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3. I’m laying this on Apple Corporate. My understanding is that every store is different. I know of stores that absolutely do *not* want to unionize. Not from fear, but because in general, their store is being run well, and they have no complaints. I can’t say whether Towson is an exception or a norm, but it is not universal. That said, the fact that Apple is union busting instead of investigating why these stores are looking to unionize; and not hold their store managers accountable for creating an environment that fosters unionization is beyond me. It’s very simple: you look at the stores that don’t want to unionize and the stores that do, and you see where the stores that do are failing. You fix that, and it’s a win/win - the staff are getting what they need, and Apple doesn’t need to worry about unions. If an Apple Store's staff is looking to unionize, Apple’s Store management is doing something to provoke unionization. Apple should be fixing the problem, not blaming the staff. It’s like punching an open wound for bleeding instead of sharpening the knife that caused the wound so it doesn’t slip and slice your hand.

Ultimately, I don’t mind the idea of Apple retail unionizing. The pressure introduced a number of policy changes within Apple as a result, which is how Unions, in general, work. Unions are the tide that lifts all boats.

And for iOS, there is an app in development, available through TestFlight, called Mlem, though it is no Apollo, plus someone is developing a kit to allow existing Reddit apps to port over to the Lemmy? Beehaw? APIs.

Anyway, this blackout is the perfect opportunity to check out the Lemmy fediverse, if you haven’t already. I’m excited for it, and can’t wait to see what comes of it.

Apple Intelligence is low level (I think that’s the term) functionality that is being deployed across devices (over time) intended to enhance the user experience of those devices. It is intended to enhance what Siri is supposed to be doing. It is intended, eventually, to enhance the algorithms for services Apple customers buy.

So really there is no “catching up” because no other AI service is running “headless” like this. Every other AI is a product to be sold in and of itself.

For instance, Midjourney steals art to generate art for people who type in a few prompts. Apple Intelligence will, say, randomize a brush stroke effect to help your existing photo composition look more like a painting, or help you frame a pleasing photo composition. Instead of AI creating music compositions, Apple intelligence may introduce realistic defects into your Garage Band or Logic Pro compositions giving them a feeling that actual musicians played the notes, or that the recording came from vinyl, or make recommendations based on common music theories.

I see Apple Intelligence enhancing, if not replacing, Genius in Apple Music.

When we think of Apple Intelligence, it should always be with a “yes and” mindset with the “and” being a product or service Apple offers. Apple Intelligence doing preliminary diagnostics in Disk First Aid to assist in tech triage, or parse console logs to help narrow down an issue. Apple Intelligence turning Siri into your own personal “JARVIS” instead of it being a passive entity. Apple Intelligence refining your Home automation. Apple Intelligence connecting disparate data points from your various health apps to provide holistic feedback on the state of your fitness. Apple Intelligence enhancing health trends, or automatically micro-adjusting goals based on your current fitness levels. We’ve actually seen these pitches in the last two keynote presentations. It’s always been how Apple intelligence is going to make an Apple hardware product more functional.

Apple is NOT a software company. They sell hardware. Their software and services are intended to make their hardware offerings look more appealing. Apple Intelligence is Apple’s “next step” in Apple setting their hardware apart. Apple’s goal with Apple intelligence is to put the “smart” in the smart device.

There is no other AI product I am aware of that has the goal of enhancing someone’s device. every other AI product is selling AI itself as the product to do creative things for people, instead of providing additional tools for creators.

I highly doubt Apple will start charging again for their OS, just to monetize Apple Intelligence. Rather, what Apple is more likely to do is use Apple Intelligence to enhance the user experience for services. Perhaps “Enhanced AppleTV+” or “Enhanced AppleMusic” where the AI infrastructure is used to enhance the users’ experiences on those services. And I am on the fence about charging for that extra functionality. If Apple boosts prices for their services, it would be for far more than just “look it has AI now."

