This tweet by Niels Leenheer on his relationship with Apple hit more than close to home:
My complex relationship with Apple:
1️⃣ As a customer I love their products.
2️⃣ As a developer I love their platform and hate their policies.
3️⃣ As a consumer I think they are greedy and hurting competition.
4️⃣ As a developer with an app in review I am absolutely terrified.
— Niels Leenheer (@html5test) May 23, 2021
It’s the lack of consistency across all of these areas, combined with the arbitrariness and ivory tower stance in many situations, that make it a struggle being an Apple customer.
- Yes the iPhone is great, but not allowing browser rendering engines other than Webkit is holding the web hostage.
- Yes the MacBooks are killer machines, but how many iterations of a flawed keyboard did it take before they acknowledged this and finally reverted the approach?
- Yes the App Store Review Process can filter out apps that try and steal just about everything from your device, but seeing scams like this pass while proper apps get revoked for some minor arbitrary detail is saddening.
- Yes it’s nice to have Apple Music across all your devices, but having my library changed behind my back (removing tracks, replacing tracks with other versions, etc.) makes my eye twitch.
- Yes …, but ….
As I’ve put it quite some times before: Apple says “Jump!”, you say “How high?” 😔