Don’t let the title of this post mislead you. This is not a recipe for a new dish.
This is a post about my frustrations with Apple, the company not the fruit (which is why it’s capitalized). Sorry, I get snarky when I’m mad. My beef with Apple is simply that it is no longer simple to use their products, more specifically their software products. Although I have to say that in hardware they’ve also made some dumb mistakes. For example, moving the iPhone’s power button to the side (I’m tired of getting the volume control visual in the middle of my screen shot). What about the brilliant idea of putting only one USB-C port on the MacBook when there’s clearly a need (and space) for a second one, on the right-hand side?
But, back to software, let’s start with their new TV app (which replaced the “Videos” app). I hate it. Let me explain. I’m currently watching Grey’s Anatomy season 13 on my iPhone. On the app’s “Downloaded” page, which lists all the downloaded content by category, I get the visual shown below on the left. That visual is from season 4. That’s right, season 4. That is a nine-year-old visual! Now, you might be thinking that it’s no big deal, especially because the correct visual (shown on the right) is displayed once the show is selected. Well, it is a big deal. There are people, fictional characters, on that visual that are dead or gone. But beyond this, it’s sloppy. It’s not Apple. Steve Jobs would’ve never allowed this to happen or would’ve fixed it right away.
However, the more important reason why I hate the new TV app is that you can no longer delete content directly from the app. Let’s say you want to delete an episode from Grey’s season 13 that you just finished watching. You need to go to Settings>General>Storage & iCloud Usage>Manage Storage>TV>Grey’s Anatomy>Season 13. Then, you get a listing of the episodes to be able to delete the one that you want. That’s an 8-step process (including the swipe to delete). Of course, I discovered this after swiping, tapping, hitting my phone’s screen several times and getting nowhere. I ended up having to do a Google search on this topic. Steve Jobs would definitely not like this.
I also had to do a Google search as to why I was having 75 old episodes cued up to download every time I was downloading a new episode. I would delete each one, only to have them show up again. I followed the not-so-easy instructions from a user forum on how to fix this. I did fix it until the 75 episodes showed up again yesterday. Seriously? A total waste of time and effort.
This brings me to an old beef I have with Apple on which I’ve written before. Why doesn’t Apple have chat support? It’s not like they don’t have the resources for it, and if it’s a matter of chat volume, make it a premium service, or part of One to One. I’d certainly pay for it. The support link on iTunes (as well as the account, redeem, and send iTunes gifts links) is barely noticeable under a heading that makes no sense. TV Shows Quick Links on the TV Shows page; Movies Quick Links on the movies page, and Music Quick Links on the music page. It’s like they don’t want you to contact them for support.
Speaking of contact, that’s another old beef I have with Apple. I have a simple question: Why can’t Apple include an option on the “New Contact” page that would allow the user to choose the group to which that contact should be added? The current process of having to uncheck all the groups except the desired one to be able to add the new contact to that group is unnecessarily long and not intuitive.
It seems that I have so many “beefs” with Apple, I could have a cow. But, at this precise moment in our country’s history, when we can’t even count on the Oscars for an error-free experience, I just want something to work as it should, beautifully and flawlessly. You know, like Apple used to work.
Bah! nothing is the same anymore. Please, Tim Cook, Make Apple Great Again.
