bad Apple

The official page announcing the iPhone Pocket (literally a knitted sock) is indistinguishable from an Onion article.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/introducing-iphone-pocket-a-beautiful-way-to-wear-and-carry-iphone

The sock Pocket is $150-230 USD.

From here: The Dark Side of Apple Development: Why Developers Are Struggling On Apple’s Increasingly Hostile Platforms

Apple may be starting to see the consequences of its own actions. Every new platform it has launched in the last decade — the iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and now Vision Pro — has struggled to gain meaningful developer support. Why? Because developers are tired of being in an abusive relationship.

If I were starting fresh today, I wouldn’t build my business on Apple’s ecosystem.

Instead, I’d consider web development, where you can control your own distribution, pay no platform commissions and not deal with a mercurial gatekeeper. Or perhaps focus more on cross-platform development, so you’re not locked into a single company’s walled garden.

Finally even becoming a content creator, on a platform like YouTube, seems like a more stable way to make a living these days.

The reality is that Apple’s development ecosystem has become a high-risk, high-maintenance environment. New developers looking for a sustainable career path would do well to consider alternatives that offer more control and fewer headaches.

I think the iPad has done better overall with support than stated here, as there are some notable iPad exclusives (such as Procreate¹Yes, there is Procreate Pocket for the iPhone. No, I don’t count it., which is quite literally the only reason I keep my iPad), but if you go by the last five years or so, it hits closer to the mark. As Apple continuously fiddles with the iPad’s UI and how much (or little) the iPad is meant to do, devs have started to shy away from making exclusive apps for it.

I happen to also agree that the yearly update cycle is bonkers and serves no one but Apple. So Apple will continue to go with them, introducing new bugs that never get fixed, releasing new software that never gets fleshed out or is forgotten, all while keeping the eye on the main prize: services, which Apple makes a ton of money on, while offering poor value and uneven reliability (iCloud, iCloud Drive) to its customers.

Basically, Apple is too big to need to worry about developers–or customers. If iPhone sales dropped by 50%, they’d still be selling hundreds of millions of them. Captive market. Their focus now is on an insatiable drive to make even more money, because that’s what giant publicly traded tech companies do. And with a corrupt regime in power in the U.S. Apple will be happy to play them to get what they want, regulations, environment or customer needs be damned.

If Apple had leadership with a moral compass aligned to what they claim to believe, things would be fine. But instead we have its CEO donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, as close to a straight-up bribe as you can get. And it will make no difference unless they keep offering fealty to the king. Maybe they will. Probably they will, and they’ll become ever-more corrupt and uninterested in doing what is right or best, and simply in doing what will extract the most money from the most people.

What I’m saying here is this: Don’t buy Apple products. Don’t support them, don’t believe them. Yes, every tech company is pretty much evil these days, so you have to sometimes choose the lesser evil. Apple is no longer one of the lesser evils.

This concludes my 2025 Apple Rant. Unlike Apple, I do not intend to roll out a new rant every year. But hey, you never know.

I rarely open the iCloud program on my Windows PC, but when I have recently, this is what I see:

The circle of coloured dots slowly spins mesmerizingly as it teases that it’s “Signing in…” but it never signs in. Until I go to icloud.com in my browser, relaunch the program, and then it works. I don’t know if this is a coincidence, but it has “fixed” the issue each time.

More quality work from the company devoted to squeezing as much as it can from its customers, because tens of billions in pure profit is not enough. I know I promised not to gripe about Apple as much on this blog anymore, but they make it so easy now.

But I do promise to not gripe as much going forward. For reals. If for no other reason than I use Apple devices increasingly less these days.

And yes, even its shiniest, newest products, like the Apple Watch Ultra, are ho-hum.

I used to get at least a cheap thrill from some of the Apple rumours that would come out, but Apple has fallen so madly in love with its image as a “premium” brand that I now no longer look forward to anything, knowing how absurdly high-priced it will be. I feel like the entire company is in a funk, even as it hits massive new profit and revenue records. It’s also boring and cut through with a deep cynicism.

Both of its monitors are overpriced and its “consumer” monitor is an overengineered and actually pretty ordinary 27″ LED display ($1600 US with no way to adjust the height without paying extra)

The Apple Silicon era started impressively in late 2020, with the M1 MacBook Air, but there were disappointments right from the start, such as reducing ports on the Mac mini and restricting the M1 to only a single external display (technically two for the mini). Since then, it’s been a decided mixed bag, In two years Apple has only released a single new SoC, the M2, with some minor improvements, and has yet to update its entire line. The Mac Pro is still MIA, the higher end Mac mini is still an Intel machine, they nuked the 27″ iMac with no replacement. The M2 MacBook Air clearly shows cost-cutting shortcuts, despite costing $200 more.

The iPad line is a muddled, confusing mess, filled with a confusing array of features sprinkled across its low and high-end offerings. And dongles!

The iPhone 14 is about as close to an incremental upgrade as you can get without actually not updating at all. I’m not sure why it even exists. The “Dynamic Island” of the 14 Pro is not only the most twee name Apple has come up with in many years (and Apple is generally terrible and wildly inconsistent about names¹Explain the difference between Pro, Plus, Max, Extreme and Ultra.), it’s also bifurcating the UI experience between product lines, which is bad design. Users should not have to pay more to get the “best” UI experience.

And then the price hikes as the US dollar strengthens, making its stuff even less affordable around the world.

And of course, let’s not forget the real legacy of Tim Cook: hitching Apple’s success to China and bowing obsequiously to its government’s every request as it continues to be an oppressive force against its own people. But hoo boy, that supply chain is efficient!

And yet…record revenue, record profits. Apple is secure. If they ever fall, it will be, as I’ve said before, a slow descent (though it will quicken at the end).

And I really do think it will fall, eventually. The company is no longer hungry, it’s fat (and nakedly greedy–I don’t think the company has ever been more transparent in trying to squeeze as much from their customers as they can), content and full of itself, convinced of its own greatness. It displays naked hypocrisy and misrepresents reality all the time to make its case on whatever the topic may be (like claiming a forced USB-C connection on the iPhone will stifle innovation, even though their lightning port has remained unchanged for the past ten years). Only direct government action, such as the changes mandated by the European Union, will actually push it to change. And, like a petulant child, it will only do the absolute minimum it can get away with.

One rumour going around is that Apple will allow third-party app stores to comply with upcoming EU regulations, and it’s all but expected that Apple will make such stores as unappealing as legally possible, such that no one will ever want to use them, technically complying with regulations, but completely thumbing its nose as their intent.

And so I end here, disillusioned by a company that once tried to position itself as the ones who did things differently. Apple has eaten itself. It’s time for others to show real innovation and kick it to the curb.

* My last Apple rant for now, though I really do not plan to write more. Honest!