Reportedly, Forstall wasn’t liked by the other senior execs but was kept “safe” as Jobs’ protégé, they thought alike and shared the love for skeuomorphism design. Ive in particular disliked Forstall, and Tim Cook made a choice.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apples-minimalist-ive-assume...

Forstall fired an engineer I had worked with (and who I respected a lot) to take the fall for Apple Maps.

> Maps was bad at launch yes, but it also wouldn't get better without people contributing more data, and the fact that it took a decade to slowly improve implies that there's nothing anyone could have done to get it right "off the bat".

Absolutely.

Was the choice to release way way way too early the right choice in the end? Needed telemetry, or even more time, to beat Google? Also taking the data from Google must have had significant ramifications.

The interface and the direction instructions on Apple Maps are way ahead of Google Maps. The app performance is also much smoother / snappier, it connects to the car instantly and reliably, where with Android Auto it’been always waiting and pain. But the accuracy of maps is indeed worse.

However my biggest gripe with Apple Maps in Poland is that Siri does not understand Polish and cannot be told to navigate to a Polish address. It just can’t understand the street and city names :(

Btw: I haven’t counted the times Google Maps wanted me to go through the worst possible traffic jam (where the traffic jam was not visible on the map) or a closed road. I guess it just happens with every navigation system that errors happen.

This may just be my bubble, but even among my iPhone-owning friends, I haven't seen a single person use Apple Maps in Europe, so I wouldn't be surprised if the efforts to improve the map data have been more focused on the US.

Anecdotal evidence, but I do use Apple Maps in Poland and they work just fine for me, I guess the mileage may vary.

I'm using almost exclusively Apple Maps in Poland and never had any issue (that I remember). Your mileage may vary and so on.

I made the mistake of trusting Google Maps with driving directions in Sicily, and it always sent me down tiny single lane (but two way) roads because they were "better" by the algorithm. That taught me to trust my gut and follow the highways/main roads rather than use any shortcuts that an algorithm can conjure up. (I'm sure this has relevance in the age of LLMs).

Personally I doubt they test the hardware outside an air conditioned and dust less office in California.

Years ago I went to WWDC, to the sessions where you could talk to specialists from their different libraries. I talked to someone high up in maps and location services, reporting an issue we were consistently seeing in geolocation at a particular spot in the world. They effectively told me they didn’t believe me and that it works fine for them.

Well, even generally much better Google maps sometimes tries to force me through unpaved field roads with unavoidable damage to normal cars. Or create absolutely ridiculous 'shortcuts' that save 5 metres but I should exit busy main road to join it again 100m later, spending few minutes trying to join back. Or lead me through forbidden/one way roads from wrong direction that are like that permanently since forever.

Generally they are fine, but not literally in every aspect in every place, Europe or not.

Very regionally dependent.

Around here (Long Island, New York, USA), it’s better than Google Maps. I get to compare a lot, because I have a friend that uses GM, and constantly sends me Google Maps universal links.

I hear that it is a lot less effective in rural areas, though, and I think Google Street View is better than the Apple variant.

It's been some years now, but apple maps put me into a loop once in Branson, Missouri.

It drove me around a couple miles that went right back to the intersection where we started, and then wanted me to start the loop again.

Apple Maps only works well in North America, possibly just the US. The same way a lot of happy paths in Apple products are designed for California/Single Culture/Single Language/Single Residence.

if you want to be EU-patriotic, you can try the Czech app Mapy.com. it's based on OSM data as well and at least for hiking in Europe it's the best

It is the case in regions where Apple gathers their own map data from scratch, instead of relying on data licensed from TomTom and others.

These reports seem unhelpful unless you specify the date at which you had this experience, as this thread is about continuous improvement over time.

Another huge exemple : in most big cities in Europe you have special parking lots around big public transit hubs outside of the city where you can park for free as long as you continue your journey by public transit.

In a lot of cities, that’s either the fastest or the most comfortable way to go somewhere in the city when you come from the outside.

