Apple Still Thinks Different, Oh Well (Premium)

11 years after his passing, the legacy of Steve Jobs still weighs heavily on Tim Cook and Apple. Maybe it’s time to move on: this “think different” thing is really just about being contrarian for reasons that don’t withstand scrutiny, and it’s not clear to me that Cook or Apple, despite their massive success, are on the right path.

So let’s start with Mr. Cook, who had his Steve “you’re holding it wrong” Jobs moment this week when he was asked a perfectly reasonable question at the Code conference.

“I don’t hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy into that” he said in response to a question about RCS support, which Google has been rightfully slamming them about. “I would love to convert you to an iPhone.”

“I can’t send my mom certain videos,” the questioner answered back.

“Buy your mom an iPhone,” Mr. Cook responded.

This isn’t just out of touch. It’s out of touch on multiple levels. And it’s an excellent example of why Mr. Cook has no idea what’s going on in the real world.

Let’s examine literally every sentence he uttered on this topic.

I don’t hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy into that. Right. Because when you poll “your users,” few of them will even know what RCS is. I’m sure the question you’re not asking them is, “hey, would you like it if you could text message seamlessly with your friends and family members who are not using iPhones, because that would be really easy for us to do?” But if you did really poll your users, Tim, or those majority of potential customers out there not using iPhones, I bet interoperability would, in fact, be top of mind. You know, if you actually asked them about that. Because that is top of mind for these people.

I would love to convert you to an iPhone. Of course you would. But he wasn’t asking for himself—the questioner was already an iPhone user, as it turns out—he was asking because, again, interoperability is top of mind. And because Apple, which promotes its inclusivity, is being quite hypocritical here. What Mr. Cook really communicated was that everything you’ve heard Apple say so far is just marketing. What really matter to us is that you buy an iPhone. That will solve the problem we think you have, and it will solve our problem, which is the need to keep growing.

Buy your mom an iPhone. Because, yes, the solution to every problem when you’re a rich, middle-aged man like Cook is to throw more money at the problem. Put another way, the issue isn’t that Apple fights interoperability, it’s that you’re too damn cheap to spend $1000 so your mother can see your text messages more easily. This is the most out of touch response he could have made. Kudos for really going for it. And for standing under a Pride-themed rainbow of balloons during yesterday’s Apple event. Marketing.

The other big example of Apple being out of touch is the new “Dynamic Island” feature that, for now, is unique to the iPhone 14 Pro lineup. This feature is, as I tweeted, the iPhone’s Touch Bar moment, a comment that some naturally embraced and others, as naturally, did not. But in many cases, I think, because they misunderstood my point. Which is this: yes, in some cases, this feature will be useful. But all it really is, is an attempt to make lemonade from a problem of Apple’s own making and an attempt to sell it as a benefit. There will be good use cases and bad use cases, and then it will just go away when Apple finally figures out how to put those camera and sensor components under the display. And then Apple fans will cheer them for finally doing that.

Let me be more specific.

In the Android world, hardware makers figured out how to have full-screen handsets without notches years ago. All we have now, in most cases, is a small circular hole for the front-facing camera. Apple has not figured this out. It has promoted the iPhone as having “all screen” designs despite their largish bezels and very large notches. And last year, when Apple made the notch a bit smaller, we ignored history and what this really meant.

More on that in a moment. First, I want to address the elephant in the room, the myth I hear again and again from iPhone users that they “don’t even notice the notch.” As an iPhone user myself—I’ve owned over 15 iPhones over the years, have purchased over 20, and have used over 12 iPhones as daily drivers—I do notice the notch. I notice it every day. I notice it most often when I’m watching a video on the elliptical machine at the gym. But I also notice how it prevents me from seeing the battery life percentage and how it extends into the display.

But yes, you may not notice it. Or you think you don’t. Whatever. What you will notice is the Dynamic Island, a version of the notch that extends even lower into the display, changes size repeatedly throughout the day, and has little animated elements inside of it throughout the day so you can be visually interrupted and distracted when you’re doing something else with your iPhone. Yes, there will be good use cases for Dynamic Island, and certain apps will take good advantage of it. But this will be a feature that evolves over time as bad behavior and design become more obvious, too. And there will be app makers that use it poorly and, especially at first, don’t offer ways to turn off or customize its use.

(For example, in that shot above, that interface should be at the bottom of the screen, where the controls are more easily-reached with one hand.)

I know what you’re thinking, non-critical Apple fan: but this is still somehow better than a static notch. I disagree, but that’s sort of beside the point. The real solution to a notch is to do the hard work to minimize the size of the components in that notch, and to figure out how to put them under the screen or, if small enough, in the bezel so there is no notch. What would be better than a notch or Dynamic Island is something the Android world already has: a small, hole-punch cutout for the camera and that’s it. And I know this because I use so many different handsets each year. I don’t just use one and then argue that that’s best.

To my point about the notch getting smaller, we missed the sign. Apple would not have made a smaller version of the notch if it was only going to use that design for one year. By making the notch a bit smaller in 2021, Apple signaled that this new smaller notch would be in use for several more years … in its lower-end iPhones. Because Apple doesn’t make changes like that for a single model year, it beats its designs to death. So this year, the smaller notch continues in the non-Pro iPhone 14s. And in the future, it will come to the iPhone SE. Most iPhone users will be stuck with a notch for years to come. For no good reason whatsoever.

And that’s part of the problem with Dynamic Island, frankly. Just as with the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro, Apple is in effect publicly testing a feature that it will literally remove in some future release. Again, because it will eventually figure out how to do Face ID and whatever else with components that are tinier and/or under the display. It’s going to happen. This is a slice in time feature, not the future of the iPhone.

Imagine you’re at Apple a year ago and you’re in a meeting to figure out how to get rid of the notch. Try to imagine any other company on earth not doing that in the most logical and customer-friendly way. But instead, some guy in the back shoots up his hand, and shouts out, “I’ve got it! Instead of removing the notch, make it change sizes dynamically and display little status animations while you’re trying to do something with the iPhone!” Then imagine that idea being OKed up the chain, tested, and then implemented.

Only at Apple. Think different, indeed.

Oh, and before I go, I wanted to throw out this hilarious Instagram story (a repost of a WSJ tweet) from Steve Jobs’ daughter Eve, who is clearly not impressed by the iPhone 14. Perfect.

Honestly, there’s a lot to like about the iPhone 14, there always is. But Apple’s decisions have ramifications, and they last for years. I just wish this company was as thoughtful as it pretends to be.