APPLE ที่รัก: ฉันลาก่อน

ข่าวนี้จะบอกว่าตั้งใจดราม่าก็ไม่ใช่นะครับ เพียงแต่ผมรู้สึกว่ามันเกิดอะไรขึ้นกับศรัทธาของแฟนๆ Apple เมื่อจู่ๆ ก็มีผู้ชายคนหนึ่งชื่อ Ed Conway (@edconwaysky) ซึ่งเป็นบรรณาธิการข่าวเศรษฐกิจของ Sky News และผู้แต่งหนังสือ The Real Economy ซึ่งล่าสุดเขาได้เขียนอีเมลถึง Tim Cook ประธานเจ้าหน้าที่บริหารของ Apple อธิบายแบบตัดพ้อต่อว่า ตัวเองเป็นแฟน Apple ที่จงรักภักดีมากว่า 13 ปี แต่ตอนนี้จะขอเลิกให้ผลิตภัณฑ์ของ Apple แล้วเพราะไม่พอใจหลายๆ อย่าง และที่แสบยิ่งไปกว่านั้นก็คืออีเมลฉบับนั้นส่งด้วยอุปกรณ์ของ Samsung เสียนี่!

ใจความหลักๆ ของอีเมลฉบับดังกล่าวเป็นการตัดพ้อต่อว่า Tim Cook ในหลายๆ ประเด็น เช่น iOS 6?ซึ่งเป็นระบบปฎิบัติการบน iPhone โดย Ed ระบุว่าประสบการณ์ใช้งานโดยรวมไม่น่าพอใจ โดยเฉพาะระบบแผนที่ Google Maps ที่หายไป บริการที่เคยเป็นนวัตกรรมต่างๆ ของ Apple มาก่อน ตอนนี้ก็เริ่มไม่เป็นที่น่าพอใจ?เพราะพอมองไปรอบตัวแอพพลิเคชั่นและบริการของบริษัทอื่นๆ ก็เริ่มจะทำได้ดีกว่า Apple

นอกจากนี้ส่วนหนึ่งที่ Ed ยังยอมรับว่ากาาที่เขาสาบานตนเป็นสาวก ก็เพราะ Apple นั้นมีภาพลักษณ์ที่ดูเป็นกบฎ ดูเท่ และไม่เคย compromise กับประสบการณ์ผู้ใช้เลย เช่น การที่ Jobs เคยประกาศกร้าวว่าอย่างไรตัวเองก็จะไม่เอาเทคโนโลยี Flash มาใช้กับผลิตภัณฑ์ของตัวเอง แต่ระยะหลังพอ Jobs จากไป Apple ก็เริ่มรอมชอมกับการเอานั่นเอานี่มาใส่ในผลิตภัณฑ์มากขึ้น (สิ่งที่ Ed ไม่พอใจมากๆ ก็เช่น?SD slot ใน MacBooks) และตัดพ้อทำนองว่ามันไม่เหมือนสมัยที่ Jobs ยังมีชีวิตอยู่ ตอนหลัง Ed ก็เลยหนีมาใช้ Android เสียเลย ซึ่งเครื่องที่เขาใช้ตอนนี้ก็มี Samsung และ HTC

ใครอยากอ่านจดหมายเต็มๆ ก็อ่านได้ด้านล่างนี้เลยครับ

Dear Tim,

There?s no easy way to put this so I?ll just come right out with it. I?m leaving you. It?s been great (mostly) but it?s over.

I figured the least I could do is to explain my decision in full ? I like to think it might help protect you from nasty break-ups like this in the future.

I?ve been with you, with Apple I mean, for 13 years now ? ever since 1999. Perhaps you?ve forgotten: I was a spotty teenager; I bought one of your cute little translucent iBooks. Slowly but surely I painted most parts of my technological life a bright shade of Apple. Let?s see: I?ve owned two iMacs, a number of iBooks, countless Macbooks (I?ve currently got two on the go, for some unknown reason), an iPhone for almost five years, an iPad since the very beginning; iPods, iPod touches, iPod nanos ? I?ve had ?em all. I even invested in an Apple TV and, wait for it, a G4 Power Mac Cube (yes, that was me!).

I?ll admit I became dependent on you ? clingy, even. When I went to the States a couple of years back I shelled out hundreds of dollars to ensure I wouldn?t be without an iPhone ? even though I was back at college and wasn?t exactly rolling in it. And like so many of those who fall in love with you, soon enough I found myself working part-time as your best PR spokesman: I spent hours persuading all my friends to buy your stuff. I even wrote a blog about what made Apple such a dynamic, innovative and successful company.

Like millions of others, I really believed the hype.

I never thought I would utter these words, but here goes: I?m leaving you. I have already traded in my iPhone for a Samsung.

Now, this is the point where I know I?m expected to say: ?it?s not you, it?s me,? but I can?t, because the truth is: ?it?s not me, it?s you?. Now, I know you don?t like lists (at least I presume that?s why you avoided including a task application in Mac OS and iOS for so many years) but it?s only right that I run through the issues:

1. iOS 6

Yes, I know I?m hardly the first to mention this ? but that doesn?t make it any less valid as a complaint. It is truly, truly awful. I?m usually ready to forgive one or two niggles in a new iteration of operating system. After all, they?re usually outweighed by the improvements. In this case, I honestly can?t think of a single new feature that in any way enhances the phone. Every change you?ve made is negative.

