{"id":46887,"date":"2025-02-27T15:08:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T20:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=46887"},"modified":"2025-03-17T11:32:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:32:48","slug":"our-changing-relationship-with-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/27\/our-changing-relationship-with-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Changing Relationship With Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brent Simmons<\/a> (2024):<\/p>\n

\n

Apple’s positive effect on my life should not be underestimated. […] But I need to remember, now and again, that Apple is a corporation, and corporations aren’t people, and they can’t love you back. You wouldn’t love GE or Exxon or Comcast — and you shouldn’t love Apple. It’s not an exception to the rule: there are no exceptions.<\/p>\n

Apple doesn’t care about you personally in the least tiny bit, and if you were in their way somehow, they would do whatever their might — effectively infinite compared to your own — enables them to deal with you.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Marco Arment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This week’s Under The Radar is significant, therapeutic, and my favorite episode in recent memory:<\/p>\n

Our Changing Relationship with Apple<\/a><\/p>\n

How our values have diverged and our perceived relationship has changed with Apple, forcing our motivations for iOS development to evolve.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a> (2023):<\/p>\n

I’m organizing a boycott of Apple’s Feedback Assistant, starting immediately, and I encourage all Apple developers to join me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Matt Massicotte<\/a> (Mastodon<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

To put it mildly, I have been struggling with this. I have been trying to find ways to respond. Something that could give me some kind of leverage<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

Apple relies heavily on feedback from third-party developers to find bugs in new APIs and OSes. Because of their development cycle, this is especially<\/strong> critical during a beta period.<\/p>\n\n

So I’m just no longer going to use Feedback Assistant. I will not use beta OSes. I will not share crash reports for Apple software. Because of Swift’s exclusive use of X, I will no longer participate in the Swift forums or evolution process. I will also actively discourage others from doing these things.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Drew McCormack<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

For him to swear off participating in the Swift Forums is immense, knowing how active he has been. I feel the same way.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Swift has since joined Mastodon<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Francisco Tolmasky<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

People haven’t put 2 and 2 together that Apple doesn’t give a shit about developers or their feedback. You’d think after years of being notoriously known for never acknowledging or responding to feedback<\/em> people might take the hint, but instead they construct a fantasy where it’s some prized asset they don’t want you to know about. Look at the new Settings. You think Apple cares about software quality? Apples ideal state is you making them 30% and never bugging them.<\/p>\n

To be clear, I’m not saying “file feedback” to get back at them! I’m saying “he’s just not that into you”. You’re not gonna fix him babe. You wouldn’t work this hard to reform Google or Facebook, right? Apple just sent their army of lawyers to defend Google’s web monopoly. Time to wake up, they’re not on your team. There is no version of participating in their closed ecosystem that somehow “fixes the problem from the inside” or whatever you think might happen aside from a revenue relationship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Craig Hockenberry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Empires crumble. This is how Apple’s begins.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I think peak<\/em> Apple was somewhere around 2010. But the innovations and progress since are underrated, and I don’t think it’s crumbling in any sort of business sense. Even if you think they’ve lost their quality or design or moral authorities—which I think are all true to varying degrees, but these are not binaries—what would the effect of that actually be? What alternative do people have?<\/p>\n\n

Boycotting seems futile to me, but I support Johnson and Massicotte participating or not participating however is best for them. It’s healthy to reevaluate your goals, how you spend your time, and how your actions play into the bigger picture. To me, the main point is that there isn’t really a relationship<\/em> with Apple and never was. It’s in our<\/em> heads, which actually means it’s under our<\/em> control. Not Apple<\/em>, but how we think<\/em> about Apple.<\/p>\n\n

I think Arment and Tolmasky have it right, which is that Apple’s going to do what it’s going to do. Mostly, all we get to decide is whether or not we want to play in their sandbox. If you do, make it about the satisfaction of what you’re building and about serving your customers and a community that shares your values. Apple should be seen as a tool to those ends, not as a parent or partner or religion. Such expectations will only lead to disappointment.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n