Apple Ragnarøkkr

It's a new year and, following a warning from Apple on earnings, Apple's stock price has dropped significantly. In the warning, Apple blamed China's economy and consumer delays in upgrading their iPhones as key factors. Beyond problems with the economy and the monkey at the wheel flinging tariffs around, Apple's product problems have been a continuing trend, so it's hardly surprise that we're seeing that play out in their sales results. In terms of their product offering, the last time that Apple was this far off the rails, Steve Jobs came in for the turnaround rescue, reshaping not just the company, but the core product line. Something like that happening at this point seems rather unlikely, but rather than staring off into the distance looking for the rescue ship, let's drill down into some of the places where the current boat is taking on water.

In the earnings call, Tim Cook attributed part of Apple's revenue issue to people not upgrading their iPhones as quickly as they did in the past. For many in the media, this is directly related to the high price of the newest iPhones. Apparently, there has even been talk of price cuts across the iPhone line.

While I don't disagree with an assessment that the cost of the device is a big negative on the current line of iPhones, I don't think that that is the only answer. After all, I bought a new iPhone XS; however, in using it, I found the device to be so functionaly frustrating, I switched my phone back to my old iPhone SE. I carry the iPhone XS -- the camera is really good -- but I don't use it as a phone.

With the current state of the iPhone product line and the implied strategic direction, I expect that my next phone will come from eBay, since that's the only place that I can find an iPhone like the iPhone SE.

What's Wrong With Apple's Products
Apple's product mess extends far beyond iPhone X series. Over the holiday break, Macrumors published this post, "What do you want to See From Apple in 2019?" While lower prices topped the comment responses, you'll also see several top ranked comments focused on product. A couple of highlights include:

"Some new leadership, especially over in product." (the second most up-voted comment)

"Back to basic that Design is about how it works, not how it looks."

These comments echo the kinds of things being said within the professional design community where Apple products have been a staple for decades. Cast in a different light, these are things the "Pro" user community is saying.

Consider this Techcrunch post lamenting the loss of the headphone jack from over the break. Normally, I'd expect a "will the next iPhone include Bluetooth 11.7 Superband and theoretical 6G wireless?" from many of the tech blogs, but this post actually includes a look back at the history of the headphone jack on cellular phones. It's actually a nice walkthrough and a reminder of what a significant step it was for Apple to include a standard headphone jack on the iPhone and how that changed the industry. It was an important design decision that, by the time we got to 2016, Apple forgot it.

Why? The Techcrunch piece focuses on the idea of selling proprietary Airpods, but I think that is just another symptom because this disregard for the factors behind some of these design decisions, factors that were solved by Apple, then forgotten and abandoned. Good design understands history. Fashion follows the wind.

While I've written also about my complaints about the removal of the headphone jack, the removal of the MagSafe charging interface is another example of this same kind of disregard for the value and historical significance of the design. Over the years, I've has a number of Apple laptops. From Powerbooks to Macbook Pros, I've used and carried multiple versions over the years. Before MagSafe, all of my Apple laptops suffered from the same problem -- the charging connection became problematic and would only work in certain positions and my laptop became a desktop because I couldn't unplug it risking that I couldn't get it plugged in again. This issue was always caused by the same thing -- periodic accidental yanking of the cord like when the laptop was moved or when you happened to trip over the cord or such.

The MagSafe interface was a godsend. I can't tell you how many times the power cord was ripped from my laptop with the MagSafe connector on -- with no problem. Typically, these instances involved a few strong words, a sense of reassurance, and a return to work. Having spoken to product people in the PC industry, this was one of the most envied, desired features for PC laptops, but Apple's patent mojo was strong. There's a reason why Microsoft included a magnetic charging connection on it's Surface Pro devices.

And what did Apple replace it with? A USB-C charging interface that requires a special class of USB-C cables to charge the device. Gone is the magnetic connector. Gone is the LED that displays whether the device is charging -- another extremely popular, easily overlooked innovation that took multiple years and multiple product iterations to bring to market.

What's worse is that, while the old MagSafe charging port was kind of dumb, using a data-capable USB-C port for charging presents a potential threat vector. Back in September, I came across this article about hackers/security experts crafting a malicious USB cable that could be used to compromise a system in a few seconds. It's probably also worth noting that the USB-C standards body has just recently began to discuss an Authentication Program to protect against malware and firmware/hardware based attacks. So, while I haven't ever had to worry about malware and viruses through my laptop charger before, Apple's new systems have all incorporated this brilliant innovation.

Resistance to Upgrading
One of the factors cited by Apple in their recent earnings call was an observed slowdown in the rate of users upgrading from their existing devices. Some of this is similar to what we saw in the PC industry several years ago. While processor performance provided some percentage of performance improvements, when the base level of the device had reached "good enough" and perceived requirements were not growing at the same rate, people started holding onto their systems longer and longer.

