Regular readers are probably getting tired of my rants about how iOS has waned[1] from being a sleek, streamlined, easy-to-use operating system into the mess that we see today. But some seem to be holding out hope that Apple has finally taken this fact on board and will work to make things better in the upcoming iOS 12 release.
I'm not holding my breath.
See also: What would Steve Jobs think of today's Apple?[2]
So, what's wrong with iOS? Well, here's a quick overview of what I see as having gone wrong:
- Performance: I would go as far as to say that iOS performance is at its worst. The fact that there are frame drops and stuttering[3] present on brand new hardware is a massive FAIL.
- Stability: I'll be honest and say that iOS stability isn't the worst I've seen it, but for a premium product that now ships on devices costing more than a thousand dollars, that's not really a glowing recommendation.
- Bugginess: The number of ways that Apple has dropped the ball on this front[4] in the past few months is just unbelievable.
- Usability: I remember when Apple cared about usability. As Apple added more and more to iOS, usability rapidly deteriorated.
As the development cycle of iOS 11 comes to a close, we are now getting ready for the unveiling of iOS 12 at WWDC next month. So can Apple turn things around?
I'm not holding my breath.
After going through countless iOS public beta builds, in great detail, I've lost faith that Apple knows the way forward. iOS now feels like Windows did back in that transitory period