Not any single navigation app support this (tbf, the few European ones don’t support it either)

I'm in the US and it is far from amazing for me.

To get to my home you take an exit off a toll road and where the exit splits continuing straight or going to the right you continue straight to a stop light where you take a left and in 1/4 mile take a right into my neighborhood. Apple Maps will tell you to go to the right instead of going straight merging on the road and continuing through 2 stop lights, taking a u-turn at a 3rd light and then backtracking to take the right into my neighborhood. Google Maps gives the correct directions.

In the closest major city Apple Maps will give directions instructing you to perform u-turns on streets where u-turns are legal but practically impossible. Google Maps will instead correctly direct you so such risky u-turns are not needed and you actually arrive quicker.

That is just two examples. I have many more I could provide.

My favorite Apple example of this is that when the Apple Watch notices that you're walking/running/biking and asks if you want to start a workout, for some reason you cannot accept it with the double-tap-your-fingers gesture. Which is fine if it's warm outside...but when it's winter in Minnesota, if I want to activate it I have to take one of my gloves off, pull up my sleeves, and put the gloves back on, while bitching about how nobody designing the watch lives in a cold climate. (Especially when I'm on a bike. Riding no-hands in the snow is not a smart idea.)

Staying in a holiday rental and there are no hooks on the walls!

Another example: When taking HOV and the map asks you if you want HOV enabled, there are no options I can force the navigation to take me to the nearest HOV lane.

If it happens to be there, it will say to use it, but I can't say "Route me to the nearest HOV entrance" because I prefer it even if it's 1 minute slower.

> staying in a regular hotel room and realizing there’s no light in front of the mirror, only behind you.

I'll bite, what does this have to do with Apple Maps?

> It shipped anyway.

“Real artists ship”

No product worth using is bug free.

I mean the problem was the Google contract, yeah?

It’s gotten a lot better, but I still find the address database better in Google Maps, which helps when you have only a fragment of an address. I also find that the Apple Maps database has a lot of roads that read the same. For instance, in Texas where I live, we have a lot of “Ranch Roads” that are numbered. Think of them like state highways in other state (which we also have; don’t ask). For whatever reason, most of the Ranch Roads are spoken by Maps as “Ranch Road,” not with the number. So, if you have a spot where multiple Ranch Roads intersect, Maps will just say “turn left on Ranch Road” instead of “turn left on Ranch Road 123.” It’s tremendous annoying. In another state, imagine it saying “turn left on Interstate,” without a number. Anyway, Google Maps does better.

On macOS there are so many basic things you’d want to do - share itineraries, annotate places, keep lists of things, but there’s not even a document concept. With the exception of guides, anything you do is ephemeral. It’s excellent at planning a route, but doing anything with that route, including getting back to it later is useless.

Maybe elsewhere it is. Here, it's terrible.

In general, for all it benefits from globalization, Apple disappoints on global markets.

In the US. In many other countries it's borderline useless.

It’s okay. It’s still subpar and barely keeping pace with Gmaps

I haven't used google maps in years.

90% of my usage of it is because it actually displays the map on my Watch, whereas Google Maps & Citymapper only show directions.

If it weren't for that, I'd use Citymapper for practically everything.

And they just added ads.

it was far inferior to its competitor when it was released

Apple software is unusable in india, no one uses it coz it has terrible data and thus the data never gets changed coz no one uses it. i have gotten wrong timings for gyms, wrong routes, it won't detect my home address from my contacts etc etc always find it funny when americans say "it's good now", no brother they fixed all the glitches in states it's still launch apple maps trash in india

i was getting annoyed at the state of shadcn/daisyui/the other six trillion ui patterns that have spawned since the abomination known as materialui and i actually realized liquid glass is the only meaningful step away from that we've seen in quite a long time.

it's still not quite my tempo, looks downright silly in many places, but it has grown on me just a smidge, and i think i'd receive it a little better if it wasn't fundamentally more intensive to render. i think that's a line i can't respect and it feels like a step backwards.

i don't want to wax nostalgic about windows 98 era ui's or the design patterns i see with a lot of qt apps either, like they are imo kind of ugly to me too. but i appreciated the consistency back in the 98 era, and i think a ui that restored 3d beveled looking components, were somewhat expressive but consistent is what i want.

but the world is different now. things like flutter that give people a canvas and let them ground up their entire design language undoubtedly mean consistency can only exist within an entity's control, there likely will never be a unified agreed-upon set of ui standards that span industries and personal computing and different stacks anymore. kinda amusing that improved tooling and frameworks has just resulted in a wild west of user interface design.