Remember when the idea of "Netbooks" were all the rage? Remember how people were pushing for Apple to offer a Netbook? In a sort of response, Apple introduced the iPad and we all know how well that went. Looking back, we now know that Netbooks didn't really succeed in doing anything other than undercutting most PC hardware manufacturers' average selling price and devaluing their hardware on the whole. Meanwhile, the creeping trend for today's Apple has been increasingly trying to convince people that the iOS-driven iPad Pro is as good as a Macbook and that a lot of core iOS software framework should be used on the Mac.

If you didn't believe them initially, wait until you see how they've added an iPhone like LCD function-bar to your Macbook Pro so that you can watch your laptop battery juice ooze out. Can't believe on revolutionary and innovative it is? Wait until you see us add it to all of our other systems' keyboards (oh wait). Still concerned about how much power it might drain? Try our new "dark mode" in the Mac OS...

Remember when getting the Beatles on iTunes was a big deal? Little did everyone realize that "Helter Skelter" was going to become the soundtrack for Apple's product strategy.

To add insult to injury, you get things like this, Yes, the 2018 MacBook Air's FaceTime HD Camera is Awful. Yes, finally the venerable MacBook Air was upgraded in 2018. Finally it had a Retina display. Sadly, it was also the end of MagSafe and the end of USB-A support on Apple's portable line. Other than that, it seemed like a pretty decent upgrade -- until you started to look into the nooks and crannies and under the rug. Hidden from view, they stuck an Intel Y series processor. Of course, Apple didn't really play this up (and most consumers look at the "i5" or "i7 number), but many of the things that I read were poo-pooing this decision.

I could go on for a while with more examples. Perhaps the simplest thing to say is, many people characterize this reluctance to upgrade being driven by price or a lack of innovation driving enough need/interest in newer hardware (remember when everyone was looking for "the killer app"). I think that there may be a third contributing explanation that is being under-factored into a reluctance to upgrade -- a concern that from a quality and utility perspective, the newer product is going to be worse by many degrees of measure.

Is this Apple Ragnarøkkr -- the "twilight of the gods"?

Macworld on the end of the Apple Airport

I've been thinking a lot about Apple's decision to kill the Airport Wireless router line. Yesterday I went searching for this post that I remember someone writing after Steve Jobs passed away. The post relayed a story from one of the people in a meeting with Jobs at a time when they were talking about adopting wireless networking -- and the vision that Jobs had to look beyond the cost of the technology at the time and drive the vision of WiFi on all of their systems. It was such a great story that it still sticks with me today.

In the search for that story, I came across this article from Macworld, Requiem for the AirPort base station: A testament to everything Apple was and isn’t anymore. The subhead for the post is, "Apple just doesn't think this way anymore." While it wasn't the story that I was originally looking for, it does capture a great deal of what's been going through my mind following the EOL decision on the Apple Airport. These days, we're supposed to believe that thinking differently means a different color enclosure on iPhone design or an edge-to-edge display where unusable active screen space is, well, useful.

Over the years, AirPort evolved into a full wireless solution that worked with any and all devices, but the ease-of-use Apple revolutionized with the original AirPort never went away. From the remarkable Airport Express to the ingenious Time Capsule, Apple’s wireless products were always designed with the consumer in mind. It took a complicated system and made it easy, a mantra that Apple has gotten further and further away from as it has grown.

In many ways, Apple's Airport was just a router, but like so many other Apple innovations, it was filled with potential that the current Apple business has simply abandoned. Take the whole wireless "mesh" devices. Long before you had these systems, you had Apple Airport Express wireless devices that could either extend your existing network or function as a compact wireless router for up to 10 devices. From the wifi extension perspective, these devices also included a USB connector so that you could connect a printer and an audio port so that you could connect music devices for a multi-room, wireless audio system. While it had a few issues here and there, it was an incredible system on the whole.

And that whole piece was built around Airplay, another awesome Apple feature -- until it wasn't. Eventually, Airplay got so bad, we just quit trying to use it. Theoretically, there are rumors of Airplay2, but I expect that to go the way of Apple TV and Siri, interesting ideas that the current Apple has transformed into technology flops.

But, back to the Apple Airport -- here's another reason why I loved the Airport Express, it was great for traveling. While WiFi network availability has grown, in some places (like Japan), not all hotels have WiFi access. Additionally, some places that you travel to might impose limits on the number of devices you could use. In these environments, the Airport Express was great. You could simply plug it in, and you'd suddenly have your trusted WiFi network available throughout your hotel room. Plus, any of those handy needs-to-be-on-the-same-wifi-network features also worked.

But modern Apple isn't about this kind of functionality any longer. Sure, the cost to run the WiFi router group is probably a fraction of a percent of the hardware revenue of the iPhone business. Sure, there are more Apple buildings and more Apple employees around than there ever were. But today's Apple wants to repeat one aspect of Steve Jobs' approach -- eliminate and focus -- they just want to focus the money. Baby. Out. Baby. Out. Baby. Out. And now we have a nice tub full of dirty water than we can focus on.

