I wish they put this level of care into their software. It's pretty shocking how nice their hardware has remained, while basic apps like Music/Photos etc. continue to decay.
I really don’t understand the criticism of Apple’s software.
I think we need to keep in mind a couple of things:
1. It’s software designed for the masses. It’s not intended to be a power user’s playground.
2. There’s no such thing as perfect software. If you really look hard for alternatives to the Music or Photos app (to use your examples), it’s actually extremely difficult to find anything that is without compromise, bugs, or other downsides.
As someone who has moved off of many of Apple’s apps, like my move from iCloud Photos to Ente, I’m really still accepting a decent amount of compromises. It’s better in some ways, worse in others.
And then there’s some other apps where I just can’t find a good alternative. I’d love something like Apple Notes but is cross-platform with a Linux app specifically. There’s just basically nothing like that out there, certainly not at a good price, and most of them end up over-complicated or with a strange UI.[1]
And when we step back and look at how many apps Apple makes it’s mind-boggling, and really, most of them are at least a mild “good.”
[1] Closest I’ve found are Craft and Zoho Notebook. Zoho gets the price right, it’s dirt cheap, and has a Linux app (though it’s basically a web app). Zoho bothers me for being ugly though. Craft is slick on iOS with a web app only on desktop, but it’s pricey if you leave the free tier. For my criteria it’s important that the apps support sharing, collaboration, and notifications when the other person updates a note.
If the last decade of Siri has taught us anything, they can literally ship the worst version of a thing and people will still buy an iphone. They’re just that good.
The incredible engineering in the hardware is prized above software quality.
For most companies I'd say this is a natural tradeoff, but Apple has so much money that they can actually afford to be world class in both. Or at least, you'd expect they could. Maybe being world class in software would require delays to the hardware side of the business?
Regardless, it's definitely a weakness of the culture and I'd venture that weakness is why Apple has essentially failed at AI.
Having recently worked at Apple on the software side, my general experience was that it was fiefdom driven, there is no internal standardization on quality or process. Low level teams compete on ideas and careful politicking usually wins over quality or merit.
For AI, there were top down directives to find new ways to experiment with and incorporate into core products and processes, but as you went down the management chain, management became more conservative. First and second line managers were strongly incentivized to keep their products, roadmaps, and interfaces stable and predictable by similarly conservative stakeholders. And as such, they were generally unwilling to officially dedicate much effort to AI other than the minimum “look at how much we’re using Claude”.
In particular due to the lack of central tooling, any team trying to do much with AI essentially had to reinvent much of the stack themselves. So even small projects were largely untenable due to inevitable required scope creep.
IMO the barriers to entry are just much different, and it’s reflecting in the workforce. There’s cultural differences too, but I think the education differences is the biggest cause.
Not who you are responding to, but common workflows like “show me the picture I just took” or “copy the damned image file elsewhere” are completely broken.
God help you if you own a camera and try to store its photos in apple photos.
A guy I knew was a mechanical engineer for Apple, did some really innovative stuff. The level of care and detail and attention they give to every element is like nothing you've ever seen. A good dude and was one of the best engineers I ever met but the pressure and the corporate games made him a permanent emotional headcase!
I think we need to keep in mind a couple of things:
1. It’s software designed for the masses. It’s not intended to be a power user’s playground.
2. There’s no such thing as perfect software. If you really look hard for alternatives to the Music or Photos app (to use your examples), it’s actually extremely difficult to find anything that is without compromise, bugs, or other downsides.
As someone who has moved off of many of Apple’s apps, like my move from iCloud Photos to Ente, I’m really still accepting a decent amount of compromises. It’s better in some ways, worse in others.
And then there’s some other apps where I just can’t find a good alternative. I’d love something like Apple Notes but is cross-platform with a Linux app specifically. There’s just basically nothing like that out there, certainly not at a good price, and most of them end up over-complicated or with a strange UI.[1]
And when we step back and look at how many apps Apple makes it’s mind-boggling, and really, most of them are at least a mild “good.”
[1] Closest I’ve found are Craft and Zoho Notebook. Zoho gets the price right, it’s dirt cheap, and has a Linux app (though it’s basically a web app). Zoho bothers me for being ugly though. Craft is slick on iOS with a web app only on desktop, but it’s pricey if you leave the free tier. For my criteria it’s important that the apps support sharing, collaboration, and notifications when the other person updates a note.
I don’t think anyone is asking for the world I just want software that dosent crash and makes sense to use.
Just a couple weeks ago Apple Music was leaking GBs of memory.
For most companies I'd say this is a natural tradeoff, but Apple has so much money that they can actually afford to be world class in both. Or at least, you'd expect they could. Maybe being world class in software would require delays to the hardware side of the business?
Regardless, it's definitely a weakness of the culture and I'd venture that weakness is why Apple has essentially failed at AI.
For AI, there were top down directives to find new ways to experiment with and incorporate into core products and processes, but as you went down the management chain, management became more conservative. First and second line managers were strongly incentivized to keep their products, roadmaps, and interfaces stable and predictable by similarly conservative stakeholders. And as such, they were generally unwilling to officially dedicate much effort to AI other than the minimum “look at how much we’re using Claude”.
In particular due to the lack of central tooling, any team trying to do much with AI essentially had to reinvent much of the stack themselves. So even small projects were largely untenable due to inevitable required scope creep.
IMO the barriers to entry are just much different, and it’s reflecting in the workforce. There’s cultural differences too, but I think the education differences is the biggest cause.
God help you if you own a camera and try to store its photos in apple photos.