Notice Anything Missing in the WWDC Keynote? (Premium)

Many Apple fans are complaining that the firm didn't announce new MacBooks at WWDC. But there was a much bigger omission.

Right. Even the smallest indication of humility.

Don't get me wrong, Apple is woefully behind in delivering updated Macs. But the company's inability to deliver more modern components in its expensive computers is only a tiny piece of evidence in a sea of much bigger problems.

And those problems are obvious. Apple's product design has gone downhill in recent years. And its product quality---an even bigger issue, frankly---has nose-dived. In just the past few weeks, Apple has been hit by a third class-action lawsuit related to its incredibly-buggy MacBook Pro "butterfly" keyboards and was found to have known that the iPhone 6 line of handsets was up to 700 percent more bendable than previous models. Even its new corporate campus is poorly designed, with employees continually walking into its clear glass walls. Doh.

That's embarrassing, but Apple has always relied on two things to stay ahead of bad PR.

Its rabid fan base, which hypocritically awards Apple with high customer service marks when buggy products returned to Apple retail stores are quietly fixed or replaced for free.

And its epic, almost pathological lack of humility.

I can't help Apple's fan base wake up. But I can point out the hypocrisy. Let's consider how Apple presented some of the updates it is making to its various products and services during yesterday's WWDC 2018 keynote address. And let's just focus on iOS, since it is Apple's most important and popular software by far and got the most attention in the keynote.

Arriving later this year, iOS 12 will include at least two major new features, and each addresses major shortcomings in the platform. This was an excellent opportunity for an Apple mea culpa in which the firm could simply claim that it overlooked the basics in its drive to making iOS better each year. Instead, it presented these long-overdue changes as gifts that its user base should simply---if belatedly---cheer.

The first and most obvious is performance: If iOS is infamous for anything, it's the ongoing claims that each new version seems specifically designed to slow down anything but new devices, forcing users to buy expensive iPhone or iPad upgrades. The problem was so bad, in fact, that Apple actually admitted that it was purposefully slowing down older iPhones after being found out.

Well, good news, folks. For perhaps the first time in iOS history, the next version of this system will actually offer performance improvements when compared to its predecessors. Something that Apple should have worked on with each release. And, worse, an implicit admission from Apple that its previous releases, especially the buggy iOS 11, were inefficiently designed. Claiming that a software release will improve app launch times by up to an incredible 40 percent is not something to brag about: What the hell were Apple engineer...

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