At the end of the day, it is easy to predict how Apple is going to do something once you understand that Apple is a hardware manufacturer first and foremost. Their goal is to have you buy their devices, originally the Mac. Even the iPhone was originally intended to be a supplement to the Mac, and Apple shifted gears when the iPhone proved to be as widely popular as it had become. But regardless of device - Apple wants to sell you their hardware. And they want to justify the premium consumers pay. So EVERYTHING ELSE Apple does is intended to be a value-add to make it worthwhile to have invested in Apple’s hardware. Everything. Mail. Messages. Pages. FaceTime. Numbers. Keynote. AppleMusic. Apple Arcade. iCloud. AppleOne. All the software and services are there to give your Mac, your iPad, your iPhone something to do without being dependent on the “kindness of strangers.” Because Apple hasn’t forgotten (nor have long-time Mac users), there was a time where developers were cheerfully refusing to develop for Apple offerings.

People call it “walled garden” but that assumes an even playing field. For decades, Apple has been on the periphery of popular tech, and barely anyone was developing for the Mac. The iPhone was largely developed because prior to that, not a single cell phone manufacturer would provide interoperability between their devices and the Mac (and I loved my Motorola flip phone, but its lack of connectivity to my Mac was a royal pain in my ***). The iPhone was the first cell phone Mac users could sync with their computer. From that point, Apple’s offerings remain consistent with: how do we (Apple) provide solutions that extend the efficacy of the products our customers already own? How do we keep improving the value of our brand to our consumers?

Apple’s goal isn’t to sell us an Apple Intelligence product. That’s Google’s world. Apple’s goal is to use Apple Intelligence as the infrastructural foundation for having Apple solutioning a “personal digital assistant” for their customers. That isn’t a product. It is core functionality of the hardware and software systems Apple provides.

But pundits (especially those driven by the limited vision of Wall Street) can’t understand this, so keep getting it wrong.

Trust me. Once you start looking at Apple as a hardware manufacturer first and foremost, whose business model is based on the idea of providing a boutique experience for their customers (who have paid a premium for such treatment) you’ll have a better understanding on how Apple intends to leverage its software and services solutions.

But...The iPhone is maybe 55% of the domestic market, and I believe less, globally. Any consumer who is unhappy about the App Store can buy an Android phone and can get the bulk of the functionality on Android. Folks switch between the two technologies on the regular. Folks use both devices. You can create Apple IDs with Gmail accounts. If you have ripped your own music (or bought them off iTunes and not rented them from Apple Music (which you can still do), you can port that music to a Windows/Android jukebox. iOS is not THE marketplace. it is A marketplace. Developers can go to Google Play of they don’t like Apple’s terms. And if enough developers just...DID THAT, then Apple would have come to the table with more lucrative terms.

The EU is overreaching, basically telling businesses what to do. I would have the same observation for Google, who technically is the closest to 1990’s Microsoft in this analogy. Apple is just getting the heat because, let’s face it, it's “security first” positioning is irking governments, who want Apple to give *them* back doors and Apple won’t do it. All this anti-trust and DMA nonsense is punitive measures because Apple won’t compromise on their security initiatives for governments.

But I notice that neither the EU nor the US goes after Amazon, which pretty much has the monopoly on on-line shopping, has ruined local businesses, been the reason even brick-and-mortar retail has gone bust and has driven local book-sellers into the ground. Or Ticketmaster, which controls the entirety of concert venue purchasing. It’s Apple that is the focus - and Apple is not a monopoly, any more than Blizzard is a monopoly for being the only entity from which you can access World of Warcraft. Apple makes hardware. Apple provides software to make the hardware operate. Apple creates stock apps to give the hardware something to do, but never stifled other developers (sherlocking of certain apps notwithstanding). This is why Fantastical is the better calendar app for iPhone/iPad/Mac, or Things3 for Reminders and to-dos. or why Microsoft Word remains the preferred word processor and Exchange the preferred spreadsheet app. Or why most people still use Kindle. Or why iOS/iPad OS users can use What’s App, Signal. Telegram of Facebook Messenger if they don’t like Apple’s default messaging app. or why, almost every six months sites like Appleinsider publish “apps I like” and none of them are APple’s stock apps, but you can absolutely get them. For all that Apple “controls” the hardware and the OS, and except for possibly music (which most people forget is tied up with record label licensing agreements), Apple is very egalitarian. 