As I've written before. I didn't abandon Apple so much as they abandoned me.

It's Not Just You: Apple's Siri is a Dissappointment within the Company

Here's an interesting post from Macrumors about Apples' Siri product and the history of it's lack of development. It's definitely worth a read. The article goes into the history of Siri, including things like how earlier versions of the Homepod didn't even include Siri. The post is drawn from a longer article here, but the article is behind a paywall, so you may not be able to see the longer version.

The Grand Irony of the iMac Pro

Apple closed out the end of the year with the launch of the iMac Pro. This system is being pitched as an example of Apple's commitment to the interests of the "Pro" user -- a system that meets the needs of creative and graphics professionals that have been a core Mac user base for so long. The iMac Pro is being rolled out in advance of a redesigned Mac Pro that's supposed to be unveiled sometime in the future.

The current Mac Pro design is something like four years old. You know the one -- it looks sort of like a Dyson fan turned on it's side -- there are racks and racks of them in use... nowhere, because it doesn't really do racks. Err, my bad. I just Googled "Mac Pro Rack" and found a bunch of aftermarket chassis designs. Anyway, it's probably noteworthy is that there is a market for Mac Pro rackmount accessories -- and how disconnected the design is from the application.

After releasing a bunch of very un-Pro systems with Pro name tags and sparking a bonfire of outrage from professional Mac users (more from me about this in my previous post, Is Apple "Designing" Their Way Out of Customers?), Apple suddenly started making noise about how the Pro market was important to them and how they'd release a new, modular Mac Pro in, maybe a couple of years.

What I think that they really wanted to do was to cool the outrage and get some positive media while their Touchbar USB-C Macbook Pros racked up sales -- since those systems were the only real option available to most pro Mac laptop users, significant sales numbers inevitable.

The other thing that Apple did, while the world waited on the two-year development of the Mac Pro,  was plan and announce an iMac Pro. What I think they were trying to do with this was two-fold: first, fast-track a pro-spec system around an existing design; second, if the sales for the iMac Pro underperformed, they could use that to amplify the idea that "there really isn't much of a pro market after all -- more noise than substance".

As I noted in my headline, what makes this so ironic is that the iMac was never the system you allocated to your Pro users. The iMac was the home system, the one with colors or flowers, the inexpensive all-in-one you used for your admin and support staff so that they'd be on the same platform and could use the software -- if needed. But as Apple has gotten out of the business of doing pro monitors and systems, the iMac is their last option for control over the total package.

It's sort of like if Apple had gotten rid of all of it's iPhone models, then realized they really needed a phone, then saying, "we've made this great iPhone from our Apple Watch. In order to get the battery life and performance you'd expect from an actual iPhone, we've added these dongle attachments for battery, processor and display." Okay, maybe it's not that bad. But if there's anything that makes the case that Apple -- at least for a time -- quit caring about the pro market, it's the iMac Pro.

Also noteworthy on the iMac Pro are what you see in the actual technical specs.

• USB-3 ports. Why? Because the world still uses them. 
• A traditional audio port. Why? Because the world still uses it.
• An SD card reader. Again, another hated drop from the Macbook Pro line.
• USB-C ports used for Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, etc. If they had done this with the Macbook Pro, there probably would have been fewer complaints.
• No Touchbar. If this was a must-have feature, it would make sense to migrate it to these desktop systems. It would probably make even more sense for desktop since it wouldn't be a power draw. But the reality is that, if this feature were on a stand-alone keyboard, the additional cost would probably limit it's sales.

iMac Pro -- the missing link between evolution and devolution. Now, if they can only get this thing into a laptop-sized package, they might have something worthy of a Macbook Pro title.

iOS11 Continues It's Buggy Reign of Terror

One morning last week, I received an unusual call from my wife. She was in Japan and, back at the hotel after a day of meetings and a work dinner, she'd tried to set an alarm for an early morning meeting the next day. Suddenly, her iPhone 8 began restarting. Repeatedly. She tried a number of different things to fix it, but when they didn't work, she called me.

After some online searching, I was able to find a path that temporarily fixed it. As you may have guessed by now, it looks like what she was experiencing was the "Calendar bug" in iOS 11.1.2. Later, I was able to text her an alert her to the 11.2 update that patched the bug.

Yet Another iOS 11 bug -- who could have imagined?

And then there's Apple Pay
And so, that same day, I updated my phone to iOS 11.2. It turns out that beyond the patch the highlight feature that's been added with iOS 11.2 is the, "you should really turn on Apple Pay" feature.

After you install iOS 11.2, the phone says that you need to "Complete the Installation Process". It then takes you into an Apple Pay configuration wizard. Don't want to enable Apple Pay? Then iOS 11.2 drops a big red notification bullet on your iOS settings app icon. The only way to turn this off is to either enable Apple Pay or dive into the settings in Wallet and turn off Apple Pay Cash.

