Comment by instagraham

>But if software quality continues to decline, this value proposition becomes increasingly difficult to defend.

If software quality keeps declining, this proposition isn’t just difficult to defend — it’s indefensible and an insult to consumers. Apple has lagged behind Android for a decade, and its software now fails at tasks Symbian OS handled effortlessly.

I've dealt with clunky software all my life, but Apple is the first ecosystem where things are outright unfixable. "It just works" — until it doesn’t, and then you’re out of options.

A few examples of Apple's atrocious software design:

- Rather than universal "open with" controls, iOS forces you to open files with a random selection of apps. Want to edit an image in Snapseed? Too bad, Photos won’t let you. But it will let you use it to "find products on Amazon". I get that this is up to the app developers - but a simpler solution would've been global "Open With" functionality.

- Call recordings over 20 minutes freeze the Notes app, making them impossible to move. No fix for months.

- Changing a wallpaper takes nearly six steps.

- The Home Screen follows non-Euclidean geometry whenever you try to move an icon

- The Settings app search is useless: searching "Camera" shows privacy settings, not the Camera app settings (which aren’t in the Camera app, because of course they aren’t).

- Probably a dozen other niggles you just learn to "live with" on a $1000 phone (and which people with a $200 Android don't even have to think about)

No company has as much contempt for its users as Apple, both from their design philosophy of keeping as much control away from users as possible, and the pricing strategy that pretends like this shitfest is a premium experience. But the users are also to blame - they create the cult that enables this.

On most forums, complaining about Apple just gets you a "why did you buy it then lol" response from users - and absolute silence from Apple.

In a better world, this company would be boycotted by consumers. This forces it to reset and try harder.