Apple Needs a Reset ➹

Although there are a few innacuracies here (Snow Leopard was not that much of an improvement, more of a freebie and a way to level set), it can’t be argued that today’s MacOS Sequoia and iOS/iPadOS 18 feel like products patched together by engineers who may not actually use the software they build.

From Messages’ erratic copy/paste behavior and bloated background processes to the counterintuitive UI changes in System Settings (goodbye, easy drag-and-drop display rearrangement), it’s clear that Apple is slipping, and the number of people who replied to me in the Hacker News thread (yeah, I know, HN is kind of a weird place for Apple folk right now) to echo my complaints about Spotlight’s erratic behavior in Sequoia is staggering.

The whole situation shines a… Spotlight (ha!) into frustrations about a platform that seems to become more and more brittle to the point of actively neglecting the basics it rose to prominence on.

Yes, there will always be a bit of rose-tinted longing for the methodical, almost surgical improvements of the Jobs era. But I honestly have no idea how Apple can keep pushing AI features without cleaning house, and whatever they’re doing in the platform teams just isn’t working.