Apple Has Fixed More of My Gripes and One of Them is Really Funny

They do pay attention to feedback

Photo by OSPAN ALI on Unsplash

As much as I am an Apple Fan boy, sheeple, sycophant, fool, or whatever else the Android guys would like to call me, I do have my gripes. Some of my gripes could be fixed by third party apps, some by third party hardware, but I prefer to stay foolishly trapped in the Apple ecosystem as much as I can.

Anyway, a little bitching and moaning can be therapeutic, right? A couple of years back I put some of my complaints out into the world.

I’m an Apple Fan, Except When I’m Not

There goes my Special Sycophant Status

In addition to that, I pleaded with Apple at their feedback page. I do that with anything Apple does that annoys me, whether I tell the world or not. You should too.

Product Feedback

We would love to hear your comments about any of our hardware and software products. Send us your thoughts.

And, unbelievably, Apple has fixed, or will soon fix, quite a few of their mistakes. Is it hubris to say these were mistakes? I think not, because Apple surely didn’t fix these things Because of my wailing. Others, probably many others, gave similar feedback.

A note about feedback: Apple breaks it down into sections, like iPhone, iPad, apps and so on. Sometimes you have an issue that spans many devices. Just pick one and put it there.

Here are some things Apple has fixed.

Shared Passwords

Oh, my, I never expected this one! I don’t think I ever complained about it, but I bet plenty of other people have. Some websites we go to are specific to ourselves, and we may not want to share those. Others are more general; for example, I share my Amazon account with my wife so we both can see what we’ve bought. Currently I have to update her password settings if I change my Amazon account. With the Family Passwords feature coming in IOS and iPadOS 17, any passwords we want to share will update when either of us changes them.

We’ll be using that for our streaming services, utility bills, and anything else we share. This will make things so much easier for all of us.

4 TB of iCloud

This is one of those, yeah, that’s better, but it’s not great.

Apple cloud storage has always been much more expensive than what you’d pay to Amazon or even Google. In fairness, though, it’s not just raw storage, it is tightly integrated with the Apple ecosystem. The shared passwords mentioned above and so many Continuity features use iCloud for their magic.

You are only able to buy certain blocks of iCloud: 50GB, 200GB, or 2TB. Two terabytes is a lot of storage, but some people need more. The only way to get it is to first buy the Premier version of Apple One and then you are allowed to buy another 2 TB.

The Premier version is a good deal, but only if you need or want the features it includes. If you only want more storage, that 4 TB will effectively cost you almost $44 a month — a very high price.

So yeah, better, but it still kind of sucks unless you want all those Apple One Premier services. I do, but I’m sure a lot of people do not.

Multiple Timers

Until recently, only Homepods could set more than one timer. Then watchOS 8 gave us multiple timers on our watches. When IOS 17 arrives, we’ll have them on iPad, iPhone and Mac as well. You’ll be able to say “Fifteen minute timer for stove” and follow that with “Ten minute timer for microwave”. Yay!

Mint and Apple Card

When the Apple Card first arrived, there was no easy way to get its transactions in Mint. Huh? Probably the most popular financial app and neither Goldman Sachs nor Apple realized this? How clueless!

This was fixed a bit later. No complaints now.

Apple TV Remotes

This is funny. For years, people complained that the remotes were small, dark colored, and too easy to lose. Then Apple came out with a redesigned remote, silver colored, and larger. Immediately people wondered why they didn’t put the Find My chip in the new control. An Apple VP of Product Marketing explained why:

Apple Exec: New Apple TV Remote Doesn't Need Find My Because It's Thicker and Harder to Lose

Apple has been promoting the new M1 iMac, M1 iPad Pro, and second-generation Apple TV 4K following their announcements…

Ri-i-i-ght… But now we know that in IOS 17 you will be able to use Find My to locate the newest remotes and that they have had the chip in them all along!

I guess a VP of Product Marketing wasn’t high enough up to know that?

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