In a piece written by Dan M. on Medium, he writes:
Last year, there was a realisation that people were experiencing app fatigue. The iMessage and Siri and MapsKit App Stores may help alleviate that for a little longer; however, Apple hasn’t planned for a post-app world, and tacking App Stores everywhere is unsustainable. iOS is still very much Springboard-centric. Indeed, the old criticism that iOS is a “static grid of icons” is still largely true years later.
For the most part, I agree with this. Back in 2008 Apple created the App Store and has been riding on its success ever since. Yes, iOS uses a “static grid of icons” but most people are perfectly fine with that. Most just need to get in and out of apps as quickly as possible. Dan also mentions the app paradigm on other Apple platforms.
The company seems to think that apps are the future on all platforms. Again, riding on its success. Outside of iOS (in this case, meaning iPhone and iPad), Apple has failed significantly. macOS, tvOS, and watchOS all suffer from this. Apple needs to move beyond apps and move forward, and that’s where Dan nailed it right on the head.
Several times in the past, I’ve written pieces regarding Apple’s software quality (or lack thereof). I’ve talked to, at length, on the Apple Core podcast about issues going on inside Apple. There seems to be a recurring theme here, (software quality, UX, content discovery, just to name a few) regarding the state of Apple. We, the public, might not know what’s going on inside, but the lack of focus at Apple is starting to show.
