Apple & Cloud-First Workflows
Apple has entirely missed the next wave of computing, which is cloud-first workflow and collaboration. Google and Microsoft are there and Apple is absolutely nowhere. Apple is now merely one amongst many possible clients to these clouds and Apple’s traditional values don’t hold.…
And a follow-up tweet in the same thread:
To some extent, the Apple commentariat (of which I may be a small part) is too heavily comprised of people who mostly work alone or in very small groups. This issue doesn’t get enough air time.
I’m not sure this is as big an issue as Speirs thinks it is. Or to clarify, I think Apple actually does want to be great at this1, but it isn’t in their DNA and never has been. A big priority for online collaboration is a consistent cross-platform experience, and Apple has never been great at cross-platform applications (or at web applications).
My biggest gripe with Apple’s current direction is they are failing at what they were once great at: Pro applications. Here their strategy goes from entirely absent, with no Apple Pro applications on the iPad Pro, to clueless, by prioritizing consumer iOS features on macOS (their only pro platform), to border-line malicious, by letting platform-distinguishing pro features (like AppleScript) die on the vine.
This is really focused on Fraser’s second tweet. I think Apple should be doubling down on “people who mostly work alone or in very small groups”. Catering to these people plays to Apple’s strengths: They need high-quality, powerful hardware and software. It would be great if Apple was more competitive with their cloud-first workflows, but that just isn’t one of Apple’s core competencies. Apple seems to be failing pro users out of spite.
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With “iWork for iCloud” Apple seems to be trying to compete in this space. ↩︎