Yes, I can't help but notice that Apple have been making some big customer relations blunders lately. For a major app like iTunes to be released with such poor testing, and then with the patch to be released silently and without acknowledging an error, is poor form. For a new iPod Touch to be released with broken WPA support, and a new iPhone update to cause so many problems with battery life and reception, all suggest that software quality control has fallen asaide while Apple pushes far too hard on new products that probably could have waited.
I think Apple need to re-think their current strategies, urgently. Yes, it is important to push ahead into the growth areas like iTunes and iPhone. But they need to remember that the reason these products became popular in the first place was because they were built on a well established "it just works" backbone of boring old everyday software.
Another side of Apple's changing personality is the increasing level to which they are tying in their users to particular ways of doing things. It wasn't that long ago that Netscape brought Microsoft to court for tying in their web-browser to the Windows operating system. I feel that Microsoft largely learned their lesson from that, but Apple seem to have real problems with it.
They're using a DRM system - Fairplay - which they've refused to license to other vendors. They're keeping the iPhone apps store under tight control, and refusing to post applications that might compete with Apple's own offerings. They're using proprietary formats for syncing appointments and contacts. Even ringtones were implemented in a closed fashion. They've partnered with StarBucks and Nike on some ideas, then simply kept the technology locked and closed and never pushed it further. What the devil happened to Airtunes? And why is the Apple TV such a feeble offering?
They've even developed an office suite that uses yet another set of propietary formats instead of adopting open standards like open-XML. That might have made sense in the days of AppleWorks, but in today's climate it is just another way of painting themselves into a corner.
They've made moves in the last couple of years that, had they been made by Microsoft, would have resulted in an uproar. Because they're Apple, they've gotten away it. But I feel that lately they've been treating their customers as a resource, something that they can own and corral into buying particular products in particular ways - instead of as people who each have their own needs and ideas and would rather choose for themselves.
A classic example of this was my iBook G3 500. It came with iTools. It was a feature; it was listed on the box and in the literature as such. You got a free email address, homepage and a small amount of online storage for 12 months. But, only one month after my purchase, it became .Mac, and cost $99 per year. While it is fair enough that they decided to charge for the service, Apple had promoted it as a feature and a selling point, albeit a minor one.
It was a small slight, but I feel it was the first of many such bungles which are slowly robbing Apple of their credibility.
