Ben Thompson, in his stratechery post:
This telling of the story of iTunes and the iPhone suggests that this focus on the user experience not only defends against disruption, but it also provides an offensive advantage as well: namely, Apple increases its user experience advantage through the leverage it gains from consumers loyal to the company. In the case of iTunes, Apple was able to create the most seamless music acquisition process possible: the labels had no choice but to go along. Similarly, when it comes to smartphones, Apple devices from day one have not been cluttered with carrier branding or apps or control over updates. If carriers didn’t like Apple’s insistence on creating the best possible user experience, well, consumers who valued said experience were more than happy to take their business elsewhere. In effect, Apple builds incredible user experiences, which gains them loyal customers who collectively have massive market power, which Apple can then effectively wield to get its way – a way that involves maximizing the user experience.
Fantastic piece.
Definitely fantastic piece, but what worries me immensely is that Apple is increasingly failing in terms of QA and reliability of their software and services, and their interfaces have been far from stellar lately. iOS 7 was rough, iOS 8 was buggy beyond any reasonable explanation, iOS 8.0.1 was everyone-knows-what, some people complain about Yosemite, U2 album debacle was blown our of proportion but irritating, iCloud Drive launch and performance was hilarious (deleted files? no documents sync between iOS and OS X until Yosemite is out a month later? Really?), iCloud in general is consistently buggy (I lost a few Reminders a few days ago simply because Apple decided to revert to a day’s old status, and there is still no way to undo stuff in anything iCloud related), and so on and so on. My Podcasts app on iPod never properly synced with iTunes, ever. My iPhone (running iOS7) never switched clock to Winter time – just because iOS 7 is no longer supported and Apple obviously can’t be bothered with supporting ANCIENT versions of iOS such as iOS 7. And oh yes, a friend of mine has an iPhone 6 128 Gb that died on her two days after the purchase, just out of the blue (there were rumors about faulty memory chips; got to be just rumors). And all these are just from the top of my head.
So, I’m a huge Apple fan and remain so, but I can’t ignore the fact that in terms of reliability and appeal of Apple experience, it has been rapidly going downhill for the last few years. And it is already pretty close to the critical mass if you ask me, and when this mass is gained, the Apple leverage that Ben writes about will start to no longer working properly enough. Because people who really care about UX and reliability, and who really would want to pay premium prices for premium products and services, would not tolerate dealing with poor experience that Apple seems to be starting providing now. And what leverage will be left to Apple then?
I wouldn’t mind if Apple releases new big OS updates once a couple of years instead of annually, and I would be happy buying a new iPhone model with not exactly new, but reliable and stable software. I can’t see why Apple wants to sacrifice my experience and customer satisfaction for the sake of chasing ghosts.
And then I went to a client’s home and set up two Windows systems (one new with OS 8.1 and one an upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7) and a new MacBook Pro with Mavericks and gave it the Yosemite upgrade. I’ll let you guess which one went the smoothest and gave me time to deal with all the headaches the other two gave.
Apple has always had this issue and that issue. I honestly don’t see anything worse today than I have with System 7 (finally stable with 7.6) or system 8, or even with 9 (finally mostly stable at 9.2 just before OS X came out). All of this stuff is complicated (I’m amazed it all works as well as it does), and much of it is a matter of opinion (I happen to like most of the iTunes 12 overhaul and Yosemite has given me no issues). Also, much of it is anecdotal (thus my experience being fine with things and yours not) — but, in the main, it really is a small percentage of problems fully understandable when millions of users are being dealt with).
To say Apple is rapidly going downhill sounds like the old man looking back and thinking everything was rosy years ago, and you damn kids need to keep off his lawn. 🙂
Dean, thank you for your reply.
I’m indeed not old – I’m still under 30, and I’ve been fully within Apple ecosystem for somewhat 4 years or so, starting with iPhone 4 (which I still use today), iPod touch 3 (still in use), iPad 1 (which I replaced a year ago with iPad Air), MBA late 11 (still well in use), Apple TV 3 (still in use) etc. Not to count iPod touch 1 and iPod shuffle which I used way back in the day, but I was still mostly within Windows ecosystem by that time. So I have no experience and perspective of how it worked many years ago. But I believe this perspective is not relevant when it comes to talking about the current state of things.
Bugs happen, that is for sure. But some issues that have been happening recently are just inexcusable for an integrated company that Apple claims to be. No matter how you see it, iOS 8 was released way before it was cooked, and I have numerous people around me complaining and actually showing me stuff that just should not happen in a public release. On my iPad Air, it is actually working fine, but I saw things happening to people with my own eyes. I don’t see how Apple couldn’t delay the release of OS for a month or so and then make it available in a finished state instead of releasing a rough software product. iOS 8.0.1 just should not happen at Apple. Microsoft or Google can screw up occasionally since they have to support thousands of hardware/software configurations, but not Apple that have just a few models of phones. It really is inexcusable. iCloud may glitch from time to time, but when the cloud storage service actually deletes data with no way to restore it, this is just ridiculous. How am I supposed to trust Apple with my files if I can’t even restore deleted files from iCloud Drive? Some of these things are just unexplainable no matter how you see it.
It might be just me, but both my experience and the feedback from a lot of people around me – friends, colleagues – prove to me that it has definitely been downhill. I don’t remember so many people complaining so vocally about bad stuff – and these people have also been using Apple stuff for ages.
Again, I would prefer Apple to be slower but releasing stable, properly tested software. Especially if it means better UX > more customer satisfaction > more valued customers > Apple leverage, as Ben puts it. This is the resource that Apple simply can’t allow themselves to waste.
Apple has done some awesome things but iTunes and its ecosystem still lacks. No h.265 support, terrible metadata in the store and in files, spamming etc in reviews. Plus pricing, dropping titles and missing seasons from the middle of some sets, quality, dumb ass games like not having ‘completes’ when someone like AMC releases a deluxe edition of a season. Apple should have and use their clout against such consumer unfriendly moves. Especially if the content providers want to slow down torrents etc.
I disagree that it isn’t relative, because you and others I hear complaining seem to act as if this is all new or getting worse. It isn’t. The main difference I see now is the amount of press these things get, and that is understandable considering that there are many more users now. However, because the negative things are amplified does not mean they are any worse than hiccups were before when a new OS or computer design or whatever hit the market.
Even with everything you list, Apple is consistently at the top of consumer satisfaction polls. What I and my friends or you and your friends experience is not data.
Having said all of that, however, I agree that it’s good to talk about these things — but even better is to send feedback to Apple. Grousing here in our echo chambers doesn’t do much. Apple does notice the feedback and does make changes (or speed up timelines for changes, such as Final Cut Pro and its redesign bringing back in things they left out at initial release due to rebuilding from the ground up).
I agree with you that this should be discussed, and that is the reason I posted my initial comment. I hope that Ben, Jim and other respected guys bring Apple’s attention to the issue.
As for the feedback to Apple. Well, a friend of mine has been sending a bug report about disappearing keyboard in iOS 7 for mire than a year now. IOS 8 still has this bug. Sometimes it feels like Apple has become such a huge and bloated company that it no longer has neither time nor attention towards bug reports.