Apple in 2024: The Six Colors report card

As someone who uses and thinks about Apple computers quite a lot, this read from Six Colors is always interesting.

Apple in 2024: The Six Colors report card – Six Colors:

It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. The whole idea here is to get a broad sense of sentiment—the “vibe in the room”—regarding the past year. (And by looking at previous survey results, we can even see how that sentiment has drifted over the course of an entire decade.)

This is the tenth year that I’ve presented this survey to my hand-selected group. They were prompted with 14 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) and optionally provide text commentary per category.
Keep reading here…

If you ask me, here’s how I’d rate Apple right now:

• Mac: B – Mac hardware is better than ever, but macOS is cluttered with intrusive privacy popups. I’ve never found the operating system more distracting or off-putting.

• iPhone: B – Battery life on my iPhone 16 Pro Max isn’t as good as my last phone, but I’m loving the new camera button for quick shots of my kid.

• iPad: C – The latest iPads are great refinements of the 2018 iPad Pro design, but the software remains ok at lots of things, and not a great computer. Just put macOS on it.

• Wearables: C – AirPods 4 and the new health features in AirPods Pro 2 are highlights, but the Vision Pro is a miss. It’s the first new Apple product category I haven’t felt tempted to buy… ever?

• Watch: C – I love the Apple Watch, but OS updates and widgets feel half-considered. I never know whether I’ll see my watch face or the widget screen when I glance at my wrist. The Siri watch face and developer API seem abandoned, and Apple needs to figure out how to bring back the blood oxygen sensor in the U.S. before I consider upgrading.

• Home: E – No meaningful updates. The Apple Home ecosystem remains unreliable, and the smart home industry still feels as chaotic as it did in 2019.

• Apple TV: D – It’s odd to rate this so low because it’s still the best streaming box by very far, but Apple rarely updates the OS or expands its potential. There’s so much more I’d love them to do.

• Services: C – Apple TV+ is decent, the news and game subscriptions are forgettable, and iCloud is passable but still not rock-solid.

• Hardware Reliability: A – If there’s one thing Apple still nails, it’s hardware reliability.

• Developer Relationship: E – Watching Apple handle EU regulations this past year has made it clear: their business practices hurt developers and users alike. It appears that any real improvement will require regulation.

• World Impact: E – Given how much Apple prioritizes profit over progress in personal computing, it’s hard not to see them as more of a force for harm than good these days.