About Walt Mossberg and Apple’s app problem

Walt Mossberg wrote this morning that Apple’s apps need work. He’s absolutely right.

In the last couple of years, however, I’ve noticed a gradual degradation in the quality and reliability of Apple’s core apps, on both the mobile iOS operating system and its Mac OS X platform. It’s almost as if the tech giant has taken its eye off the ball when it comes to these core software products, while it pursues big new dreams, like smartwatches and cars.

Walt touched on iTunes for the desktop and how bad it has become, especially since the integration of Apple Music. I’ve been harping on Apple Music since it was released, and while it has gotten much better, I am amazed it was released in the state it was.

It’s just not like Apple to release software that is so broken. Consider that it took Apple months just to allow people to reliably download music to their iOS devices. This is a feature they promised on day one.

Of course, there are other problems that I’ve talked about before, but I won’t get into those again.

There are only three reasons I can think of that software issues like the ones we find in Apple Music would happen at a company like Apple that prides itself on software that “just works.”

  1. They didn’t know how bad it was when they released it. (Highly unlikely)

  2. They are so big now, they just don’t care. They are Apple, so people will use the software regardless of what they do. (Please don’t let it be this one)

  3. They were given a timeline to release the software whether it was finished or not. (This one is probably, but very scary)

I understand that Apple has a lot of balls in the air, but they have clearly taken their eye off some of them. There is absolutely no doubt that Apple Music is getting better with each update to the app, but what we have now is more of a 1.0 version than what we received last year.

Personally, I don’t care much about all the celebrities that Apple can parade around—I care about a music service that works. That’s it.

If Apple Music (or any of the other software that has problems) was the iPhone, it would never have been released in the state it was.