As for alternate stores? Personally, I don’t have a problem with them existing (though I won’t have them on my iPhone) but I do believe that any developer who is putting their technology on Apple’s OS needs to reimburse Apple for the use of APIs that Apple either developed or licensed. Neither Spotify nor Epic “deserve” a free ride, and their constant whining about it just makes me double down on rejecting their offerings. I already un-installed Spotify, and thankfully I just don’t like most games Epic produces, nor do I play games on my phone.

In Apple’s case, the marketplace is where the corrective actions take place. Apple wants to be known for gaming now. It has disenfranchised a major game developer. maybe Epic should have used that as leverage to get better terms. I mean, Apple made arrangements with Amazon so if you want to purchase books through Amazon you are re-directed to Amazon’s web page. And it’s Spotify’s own fault if they refuse to leverage technologies Apple has made available. Apple Music plays on my HomePod, Spotify still doesn’t and that’s on Spotify - the ability is available. But instead these companies whined to the EU: “make the 'bad Apple' accept us on our terms, daddy EU!” Neither Epic nor Spotify want to put out any effort - they just want to reap the rewards and leech off Apple. if it were ANY other company where we were seeing this dynamic, the community would be telling Spotify and Epic to pound sand. But because Apple has *always* been “the baddie” from the “PC crowd” (probably residual resentment that Apple never collapsed as the “PC elite” always insisted would happen) it’s now “oh, poor Epic! Poor Spotify!” I say: Baloney. Epic and Spotify are at a point where they are looking to cost-cut to maintain their late-stage capitalism line-go-up profits, they are looking to do so by removing their cost for being on Apple’s platform, and they are using the EU to force the issue, instead of negotiating in good faith.

Look, there are decisions Apple makes that irk me, but most of those decisions have resulted in Apple having the much smaller market share than I am sure they would have wanted. That’s how the system works. Apple makes it hard and costly for game developers to develop games, so now there aren’t many games on the Mac, and even AAA Studios like Blizzard (who has always developed *something* for the Mac) are starting to walk away from the platform. PCs remain the go-to solution for the average consumer on price, alone. Epic and Spotify could have simply walked away from iOS, without Epic poisoning their business reputation by violating signed agreements (I would never do business with Epic if I were Apple, just for that) and many consumers would have switched from iPhone to Android because of Spotify’s and Epic’s availability on that platform. It’s not that Apple is “always right,” it’s that unwarranted government interference (which the EU’s DMA is) is the wrong approach, and nothing good will come of it for the consumer.

Grammarly - I found this intrusive, plus I was not going to pay a subscription. 

1Password - I was NOT a fan of moving to a subscription, and there was one update that “broke” attachments. If Apple’s native password manager lets me maintain parity between my Mac and my frankenbox (though with Microsoft screwing up Windows 11 as it is, I may not need the frankenbox anymore), I don’t mind removing another subscription from my budget.

Windows managers - I’ve tried them and this functionality doesn’t really work for me anyway.

Calculators - I never needed anything fancy. The apps on iPhone and my Mac are fine for my needs. PCalc has a digital dice app, which I did buy and I am sure Apple has no interest in. So if anyone wants to keep supporting PCalc, especially if you’re looking to get into TTRPs, Dice is worth the price.

Calendars and task managers - there has been NO calendar solution that does what Apple’s Calendar will do, with the exception of Palm’s Palm Desktop calendar, which maybe clung to live as late as 2008: which is the in-line coordination of to dos and calendar entries. Even Fantastical keeps reminders to a sidebar. I have been begging for “threaded” tasks and calendar entries for almost 20 years. If there is another calendar app that will do this, I can’t find it, and if Fantastical can do this, I was never able to unlock that feature (unless it was gated behind a subscription paywall).

Journals - I have never been able to journal, even though I bought several journaling apps (some of which switched to subscription, and I draw the line at subscription models for software.