About a day after I did this, I was suddenly greeting with a pop-up screen that basically said, "Don't you really want to enable Apple Pay?" I'm not sure what triggered this -- or whether it will recur -- but it occurs to me that when you're having to advertise "an upgrade" in your operating system software in order to gain adoption, you've got some underlying issues with the feature.

Put a different way. I've gone several years without enabling Apple Pay. What could possibly drive the product team to think that if I hadn't activated it, that this feature was the trigger that would make me choose to enable it?

Instead, what this is another example of is Apple's software team starting with the conclusion that this whole Apple Pay Cash system would work more like their imagined model if it was enabled universally. In other words, this design, this feature set, is entirely centered on Apple's imagined needs for themselves and completely disregards my needs as a user. Fundamentally, this is what's wrong with today's Apple on a broader scale.

Apple's new slogan should be "Think marginally different than Android".

And One Patch Follows the Next
Of course, about a day after installing the 11.2 update, there was iOS 11.2.1, another patch to address a camera auto-focus issue introduced with the 11.2 update. It goes without saying that they still haven't fixed a whole host of animation or screen presentation bugs that affect operation.

• The calculator will still miscalculate 1+2+3 if you type it too fast.
• My email client often shows emails in my VIP mailbox, even though I have not received any emails from VIPs. For whatever reason, it errors in it's calculation and display of these mailbox roll-up folders. Additionally, these numbers will linger for a length of time.

As I've noted, it really makes you question the products coming out of Apple these days. These days, when I look at my iPhone, I never think, "this is the best phone I've ever owned." Instead, virtually every time I look at my iPhone, I'm struck by how much of the damn thing has been broken.

Apple Releases Bug Fix Overnight

So it looks like Apple jumped through a few hoops last night to patch and release a fix for the Root Access bug that came out yesterday. If nothing else, it's proof that if they prioritize and issue and apply resources, they can still be agile company. Or at least, an agile support organization.

Given that, it's kind of funny that the iOS calculator bug is still there.

I Am Root - Apple Introduces Amazing New Bug with High Sierra Mac OS

When I came across news of this new, critical bug that was discovered in the new High Sierra version of Mac OS, I'd like to say that I was surprised. I might have been in the past. These days, not so much. Truth be told, I'd be surprised if we don't see several more critical bugs discovered in High Sierra.

This is exactly why I've been hesitant to upgrade. Perhaps you're like me. High Sierra is one of those "upgrades" that, I don't think I've seen any really useful "features" that they've added (other than this new "universal access feature"). Apple is engaged in a full-on path of Devolution.

So what next Apple? A glass-bottom Macbook Pro so can wirelessly charge the new extra-rapid-draining batteries fueling a new "Super-sized" Touchbar? Imagine the joys of "the thinnest Macbook Pro ever" that requires you use a thick rubber case lest you crack the bottom and wind up with glass fragments in your laptop. Sounds like exactly what every "Pro" user needs.

In the short term, a great fix would be to stop triggering the pop-ups telling me that I should upgrade to High Sierra. Thanks.

Why Apple Products are a Dark Cloud Over the Tech Industry

You would never know it from the stock price, but Apple, the company who's products we once loved, is falling apart. Design, once a cornerstone of every Apple product, is eroding under the weight of copy-cat features and an arbitrary bend through the iPhone looking glass. And quality?

Consider iOS 11. As of this post, we're on iOS 11.1.2, the seventh release of the 11th version of their iPhone software. Take a look at this MacRumors iOS 11 round-up. This update to Apple's iOS, while described as a "major design change", doesn't bundle huge new feature sets. In fact, the second paragraph of the round-up talks about "subtle design changes to interface elements throughout the operating system". And yet, iOS 11 introduced a broad range of bugs into the OS. Seven releases and they still haven't fixed their calculator animation bug.

Now, some companies might offer the excuse that they don't have enough resources build a perfect product. And yet, Apple, with multiple campuses throughout Silicon Valley, hardly seems to be the resource strapped company that it once was. What's more, Apple is sitting on over $261 Billion in cash, so it's not like they can't afford to hire a few good software developers, if that was what was needed to fix iOS.

Contrast iOS with Salesforce.com. In the past, I've often complained about issues with Salesforce.com, but Salesforce releases an update to it's platform three times a year without breaking it's core feature sets or functionality. In iOS 11, I've had issues where the Mail client indicates that I have unread emails from one of my VIPs, even though none of my recent VIPs have even emailed me. I would call that a bug in the core functionality of the device. And this is simply one more issue -- I wish that I had a way to characterize some of the issues that I've had with the touch screen since iOS 11. These days, my iPhone just does stupid stuff -- like randomly playing audio when I put my Airpods away after a phone call.

The Broader Problem with Apple
At it's core, I think that Apple is struggling with a vision problem. While Apple has long been considered a visionary company, I think the current iteration of the company has lost it's way. Consider the new iPhone X and it's facial recognition capabilities. Have they really done anything beyond adding Microsoft Kinect to a phone? Or the Touchbar that was added to the Macbook Pro line -- do you see that anywhere else in their Mac platform? Essentially, the seem to be grabbing at feature straws, wildly swiping through the air trying to capture another brass ring that might equate to iPhone or iMac gold.

