Wherefore Art Thou, Apple?

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).
 –Mark Twain, notebook 1904

I have had an indistinct nagging in the back of my mind for quite a while now. Nothing significant, just a malaise that something was off. Something I could not quite get a hold on, like snatching for ambrosia scented puffs of smoke. With all the garbage polluting the public consciousness, I chalked it up to the “general state of affairs” and went about my business.

And then I read Jason Snell’s article, Apple in 2015: The Six Colors report card. It immediately struck a cord with me. The more I thought about it, and even more so when I took the survey myself, I realized my quiet discontent was with Apple. It was not until I saw all the different tech pundits weighing in with similar complaints and sideways praises, that I realized just how much my faith has been shaken.

Who cares, right? It’s a tech company. Get over it. I hear you. I admit it is a bit silly to get wound up over my gadgets, but at the same time more of my day to day activities are inexorably intertwined with technology. Therefore, the choice I make about what devices and services I use can significantly affect and effect my stress levels.

Also, I work in IT, with Apple products in particular, so I am faced with these problems every weekday, all day long.

Perhaps it is not so silly after all.

I have been an Apple user for 27 years. While it has not always been copacetic, since Jobs returned in 1997 I have generally been happy. All of my gear, with the exception of a Kindle Paperwhite, is Apple. I have a late 2015 Mac Mini I use for a media server. My mid 2014 MacBook Air is my daily driver. I have an iPhone 6 and iPad Mini 3 for my phone and portable needs. I have a couple Apple TVs—one 3rd generation, one 4th generation—to stream media to different TVs in my home. Finally, I connect everything wirelessly with the most recent Airport Extreme Time Capsule. All of which are running the latest software available to them.

Why do I bother mentioning this? Because I have gone all in to avoid the very problems I am experiencing — because “it [doesn’t] just work.” When I factor in the premium price tag the frustration meter starts running in the red.

For instance, why does my Apple TV lose the connection to my iTunes server every couple weeks? I keep everything on and running. There are no signs of outages on any device. Yet every two/three weeks one of the Apple TVs will not see the iTunes server. The only solution is to power cycle all the devices in my network to restore connection. One would think it would only require power cycling the Apple TV or the Mac Mini. Nope. EVERYTHING. Apple TV. Mac Mini. AirPort Extreme. Anytime there is a problem everything has to be restarted.

Here is another. Since I have upgraded to iOS 9 my iPhone and iPad randomly ask me to enter my password to unlock them. What is that all about? I know if I restart my device, or if I go 48 hours without using said device, as a security measure I’m required to reenter my password. I am perfectly happy with that. It can be an inconvenience, but one that is acceptable because I am security conscious. That is not what is happening. When my devices ask for the password it is at completely random times. That is, when I have NOT restarted my device. Often times I will have used my iPhone or iPad only minutes earlier. As for the other possibility, I have NEVER gone 48 hours without using my iPad and iPhone.

Speaking of randomly having to enter my password, I am increasingly being prompted to sign into my Apple account (on all my devices — laptop, iPhone, iPad). The best solution (read: if I do the following my devices will go longer without asking me to authenticate) is to log out of iCloud and log back in. This process is painless as passing a kidney stone. It requires turning off Find My Device, then going through multiple screens of “are you sure you want to do this because doing so will delete all the information from this device,” only to then require walking through all this in reverse to return everything. Oh, and then there’s the long wait for everything to sync.

Seriously. WTF?

How does a company as big, wealthy, and talented as Apple have such a crappy service? I am not ignorant enough to think it should be easy, and no one’s products are without faults, but the Apple experience is starting to feel more and more sloppy, like high school cafeteria food from the 80s: crap thrown together to get it out. What happened to the Apple that would pull products last minute if they were not ready?

Maybe therein lies the problem, Apple’s size. Perhaps they are too big for their own good. Maybe it is time for them to pause and reflect.

While they do that what am I to do? Bitch about it on the internet. Duh, of course.

When I am really ready to do something I — uhm —

Contact Apple. I am told to “turn it off and on again” or “sign out and back in.” Sigh. Done that. Did not work. It works only in so far as it gets me off the phone. The call center is like Roy’s answering machine from The IT Crowd. Except this is about as funny as a colostomy bag bursting in a stuck elevator.

As an IT professional I would like to be able to fix things myself. I do have some sneaky tricks, but Apple’s simplicity makes DIY nearly impossible. By simplicity I mean the interface does not allow users access to make changes/corrections. I am not overly aggravated because I understand this is a slippery slope. I do not allow users unfettered access to the machines I manage at work. There would be no end to the fixing required to keep things running if I let them do as they pleased. And that is exactly Apple’s stance here but, at the same time, when there is an issue, getting an actual response from Apple is like a having speedy trip through the DMV. It does not happen.

So, again, the question: What to do?

Switch? A couple years ago I would not have even entertained the idea. Today though, eh. The answer is no, but the fact I am thinking about it is telling.

Actually, that is not entirely true. No, I am not willing to switch hardware. Not just because I have spent a lot of money, which I have, and that is no small factor, but because the hardware is good. Damn good. It is the software that troublesome.

Truth be told, as far as software goes, especially cloud based solutions, I have started trying new products in my workflow. I am trying Dropbox with an eye to replace iCloud. I’m using Microsoft 365 instead of iWork. I am trying Chrome and Firefox to replace Safari. While support for third party software is not built into the OS, so far so good. Granted it has only been a little over a week as of this writing. The Truth is still out there.

What is going on at Apple? Has Apple become the soulless, evil empire it fought against in the 1984 Super Bowl ad? There is a possibility that their size has influenced some of their draconian tendencies and seeming lack of quality assurance. Still, while admittedly they are a huge company, thus losing them the coveted struggling everyman personae, I want to believe that there is a better answer to this than Apple is evil. In most cases, that is too easy of an answer. Yeah, Apple may have some questionable motives, but outright evil usually is not in a business’s interest. Usually the answer is somewhere in the fuzzy area between what a company needs to do to keep in business and what smarmy businesses do to screw people over. I do not think Apple is outright evil. I am afraid they have crossed over the line.

Upon futher reflection, it is a problem of size, but maybe it is not how big Apple is, rather it is how I have grown. Maybe it is time for me to pause and reflect.

It is at this point that the Stoic in me whispers, “At the end of the day how important is all of this?”

Sigh.

Yeah, I have dumped a lot of money into my gear. I have spent years with these devices and applications. I do spend my days working in IT. Yet, if someone were to come along and pull the cord, honestly, I would be just fine. The stress would be pretty high in the beginning, and I would be out of work, but I would adapt. Maybe, just maybe, I would be better off once the DTs were over and the low-level, nagging stress was lifted.

But how realistic is that? At best it is a romantic fantasy steeped in the idea of a pointless, hipster technology fast with a holier-than-thou article on the other side. I am not going to return to quill and parchment, use a flip phone, and listen to music on vinyl. No. Bottom line, I enjoy my tech too much. Besides, it is exceptionally helpful when applied properly. Right now it is a struggle to find the sweet spot for including Apple devices and services in my life.

I guess I need to take an ancient Greek view of my technology needs. Specifically, I need an answer to the question: how can I live in moderation with the good AND the bad? As opposed to melodramatically dropping to my knees, fists raised in protest to the gods, crying, “Why?”