So, p0pcult cited with a Steve Jobs quote which, in this context, can only be understood to mean, "Apple is becoming/has become a company where sales and marketing people are running the companies, and the product quality is suffering for it". shepherdjerred points out that the product quality is still extremely high, so the quote doesn't seem apt.
"Apple makes some good products but is evil" is valid criticism of Apple, which shepherdjerred hasn't disagreed with. "Apple is making bad products these days because they are lead by marketing and sales people" isn't valid criticism of Apple (in shepherdjerred's, and my, opinion).
There is certainly proof of Apple's software quality declining in recent years (iTunes, MacOS, Xcode, APFS, Time Machine, oh god the list never ends) but there's a larger point to be made about how regulation can be a salve for our ills. Apple wouldn't need to be fighting this war if they played nice, but much like Nestle they refuse to heed our warning until it's too late.
Apple is at a scale where pithy Steve Jobs quotes don't aptly describe their relationship with the economy or world governments. We cannot trust them to do the right thing, so our best hope for turning them around is holding them accountable for the things we want.
> There is certainly proof of Apple's software quality declining in recent years (iTunes, MacOS, Xcode, APFS, Time Machine, oh god the list never ends)
Can you be more specific of the proofs you are talking about? I've been using Mac for 20 years and haven't noticed issues that indicate a declining trend.
As the GP mentioned there have been great products that Apple introduced in the last few years. So your evidence is wrong, or at most inconclusive, to show that marketing and sales people have taken over at Apple, resulting in worsening products and services.
> but much like Nestle they refuse to heed our warning until it's too late.
The fact is Apple has continued to grow phenomenally in the last decade. They may indeed head to a decline, but I can't see evidence of that. Can you?
Are you confident that you can see the future where others can't?
Unless the defence for iTunes is "it was always crap" then I'd love to see the apologetic claiming it hasn't declined in quality. The last time it updated its UI was certainly a huge step backwards but if I could point at one thing it'd the persistent sign in pop ups any time I open it. I don't even use it as my main player anymore because of how crap it is.
It was a buggy rollout, but they managed to ship an entirely new file system to billions of devices while largely preserving user data. It should be heralded as a software achievement.
That was impressive, the less-impressive part was watching them completely fail to document the filesystem and (still) have yet to release the open source spec they promised. Par for the course with Apple, but still bothersome enough to mention.
"Apple makes some good products but is evil" is valid criticism of Apple, which shepherdjerred hasn't disagreed with. "Apple is making bad products these days because they are lead by marketing and sales people" isn't valid criticism of Apple (in shepherdjerred's, and my, opinion).