{"id":38410,"date":"2023-02-09T16:55:51","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T21:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=38410"},"modified":"2023-02-14T16:07:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T21:07:47","slug":"2022-six-colors-apple-report-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/09\/2022-six-colors-apple-report-card\/","title":{"rendered":"2022 Six Colors Apple Report Card"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Snell<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Coming off the high of the release of Apple Silicon, the Mac has slid back for two consecutive years. There was plenty of praise for the M2 MacBook Air, but the delay to the M2 Mac mini and MacBook Pro—which didn’t get announced until January, when our survey was in the field—definitely led to the Mac taking a hit. Panelists also expressed frustration with the lack of updates to the iMac, the lack of a Mac Pro, and issues with the Studio Display.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Like the Mac, iPhone scores also slid for the second straight year. (Given the smaller updates in the iPhone 13 and 14, that’s not surprising.) Despite expressing some boredom about the iPhone hardware, the panel largely had praise for iOS 16’s Lock Screen improvements and the Dynamic Island, and the iPhone 14 Pro’s always-on display was generally well received. The iPhone mini being discontinued was also a negative. This is tied for the lowest score Apple’s flagship product has ever received in this survey, but it’s still a strong score, all things considered.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

The iPad took a precipitous fall to its lowest score in the history of this survey. There was some praise for the iPad 10th generation, but even that product got dinged for its confusing Apple Pencil story—and the fact that its new features make the rest of the product line feel antiquated. A treading-water update for the iPad Pro and the rough introduction of Stage Manager seem to be the biggest culprits in the bad mood of our panelists.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Things are good in wearables land. The Apple Watch Ultra refreshed that product line, and AirPods continue to impress as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

First up is a chart that drills down into the vote distributions across all the categories, so you can see which categories gathered a variety of votes and which ones were a bit more consistent across all 55 voters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Here are my responses:<\/p>\n\n

Mac: 2<\/strong> The highlight of the year has to be the Mac Studio, which seems like a success except for the multi-month shipping delays that extended into the fall. Otherwise it was a quiet year for hardware, except that the new MacBook Air gained a welcome 24 GB RAM ceiling. That’s OK since the rest of the hardware lineup is still solid. After many years of waiting, we finally got the Studio Display. As a display, it’s great, albeit pricey, however the camera is extremely disappointing, the audio and USB hub have been unreliable, and the lack of a power button causes a variety of problems. macOS continues to deteriorate in terms of reliability, and in general it seems like Apple has forgotten how to design Mac software. Many apps feel like iOS ports, and the services apps just don’t work very well. Aside from its own efforts, Apple continues to get in the way of third parties making good software. The Mac version of SwiftUI still doesn’t live up to Apple’s pitch.<\/p>\n\n

iPhone: 4<\/strong> iPhone hardware and iOS seem to be in decent shape. I usually upgrade my phone every two years, but I skipped this one because there was no new iPhone mini, and the regular iPhone 14 got a relatively minor update. The Dynamic Island is interesting. Lock Screen customization is welcome but awkward and limited. The camera seems to be slipping a bit vs. the competition, and photos sometimes look too processed and fake.<\/p>\n\n

iPad: 3<\/strong> As always, the software seems to be letting down the hardware. iPadOS continues to feel limited. Stage Manager seems half-baked, and its system requirements are too steep.<\/p>\n\n

Wearables: 4, Apple Watch: 3<\/strong> Apple Watch Ultra and the watch hardware in general seem to be doing well, except that CPU improvements continue to be minimal. The software has had some problems, with complications broken for me for much of the year, the Camera Remote timer delay too short to be usable, and unexplained giant battery drains. AirPods Pro’s noise cancellation has gotten worse with software updates, and I’m now having regular problems with static that never occurred before.<\/p>\n\n

Apple TV: 2<\/strong> Apple doesn’t seem to know what to do other than add a faster processor. The software seems to be designed around Apple’s business needs rather than what customers would want. The remote still needs work.<\/p>\n\n

Services: 2<\/strong> I continue to have reliability problems with iMessage and Siri. The apps that go along with the media services just aren’t very good. Apple Maps is still not as good as Google Maps in the areas where I go, but it does seem to be improving.<\/p>\n\n

HomeKit\/Home Automation: No vote<\/strong> I don’t use any of this stuff, and looking at the Home app doesn’t make me want to start.<\/p>\n\n

Hardware Reliability: 4<\/strong> My Mac hardware itself has been very reliable, but I count problems with iOS and audio on the Studio Display under hardware reliability. Hardware can regress through firmware updates; my AirPods Pro’s noise cancellation doesn’t work as well as it used to. My iPhone’s battery seems to be failing after a little more than 2 years, though iOS reports it at 88% health.<\/p>\n\n

Software Quality: 1<\/strong> Most things feel kind of buggy, and the Mac is in a particularly bad state, with a large number of small bugs (many persisting for years) and some debilitating larger ones. I’ve documented some of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Developer Relations: 2<\/strong> Pretty much everything to do with the App Store needs work, as does the documentation.<\/p>\n\n

Social\/Societal Impact: No vote<\/strong> [This is such a sprawling category that I never know how to boil it down to a number.]<\/p>\n\n

See also:<\/p>\n