Top 5 Apple Stories of 2017 (Premium)

2017 marked the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, Apple’s most important and dominant product. So it’s not surprising that iPhone dominated the headlines this year.

And not always for positive reasons.

#1: Apple admits it purposefully slows down older iPhones

In the most bizarre Apple story of 2017—-which is saying something, given the nuggets below—-Apple was found to be purposefully slowing down older iPhones in order to preserve battery life over time. The evidence was overwhelming, but that wasn’t the end of it. Apple admitted that it was doing so, and on purpose.

“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices,” an Apple statement noted. “Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.”

This response didn’t please anyone except for a handful of Apple pathetic toadies. Indeed, several class-action lawsuits were instantly launched.

And then the incredible happened: In the waning days of 2017—-as I was literally writing this very article—-Apple actually apologized. It lowered the price of iPhone battery replacements, and it pledged to add features to iOS so that users could make decisions for themselves.

Wow.

#2: iPhone X

Ahead of Apple’s annual WWDC show, I opined that the iPhone had gotten boring after 10 years. I guess I should have waited for “iSlowgate,” above. Or for the iPhone X, which changes everything. Again.

Sorry, a bit of Apple marketing mumbo-jumbo got in there somehow. But the iPhone X really is a big deal: It thoroughly modernizes the iPhone experience for the first time since the release of iOS 7, and it adds forward-leaning new functionality like facial recognition.

But as I noted in my review of the iPhone X, Apple’s newest iPhone is controversial, too. Its notched screen is unnecessarily intrusive. The Face ID facial recognition is still slow. The all-glass design is easy to break. And iPhone X is a lot more expensive, and expensive to repair, than Apple’s other iPhones.

No matter. The iPhone X is the future. And for the legions of Apple fans out there who had grown tired of the previous dated designs, it is both a breath of fresh air and a peek at the future.

#3: Apple stumbles into the Post-PC world

Ever since Apple introduced the iPad Pro, I’ve been wondering if this product—-and/or a related effort from Google to combine Android with ChromeOS—-could signal the final death knell for Windows and the PC. This would require Apple to take iOS much further than it had to date, however. Relegating the iPad Pro to a sad role as a large iPad with a keyboard cover.

But Apple showed some signs of life at WWDC 2017 when it announced that iOS 11, for the first time, would include new productivity features that applied only to the iPad Pro.

So I bought a new iPad Pro, jumped on the iOS 11 beta, and gave it a whirl. The results were not inspiring. Even with iOS 11, iPad Pro multitasking is awkward and largely non-discoverable, and any user who is hell-bent on making this work will need to really dedicate some time and effort to making the switch. Ultimately, iPad Pro is no laptop replacement. At least not directly. It’s a new way to get work done.

And so we exit 2017 right where we started it: Apple’s promise of a post-PC world remains just that, a promise. And Microsoft—-and Windows, and the PC—-has nothing to worry about. For now.

The good news for iPad fans? Apple finally figured out how to turnaround several years of declining iPad sales in 2017. No, not the iPad Pro. Instead, it lowered prices on the entry-level iPad. Smart!

And there may be a hybrid computing platform in Apple’s future that does actually make sense. We’ll see.

#4: The Not-So-Pro MacBook Pro

Microsoft fans will recall the drama of the past year, when Consumer Reports dinged Surface for its rampant reliability issues. Well, that wasn’t the only high-profile tech company that Consumer Reports went after in 2017: It started the year by refusing to recommend Apple’s new MacBook Pro because of battery life issues.

Apple eventually solved those issues. But they were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to problems with the new MacBook Pro, which launched a month earlier with an incredible set of problems. These devices were, Apple’s fans said, the first non-Pro MacBook Pros. Among the problems was their USB-C/Thunderbolt 3-only expansion, the terrible Touch Bar, a loud and flat keyboard, a comicly-large trackpad, a top-end limit of just 16 GB of RAM, a reliance on out-of-date Skylake processors, and an unfairly-high price tag. Whew.

Apple fixed a few of these issues by quickly updating the products in mid-2017—-the fastest ever MacBook Pro refresh—-but most of the problems remained, leading many to wonder whether Apple was still serious about the Mac or its remaining Pro customers.

I bought a new MacBook Pro in December to see for myself. And the result was so disappointing that I quickly returned it and reiterated my belief that Apple’s so-called design prowess is, perhaps, a bit overblown. At least the world is finally noticing.

#5: iOS software quality nose-dives

Say what you will about iOS’s limitations, but the software has always been rock solid and reliable. Until iOS 11, that is.

Apple began testing iOS 11 in June, and I immediately installed it on all of my iOS devices. There is a lot of interesting stuff in there, including a new Control Center, new screenshot functionality, a new screen recording feature, and much more.

But as many reported, iOS 11 is a mess. Was a mess during the beta. And arrived in public form as a mess. It works inconsistently across different device types. And is incredibly buggy. Incredibly buggy. They’re still trying to fix it.

I’m sure Apple will sort this out. Possibly with iOS 12.