I hear you. The issue I think is that Apple, just like any other publicly traded company, is slave to shareholder value maximalism. The only way that can be achieved continuously and have the share price go up non stop is by either smashing the market with killer products regularly or, in the absence of that, by mailing existing customers or cutting costs (corners). It’s probably a blend of all of that. Were Apple a private company it could do almost whatever it wanted and pursue the road you stated of something along the lines of ideological technical leadership, which costs more. But we live in the here and now and have to accept aggressive use of marketing (new red color for iPhone is celebrated as if we just invented paint!!) and other bloated crap no one asked for (yet another new Memoji for instance) to trick more money out of people‘s pockets at the expense of quality and durability. Capitalism at its finest… lol?
let’s see where Matter goes. In my family, during 2022, 5 people reconsidered what they need their phones for, really, and reverted to cheaper android, which somewhat annoyed me a wee bit, because I now have to use Signal to have a simple FaceTime replacement with them. It made me think though, what I use all this for… besides HomeKit (which I can easily do without given so many of these devices are bug ridden unreliable too) and I’m not happy anymore spending 3x for something that on an annual basis gets me scratching my head (iOS upgrades no one needs), not to mention having to remote troubleshoot my parents‘ issues in the wake of it. I can have that experience on android for muuuuch less cash. Amazingly, no one android seems to complain. Is that for real? Can’t be.
merry Christmas and remember: it’s just a product you can likely live without or replace it with another solution. ;)
