You Might Be Losing Me, Apple
In the age of AI, Apple’s closed ecosystem might be costing them their biggest opportunity yet. What gives, Apple?
I’ve been developing software on a Mac for over 15 years and using an iPhone for a bit longer than that. From the beginning, I’ve found Apple devices to be great for productivity. For me, MacOS combined the familiarity of the Unix shell with a well-thought-out desktop environment. I didn’t have to waste time configuring and fixing things like I did on Windows. Most things just worked. Over time, everything became better integrated between MacOS, iOS, and iPad. I grew to depend on the calendar, reminders, and contacts.
Lately, it just doesn’t feel the same.
What I Admired About Apple
Apple touted “courage” as the reason why they removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 6. That turned into a joke and rightfully so. I still miss the jack. Where I think Apple showed real courage was when they went all in iPad and iOS. Skeptics thought was a terrible strategy they’d cannibalize Mac sales. The skeptics were wrong and the iPad is now seen as complementary. Today, many own both a MacBook and an iPad.
Apple continues to innovate and Apple Silicon devices offer amazing performance. I’m writing this on my base model M4 Mac Mini.
What Led Me to Switch to Apple
Before I bought my first iPhone, I had a Blackberry. The devices were good. Reliable. Their real selling point was the network and they charged dearly for it. Not a big deal for enterprises, but for a small business like I was running the cost of properly integrating with our email was exorbitant. There was a $4,000 software license on top of the network fees.
Where Blackberry lacked courage was their fear of giving up any of their network revenue (18% of their total revenue in 2007). See the annual report. For small business, switching to the iPhone was an easy choice. It connected to your email server (MS Exchange at the time) with a few clicks.
Blackberry lost the consumer and small business markets and the rest quickly followed.
The iPhone opened me up to getting a MacBook. I did most of my Java and database development work on Windows, although we often deployed to Linux or various flavours of Unix. I knew that with a Unix-like operating system, I would still be able to get work done. Since I was moving to more open-source development at the time, it would actually run better.
At the same time Apple was pulling me in, Windows was pushing me away. I had a new Thinkpad X41 Tablet. It was an impressive piece of hardware: the screen would flip around and you could write on the screen with a stylus. The problem was, it ran Windows Vista and as a result it barely functioned. Here I was with a cool-looking computer that I couldn’t use.
My new 2010 MacBook Pro 13” was like a breath of fresh air. Sleek, light and so incredibly fast compared to Windows. What really surprised me was how little time I had to spend getting things to work. On Windows, I spent hours trying to find the right driver and fixing configuration. The MacBook Pro just worked without the hassle. Plus, it was open. I upgraded the memory and the hard drive. I replaced it with an even faster 15” MacBook Pro. Life was good.
What’s Pushing Me Away
The last generation of Intel MacBooks with the touch bar were terrible. It was a supposed developer laptop, but due to cooling issues it would melt just trying to run a Zoom call. That was bad, but Apple more than redeemed themselves starting with the M1 processor.
Here are the two main things pushing me away from Apple today. Cost and the closed ecosystem.
Cost
First, the cost. Over the years, I occasionally priced out alternative machines. Linux was attractive as I used Docker more. (Macs were terrible with Docker, and still not as good as Linux.) Until the past few years, a similarly spec’d laptop would not be much different in price than a MacBook Pro. Often they were more. I’m a bit picky, so not just a basic laptop. I need a solid case, lots of memory and a great screen.
Today, there are a lot more options for a developer laptop with great specs. One of the most attractive is the Framework laptop. The case still isn’t Apple level, but it seems good enough for me.
Apple still makes entry-level laptops at a decent price and my Mac Mini was well under $1,000CAD. The problem comes when you want storage and RAM. Both are necessary for developing software. To jump from an base-model MacBook Air ($1,400CAD) to one with a reasonable 32GB RAM and 1TB storage adds another $1,200CAD. That amount of commodity-priced RAM and storage would be under $200. Apple might be a bit better than typical brands, but $1,200 is not premium pricing, it’s gouging.
I get that you would pay more where there’s value, but I’m starting to question the value.
Closed Ecosystem
By closed ecosystem, I don’t mean that MacOS is closed source. It would be great if it was open, but it’s something I’ve been able to accept all these years.
The real damaging aspects of closed architecture for me are in the apps I use day-to-day. Messages, Calendar, Notes, and Reminders are the main ones. I really like how everything works seamlessly across all my devices-I’d probably pay the Apple tax just to avoid the hassle of switching.
The real damage is not in the lock-in. It’s in the lack of APIs.
Let me explain. I’ve started developing an app using an AI agent to help me with productivity. It’s very accessible today, even for non-programmers. (Try something like n8n if you want to do the same thing.) If you’re using the Google suite of productivity apps you could easily have an agent read your calendar and to-dos or send a message. In the Apple ecosystem, you can access the calendar using CalDAV. That’s it.
It’s no secret that Apple has lagged behind with AI, in spite of having great AI-capable hardware. But the biggest problem Apple will face is that their closed ecosystem will prevent users from using and benefiting from AI. Keeping things closed may lock-in a few more users, but by taking the risk to open up they could gain so much more. I hope they find the courage.
Where Will I End Up?
I’ve already replaced my Intel MacBook Pro with a refurbished Thinkpad running Manjaro Linux. It was under $400CAD and is so much faster than my failing MBP. I’m encouraged by DHH’s new Omarchy setup. I’ve installed it on a spare desktop and I love how simple and free from annoyances and distractions it is.
Developing software on Linux is already better than on MacOS. Most of the command line tools you used daily probably originated on Linux and run better there. Unless you’re targeting the App Store, you don’t need Apple.
I won’t ditch my iPhone, but Apple is going to be playing a smaller role in my day-to-day work. Maybe not forever, but certainly in the near future.