I’m Sorry I Criticized You, Apple. You Win

Two big reasons why I might switch from Android to Apple:

- My Bluetooth audio has been broken for years. There's a discussion forum topic about this, but Google doesn't listen.

- Starting the camera app takes about 3-5 seconds. In most cases, this is enough time to spoil the entire photo-moment.

Edit: it's also the fact that Google allowed these problems to exist in the first place.

Plus, iOS 12 is going to significantly improve performance on all devices as far back as the iPhone 5S.

When was the last time a major Android update made five-year-old devices faster?

https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-12-preview/features/

No need to buy the overrated $1k flagship, the $400ish SE is a fine phone for most people.

> or better to accept selling your privacy to get a cheaper phone?

Or better to not support propriety and locked down systems to benefit all consumers in the future?

Android vs Apple is not even remotely close to being a black and white morality issue.

I wouldn't call it "subsidizing," the profit margins on the iPhone and other flagships are around ~40%+. It's more like padding profit margins. Google is the the main company that makes money from user data, and that is used to subsidize Android development itself, not the hardware.

That’s Apple’s top of the line phone. You can ge a very nice new phone for $700 from them as well.

That was all I read into it.

Or get the cheaper subsidised phone and don't submit to the data collection.

Much like buying a Windows laptop subsidised with crapware but putting Linux on it.

I prefer most things Google, but stick with Apple for the privacy. I'll put up with lower quality services, buggy Apple TV, and an expensive phone that arguably not much better than a $200 cheaper Google alternative, just to know some creepy corporation isn't collecting mounds of data on me which will be used who knows how in the future.

Some probably do, but I'm crazy enough to say most consumers probably don't care that much.

Meanwhile, those are the reasons I applaud Apple. I don't want to be responsible for repairing my own device. I don't want to deal with drivers and compatibility issues. I don't want to deal with virus scanners and third-party payment systems and the stuff that comes with an uncontrolled app store. The only one I kind of agree with is developing iOS apps on Macs, but only as far as I wish the iPad Pro had the capabilities to run XCode as well.

I can completely understand why other people want those things, and I'm glad they have a choice that fits their needs. For my needs, I'm really glad I have Apple.

Like Steve Jobs said: "people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware". I heard that a lot and never thought about it. But it started to grow in me and now I can see it wasn't just a cool sentence but rather a real mean to make the best products ever to have the best experience. Even if it was challenging and he had to go against the flow.

Too dramatic for an electronic device, no ?

Re: autonomous cars

Your narrative is a thing which could happen, not the current truth on the ground. The truth is every time a Tesla rams into a stationary object at speed, or an Uber runs down someone crossing the road, the public’s faith in the tech erodes. Every time that happens we edge closer to overburdensome regulation in the “Thanks to 3 mile island & Chernobyl it’s basically impossible to build a new nuclear plant in the US” sense, and farther away from your utopian dream.

That's your list of priorities: great! I understand your decision. However I accept all of these inconveniences since my list is different: Privacy

Tom Cook's words: > If you look at our model, if we can convince you to buy an iPhone or an iPad, we'll make a little bit of money. You're not our product.

Not to mention that I love the years long consistent updates of all my iPhones / Macs.

My father still use my square white Macbook, it stills work as good as day 1 with the factory battery. I wonder if my 2016 and 2018 MacBook Pro will get the same lifetime, if they does, it's still crazy hardware.

I have family members still happily rocking their 2011 models and I use my 2013 every single day at work. I have no confidence that their latest models will have that type of longevity and will likely switch to Linux when they quit working.

"Marketing" is the stuff you write about yourself. Praise from a critic is called something else.

Where I thought you were going with that when I read your first sentence is, I wish people could look at products for the things they do (features they have) rather than for the things they don't do (features they don't have). Regardless of Apple's recent slip in quality, they consistently put out features later than some of their competitors, but also at a higher quality than their competitors. Too often I'll see an article about "Apple introduces TouchID" and the comments say "Samsung has had a fingerprint reader for years!" like that matters or like the various fingerprint reader solutions were any good before TouchID. Or the iPod, we all know it's not the first MP3 player, but it was a very high quality MP3 player with a very high quality user experience, which really does matter.

I felt the same way about Palm (Google was a cooler company, so Android won even though WebOS was a more pure Linux system, friendlier to developers, and HTML/JS was the preferred app architecture followed by standard C++) and Microsoft (they don't have X app, even though the features from X app are built into the core OS). Dropbox was the same way, people hated on it when it was released because a hacked-together rsync solution worked "the same way".

Too often we get hung up on what a product doesn't do or doesn't do uniquely and ignore that execution is often more important. It's possible to launch into a crowded and competitive market and win, as long as you execute better.

The MacBook Pro and Mac Pro I’ll give you, I agree there. I think the iMac is doing fine, maybe it’s time for a spec bump (next month?).

What’s wrong with the iPhone though? That’s the product that seems to work better than any of the others. How have the last few years not been great?

Im not looking for some small personal preference thing, like the lack of the headphone jack.

The MBPs lost useful ports for a flakey ecosystem, have keyboard problems, lowered their battery life for real work, and got hotter.

The Mac Pro... is from 2013. Enough said.

What problems of any similar caliber exist for the iPhone?

As both a mobile developer and a consumer, I'll praise the iPhone over other smartphones all day long as an amazing and great product that just works.

The privacy practices are part of the product.

Because some people judge companies by metrics other than just the quality of the software they write? It's perfectly possible for Apple to create software of a poor or deteriorating quality while having a more sensible business model than their competitors. The one has little to do with the other.

This article is a mea culpa. He spent the last however many years bashing Apple for not doing what everyone else does.

Now he finally sees there is value and merit to the way Apple has chosen to do things.

That’s more than ‘everybody sucks so go Apple!’

Microsoft is no angel, it's just dwarfed by the egregiousness of Facebook, Google, and Amazon. It still does some sketchy data-collecting in Windows unless you opt-out (though it's backed off a bit since that came to light). Microsoft can afford to not fully partake in the skeeviness because a) it's not in the ad business, and b) it is in the enterprise business. Enterprise customers won't put up with that stuff, and they have the money to pay for that privilege. So when Microsoft makes most of their money that way, their business model isn't centered around the other stuff, and customers get partially spared from it by proximity.

Microsoft is not a Silicon Valley company and they are very much involved in these 'controversies' - lots of people have serious concerns about Windows 10 and privacy and, of course, Microsoft runs a search engine, a chat/VoIP service among many other things.