Daring Fireball 2018 Apple Report Card

John Gruber (Hacker News):

The MacBook keyboards, lack of iMac updates, and still-missing Mac Pro would’ve led me to give Apple a “C” for the Mac. I took off a whole grade for how embarrassingly bad the “Marzipan” apps are.

[…]

iOS 12 is one of my favorite iOS updates for iPhone in years. Apple promised back at WWDC that they were focusing on performance and they delivered.

[…]

iCloud Photos is now one of the best sync services I’ve ever used. It’s fast and reliable, and it handles data that I consider invaluable — my family’s photos and videos. iCloud overall has gotten very good.

I continue to have problems with iCloud Photo Library (new photos not showing up, slow syncing, mysterious failures downloading/exporting) and iMessage (messages arriving minutes late or not at all, spontaneous signouts, huge numbers of messages temporarily disappearing). iCloud calendar e-mail notifications still don’t work. It seems like iCloud Drive has been improving, though.

But for me, personally, I don’t care about huge new flagship stores in Dubai or Paris, and I don’t partake in the “Today at Apple” classes. I care about two things: buying stuff and getting service at my local Apple Store here in Philadelphia.

[…]

I just want to get in line, wait my turn, pay, and leave. Instead, the way to check out at an Apple Store is to wander around until you get the attention of an employee who has one of the handheld checkout iPod Touches.

[…]

But inevitable or not, the result is that getting support at an Apple Store now stinks. And frankly, the technical acumen of the Genius Bar staffers is now hit-or-miss.

I think Apple needs a lot more stores just to maintain the quality of experience that they used to have. Given that they’re currently stretched so thin, I wish they would focus on service and sales.

Previously:

• 2018 Six Colors Apple Report Card
• The 2018 MacBook Keyboards Have the Same Old Problems

Update (2019-02-20): Josh Centers:

We decided to ask for your thoughts on what the Apple Stores have been like under Ahrendts, and we were surprised to see that your opinions were split fairly evenly between improvement, no change, and decline.

Apple Retail Stores Apple TV Apple Watch Calendar Catalyst (Marzipan) iCloud Drive iCloud Photo Library iMessage iOS iOS 12 iPad iPhone Mac macOS 10.14 Mojave

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