But these are not the moves of a mad genius. Instead, they feel more like the flailing efforts of a committee that seems to reach for a consensus view of what they imagine somebody in a black turtleneck might dream of.

Say what you will about skeuomorphic design, I think that when Apple leaned more skeuomorphic, there was a clearer framework to shape the thinking of the people inside the company.

And while today's Apple may consider designers and "pro-users" to be just "some small segment" of their much broader cash cow, I think that they truly underestimate why Apple products became so beloved within that segment -- and it wasn't simply because Apple offered different color options or a rose gold (pink) version. Fundamentally, the core aspect that made Apple product so much better was good design.

These days, Apple just bolts on products and features to build some arbitrary unity around an ecosystem of unnecessary accessories. If Apple were the Marvel Universe, it would be like having Howard the Duck show up in all of their content because, hey, Howard the Duck. And so, we have the Amazon Echo copy, Apple Homepod, so that you can say "Hey Siri" at home. And you also have Siri making a random, Howard the Duck appearance on the Mac. Hey Siri, can you turn my wifi off for real this time?

I'm sure that over in the halls of whichever Apple campus, that they still have product management meetings. They still make product roadmaps. They track their bugs and they schedule their releases. I'm sure that, when it comes to the formal dance of a product, they go through the steps. And yet, iOS 11.

So what does it mean for other companies more broadly, when a company can have more money than most of us can imagine, all of the resources that they could possibly need, and yet to still struggle so fundamentally in something like this "update" to their iPhone OS? What does it mean when innovation for "the most successful technology company" simply means thinner, or slapping a "Touchbar" on it?

So this is what happens with tech companies grow up.

YA Apple FAIL: iOS 11 Worse at Math that Intel Pentium

TL:DR: iOS 11 speeds the iPhone down the path from best phone ever to complete laughing-stock embarrassment.  

In case you were wondering, iOS 11 sucks, big time. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. I've been intending to write a more comprehensive breakdown of the suckage, but other things have been keeping me too busy to devote the time to fully detail the flaws that I've found. It goes without saying that, if it were possible to go back a version -- other than any security flaws that they've theoretically patched, downgrading would be one hell of an upgrade.

I've posted previously about how for Apple iOS 11 and "No doesn't really mean no." because all of those services you think you shut off in the Notification Center don't actually turn off.

Additionally, if you've tried to use the notification center to select an audio source (like say, select you Apple Airpods), selection is now two clicks away under a tiny thumbnail of a control panel.

Should you want to change the brightness of your iPad while watching a video on Netflix, you're looking at two clicks or more to be able to make a simple change to screen brightness.

And now, I just came across this bug on MacRumors. iOS 11 Bug: Typing 1+2+3 Quickly in the Calculator App Won't Get You 6. That's right, if you type 1+2+3 quickly in the calculator app on your iPhone in iOS 11, the calculator will show you 24 instead of 6. In short, it's a worse math error than the infamous Pentium math error. The article goes on to detail an animation bug that blocks screen inputs while the animation resolves. And while it's probably a simple correction for Apple to fix their Calculator app, I think it's symptomatic of broader touch screen interface issues that have been introduced with iOS 11.

While using iOS 11, I've had numerous issues (somewhat randomly) with inputs to the touchscreen. Often, inputs near the edge of the display on my iPhone 5se fail. I've also had issues where the Messages app won't enable you to get to the bottom the display / see the most recent messages.

Perhaps the funniest thing about all of this was when I saw some pundit writing about facial recognition on the upcoming iPhone X, saying something to the effect that they were confident that it would be good because "Apple wouldn't let another Apple Maps - like fiasco take place." Yeah right. All I could think at the time was look at the joke that is iOS 11.

iOS 11 is so bad, it makes a compelling case for not updating your Mac OS to High Sierra.

Apple iOS 11: "No" doesn't really mean "No"

Recently, Apple acknowledged that when you use the control center to turn off Bluetooth or Wifi in iOS 11, it doesn't actually turn those services "off". Instead it just disconnects from the things you were connected to -- except Apple devices and some Apple services. That's right. Apple's iOS 11 now features "No" doesn't mean "No" technology.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns about this in an article, iOS 11’s Misleading “Off-ish” Setting for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is Bad for User Security, regarding this issue. They note that

When a phone is designed to behave in a way other than what the UI suggests, it results in both security and privacy problems. A user has no visual or textual clues to understand the device's behavior, which can result in a loss of trust in operating system designers to faithfully communicate what’s going on.

In gets worse.

The Wi-Fi will turn back full-on if you drive or walk to a new location. And both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will turn back on at 5:00 AM. This is not clearly explained to users, nor left to them to choose, which makes security-aware users vulnerable as well.

Wifi and Bluetooth also reactivate when you reboot your phone.

