Rubenerd

I was reading Macworld yesterday, and collated a list of headlines from their home page. Not included are cross-posts from TechHive or PCWorld, which included a vaccum cleaner review.

• Apple Watch Series 4 review
• Screen Time, Family Link, and FreeTime
• Enter to win a free iPhone XS Max
• iPhone XR vs iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max
• Your comments and questions about the iPhone XS and XS Max
• iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max Unboxing
• Using Apple’s Measure App
• iOS 12 features, iPhone XS ordering and early reviews
• iPhone XS launch problems
• Grab and iPhone charger that also backs up your photos
• Giveaway: Enter to win a free iPhone XS Max
• Apple Watch Series 4 review: The biggest upgrade yet
• Screen Time, Family Link, and FreeTime vs my 7-year-old son
• Useless comparisons … Old iPads are slower than new Kindles
• Save over $500 on a rose gold 12-inch MacBook at Amazon
• Upcoming Giveaway: Win a 64GB iPhone XS Max
• How to use iOS 12 to enter passwords on an Apple TV
• The most useful Siri Shortcuts for iPhone

Can you spot anything? One story out of eighteen was about the Mac! And even that was just about how to get one cheaper in a sale. Granted, this is after the recent alphabet soup iPhone and Watch launches. But still, for a magazine called Macworld?

I’ve been thinking about this all week. The Apple I miss isn’t some mythical one headed by Steve Jobs where no design mistakes were made, it’s one where iOS didn’t constitute the vast bulk of its profits. We hear internal Apple stories all the time about Mac developers being pulled into iOS projects. Mac hardware has also largely been left to langush despite predictable iPhone, iPad, and Watch releases. I miss being excited for Apple announcements.

I love my iPhones, but I’ve started to resent the whole ecosystem. iOS is fine, and certainly better than the competition, but I love the Mac. But even the popular press doesn’t seemed that interested anymore.

It’s akin to being a Ruby hobbyist in 2007 when Rails appeared. There was nothing wrong with Rails, and I’ve still defended it in the industry of late, but it wasn’t just Ruby. I knew the writing was on the wall when even the O’Reilly woodcut book summarised it as the language that powers Rails.