Is it the end of Apple?

Some time ago, I wrote an article about Apple’s Face ID and how it is extremely unreliable and frustrating. I also mentioned that the software quality of Apple products has reduced considerably over time. But I absolutely didn’t expect what happened after that.

I installed iOS 26 on my phone, and it is the first time that I absolutely do not like the design from Apple. Apple always had very high standards, and I love every iOS design starting from iPhone 4. Apple was pretty much the reference on how to do it right. Until now.

It is just awful. Initially, it looked to me like Windows 3.1. A lot of borders around each button. A lot of new and totally unnecessary animations that became annoying the second or third time I saw them. But if I try to disable them, then all animations are disabled, even in places where they are needed.

When I tap anywhere on text input, it just blinks in that area. Why? What purpose does it serve except to kill battery? If I want to see all tabs in Safari, previously I could tap on one button, and now I have to tap on a button with 3 dots, which opens a panel, and then I must tap on “All Tabs”.  Why should I do this extra tap? It is quite a popular action, and it should be simpler.

When the alarm goes, I can see 2 giant buttons, “Snooze” and “Stop”. They take almost the whole width of the screen, and they are very tall. Together, they take almost half of the vertical space on my iPhone 16 Plus. To me, it looks like a child designed it. I don’t believe that the person who did it was in the right mindset.

But maybe at least Apple fixed some problems? No, Face ID is still glitching. I would say it became even worse. I found several new glitches in other areas, and I didn’t see any improvements at all. So overall, for me, it clearly worse experience than before.

I intentionally didn’t write this post the first day I installed iOS because there were a lot of confusing changes. I decided to use the new iOS for several weeks before I write anything, but it is still as annoying as it was on the first day.

This is the first time I'm seriously considering switching to Android next time, when it will be time to update the phone. But probably Android will copy this design by that time, the same as car manufacturers copied awful door handles from Tesla. I don’t know why because they simply sucks.

I think that changes like this will push clients away from the brand. Changes that nobody asked for, changes that we very polarizing and radical. I’m sure some people will still love it, like some people like the Tesla Cybertruck, but most people hate it.

But there is good news. Looks like Apple sobered up and removed a lot of “liquid glass” in the beta version of iOS 26.1. Obviously, it is the right change, and I cross my fingers because currently, iOS is just bad.

I hope Apple will not do anything like that in the future, but my experience tells me that typically, these are the first signs of huge internal problems inside the company. Usually, these are very first signs.

It shows me that something is wrong internally. Not only did they make awful decisions, but they also allowed them to go public. It means there were no internal short-circuit breakers that were supposed to prevent such things.

Then there will be backlash from the public, and the company will correct them. But problems with internal decision-making are still there, and the company will make more and more wrong decisions.

If you check the last 2 models of most premium iPhones, you will see that they have only a single truly positive change: battery capacity. Everything else was very minor changes or not relevant to most users. Other products also have a similar fate.

I personally don’t care, but everybody is stating that Apple’s AI is very behind of competitors. A lot of people state that the reason why Apple is behind is money. The management simply does not allow engineers to spend money.

Apple is still producing good quality products, and they have a lot of talented people, but to me, it looks like they only care about the number on their balance sheet, and they have stopped innovating. It looks like the finance department took over engineering and designing. This typically means the end of the company because products became boring and competitors are quickly catching up.