So does fungus. I'd prefer to avoid both.

Yes, the idea seems to be to force app developers to support transparency so that any future iGlasses device has a good supply of apps from day one (contrary to what happened with Vision Pro).

Apple used to insist that different types of devices require different UI principles. This seems all the more true for a transparent device that you wear on your face while moving around trying not to bump into physical objects.

But we'll see. Perhaps the right level of transparency is situational. If you sit down with iGlasses using them as a screen you might want to reduce transparency while increasing it when you're moving around outdoors. Adjusting transparency could become as routine as adjusting audio volume.

VR/AR is a gimmick. Gimmicks have no place on a work tool (macOS). No one is gonna use VR/AR with a laptop. Liquid Glass is Apples Metro UI.

I'm still on 18.x thats insecure by now and switching to Asahi as soon as something breaks.

Thereby raising the average talent level of both companies. A truly Pareto optimal trade.

That explains the recent useless UI update on Quest OS, I guess

As a software dev that started at a hardware focused company... I don't think it need be in jest, nor need be offensive? Hardware and software are different disciplines, even when they do overlap in embedded. It just seems to me - having been at a hardware company that failed to pivot to software, and went out of business (while a new competitor, software first, became Zoom), that the mindset is too different. Hardware requires far more planning; software far faster iteration. In software too much planning is a death sentence. In hardware insufficient planning is a death sentence. I think a single person absolutely could do both well but in my relatively basic estimation, I don't see it being a common trait. Hardware is cool and impressive, but I could never do it. And in my experience, many of the hardware folks I know don't seem to like how software development works either.

I don't think it means anything for this particular move; good leaders know what they know and what they don't know; they know how to motivate and select the right people, they know what to delegate and what to control. Having a track record of success of any kind is IMHO always the best start. I'm excited to see what kind of changes the transition from an operations person to a more technical leader may bring. Especially given how awesome Apple's hardware has consistently been.

Generally speaking, I think both are true. Most people seem to have an affinity for either hardware or software, but rarely for both. Those who do are extremely unique. I don't mean that as an insult to anyone, just as an observatin having worked in both (and personally am much better at software than hardware, even though I enjoy both).

I am deeply aware of software people being crap at hardware having worked in embedded for much of my career.

Bodge wires in shipped products beg to differ!

What they need is a culture of UX focus, and I don’t think it’s present in the hardware team either.

They’ve coasted too long on consistent visual identity, and even that’s been slipping. Time to focus on actual user needs.

“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware" —Alan Kay

How? Coding agents are trained on every copy of every tutorial that skips error checking and implements the least resistance path.

Yeah, like fixing a annoyance while introducing one or two SEV-1 for sure is going to be great progress.

Why would Apple writing some Linux drivers wipe billions from its share price? You can already install Linux on a Mac if you really want to. Back in the day, you used to be able to install Windows on an (Intel) Mac, and that didn’t seem to have any such effect.

Why would it wipe billions from their share price? Both Linux and Windows were available on Mac hardware prior to Apple Silicon.

If I play devil's advocate, the only reason I could think of is that supporting Linux signals to investors that Apple is offering a key to bypass their API moat, perhaps sacrificing a longer term vision of vendor lock-in.

By contrast, I can imagine investors would get upset if the iPhone had an unlocked bootloader and allowed Android to be installed - but that's because the App Store is a significant revenue stream for Apple. I don't think there is a parallel on MacOS that investors could point to as being upsetting.

