‘Fix the iPhone’ and other New Year’s resolutions Apple needs to make

It has long been the case that the Macalope does not believe in making New Year’s resolutions. For himself.

Making resolutions for other people, that’s a completely different thing. Now that we’re clear on that, here are three things the Macalope would like to see Apple do in 2023.

Get on that to-do list

Apple had a couple of things it said it was going to finish in 2022 that it, for whatever reason, didn’t find time to get to. First, when it announced it was transitioning from Intel chips to its own silicon, it said (implied?) that it would be done with the transition by the end of 2022. Yet, if you check the Apple store you’ll see the Mac Pro is still sitting there with its power-guzzling Intel Xeon chips–hot Macs looking for single developers in your area. The company also said it would release a dedicated classical music app in 2022 after buying Primephonic. Those two things did not happen.

Maybe what Apple needs is a good to-do app. If only there were someplace the company could find a good one. Like, some kind of, I dunno, an “app store.”

Just thinking out loud.

Maybe the company did a search on the App Store and got confused because the ad on top was for a completely unrelated app. It happens.

Like a lot.

The first delay might be due to the global supply chain being an absolute mess. So, Apple can be forgiven for having to deal with unforeseen events. It still needs to happen, though. The second… frankly the Macalope doesn’t know why Apple needs to release a dedicated app for fans of a particular kind of music when they can get that music from the same firehose we all drink from. If Apple isn’t making the Macalope a bespoke app for his beloved pagan dirges, why should classical fans get special treatment?

Foster a better relationship with your retail workers

For years Redmond and Cupertino have copied ideas from each other. Microsoft would copy, say, an entire graphical user interface and Apple would copy, uh, the idea of tablet computing but not the part about it sucking. Now it’s time for Apple to take a business cue from Microsoft.

While Goofus Apple is (allegedly) running around making fake unions to crush unionization efforts at its retail stores, Gallant Microsoft has pledged to work with unions. If that particular bit doesn’t turn out to be true, the company has an almost obsessive aversion to unions, as if it’s that what it should be focused on and not all the other problems with Apple retail (the fact that the Macalope has more than once taken it upon himself to instruct bewildered customers how to navigate the Apple Store’s unclear process for getting help when he does not work for the company, has never worked for the company, kind of says something).

It may seem like the Macalope is harping on Apple’s poor attitude toward unions a lot (look, these harps aren’t going to play themselves, despite what the bog witch who sold them to the Macalope said) but it’s just a bad look for the richest company in the history of companies, money, and labor relations. And it’s just not necessary. If Microsoft can do it another way, Apple can too.

Rationalize the iPad and iPhone lineups

Despite his fondness for their simplicity, the horny one doesn’t think Apple needs to go back to the extreme regimen of product quadrants. Still, the company should probably do something about the iPad and iPhone lineups. Looking at them is a bit like looking at a Rorschach test for which there are no appropriate answers.

You: “A butterfly?”

Therapist: “Nope. Wrong again. Oh, wait, this one’s not supposed to be in here.”

They’re all good devices, but it’s difficult to sort out the lineups. The iPad lineup features a lot of choices but with some maddening overlap. As for the iPhone, while the 14 Pros have reportedly sold well, the 14 and 14 Plus haven’t. Whatever the product mix should be, it doesn’t seem like it’s this. Apple left those of us who like smaller phones out in the cold (the Macalope upgraded from a 12 mini to a 13 mini this year) and the Macalope would love to think it’s that, but he doesn’t really know. As much as he likes new features, making the small phone the cheap one always seemed to make sense to the Macalope.

Whatever the lineups should look like, it seems like Apple should lean a little bit more on giving clearer choices than nuancing the situation.

Does the Macalope think Apple will listen to him on any of these three sage pieces of advice? Ha-ha! No! The company may decide of its own volition to do some of these things, but it’s not going to do them because a cartoon mythical creature in a suit told it to.

Which, let’s face it, is probably a good thing.