You’re witnessing the slow death of a great brand

Apple’s iPhone 14 has a LOT of problems, and they’re getting worse from what I am reading on social media and in business publications. You have to ask, “if Steve Jobs were still in charge would he allow such a high level of incompetence?”.

Yesterday, Apple released iOS 16.0.1 specifically to address the range’s data migration, authorization, and photo issues. Today, the company has confirmed additional problems with iMessage and FaceTime. Given the price of a new iPhone, who in their right mind would you buy one?

Breaking down the problems, Apple states that “After setting up your iPhone, you might experience one or more of the following issues”:

• You can’t receive iMessages or FaceTime calls.
• You see a green message bubble instead of a blue one when you send a message to another Apple device.
• Conversations in Messages show up as two separate threads instead of one.
• If you selected your phone number, recipients see your messages coming from the wrong account, such as your email address.

Apple is a cash machine, but Steve Jobs never cared about money; he cared about the use of technology and how it could help us before we knew we needed help. The debate then becomes: “does a successful brand makes a lot of money while making bad products, or do they ensure that every product they market reflects their commitment to quality?”

I met Steve Jobs when I worked at Sony as our digital camera’s Product Manager for Mavica. He correctly said that it would not sell until there was easy PC integration. I was the only PM to have a Mac; he loved that and asked why I chose it. He really wanted to understand why.

Today the luster of Apple products is becoming dull. Gone are the days of standing in line for new products. The people who made great Apple products are leaving the company, and current employees describe a corporate atmosphere of backstabbing and intimidation with extended hours.

Of course, Apple is not in danger of bleeding cash, but they could be in trouble. Their home pods are a nightmare compared to Google’s Nest and Amazon’s Alexa. Apple events are nothing more than self-promotional propaganda, and product upgrades are evolutionary instead of revolutionary. I used a free trial of Apple TV and found it was not worth the money, and new software updates are too buggy to download.

Apple, under Cook, has sold its soul to investors and banks. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Originally published at https://www.newmediaandmarketing.com on September 19, 2022.