The maps application is utterly horrendous; you must have known this is among the most commonly-used of all functional parts of a smartphone and that to change it quite so substantially would be seriously disruptive. Yes, I know you?ve magnanimously urged users to use alternatives, but the problem is that even if I try to use Google maps on your safari browser (it hardly ever works on Safari but let?s leave that for the time being), I can?t avoid the fact that crappy iOS maps are integrated into every other geographically-reliant app I have.*

I know you?re a pragmatic fellow: I suspect you might even give future users the option to change this. But the fact is that?s not the only disconcertingly disastrous issue with iOS. Take iTunes Match. In the previous iOS I could download any individual song in my iTunes Match library, so I could listen to it overseas without data or when in the Tube. Now your dreadful new operating system will only let me download whole albums and then won?t let me delete them afterwards, so my iPhone gets clogged up with stuff before arbitrarily deleting precious chunks of data when it reaches capacity.

It?s as if you think I should never have had the right to have chosen what songs to have, and to delete, on my own iPhone in the first place. Which I find a little controlling, to tell you the truth. As do I find the fact that you now seem to have decided to allow the iOS to decide unilaterally to use the telephone network rather than wifi when it so chooses. Given how badly you screwed up with the whole secret GPS-tracking of iPhone users, I?d have thought you realised we don?t like it when you behave creepily like this. It?s seriously not cool, but then more on that later.

All the new, exciting apps you?ve brought in are, I?m afraid to say, rubbish. Podcasts: dismal and buggy. Facebook integration: should have been there years ago. Passbook: erm ? seriously? Siri?s improvements are lost on me because, like most users, the only time I?ve engaged with Siri is to see how many swear words he/she/it understands (answer: a surprising number).

Finally, for some reason iOS also seems to have broken the tilt-scrolling in Instapaper, which I resent because, well, I just use that app a lot.

2. You?ve lost it

Yes, I realise that?s going to sound harsh. But there?s no point in sugaring the pill.

I?ll be specific: for most of our relationship, there were two things I could rely on from Apple. The first was that your products would work far better than PCs. Windows PCs would get viruses, they would be difficult to fix, they would break down and leave you tearing your hair out. The second thing is that although you weren?t necessarily the most innovative company out there, you would just do it right. You weren?t the first company to make a smartphone (Nokia Communicator, anyone?) but you were the first to do it well. The same goes for mp3 players, for tablet computers, for family photo software, for media management (for the first half of iTunes?s life). You were never about innovation, but you were damn good at execution and flair.

Not any more. This is going to sound awful, but I can?t think of any big product you?ve re-imagined well since the iPad, and that was almost three years ago. iCloud? Not as good as dropbox, and actually more confusing. FaceTime? Slick, but still pales in comparison with Skype. iMessages? Mostly annoying, particularly when it sends messages twice. Siri? See the previous point. Safari? Not as good as Chrome or Firefox. Safari?s Reader function? Not as good as Instapaper. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Plus, my Mac simply doesn?t work that well any more. The contacts on my iPhone don?t seem to sync very well with my laptop. Aperture is extraordinarily slow and buggy, Pages and Numbers are a bit of a nonsense. It just feels like you don?t make the best software anymore. And it doesn?t fit together as seamlessly as in the past.

3. You?re not cool anymore

Again, this is probably a body blow, but it?s also true. It?s not merely that I now have to put up with your products being used by my mother. The fact is that Apple used to be edgy; it used to be associated with the counterculture; it used to be rebellious. I liked that. I liked the fact that you were uncompromising. When you introduced the iMac you ditched the serial ports and insisted everyone had to make do with USB ports, despite the fact there was approximately one printer in the world which worked with USB. You were the first to ditch disc drives and DVD drives. I?m not alone but I liked the way you refused to put Flash on your devices. Plus I liked the fact that unlike Google and pretty much every other big company you and your fellow execs would never go to navel-gazing networking conferences like the World Economic Forum in Davos. There was something cool about that attitude.

These days, you?re all too ready to compromise. Do you want to know the beginning of the end of our relationship? It was when you decided to include an SD slot in your MacBooks. Why? I can?t imagine the Apple of old ever doing this; there is no inherent reason why you need one in your laptop, save to compromise. And in compromising, you?ve become too complex. I remember the first iMac: it was the first computer you didn?t really need an instruction manual for. When iOS came out I found myself having to download the manual and wade through its 156 pages (156, FFS Tim!) to find out what you?d done with the settings I used to use. That?s the first time I?ve ever had to use an Apple instruction manual.

Apple used to be about purity, which in turn made its products simpler and more reliable; somewhere along the way, this got lost. Or rather, Apple under Steve Jobs used to be about purity: when he wasn?t at the helm in the 90s, it also made the kind of compromises I?m talking about here.

And then there?s your advertising. You were the company which came up with the best advert in history.