when individual pods are in use" and because of that feature, some automatic tasks can be applied like combining stereo or pausing the music.
I guess I am just complaining that it feels like they used one feature and got two marketing points out of it, which is fair game.
??? Maybe we have different standards on what 'look different' should be, but these are functionally and design-wise worlds apart from their existing headphones.
I'm not sure if you have a bias against Apple or not but you're distilling your adjectives down to the simplest level in order to attack them. I do not believe that is a fair assessment.
The AirPods include some interesting UX changes not typically seen (open case to connect, etc) and while some abilities have been done before (the tiny ear buds, the recharging case, etc) it also has some interesting aspects with voice commands and gestures.
Yes I wouldn't necessarily call them world class but a "pair of fucking headphones" seems possibly even more inaccurate to me.
I rise to the level of my competition.
But I do agree it's kind of corny...
...though I cringe to think of the pressure at this time of year to release a product whose quality is not yet vetted by early adopters.
I guess people don't like changes to the things they've grown accustomed to.
I'm not in love with "click to unlock" either, although the 7 makes it bearable with raise-to-wake (it's just stupid on my 6, though).
However, more and more I'm running into things that are just stupid or buggy or both.
The TV app is the latest annoyance. All our purchases are under my wife's account, and there seems to be no way to view family sharing purchases with the app.
I'm using a beta of iOS and I keep hoping it'll be added, but this is the seventh beta I think, and I've pretty much given up.
Trust me I used to be one of those people who would say the same thing you're saying. I was like "What's the big deal? These people just don't like change. They'll get used to it."
Except that you don't anymore.
The reason I hate these changes is because things just don't work smoothly and disrupt your workflow, not to mention the UI being messy design-wise (I have NEVER complained about Apple's design changes ever since the first iPhone).
And this is all because of the new features they introduced they're trying to shove down user's throats. Most of these features are built to satisfy Apple's agenda instead of making it easier for users to use. Just read what others have already said, these are features built for Apple, not for users.
You're assuming all changes are progress. They are not.
Ridiculous, right?
I'm now seeing the 10.2 update available, but it hasn't (yet) been downloaded; if a day goes by and it still isn't, then I'd have to say I owe you a beer, or several, for pointing me at a way to relieve what was getting to be a real pain in the neck. (Although why I failed to find this clue for myself is a curious question in its own right - it's certainly not for want of looking! In any case, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to point it out.)
So yes, ridiculous..
On the other hand, I'm increasingly sure I have never had automatic updates enabled on this device, yet I had the iOS 10 update downloaded regardless. Perhaps I forgot having done that by hand, or perhaps the setting doesn't apply to OS updates; in any case, time will tell.
Thanks again! That was really getting on my nerves.
1) Unlock process: When the fingerprint reader fails it now takes several presses on the home key to get a keypad to pop up so I can input my code. With previous versions I could just swipe when I knew the fingerprint reader would fail (e.g. wet hands).
2) App updates: When apps are updating on my phone it decides it really wants to stay on the home screen. I can swipe to get to the other screens, but it goes back before I can tap any apps. Also, when I can get into an app they tend to lag and crash more when updates are happening in the background.
3) Control Center (bottom menu): Trying to slide the brightness or volume controls on the control center menus usually gets interpreted as a swipe to the next control menu. I have to be very precise when touching them for the sliders to actually work.
4) Safari: Auto-hide of the control buttons does help page visibility, but showing them seems to be glitchy as hell. They appear and then disappear before I can move my finger to tap them.
5) Crashes: At least daily now the whole phone crashes to a black screen and then comes back to the lock screen a few seconds later. Seems to involve location services.
Also, not exactly iOS 10, but the new Watch OS completely broke the usability of the Weather app for me. Something that was fairly intuitive and useful is now cumbersome and basically useless to me.
3 was allegedly fixed in iOS 10.2, which just came out.
A friend has a 16gb iPhone and has managed to deal with that little space until just recently. She'd run out of space completely, I'd hand-update apps one-at-a-time trying to free up temp download space. Deleted her local music. A few weeks later deleted her local photos. iMessage claimed 1gb of space, it's a little opaque and manual to clean delete things. I finally convinced her to delete all messages older than 1 year. She got 500mb back. The next day her phone was full again without an obvious reason. Backed up her phone and restored. Everything seems to be there and now she has 5+gb free.
I was having the battery issue they're fixing the 6s for. Because I knew they'd ask I restored my phone (and grabbed yesterdays update because that had a fix related to this, too). It seems to be fixed as well by restoring.
...but all of this is souring me on Apple. I wish I was more confident about other options.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/out-of-space-on-your-iphone-try-...
However, in my case had I tried this and it didn't work.
Also I've found that apple music CONSTANTLY loses my place if I pause my music for more than a couple minutes. This never used to happen with the old music app.
They are pushing this new notification thing which is pretty out of touch with how people actually use the phone--they think interacting directly from the notification is how people want to use it, when most people feel claustrophobic and would rather see the whole thing before making any action--and because of this, it introduces another step for people who just want to open the app and do the damn work
I like interacting with the notification instead of losing context to respond to some message.
the current version supposedly fixes the battery drain (not sure about the shutdown bug) but introduced a bug into another app that i use and don't want to risk upgrading for either.
and this is the problem. apple charges premium prices but their software has gotten sloppy. macos and ios10 included. i upgraded to the latest macos version, sierra, and my escape key would not work for some reason (i was using vim and ended up doing ctrl-c? to activate) then i find out that killing siri on mac would fix the problem. then i found out a couple days later that their new macbook pro would not have an escape key. gee i wonder why they never caught this bug in testing?