If anything, optional support for Linux would lift the market cap for Mac hardware as it would close the only pull that other laptop vendors previously enjoyed.

In reality though, just like is historically true, 99% of people would continue to use MacOS. Only SWEs, enthusiasts, gamers and some number of Windows refugees would pick Linux.

Though I am 100% behind legislating Linux support - EU are you listening?

Apple went out of its way to make Linux on Mac a reality. They did a lot to allow third-party OSes when Apple Silicon came out, it's up to the Linux community to do the rest.

There were a couple of people (the Asahi team) that made this work for M1, but as I understand it, the effort has stalled since. This just goes to show how few people truly care.

Why would it? Shareholders of the major stocks are generally vibes-based, and I'm sure that if Apple undertook that, they would find a way to build hype around it.

> Linux on Mac will become a reality

Linux on Mac is absolutely a reality [1], and Apple specifically supported it by deliberately leaving a documented/supported mechanism for another OS kernel to be loaded.

[1] https://asahilinux.org/about/

it would likely do the opposite as linux users gravitate to the best hardware for their preferred OS => more hardware sales for Apple

Why didn’t Apples stock tank when they started offering Windows drivers, that they’ll stop offering only this fall ?

ha, i use both. i don't even need to write any platitudes on if linux came to mac, utm or parallels has linux going at near native speed actually happier than it runs on my thinkpad t. i get to enjoy all worlds on my mac and its probably the best multi-target development environment ive ever had, and the hardware is still leagues above literally anything else on the market. dont get me wrong i want more options, im still just waiting for options that deserve to be in this convo. i have zero allegiances to who made it, whoever comes forward with the best hardware gets my money. and my orgs money since i pick the teams hardware.

I think it's due not being interested to things like build quality, screen, track pad, etc.

I also have a Thinkpad, but an X1. I'd trade it and my first-born child to get to run Linux on a modern MacBook.

No offense to Lenovo, it's a great laptop. But Apples build quality is on another level, plus if I want to run local LLMs, AFAIK there is no better option.

There's no way I'm going back to macOS though, that shit was bad 5 years ago when I switched and it sounds like it's gotten way worse.

They are leaps and bounds ahead for people who want their specific formula or don't really care about computers.

Apple has always been a "our way or the highway" brand, we can at least keep in mind that 3 laptop formulas only differenciated by size and thickness won't cut it for everyone on the planet.

Thinkpads are mostly made out of magnesium alloy. And yes, I prefer Thinkpads over modern Macbook Airs. They let me run whatever OS I want.

Have you handled and ideally used at least an Thinkpad X1 Carbon from Lenovo?

They're way behind in the keyboard and touchpad area. Also the I/O ports.

You might be sleeping on trackpoint. I don't remember the last time I used a trackpad once I onboarded on trackpoint - all that hand waving is so tiring when you can achieve the same action even faster by just moving two fingers couple of milimeters. You just move your index from H to trackpoint and thumb from space to mouse buttons which is basically the smallest movement you can do on your keyboard.

I haven't used a touchpad in recent years that wasn't "good enough", I really don't obsess about those (but I acknowledge that many do here), but I profoundly dislike MacBooks' keyboards. Anyhow, let's not pretend that it matters as much as the broken mess of a desktop environment/windows manager that the OS sitting on top is.

> I don't know about Thinkpads, but the utterly pleasant glass trackpad is still one of the things I cannot find on most non-Mac laptops, despite every manufacturer being able to copy it for years.

I was never a trackpad person until I finally got a Mac at work maybe 10 years ago. But since the trackpads stopped really clicking in favor of haptics, they're a lot worse than they used to be. I get false/double clicks and inconsistent feedback.

ThinkPads have nicer keyboards, but they stopped doing the more traditional IBM layout several years ago, which is really unfortunate. I'd be willing to pay for a more traditional keyboard layout with a slightly smaller trackpad and/or a sizeable bottom bezel (which is actually preferable for me because of my posture when I use a laptop most of the time).