Why did Apple build iOS 11 this way? Because Apple decided that it would be better for them -- make their device interworkings seem better -- than it would be to honor the "no" implied by the controls in the Notification Center.

This isn't the only thing that sucks about iOS 11, but it may be one of the more troubling ones.

Airpods: Apple's Imperfect Audio Port Solution

With the introduction of the iPhone 7, Apple decided to remove the classic audio port from the phone. They claimed to address the elimination of the audio port with a brand new product, Airpods, wireless Bluetooth headphones that would be so awesome, you'd never miss your old headphones. Skip the part about how Airpods weren't even available for the first three months or so of the iPhone 7. Oh, and the part about the limited availability of Airpods even today. Airpods were promised to be be so great, we'd never want to go back to wired headphones.

I have a set of Airpods, had them for several months, and I can only say, "Airpods, you are no wired headphones."

Don't get me wrong, Apple has accomplished something impressive with Airpods. They are, hands down, the best wireless iPhone headset that I've used to date. But that comes with a large number of caveats. But what's important to understand is that, while they're a nice iPhone accessory, they don't come close to replacing my earbuds.

Bluetooth < Wires
Fundamentally, Airpods suffer from the Bluetooth wireless connection. Using them in my office where there are numerous other Bluetooth devices, I experience a lot of drop-outs from both the speakers and the microphone. I blame this on Bluetooth interference. It's so bad that if I have a call, I use my wired earbuds.

But the drop-out problems aren't limited to "Bluetooth noisy" environments. Using the Airpods while listening to music walking around at night, I found the sound dropped several times also. Potentially, this could be related to software that has each ear piece to check in with the other one and verify that it's there -- the auto-detect ear software. Apparently, you can turn this off, but I think I saw where disabling this disables stereo -- which makes sense if you consider that it needs to know whether there is a second headphone in order to send a stereo signal. However, it should be noted that my wired headphones don't experience similar drops.

This brings me to the sensors in the Airpods. With most Bluetooth headsets, there is some functionality that enables you to answer calls with a tap -- similar to hitting the start-stop button on the wired headphones. Unfortunately, with several months of use, all I've succeeded in doing with my Airpods is opening the voice interface at various times. I'm sure that if I were running battery-wasting, time-wasting Siri, I could have asked Siri to answer the phone, but mostly I've had to default to scrambling around, trying to find my phone in order to answer calls on the iPhone instead of the Airpods.

On a related note, I can't count how many times I've accidentally fumbled with one of the Airpod earpieces, only to accidentally bring up the voice interface -- enough to make me cautious about handling the earpieces.

The Good
Let me say that I understand the interest in having a wireless headset. How many times have I found myself listening to music while doing something like cooking when the wire on my headphones gets caught on a knob or the corner of a cabinet? Having my ear yanked or sending my iPhone flying sends me cursing the wire and everything it stands for. With the Airpods in a quiet Bluetooth environment like my home, I can wander around with audio, safe from worrying about whether the cable is about to get caught on something. Do I still experience drop-outs? Yup. But the trade-off of no wires is usually worth it for kitchen tasks.

Airpods also work reasonably well when driving in my non-Bluetooth-enabled vehicles. The wire doesn't usually get in the way while driving, but it's still potentially a concern. Meanwhile, the variability of cell coverage when you're on the road means that the wireless connection is only one of multiple connectivity issues that you deal with.

Finally, another nice thing about the Airpods is that you can use one or both. If you use just one, you can get some pretty serious battery life out of the set by periodically switching earpieces and letting the other one charge.

Summary
All trade-offs aside, Apple's Airpods provide a nice Bluetooth headset experience. At the same time,  one of the reasons that I chose the iPhone 5se was the inclusion of the headset port. Having experienced both the "antique" and what Apple promises us to be the "future" of audio on a phone, I must say that the removal of the audio port still ranks as one of the worst design choices Apple has made.

Another Apple Design Faux Pas - Magic Mouse 2

I came across this tidbit about Apple design yesterday in a story with leaked details about the iPhone8. While providing comments about the potential new iPhone design, the article mentioned other recent poor Apple designs and referenced the Magic Mouse 2. Specifically, it noted that when Apple redesigned the Magic Mouse 2 to include a rechargeable battery, they put the charging port on the bottom of the mouse. In other words, when the mouse needs to be recharged, you can't use it while it's charging.

This is the part of the story that really caught my attention. Sure, Magic Mouse 2 is old news, but the fact that this product was actually released by Apple seems telling. This is another example of where form outweighed function, where the needs of actual users came second.

If you've ever had the battery die when you were using a wireless mouse, I'm sure you're familiar with the panic of running around, trying to find a battery to replace it and restart whatever you were in the middle of when the mouse died. Now imagine having to stop what you're doing, put your mouse aside, and wait for the mouse to charge.

Sure, with a quick charge, there might not be much of a wait. But the obvious solution -- following a 30+ year long legacy of mouse designs -- would be to put the connector on the top of the mouse so that you could keep working while charging. That would have been a design that considered functionality. The bottom of the mouse? That's more "let's just sweep the ugly parts underneath the rug" design.

