I feel like when I'm presented with most modern criticism of Apple devices/software I tend to agree, but despite all the mostly valid criticisms I see batted about, who is doing consumer tech better?

I've recently (finally) managed to purge the last instance of Windows from my life when I replaced Windows on my gaming desktop with Linux. So I've got Linux on the (gaming) desktop, a Steam Deck and Debian stable on a server, which is great.

But I mean, that covers my home office? I still need a phone (iPhone), a smart watch (Apple Watch) and while not critical, certainly adds a lot of value for me. The things that connects to the TV (AppleTV) is the best of all I've tried when compared to any other type of solution (Firestick, Chrome Cast, Home Media Server, Built-in TV Smarts). I've also got an M4 MacBook for dev, which is frankly fantastic when compared to whatever other hardware I could get here in NZ and would involve going back to Windows anyway?

So I mean, what are the actual valid options really? Apple still offer great devices and the integrations between them are the best on the market imo.

Perhaps in a perfect world Pine64 devices would be rock solid and I could run Linux everywhere, but failing that, what else ya gunna do?

▲ concinds 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Nobody. Apple's still doing the best by far. Apple Silicon chips. Safari having the strongest anti-tracking of any platform's browser (AAPL, GOOG, MSFT). Privacy on the Apple TV. Using 100% renewable electricity for their AI data centers (Private Cloud Compute) and not using its data for model training, unlike everyone else. They're even starting to compete on price with the $600 Walmart MacBook Air. But then there's all the bad stuff we're all familiar with.

The worst part to me is that I don't think any systemic solution (like antitrust) can ensure it remains that way, or make the others fix their shit. Apple is this way because of the decisions, personalities and whims of a handful of individuals that lead Apple. The other companies are fuckups for the same reason. Maybe the only safeguard is ideology (i.e., up-and-coming Apple employees who dogmatically believe in their marketing on privacy, energy efficiency, speed, etc). From the outside all we can do is impose a PR cost on them and their competitors when they fall short, and on the margin, that helps strengthen that internal faction of dogmatically principled employees against their colleagues who don't care.

▲ mulmen 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> who is doing consumer tech better?

Nobody. It's possible to be the best without being good.

I'm surprised a consumer-focused RedHat hasn't come along to build an offering of just-works-but-still-open devices. There are companies out there that do parts of it but nobody does the full personal device stack thing like Apple. I'm still disappointed they went the cloud route instead of everything lives on your AirPort. If I ever win the lottery ten times this is the startup I'll build.

	▲	6 days ago \| parent [-]
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▲ LoganDark 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The fear is that Apple is losing the expertise and attention to detail that resulted in that best-in-class consumer tech.

▲ MBCook 7 days ago | parent [-]

And, to GP’s point, there is no one to replace them.

As someone who lived Apple stuff were between a rock and a hard place. What we loved is dissolving away into mediocrity or worse. And we don’t like the competition better. If we did we’d already be over there.

Add in that lots of companies like to follow Apple’s design leads, for better or worse, and we’re left with nowhere to go.

So we really want the thing we liked to be good again. Or at least to stop getting worse for no good reason.

▲ linguae 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is exactly how I feel as someone who enjoyed the Mac during the Jobs era of Mac OS X and has been quite disappointed with the state of personal computing since then. The Apple experience is not the same today as it was during the Snow Leopard days. It seems to me that the old guard at Apple is gone and that the people making the key decisions at Apple in the past decade or so are taking Apple in a different direction than what I would like, as someone who is a big fan of both the classic Macintosh and Jobs-era Mac OS X.

What I'd give for a modern OS with an interface designed with the principles of people like Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini in mind, combined with rock-solid underpinnings taking advantage of the best that OS research had to offer in the past 30 years. In other words, I want an updated Smalltalk/Lisp machine with a classic Mac interface brought up to 2020s standards regarding networking, security, and other concerns.

Modern macOS to me is a disappointment compared to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and don't get me started on the lack of user-upgradeable RAM in modern Macs. However, Windows 10/11 is even more disappointing to me compared to Windows 7, which was a nice OS and is my second favorite version of Windows, my favorite being Windows 2000. Desktop Linux seems to be in an eternal Sisyphean cycle of churn.

So, today I begrudgingly use Windows on my personal machines and macOS on my work-issued MacBook Pro, longing for a compelling alternative to appear one day that pushes personal computing forward.

▲ LoganDark 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It really feels like Apple is very slowly going the way of enshittification. What's a consumer to do, switch to another platform? Don't make me laugh. Windows and Linux drive me insane. Apple's operating systems are the only ones that seem to 'get' me, which really makes it suck that they're in such danger.

▲ wpm 6 days ago | parent [-]

Tahoe is the first macOS that I don't "get", and its fucking scary. I can stay on Sequoia for another year or so, and then what?

When Tahoe came out, I tried it for a day, liked some of it, hated most of it. I gave it a week. Still hated most of it.

The end of that week I bought a used ThinkPad and installed Arch on it. My future is no longer on the Mac. I have a few years to try and transition, but I am otherwise done with them. Butt ugly uber-rounded bouba squircles for fucking windows that cut off the content in my PDFs? That can't even help but cut off the buttom of the scroll bars? This piss ugly grey on light grey on grey with the most pathetic, cowardly whisper of texture they call "glass"? It's fucking over. At least until Alan Dye crawls back into whatever print ad shithole he crawled out of.

	▲	andrekandre 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		`> The end of that week I bought a used ThinkPad and installed Arch on it. My future is no longer on the Mac.` same, i think the slow decline of macos' user interface means kde is actually the same level or even better (kde slowly improving mac slowly declining) so i might as well jump sooner than later... i'll miss the quality of some native apps, but that to me is more a business opportunity than a pure negative per se