Out of curiosity, what are you developing? While regular usage stuff such as HDR is indeed lacking, and general UX leaves a lot to be desired, Linux was always best for me in any software development discipline that I took on, and macOS was a "death by a thousand cuts" instead.

With Linux, it is really multiple UX ecosystems: you can be in one (eg. Gtk+/Gnome and/or Qt/KDE) and consistency will be there. Not perfect, but MacOS is not much better.

OTOH, I want subpixel rendering on my big screens, and you can't have it with a Mac.

did you tried nix home-manager for linux software setup? i never was able to use linux until nix.

hardware - afaik only lenovo(some say asus is worth to try - but no official linux support, framework is sturdy but feels cheap) is well know for quality hardware - others are questionable.

unfortunately AMD AI Max 390/2/5+ nor Qualcomm Elite 2 Lenovos are not here.

I was sooo in your boat just a while ago. Recently (15 days) switched to an Asus NUC pro (mini pc) with intel 225h. I kid you not, I am running Almalinux 10, KDE on it, not even the latest/greatest. I have HDR, VRR, 120Hz, media acceleration, with dual monitors with different settings you name it. Everything works!!

I wish the trackpad on my macbook were smaller, because my thumbs constantly hit it and smite me into a different reality.

They're pretty good, but you can find other good trackpads too. The main thing about Apple is that their trackpads are consistently pretty good, while with other brands it can be hard to figure out what you'll be getting until you try it yourself.

There's also software component. It has improved by now, but early libinput was giving some good trackpads bad rep.

For example, Tim had the discipline to get out of the EV projects. Which was likely wise given the challenges the sector has faced in profitability, and Apple's long term outside option to accrue vehicular services revenue through CarPlay. Yet someone in his position could have burned $200B pretty easily to try and build a business there.

How do you see AI playing out there? Are you glad you got out before AI coding became a thing? What are you up to in your retirement years, anything fun? Thanks.

Every software team ships bugs. That is not exclusive with a strong engineering culture.

MacOS sucks. I can't wait for the day Asahi Linux is good enough so that I can bail on it.

Safari, a web browser, randomly stops being able to connect to the Internet (other apps can).

It's a stealth subscription product. People are losing those things all the time.

Successful for the business no doubt, but they are an example of 'par with the rest of the industry' aren't they? Nothing market leading about them (except perhaps the price, heh) and not the first in the category, just one of a bunch of good options.

Yes, what about airpods? Little reason to buy them if you are not in the Apple ecosystem, and if you are, and you are a careful buyer, you'll probably settle with other brands which are technically ahead (in either of build, sound or ANR quality, or all, Apple being on the Pareto front of neither). I'm not dismissing the marketing forces behind airpods selling by the millions as a "status symbol", but that's very much a "high cost of living country" thing, Apple is inexistent elsewhere, which is most places.

The fact they figured out how to transition all their laptops to ARM so it won’t be a stovetop on your lap is amazing

Siri was GOFAI (handwritten software) rather than a model written by a machine learning algorithm.

Calling the current state of art AI is also generous.

> But no matter what definition you take Siri was not the first AI. It's a classical cases of Apple fans thinking Apple invented everything because they saw it first in an Apple product...

That’s a point you are very unlikely to see being made. Apple famously bought the startup that was making Siri. They didn’t even change the name.

> It's a classical cases of Apple fans thinking Apple invented everything because they saw it first in an Apple product.

This is a classic case of thinking that inventing something before others is all that matters, while ignoring that finding a mass market use-case for an existing technology is also important.

And the highest profit product you left out that was also category defining: Airpods.

The Apple Watch is a niche product for a few tech nerds (at least outside of Silicon Valley tech circles), not an ubiquitous feature of everyday life for normal people the way the PC, the iPod, and the iPhone are.

Vision Pro was a science experiment that few people have even heard of.

Apple Silicon is a perfect example of a purely internal-facing logistics optimization: sure, it's fine in terms of saving money and boosting performance. 99% of end users do not know or care whether they have Apple Silicon or Intel chips.