Check here: https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/
I checked there and my phone is eligible for the battery replacement.
my original's lcd screen had the touch disease, since it was just inside warranty they "replaced" it by just giving me a new phone.
the replacement died within a week. serious wtf. so i went in and got yet another one.
this one has been fine, mostly. but i'm probably not going to get a iphone for my next device. not saying no other devices do this but that touch disease should be fixed even if you're outside warranty and not be charged with the $329 it cost. my original phone was susceptible to it and only by sheer "luck" did it happen within my warranty.
Brand new mbp on 10.11.6. Opening new tabs in safari then cmd-L to put focus in the location bar would beachball safari for multiple seconds.
The solution after much debugging was to disable com.apple.imklaunchagent
These lazy engineers really should be ashamed of themselves. This was an out of box install on a brand new laptop on their browser with minimal 3rd party software installed (chrome, brew, intellij, but nothing that should interfere with the os.) I wasted 5 free hours trying to make the damn browser work.
- Photos. Wtf is the distinction between 'photos' and 'albums'. Why does Photos pretend to be a chronological hierarchy of Year -> Month -> Day but then drop to Tumblr style 'related' links, while Memories contain your grouped photos in any order, but so does Albums. Albums also try to dynamically group things by 'location' and 'selfies' and 'video' and 'camera roll'. Oh, they're all showing the same thing - the last thing I recorded? Useful. It's a complete mess and super frustrating to use.
- The changes to take and send photos in iMessage. Used to be that taking a photo meant pressing and holding the photo button, sliding up to take a video. Now it's more steps, and the camera shutter button is awkwardly at the bottom of the screen, then there's another slider to the left to reveal another camera button, to switch to the camera app, to take a video. More steps for everything, which also displaces 'insert a previously taken photo'. Who benefits?
- Video editing (trim) was glitchy in iOS9 and still is in iOS 10. Seriously, take photo, play with trim, randomly the video stops changing with the slider position, then the screen goes black, have to task-end the Photos app and try again. Video playback in Safari, also glitchy - pause somewhere, or skip forwards, get it playing from the start at 10x framerate (or more) with no audio, to 'catch up' to the new seek location. Seeking is still fiddly and often doesn't work well.
- Still need to care about WiFi vs. Cellular because "we changed our App icon to a Christmas one" still means tens or hundreds of download.
In the past it may have been true. That's why a lot of people hated iOS7 just because it was different.
But Apple's recent updates are all bad because the root cause goes up to how Apple is trying to push their own agenda--they want to become the "Services" company, because the wall street thinks their device growth has stalled. For example their stickers is an attempt to monetize their user base with app purchases. They don't care that people would rather be able to take a photo and send with one tap, because they know users have no choice anyway.
But this is super short sighted, Apple's recent moves reminds me of how Windows lost significant size of their users with Vista and went downhill.
The reason the UI is designed this way is because they decided to cram 100 features in a space that simply can't accomodate it properly. Stickers, Apps, Photos, Animations etc all of that takes space.
It seems like you're saying the same thing, so please, don't come at me with this "makes absolutely no sense" hyperbole.
There are now so many garbage features, tangential to the core purpose of the app — self-deleting audio blips if you move the phone this way, internet GIF search if you swipe that way, weird drawing pad, stupid variable-location popup to add "HA HA HA" animation, recently-played music grid, full-screen-or-sometimes-not fingerpainting applet, image editor, heartbeat monitor, fucking kiss simulator (what the fuck), and I know from sorry experience (usually when trying to send a message with one hand while carrying something heavy and awkward) that there's more shit buried in here that I can't even figure out how to navigate to right now, like a signature editor — that I have had to help my dad, my wife, and my kids figure out how to get back to where send a fucking message with it, repeatedly.
You could use iOS 10 Messages to create a 6-episode TV miniseries called Software Design Gone Horribly Fucking Wrong and surely win an Emmy award for best documentary.
Like I said somewhere else in this thread, all these new features are for Apple, not for users.
If they designed it for users, they would have NEVER made it so that they have to tap twice to take a photo before sending. Not to mention how they don't even allow you to open the camera as fullscreen.
Isn't it really ridiculous how nowadays when you want to take a quick picture and send it while messaging, you have to close the messages app, open the camera app, take the photo, and share it back to messages? Used to be: tap the camera button. Take the pic. Send.
Now all you get is this tiny preview rectangle at the bottom. It doesn't launch a full camera so is useless for most cases. That's why I have to open the "real" camera app and take the picture and come back.
So now it's tap-swipe-tap instead of just tap, but in exchange the old functionality of sending an existing photo has changed from a long series of actions to just tap-tap-send.
But my point is exactly this. How many taps did it used to take to quickly take a pic and send? One.
Now with iOS10, you tap the camera button, swipe to the right, and then tap the "real" camera button one more time. That's 3 times the number of gestures it used to take pre-iOS10.
p.s.
How did you even discover that swipe feature? I'm pretty sure most people have no idea that's how it works. I am an iOS developer so I'm not exactly a laggard, either.
https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/14/ios-10-how-to-hate-pressing-t...
https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/ios8-he...
In iOS 10, they've replaced the dashboard with huge colourful video thumbnails. It feels like a bad onboarding screen that just won't go away:
https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/xlarge/pu...
I could probably buy (and trust!) third-party dashboards that use HealthKit. But instead I just stopped using Health. Chances of me getting an Apple Watch for health tracking: now zero, even if it was free.
Game Center: I'm aware that people hated the old and the new design, but Apple didn't kill it, they moved the invitations functionality into (gasp) a Messages mini-app. Syncing your game progress between iOS devices is a hodgepodge of Facebook, iCloud, Game Center, and most commonly, "not at all". That's not going to change if Apple cares so little about its own frameworks.
In fact, it is MORE of a fad these days to be an Apple hater than an Apple fanboy. Why do you have to be a follower and hate on Apple? Try thinking for yourself.