The first is that the vast majority of concerns are coming from the Independent developer iOS/Mac scene. Some of these concernes are legit. There is unquestionably problems with Apple's quality with some software. The new SwiftUI based Settings app in Ventura is not yet stable, and when Apple's entire raison d'etre has been it just works, it's understandable that people get upset when things just don't work. If I were a independent mac developer, with my only source of revenue depending on Apple's goodwill and development APIs, I can see being upset.
On the other hand, it seems to me that the Apple community, especially the independent mac community has become increasingly a toxic monoculture. Just like polarization affecting other parts of the world - the community has become vitriolic, isolated and extremist at times. Anything not done in line with the one true Steve Jobs and in a way the community wanted - the apple way - has been labeled a disaster and "problematic".
In particular I think of the crusade/jihad against 1Password 8 when 1Password went Electron (in part to address many of the same problems). It got to the point that people were posting "evidence" of how bad 1Password 8 (electron based) was by posting screenshots of a misidentified previous version (which was worse). The twitter abuse heaped on developers just working to make a great product was a bad look.
The Apple podcasting community talks about Apple the way Trump fans talk about Democrats or Democrats talk about Republicans. It often bleeds into non-apple content as well. I've consistently found that the angriest people on twitter are apple partisans.
I finally unsubscribed to Accidental Tech Podcast after listening since almost the first episode just because of how negative everything is. It's not universal - I found another apple centric podcast to replace it - but it is pervasive.
To be fair - a lot of that is that this is what the modern media does. For example Linus Tech Tips's Tech Linked channel has the following headlines for their videos over the last 90 days:
1) Apple Betrayed Us All
2) Apple has no Shame
3) Apple got SERVED
4) Apple calls this PRO?
5) It's over Apple, the EU won!
6) Something is wrong with the M2 Apple Air
7) Apple will never escape this.
so I am inclined to treat a lot of this as just what people do to get listens and clicks.
I think the right perspective is somewhere between the two extremes. I wrote an app recently in Swift and SwiftUI that was amazing in how little effort it took to get a good (but not great) app and interface. Much faster than Flutter and far more visually fluid (animations, look and feel, etc). I can see its limitations though, and if all I knew was Objective C and AppKit, I could completely see where a developer would be skeptical of the approach. But the promise is most definitely there for a brighter future. In the mean time, my personal PoV is that things like Slack (which is electron based), 1Password 8 and Adobe Creative Suite shows that you can be both pluralist and great. Attacking them for not being pure isn't helping anything.
Long term, I have hope. Most of the criticisms of Apple's software were echos of similar complaints of the horribleness of Apple's laptops a few years ago. They turned that around - and I think Apple is honestly working to fix their software in the same matter. Apple needed to get off of Objective-C (who knows C anymore, to say nothing of objective-c?) and AppKit (30 year old technology at this point). Like the Intel to Arm transition, a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make the transition work.
Apple really wants to be the BMW of the compute world - and Tim Cook's entire strategy seems to be the BMW every nickle and dime strategy. If Apple really wants to do that, they need things to just work.
The first is that the vast majority of concerns are coming from the Independent developer iOS/Mac scene. Some of these concernes are legit. There is unquestionably problems with Apple's quality with some software. The new SwiftUI based Settings app in Ventura is not yet stable, and when Apple's entire raison d'etre has been it just works, it's understandable that people get upset when things just don't work. If I were a independent mac developer, with my only source of revenue depending on Apple's goodwill and development APIs, I can see being upset.
On the other hand, it seems to me that the Apple community, especially the independent mac community has become increasingly a toxic monoculture. Just like polarization affecting other parts of the world - the community has become vitriolic, isolated and extremist at times. Anything not done in line with the one true Steve Jobs and in a way the community wanted - the apple way - has been labeled a disaster and "problematic".
In particular I think of the crusade/jihad against 1Password 8 when 1Password went Electron (in part to address many of the same problems). It got to the point that people were posting "evidence" of how bad 1Password 8 (electron based) was by posting screenshots of a misidentified previous version (which was worse). The twitter abuse heaped on developers just working to make a great product was a bad look.
The Apple podcasting community talks about Apple the way Trump fans talk about Democrats or Democrats talk about Republicans. It often bleeds into non-apple content as well. I've consistently found that the angriest people on twitter are apple partisans.
I finally unsubscribed to Accidental Tech Podcast after listening since almost the first episode just because of how negative everything is. It's not universal - I found another apple centric podcast to replace it - but it is pervasive.
To be fair - a lot of that is that this is what the modern media does. For example Linus Tech Tips's Tech Linked channel has the following headlines for their videos over the last 90 days:
1) Apple Betrayed Us All
2) Apple has no Shame
3) Apple got SERVED
4) Apple calls this PRO?
5) It's over Apple, the EU won!
6) Something is wrong with the M2 Apple Air
7) Apple will never escape this.
so I am inclined to treat a lot of this as just what people do to get listens and clicks.
I think the right perspective is somewhere between the two extremes. I wrote an app recently in Swift and SwiftUI that was amazing in how little effort it took to get a good (but not great) app and interface. Much faster than Flutter and far more visually fluid (animations, look and feel, etc). I can see its limitations though, and if all I knew was Objective C and AppKit, I could completely see where a developer would be skeptical of the approach. But the promise is most definitely there for a brighter future. In the mean time, my personal PoV is that things like Slack (which is electron based), 1Password 8 and Adobe Creative Suite shows that you can be both pluralist and great. Attacking them for not being pure isn't helping anything.
Long term, I have hope. Most of the criticisms of Apple's software were echos of similar complaints of the horribleness of Apple's laptops a few years ago. They turned that around - and I think Apple is honestly working to fix their software in the same matter. Apple needed to get off of Objective-C (who knows C anymore, to say nothing of objective-c?) and AppKit (30 year old technology at this point). Like the Intel to Arm transition, a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make the transition work.
Apple really wants to be the BMW of the compute world - and Tim Cook's entire strategy seems to be the BMW every nickle and dime strategy. If Apple really wants to do that, they need things to just work.