by Jason Snell
‘Apple’s short term memory’
Dr. Drang, riffing off a piece by David Sparks about Messages, talks about the phenomenon of abandoned Apple features:
Apple introduces so many things with great fanfare and then forgets to follow up. The obvious example of this is the Mac Pro, [but] there are more: The iPad features introduced in iOS 9… the Apple TV… the MacBook Pro…
This week on Upgrade Myke and I did our “keynote draft,” where we tried to predict things we think are likely to happen on stage next week. I looked at a lot of last year’s features and imagined places where Apple could take them forward. And it’s true, sometimes Apple does take one of those new features and iterate on it a year later.
But other times, Apple introduces a feature, we all deem it a good first step with the expectation that next year’s update to it will make it really great… and then nothing happens. The iPad multitasking app switcher being the most painful example for me. It was clearly a compromised feature to get it out the door… and has been untouched ever since.
Here’s hoping this year’s Apple announcements are a bit more iterative, and improve the products and features that are already here.