Now admittedly, to date, I've bought one magic mouse (v.1) and returned it shortly after I bought it. It wasn't even for my day-to-day system. In short, this aspect of the Magic Mouse 2 design probably would never have come to my attention had I not seen mention of it in the article. Still, I find it yet another indication that Apple's design group has lost touch with the usage requirements of their customer base. Go fashion, f--- function.

Apple at CES: Third Parties Try to Bridge Apple Design Flaws

In my browse through the tech blogs this morning, there are several stories about CES and Apple products. At Recode, Ina Fried wrote about how absent Apple products were, not as a featured and displayed products, but as influencers and market drivers. In past years, even though Apple doesn't participate in CES, Apple products provided technology cornerstones that shaped many of the products at the show. This year, apparently, Apple's featured role has been replaced by Amazon's Alexa.

Meanwhile, MacRumors highlighted products that were essentially third party solutions for Apple's recent design mistakes. You know them, you hate them, so here are the latest bandages to overcome your newest Apple product flaws.

First, from iPhone case maker Incipio, comes an iPhone7 case with a headphone jack and a Lightning port. Of course, this post doesn't say whether it includes the ability to start and stop music with the remote button on your earbuds, but hey, it's a start.

Next, from Griffin, there's a magnetic breakaway technology solution to make the USB-C port work sort of like a MagSafe connector. You've kind of got to see this one to believe it. While I have to give them kudos for trying, I couldn't see myself buying something like this and it goes to show you just how elegant the original Apple solution really is. To me, the part that drove this home was posted in the Macrumors comments. "What annoys me even more is the lack of orange/green status lights for charging in the new machines." I still have a MagSafe connector on my systems and I'm already morning their loss.

Oh, and I don't have a link for this, but another thing I happened across last week. Kingston announced "the world's largest thumb-drive" at 2 TB. It's a big drive, but what it's not is USB-C.

The Eroding Mac: Preview Bugs - Yet Another FAIL

So I came across this bit of news on MacRumors today: macOS 10.12.2 Users Urged to Avoid Using 'Work-in-Progress' Preview App to Edit PDFs. Essentially, Apple in new strategic direction has rewritten the PDFKit and broken a bunch of functionality. Not just broken, but broken to the point where several experts are recommending that you don't edit PDF files in Preview.

Why would they release a crappy version of some core functionality? Well, here's what the article says:

Apple wants to use a common foundation for both iOS and macOS. However, it was released way too early, and for the first time (at least in my experience) Apple deprecated several features without caring about compatibility. And to make things worse, lots of former features are now broken or not implemented at all, meaning that we had to add lots of workarounds or implement stuff on our own. And there’s still work left to be done. 

10.12.2 introduces new issues (it seems that Apple wants to fix at least the broken compatibility now) and of course fixed almost none of the other issues.

Once upon a time, desktop Macs and functionality like the PDF engine in Mac OS were important to Apple. While it may seem like minor functionality, the core graphic rendering engine is more than just a free tool for casual users, it's yet another essential component for the professional user class.

The writing is on the wall. The Mac platform is dying and Apple can't shovel dirt on it fast enough.

Another Day, yaArticle on Eroding Apple Product Vision

I came across this one on MacRumors today, ostensibly talking about the upgrades that didn't happen to the MacBook and MacBook Pro. However, there's more here again about the internal erosion at Apple and the lack of vision.

The source of this MacRumors piece is this Bloomberg article that's probably also the driver for the Business Insider post I wrote about most recently. You may want to check out the Bloomberg article, but be warned -- like reading about politics these days, it's likely to just piss you off and raise your blood pressure. It's really too bad that Steve Jobs can't return and take over the company again.

Seriously though. All of this was probably predictable. If you take the formula of a cash cow product like the iPhone and throw that into the mix, at some point the people who are running all of the programs are going to be the managers, not the innovators. For them, it's going to be all about protecting that real estate that they think that they've won. They're not developing innovative computing products because they're not a hungry computer company any longer. Now, they're a fat cat phone company focused on trying to keep all of that phone money coming in. They are Sony, sitting on the laurels of their Walkman brand.

Hey, there's an innovative idea, maybe the next MacBook Pro can come in a bright yellow plastic case. Well, just so long as we make it thinner and eliminate some useful ports...

Dear Apple: MacBook Pro Should Mean Useful Ports

I've written a number of posts about how the current MacBook Pro -- and I use that term only to indicate brand name, not to describe it's feature set -- is an underwhelming piece of hardware that's strayed from the vision of the platform. But at some point, it occurred to me that it may just seem like a bunch of wishful grandstanding. Lots of people want lots of ports, but how many people use them?

And so, I thought it might be a worthwhile exercise to share a picture of my MacBook Pro in it's daily plugged-up state. Here's what a pro machine looks like...

