Tim Cook has thrown away the simplicity that Steve Jobs built at Apple. I hope Ternus will take it back.
This morning I plugged the SSD into my MacBook, and macOS asked me to agree to use it. This happened several times a day for several months now. When you plug in a USB, you have to agree, when you plug in a hard drive, you have to agree, and when you attach any device, you have to press the allow button. If you don't press it, you can't use it, but if you plug it in, you can't use it. I can't think of a situation where someone accidentally plugged in the socket and then didn't want to use it. So why does Apple force me to click?
AirDrop is the same, from needing to be close to each other, from wifi and bluetooth to receive and send, to touching the phones together and now having to have codes like this... making the experience worse. I've been using Apple products for more than 20 years, and for those 20 years I've been in a trouble-free state. When people talk about iPhone, iPad, MacBook, iOS or macOS, they always think of simplicity. AirPods are the first headphones where connection is so simple that you just need to open the cover next to the device and you're done. AirDrop only needs two devices close together to transfer files instantly. macOS almost never jumps around with notifications like Windows. But now I'm having the same experience as Windows in the past: no matter what I plug in, I have to agree. It goes against everything people expect from Apple.
Simplicity comes from Steve Jobs
That simple foundation comes from Steve Jobs' thinking. When he returned to Apple in 1997, the first thing he did was cut nearly 80% of the products, keeping only a few lines. In each product, he also cut features, focusing only on the basics. He once said that a focused person is someone who knows how to reject ideas, not embrace all ideas. And he also said that users are not familiar with the product, they don't know what they need until Apple tells them. This means that Apple products must be so simple that users do not need to learn, just open and use them.
"People think focus means saying 'Yes' to the thing you need to focus on. But that's not what it means. Focus means saying 'No' to a hundred other good ideas. You have to be very selective. I'm really as proud of the things we didn't do as the things we did do. Creativity is saying 'No' to 1,000 things."
“Some people say: ‘Give the customer what they want.’ But that's not my approach. Our job is to predict what they will want before they know it. I think Henry Ford once said: ‘If I asked customers what they wanted, they would say a faster horse.’ People don't know what they want until you show them. That's why I never rely on market research.”
"And one of the things I always find is you have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it. And when we tried to come up with a strategy and vision for Apple, it started with 'What extraordinary benefits can we deliver to customers? Where can we take customers?' — it doesn't start with, 'Let's sit down with the engineers and figure out what great technology we have and then how we're going to market it.'"
Complexity comes from Tim Cook
The first involves over-extended security ambitions. Tim Cook pays great attention to security - a core value of Apple, as seen in his refusal to unlock the iPhone for security agencies, making the public trust the brand. However, the current approach has gone too far. In thousands of image shares, only a few cases were inappropriate, but the majority of users still had to enter the code every time. Security can be enhanced through technical solutions such as Face ID or Touch ID - both tight and easy to use. On the contrary, requiring users to allow USB connections or confirm each file is shifting responsibility to them, so that if something goes wrong, it's the user's fault, not Apple's. Second is the tendency to integrate too many features. Under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple succeeds in managing the supply chain and manipulating psychology so that users just buy products without caring about quality, design, or experience. Products contain more and more unnecessary elements. For example, the MagSafe port on MacBooks is rarely used, or the HDMI port is used by only a few in thousands, while most suffer from additional costs and an unreasonably bulky design.
A comment on my youtube talked about the hassle they had to go through when plugging in the charger.
Airdrops from simply sitting in the same wifi space now have to touch each other and touching 10 times will transfer contacts 8 times.
You must agree to plug the SSD into the machine, and you must agree to plug anything into the machine.
What do I expect from new CEO John Ternus?
I hope the new CEO replacing Tim Cook will be as strong as Steve Jobs: dare to refuse, dare to cut products and features, return to the core and user experience. I have used Apple products for many years, buying from PowerBook G4 to Vision Pro, Mac Studio, 6K screen... I like Apple and because I like it, I want it to get better. Those of you who love Apple, I hope you will also share the wrong points so they can do better, but don't accept it. If John Ternus strongly dismantles what Tim Cook has built at Apple and brings simple experiences and simple products, that's great. If John Ternus is not strong enough and is influenced by what Tim Cook has set up and the people that Tim Cook has installed, it will be very difficult. Tim Cook is a gay person and according to my observations, gay groups have very strong groups and communities, so it will be difficult for John Ternus to overcome what Tim Cook has created, or even Ternus is also a part of Tim Cook.
Image AI: I hope Ternus remembers that his real teacher is Steve Jobs, not Tim Cook, the man who sabotages Apple's values, uses Apple to fight for his ideas and ambitions, and doesn't care about what Apple products or users want.