The one app I really wish Apple would sherlock is TuneUp. To date, has been the best tagging software I have ever used - as long as you are diligent. It is no longer in development and can no longer be used with Apple’s jukebox (Apple Music). But TuneUp worked from the same database Apple uses, not the insanely inaccurate Musicbrainz current full featured music taggers rely on, and was able to determine what was an album track versus a complication track. It allowed you to force a recording into an album even if the identifier believed the track was from a compilation, and was able to use duplicates to build out multiple albums before flagging the file as a duplicate (great for, say, The Beatles, where the same songs appear on a LOT of albums, both as stand alone albums and compilations). It could also bulk process files, and didn’t require music files to already be in an album folder. You could literally have a drive full of music files and TuneUp would sort and tag all of it without you having to micromanage it. APPLE! SHERLOCK TUNEUP!

I'm also very skeptical of Deirdre O'Brien. All you need to do is check Glassdoors and see that Apple's HR is not in a good place. The most common complaints were "ineffective" and "unresponsive." If she's where the buck stops for HR, and this is what HR is like, I can't imagine she's going to do a better job as the Retail lead. Not when she's the one who decided to use customer surveys as the primary and nigh sole method of evaluating employee performance which, as we mentioned, is a broken model, one in which anyone with half a brain knows companies use to justify firing staff without having to jump DOL concerns.

Ultimately, the problem is that Tim Cook is not a visionary, and he knows it. But he doesn't hire visionary people either. Apple Retail management is the best 1997 has to offer, and all Ahrendts did was make it exclusive. Cook needs someone who can look at retail and say "how can I reimagine this for the 21st century, both for the consumer and for the retail staff, who are not only 18 year olds putting themselves through college and looking for high paying careers afterwards, but also working adults seeking to support a family, where stupid-crazy, volatile work schedules and unpredictability is antithetical to the kind of lifestyle Cook seems to keep implying Apple wants for everyone - everyone but their own staff, it seems.

And Apple wonders why there are efforts to unionize.

The only reason Apple is an adequate place to work as far as retail is because of the health benefits. Beyond that, Today's Apple Retail culture is actually worse than it was under Jobs and Johnson.

They classified me as having COPD because I used to have chronic bronchitis, which was brought on by a dust allergen (the bronchitis immediately cleared up when I took an antihistamine. Pretty sure COPD doesn't work that way). I haven't had bronchitis in years since I started working from home. This is not symptomatic of COPD at all. Nor do I smoke or have emphysema. It's not even a condition my own doctor diagnosed or considers me a risk factor for. 

When I told the eHeart Study people of the error, they told me they "couldn't fix it" but to tell any surveys I do not have the condition. This is stupid. For one thing, as a consequence, I will NOT be asked to join any non-COPD related studies. I will also no qualify for any COPD related studies. Effectively, they categorized me out of the program.

When I told them I wanted to leave the program BECAUSE they have no process to correct a mis-"diagnosis" they never responded. And there is no opt-out in the app. Once you're in, you're in forever. 

So I uninstalled the app and whenever the eHeart Study people send me an email I unsubscribe. 

But if they are completely unwilling to fix bad data, and have no desire to make sure that they're accurately collecting data to begin with, I can't see how this study can be in any way effective.

The idea that Apple has to sell eleventy billion units to eleventy billion consumers every time Apple has a keynote is an investor desire, and of course, is completely ludicrous. Apple has never let itself be led by the nose like that, and frankly the idea of buying whatever is new in the moment is “fast” (or rather trash) fashion, which causes no end of waste. We should not be pushing the narrative of trash fashion, but rather lauding endurance. Apple having a “slow” sales cycle should be a GOOD thing - because that means they are building product that remains relevant, longer.

I usually get five years out of my devices. The only change was when I upgraded from an iPhone 11 to an iPhone 14 Pro, because, frankly, I figured it would be a long time before Apple offered a purple model again, and I knew the Pro would hold out a good long time. And while my 14 Pro won’t be able to do Apple Intelligence enhancements, I can wait until I need to upgrade. I’m in no rush.

Because aside from every year being a year someone will upgrade their phone, it’s also every year someone will want to upgrade *something* and I believe this year my watch is due for a refresh, and while I hate to lose my blood oxygen meter, the sleep apnea detection is a fair trade-off.