Does Apple even care about computers anymore?

Part of the problem is Apple’s over reliance on super hero engineers — both hardware and software. Sure, they’re some of the best engineers in the business, but you can’t keep taking all the best super hero engineers off whatever projects they’re working on now and keep moving them around to whatever project is in most dire need of saving that can only be done by super heroes. And you can’t just wave a magic wand and instantly create more unicorn super heroes.

Instead, you have to build a culture where success comes from the good efforts of good-enough engineers that may not be quite super hero level — and then find or make more of those good-enough engineers that you can keep the business sustainable.

This is very much like the problem of being in constant fire-fighting mode and trying to keep individually battling the alligators, and not being able to focus on draining the swamp instead.

Apple was able to pull off a lot of its super human, ahem, super company feats based on the immense god-like celebrity aura of Steve Jobs. Superb, frankly ridiculous (for the other side), business deals would magically materialize at the man's feet. Authorities would look the other way on arguable topics in favor of Apple, engineers would put in uncounted extra hours for the greater "good", and massive manhunts would take place for a prototype phones at his bidding.

Now Apple has to do something it hasn't done in a while - and that is simply to deal with reality. Such is the case when a legend passes.

The same phenomenon has affected macOS itself. It's sad, and frustrating. I'm not even someone who's upset about the USB-C or the Touch Bar. I'm happy paying Apple's prices for truly quality tools, but my faith in the quality of their laptop line has been shaken lately.