While I understand that, I can't help but compare this to Mac hardware rather than software. There was a years-long stretch when it seemed like they'd really seriously lost the plot: the butterfly keyboard, the Touch Bar, the "trashcan" Mac, heat issues across the line. There was a real case to be made for abandoning Macs based on hardware issues alone (and I'm sure some folks did, and hopefully they're happy for it).
Then came Apple Silicon. And at least in my eyes, Apple hardware is the best it's been in a really long time.
There are some definite trainwrecks in the current state of Liquid Glass (especially on the Mac), and there have been other dubious choices and mounting bugs made over the last few years. But I've used both Windows 11 and a recent Linux distribution (Fedora, via Asahi Linux, running KDE Plasma), and while I like the latter it's just not enough to make me give up what I like on the Mac in terms of Mac-only applications and little life-bettering affordances I've internalized over the years I've been here. Yes, if the trajectory they're on now in software continues, I'll have to re-evaluate that -- but their hardware took a real turn for the better after Jony Ive and some of his deputies left. Alan Dye and some of his deputies left earlier this year, and I'm not going to count the new team out before giving them a chance to prove themselves.
It's a good point. I hated that butterfly keyboard, and the Touch Bar was an utterly useless gimmick for me. And they realised that and rolled it back (and added ports again!).
They do eventually listen to their customers. Let's hope it doesn't take as long for these changes to get rolled back.
I'm kinda stuck with Mac at work. I don't mind it, but I run Linux on all my personal computers and find that is way better.
I wonder how much connect there is between those in charge of hardware and those in charge of working software. It would be one thing if the software had a design direction, we all hated it, but it was implemented to its logical conclusion and pure stupid bugs weren't left to linger for years. That would be a matter of difference in taste and vision.
But I wonder if they have the ability to execute... anything, anymore. It's starting to look a little like Windows, which in a totally shameless and burlesque fashion has 3 or 4 design paradigms at the same time, jumbled together in a big stew.
It does feel like the decision making is internal-politics-driven rather than customer-satisfaction-driven, for both Mac and Windows now. Senseless changes that have little in common with other changes.
We've had this for decades with Windows, and internal leaks confirming that it's all to do with turf wars between departmental heads.
As you say, it's an indication that Apple are going down the same road, and are unable to actually execute a vision anymore.