Rbfwcyek1

wlym said:

Airmail looks great! Unfortunately it's really buggy and despite the appearance of great customer service (a customer service agent is almost always available to chat - and will then ask you to mention their name in positive App Store reviews which is weird) but actual, longstanding bugs are not taken care of in an acceptable timeframe (or ever?). I paid for the MacOS and the iOS versions but finally gave up and deleted them when the apps couldn't even reliably search for messages in my mailboxes. Airmail's tech support asked for screen caps and videos of the problem (which I sent) and then didn't bother to reply to multiple messages. Buyer beware.

I fully agree with this. I rely on being able to search historical emails and quickly pull up something important, and the basic ability to search is non-existent. You can't even search just within a single folder - so it's fabulous when you get back a billion search results from spam and junk mail which completely obscure the actual emails you may be looking for. Or something as simple as "find an email in my Sent Items". This is really basic stuff. Excellent - I can now automate the process of organising emails ... for what purpose??? then they are even less findable than before.

Go luck with the PC path.
Mac users know the difference.  That is why Macs are gaining market shares as PCs decline.

The future of computing lies in iPads, iPhones, iCloud, Apple Watches and the like, equipped with SIRI, Touch ID, VR cameras and advanced operating systems.

I am a Mac user - as I said every device I own is Apple. But 90% of my time is spent on my dev machines. How long should I wait to be able to manage my numerous dev virtual machines on an iPad? Perhaps one day, but in the meantime I've got kids to feed. And don't you think it's ironic that every single thing you mentioned in your prediction of the future Apple has either been caught by competitors or overtaken (as was my point) - with the exception of Touch ID (in my opinion obviously). When I deploy cloud services I build for customers do you think I'm deploying to iCloud? - of course not. When people think of cutting edge VR does anyone think of Apple? They aren't even in the mix. So even in the future you envision Apple looks a bit like it could go either way. But neither do I care about some point in the distant future - my problem is NOW. Right now Apple are frustrating but they didn't get here overnight - there has been a progression over the past few years. So in my opinion if they continue on the same trajectory then whether the wonderful future you describe happens or not, Apple aren't going to be playing the role I would hope and want them to ... for my own sake.

Long time reader, but never posted until now. Frankly, I don't care whether Apple made tens or hundreds of billions of profit. What I care about are the products that I need to use in my life each day. And I've had growing frustration for a while now that despite the "who cares how many" billions they are constantly raking in, they seem to be having competitors across the board catching up, and at times overtaking. I used to have absolute confidence that just buying the Apple version of whatever the product was gave me an acceptable balance of value and utility and it saved a lot of time because I didn't really need to worry about everything else on the market.

I love that over previous years I could always rely on Apple and have a set level of confidence and expectation for any of their products I bought. But in recent years I've started questioning the value proposition which really annoys me that I have to do that. 

For example, I am wanting to upgrade my work computer and have the budget for a Mac Pro but would even settle for an iMac with decent gpu performance but from what I've read the latest ones seem to be a bit underpowered still. But why would I spend the same amount of money I could buy a brand new small car with on tech that is years old now (i.e. Mac Pro). I considered upgrading my MacBook Pro instead and getting a new monitor because after having retina screens everywhere else the Thunderbolt display I've got looks pretty ordinary. Although I paid AUD$999 for it a number of years ago, the exact same display is the only option from Apple still (and considerably outdated) but is now $1599 here in Australia. But at least it has free shipping I suppose  You know what - if Apple want to keep selling old technology then at least reduce the price to compensate and retain some semblance of value.

So now instead of just hitting buy on the Apple website I've considered a Windows PC highly spec'd to be similar as the Mac Pro but frustratingly I just don't even want to head down that path. However I fear that if Apple keeps going down their current path at some point it's going to force my hand. All my devices are Apple at this point and for my family members as well and anyone else I could convince in the past. If it comes to it then once I leave the eco-system I suspect it will be quick and thorough. Just don't want to get to that point though, and really hope Apple have something worth buying for my day job upgrade before our fin year ends June 30th. And I no longer recommend Apple anymore - I used to unhesitatingly. Now it's "look, I have chosen to use this, but I'm not suggesting anything - go do your own research because you are going to have to find what represents good value to you and for many Apple doesn't". Surely I'm not the only one in this boat. And surely that represents a long term problem for Apple. I've found the value of an Apple product is really evident when you own all the other Apple products and having them work as well as can be expected together. But just as the halo effect has grabbed new customers in the past, when it starts hitting in more numbers then the reverse is going to be true as well - people won't just leave one device - they will start questioning all of their devices and probably pretty quickly end up with few to no Apple devices at all. That to me would be more worrying if I was a shareholder than the quarterly fluctuations.