> I loathe so many of Apple's policies but I wonder if it's better to have a monopolistic overlord that is 'mostly benevolent' over the Android bad design and chaos.
The problem is benevolent dictators don't stay benevolent. Or, to put it differently, things are great while you're on the same side as the dictator, but, once you get on their wrong side, things get bad suddenly, and it's hard to find allies since your erstwhile community is probably still on the right side of the dictator.
(I am not a software developer, much less an iOS developer, and have no experience with being on the wrong side of Apple—but I do have experience, as a long-time OS X user who now finds macOS becoming "iOS, but less important!", with what happens when the dictator controls your working environment but doesn't care about it any more.)
You’re right. Apple is taking the Mac less seriously. It’s not like they just designed an entire line of processors just for the Mac and created laptops that are the fastest in the industry with three times the battery life.
> You’re right. Apple is taking the Mac less seriously. It’s not like they just designed an entire line of processors just for the Mac and created laptops that are the fastest in the industry with three times the battery life.
The Mac hardware is still taken seriously. The software is not, in the sense that the distinction between iOS and macOS (which I value) is being—not just negligently but intentionally—erased.
(To be sure, there are people for whom that's a good thing, and maybe even objectively, on average, it's a good thing. But I think it's hard to argue that Apple as a company cares about what OS X used to be.)
The problem is benevolent dictators don't stay benevolent. Or, to put it differently, things are great while you're on the same side as the dictator, but, once you get on their wrong side, things get bad suddenly, and it's hard to find allies since your erstwhile community is probably still on the right side of the dictator.
(I am not a software developer, much less an iOS developer, and have no experience with being on the wrong side of Apple—but I do have experience, as a long-time OS X user who now finds macOS becoming "iOS, but less important!", with what happens when the dictator controls your working environment but doesn't care about it any more.)