14 DAY TRIAL // I'm an Apple fan, but not a fanboy. I like and own many of their products, I understand their strategies, and I admire them for many things, but in the last couple of years, I've started to get annoyed by their vanity and lack of action. They seem to be stuck with the same direction of development imposed by the stock market goals and multi-year product development.
Meanwhile, the actual devices market changes pretty quickly and they seem to be afraid to make any bold moves.
Now the stock market has finally made the move and everyone in the media rejoices at every chance they get to throw a stone at Apple.
The tipping point was the low iPhone sales figures, but it was about to happen someday. This is just as far as you can go with an old horse anyway. Buyers are getting tired by the same harassment and artificial policies. It’s like payback time for all the little crap Apple puts on the market in order to squeeze cents or dollars from us.
The iPhone
1. Most of their customers now understand that the difference between the "non-S" and the next year "S version" of the iPhone is simply not worth the money.
2. The price is very high even for developed countries, and even then, they try to deceive you, with a barely usable 16 GB version. This is done on purpose, as the minimum storage capacity would be 32 GB. They know that all too well and that's why there is no 32 GB version available, but only the much more expensive 64 and 128 GB versions. I hate this and many 16GB iPhone 6/6s users hate them for this as well, especially in the corporate world.
3. I liked the way the iPhone 6 felt in my hand. I appreciated the new form factor and the increased screen size, but the battery's lack of performance was the same as on the older models. The normal (non-Plus) version of the iPhone 6 can barely be used for one day, on moderate tasks if I may add. It was quite stressful for me to get home with a distractive red battery sign on my phone.
So, now I have an iPhone 6s Plus. The battery is a huge improvement, but I can hardly operate it with one hand and I have problems actually carrying it. To make the matters even worse, the 6s normal version had an even smaller battery than the previous iteration. And, trust me, it's unusable. They try to sell you a new, shiny and "better" version that turns out to be worse in real life for most customers.
4. Apple services are pretty well implemented, but it’s all done in such a way that they made sure you will pay for them. Do you have an Apple device? Then you will need an iCloud account that, guess what, offers just... 5 GB of storage.
But my phone has 16/64/128 GB and I need it for my phone and photos back-up, which means that 5GB is obviously useless. Yes, that’s right. The free option is useless, so you need to pay for more.
5. There is no trial period for apps and this is really frustrating when you have a small kid who wants to try them all. The "free" versions are truly a shame, as each day they find a new way to annoy you and make you click on ads.
6. Apple tries to push you into thinking the way they want, for their own purpose. I think I hate iTunes and I definitely don’t appreciate the fact I cannot easily access my phone memory via USB. You need to Import and Sync to be able to do that, which I do not want to do.
7. Do you happen to prefer a simple ringtone for your contacts and another sound for notifications? Well, you'll have to work hard if you want to be able to do this.
8. They suck at getting the blame too. Remember the iPhone 4 "you're holding the phone the wrong way" issue? It took them almost two weeks to fix the iOS 9.3 problem, and during all this time, the browser was not usable. It turned out I had a dumb iPhone.
9. The refusal to make the iPhone waterproof is a major problem as well. I've totaled two iPhones this way and I am sure there are many users in my situation.
The iPad, MacBooks
10. They are ignoring the natural evolution of devices, which implies the inevitable cannibalization of the existing products. I have a 2012 MacBook Retina and I want an upgrade; I don't really need more processing power, but I need portability, space, a nice/big screen, and 8 hours of battery.
The 13-inch Mac Air would be perfect, but there is no Retina version. The 12-inch Retina MacBook is too small and I don’t find most of the "new features" attractive - the strange-feeling keyboard and only one USB Type-C port.
If they had a 13-inch Retina Mac Air, there would be hardly any point for the new iPad Pro. I'm not a fan of the iPad though, as iOS is has its limitations. Why would you buy an iPad Pro when you can have a better and more powerful solution, even with a touch screen?
Do you think Apple did not carefully study a device like MS Surface Pro? I believe this is the future. This is what we all want, but this would kill the iPad and OSX is not ready for such a transition.
11. The newer notebooks are impossible to upgrade (RAM or SSD) and you are excessively charged for any upgrade when you buy the devices.
The Apple TV
12. It is a "nice box" that proved really useless to me, not to mention expensive, but for 30 USD you can have a much more powerful Android Media Player. Maybe I just do not understand this product because I don't live in USA, but I believe it’s not only its being expensive, but also its limitations that can be blamed.
The Apple Watch
13. People wanted something new and shiny, but they did not know what to expect of it. The problem is not just the limited functionality, but mainly the rigidity of the existing options. It's unexplainable why we cannot have new watch faces or the ability to customize the notifications.
Why is it impossible to have a notification on my watch and iPhone at the same time? They will make a new Apple Watch version, but I will be reluctant to make an upgrade very soon.
This is only a summary of the reasons I believe Apple is having a bad time. I guess you can call it karma.
Judging by the rumors making rounds, it's clear that the next iPhone is far from being a revolution, and things will only get worse. They need to scrap what they planned for iPhone 8/9 and take a leap into the future.
You can compare the existing Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge with a possibly planned iPhone 8. The problem is that by the time we have an iPhone 8, Samsung will have a Galaxy S10.
Let's hope that, in the meantime, they don't mess up the OSX or iOS!