Nothing Was Delivered

The big question today on the tech blogs is has Apple lost it? You can rephrase that question several ways. Is Apple’s schedule of yearly iOS and OS X releases too ambitious? Are their priorities in the right place? Can any company reasonably expect to simultaneously grow platforms as complex as OS X and iOS and introduce a new watch platform while keeping software quality high? 

I don’t know the answer to that. But I can tell you that I don’t see Apple slowing down any time soon. 

Imagine a world where Apple held back several years between releases. We would all be using, what, Mountain Lion and iOS 6 today? Sure, it would be stable. But it would feel stagnant. Lacking of ideas. Your iPhone 6 would look antediluvian running a two year old OS, especially next to Android’s new Material design language. The “Apple bit off too much–is doomed!” argument would be replaced by “Apple is out of ideas–is doomed!”.

Apple are in a tough spot. On the mobile side, their competition is stronger than ever. Microsoft has stumbled on the desktop, but that doesn’t matter because the Mac is being measured against its younger siblings now. We expect our devices to work seamlessly together. 

As a customer, I do think now would be a good time for a “Snow Leopard” type release. Fix the weird little bugs. But I don’t think Apple can get away with that. A year is a long time to tell the world that you’re busying working on bug fixes. 

And frankly, while I do have complaints about the software I’m running today, I sure wouldn’t go back.