Leaving The Hive
arlier this week I posted an article The Phone Affair in which questioned whether or not I would be willing to make the change away from the iOS community and into largely uncharted territory with Windows Phone 8 (heretofore WP8). I left the post open as to whether or not I would actually do it, but I think I’ve made my decision.
I live for change, (when it’s done right). There are some things that some would argue don’t need to be changed (if it’s not broke don’t fix it right? This is the motto that Apple has lived under for quite some time now and for the most part it’s served the company well. The problem is… I’m not the only one who craves change and the fact that Apple’s phones have seen little improvement software wise, is going to cost them. Apple and it’s many fans have created a sort of hive-like mentality, or perhaps the better imagery would be a horse with it’s blinders on. But occasionally to serve your customers, you have to step outside of the hive, take off your blinders and look at what everyone else is up too, because otherwise you’re going to fall behind.
One of the largest complaints I see from Apple users is the fact that Apple largely seems to have neglected it’s computer operating system (or OS) for the mobile OS, and in a lot of ways this is both correct and incorrect. Take for instance the Macbook line which has seen quite a few updates stylistically over the last few years (much like the iPhone) but internally hasn’t seen much. The problem is Apple has become more of a hardware focused company rather than a software company like they used to be. They’re more concerned with making a device thiner and arguably more beautiful rather than really working hard on the software where it needs the most work. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mountain Lion, I love OSX but it’s been over a decade since their last major revamp from OS9 and I think everyone who enjoys Apple would argue, there are things that people desperately want to see from Apple, particularly in the computer department. Arguably the fact that Mountain Lion is beginning to merge OSX and iOS has been one of the most debated aspects of the change. Some people love the merge, others want nothing to do with iOS and feel Apple is trying to shove the mobile platform down our throats.
It’s unfortunate that in the quest for the thinnest device (mobile or otherwise) Apple has lost sight of what makes it special to begin with. Software. The retina thing was great in the beginning, but when you’re counting PPI, technically other phones have already surpassed Apple’s definition of Retina. The biggest problem for me is that the iPhone is 5 years old. You’re telling me in five years the biggest thing we have to show for it is a slightly bigger phone, and the ability to change almost every alert tone on the phone? Apple can do better, and it’s fans deserve better. Frankly if iOS7 doesn’t start over from scratch I don’t know if I will want to return to Apple’s mobile platform.