When I use my MacBook Pro at the office, I have my MagSafe power connected, I have one Thunderbolt port connected to an Ethernet dongle for network access, another Thunderbolt port connected for my external display, one USB port connecting my external keyboard and mouse, and often enough, I have my headphones connected for conference calls.

What's left over on the other side of the MacBook Pro is a USB port (traditional, not USB-C) that is often used for pulling data off of thumb drives, an HDMI port that gets used for special video occassions, and an SD port that gets some use also.

Meanwhile, my Macbook Air is often similarly adorned, but sadly lacks a second Thunderbolt port to enable Ethernet and video at the same time. If I had one wish for my MacBook Air, it would be a second Thunderbolt port (and perhaps a Retina display).

Oh, and just in case we were counting, to date, I still have ZERO USB-C devices in my possession.

More Indications Apple Abandoning Mac Core

Here's another post with some interesting behind-the-scenes information about the structure of things at Apple. It comes on the heels of the news out yesterday that Tim Cook basically said, "desktop is important to us." However, this Business Insider piece has a lot more info about how things are changing around the Mac OS internally. More specifically, the people who have been working on Mac OS are being rolled into the iOS software team. Here's the quote, originally from a Bloomberg report:

Gurman says that Apple has reorganized its software engineering so that there is no more dedicated Mac operating system team. Instead, engineers work on both iOS and macOS, as the Mac has been generally deprioritized in the company, according to the report. 

For those of us that have been using the platform in recent years, some of this comes as little surprise. Increasingly, the team at Apple seems to be focused on incorporating features into the MacOS that nobody really needs or wants on a desktop or laptop system. Things like the "Notifications" menu bar drop down, or my recent favorite -- Siri. To date, the number of times that I've used Siri on my laptop? Zero.

When it comes to product roadmap and buyer's guides, it's becoming increasingly clear that you probably shouldn't hold out for future Apple Mac products, because if you do, you'll probably find you're getting an iPhone with a large screen and keyboard attached. That is all.

Apple Removes "Time Remaining" in New OS Update

Perhaps you might have heard stories about some of the people who'd bought the new MacBook "Pro" models with the Touchbar and nothing but USB-C ports having power problems. Specifically, many people were apparently having extremely short operational life with their new units, like 3-4 hours instead of the "up to 10 hours" number that Apple advertises.

Perhaps that Touchbar is a huge, always on battery suck?

Anyway, Apple released an OS update to address some bugs that are supposed to help with the battery life issue. One of the things that they fixed -- and I saw this on Macrumors before I actually installed the update and saw it in real life -- they removed the "Time Remaining" calculation from the battery utility in the menu bar.

Why? According to MacRumors,

Apple said the percentage is accurate, but because of the dynamic ways we use the computer, the time remaining indicator couldn't accurately keep up with what users were doing. Everything we do on the MacBook affects battery life in different ways and not having an accurate indicator is confusing.

Admittedly, it's true. The time remaining is and always has been inaccurate. It's a guess, sort of like that Mileage calculation that your car makes based on how your driving at the moment. It's performance is pretty crappy when you accelerate -- or launch an app say. Still, to remove it?

It reminds me of a worse version of their solution for the AntennaGate issue, where they just changed the software to not be as dynamic in reflecting your cell signal. Oh, that fixed it...

Seriously, most of us Pro users benefit from having the time remaining -- it's a helpful estimation if your somewhere like, on a long flight with no power. It can give you guidance to turn the brightness down on your display. Or save that presentation rather than starting another slide. It's a much easier to read battery speedometer than percentage.

I put this one in the FAIL category.

Apple Earpods Still Delayed: Wireless Audio - Genius!

I came across this article on Macrumors today noting the continued delay in bringing Apple's Earpod's to market. It seems the technology is still struggling. Here's a quote from the article:

While the exact reason for the delay remains unclear, a person familiar with the development of AirPods told The Wall Street Journal that Apple's troubles appear to be related to its "efforts to chart a new path for wireless headphones," in addition to resolving what happens when users lose one of the earpieces or the battery dies.

All of this is more evidence of the secret behind the decision to remove the "worked for decades" audio port -- Genius. Not the brilliant kind, but the Wile E. Coyote kind.

Or perhaps Super Genius -- as it's pretty obvious seeing the Audio Port train coming...

Google New Wifi Router vs Apple Abandoning the Airport

A couple of weeks ago I came across news of Apple abandoning development on their Airport Express and Extreme wireless routers. As I noted at the time, it is another troubling hint at the direction that Apple is taking their product line -- and how they are abandoning long time pro Mac users and the great technology that they've supported us with in the past.

Today I came across this review of new mesh router products including one from Google. Oh the irony. As I read through the features and capabilities, the devices reminded me a lot of Apple's existing wireless products. It's disappointing to think that we may be faced with a lesser interface, courtesy of Google, simply because Apple lost it's vision.

Ah, but I suppose it's better for Apple to focus time and resources on something important, like what color watch bands to offer on their next update breakthrough announcement.