This is Technology Bytes, episode 156 for March 1st, 2026.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
This week I’m talking about the Apple Report Card.
This isn’t something that’s official from Apple or anything like that.
This actually comes from Jason Snell at sixcolors.com.
I’ve always enjoyed listening to Jason on the podcast that I listen to.
Sorry, I listen to MacBreak Weekly on the regular, and he is one of the co-hosts for that.
I’ve always enjoyed listening to him.
I like his takes on things, and every year he does a report card, and he talks to, I don’t know, 56 different people that he knows that cover Apple well and has them rate them in given categories.
And so I thought I’d just go through that a little bit and share my thoughts at the same time.
So the first category was that of the Mac, and the rating that the people that responded to the survey gave was a B-.
And most of the negative side of that was because of the software.
The hardware has always been pretty significant, especially with the advent of the Apple Silicon.
I really enjoy the Macs that I own.
I use them every day, obviously, in my work, and I think that Apple is knocking it out of the park when it comes to hardware.
Maybe there’s some things to be said about the software side of the business, and we’ll talk about that in a little bit.
The next three categories were the iPhone, the iPad, and the Apple Watch.
And the iPhone gets a B+, the iPad gets a B, the Apple Watch gets a B-.
You know, the iPhone this year, I think many people thought was just going to be kind of a ho-hum, but it really has shined pretty significantly.
The hardware is really good.
They’ve done some active cooling things.
Apple’s always pushing the boundary on their processors and what their phone can do, trying to think of things for the camera.
So I understand.
You know, I like my new iPhone.
I wasn’t going to get the 17, and then I ended up getting it.
I really like it.
I should take more pictures than I do, but it’s a good phone.
And the iPad, I have a couple generations back.
I think I have the M2 Pro.
It’s still a great iPad, and I love it.
I think it’s fantastic.
I’m surprised that it only gets a B.
The software enhancements that they’ve made this year with the windowing and some of those other things I think are really fantastic.
The clipboard history that is across the different devices I think is really good.
So I would rate the iPad a little higher than a B.
And then the Apple Watch, they gave a B-, mostly because it hasn’t changed much.
I do have the Apple Watch Ultra 3.
I kind of bought it so that I could give my son the Ultra 2.
It really doesn’t do much more than the 2, but the battery life is better, and I wear it 24 hours a day.
So that helps me keep it on my wrist.
And I actually have a second Apple Watch.
I think it’s a 7.
When I’m charging my Ultra, I wear that.
So I always have an Apple Watch on.
A B- has more to do with the fact that it hasn’t changed much in a couple years than the fact that it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do.
The next category is Apple in the Home, and the crew, whoever they are, gave it a D+.
Almost the lowest rating.
There’s something else later, but I probably agree with that.
I use a lot of smart stuff in my home, and I am satisfied with what Apple provides, and I use only Apple-type products.
Well, not products from Apple, but products that only talk to the Apple Home environment.
And could it be better?
Yep, it could be better.
Could there be improvements?
Yep, there could be improvements.
But it does everything I want to do.
My family doesn’t complain about it.
It is able to turn on lights, turn off lights.
We’ve got door locks.
We’ve got doorbells.
Lots of things there.
Automations and whatever.
I understand that Apple could do better.
I’m not sure why a D+, except that they just don’t play strong in that.
But I don’t think anyone does.
I don’t think anyone has captured the home.
I think if you looked at every other supplier of home-type products, the rating would probably be very similar.
The next category was the Apple TV, which got a C-, and I kind of understand that.
Again, it has more to do with the Apple TV not really changing much over time.
But I use the Apple TV exclusively for everything that I watch on my TV.
It is the gateway to every show, every TV show, every whatever.
And I use the Apple TV, and it does a great job.
Again, it’s kind of interesting because of all the devices that are available, Apple TV is still the best, but I guess people think it could be better.
I don’t know.
I like mine.
I use it every day.
The next category was services, and that was given a B.
I use every Apple service that is available.
I really like Fitness Plus.
At one point, I heard someone talking about Apple going backwards on that and not offering that.
I use it every single day, and I just really hope it doesn’t go away.
It is my whole fitness plan at this point.
But I also use all their other services, and I pay for the bundle.
I know that.
I probably pay too much.
I also pay for some of the software services that they’ve just offered, the Creator Studio.
So when it comes to services, I’m all in.
I guess the B is because it’s not an A.
I don’t know.
No one’s perfect.
But all the services that are available do exactly what I want them to do.
The next category is hardware reliability, which was given an A.
And yeah, not much more to say there.
I think Apple does great hardware work.
But then we get to software, where the rating is a D+.
And that’s kind of interesting because that would say that the software isn’t any good.
Most of the people that responded to the survey just think that Mac OS Tahoe is the worst thing that ever came out of Apple.
The software is stable.
The software works.
It actually has some really cool things in it.
In fact, the last MacBreak Weekly, Jason Snell made it his pick of the week.
It does cool things.
Most people are complaining about the liquid glass in the software and that Apple’s not thinking about people with some disabilities where that might hurt, and that may be true because I can only rate it from where I sit and how I use it.
I don’t quite understand why the software gets rated so low because it does what it’s supposed to do.
It’s not hard to use.
It’s not unfunctional.
It isn’t even…
I don’t know.
I’m not fully aware of why people don’t like what Apple’s done.
I understand that there’s personal choices, and sometimes you just don’t like those.
Sometimes I think Apple’s so big that they’re getting to a point where people just don’t like them because of their size, not because of anything else, and so it tints their view of everything else they do.
So, I don’t know.
Software seems pretty good to me.
The next category is developer relations where Apple was given a D-.
I think that might be true.
I feel like in Apple’s growth, they’ve kind of left their developers behind and don’t treat them with the respect that they probably deserve.
I’m not a developer, so it’s hard for me to judge, but I think that Apple is thinking that they are the end-all of everything and that everyone should pay them so that they can get their…
the developers can get products to their customers, and then also they don’t want their developers to talk to their customers.
They want it all to go through Apple.
There’s a lot of things there that I think Apple needs to rethink, so in this particular case, I think I fall in line with the rest of the people who responded to that survey.
I think they need to go back to when developers were super important to them for Apple’s platforms to succeed and realize that that never changes, that the minute they chase the developers away, their platform ceases to exist.
The last category is world impact, and on that category, they were given an F.
So, you know, Apple’s trying to leave the world a better place than they found it.
That’s the idea.
They do a lot of things for the environment.
They try to do things properly.
I think the problem that we have now is that many people, even if you voted for him, don’t really like Donald Trump, don’t really like the way he acts, don’t really like the power that he wields, and then they don’t like the fact that these tech companies bow to him and cater to him so that their business remains strong.
And the question is, is that necessary?
Many in the group that took this survey would say it is unnecessary.
Apple would still survive.
They could find a way.
They don’t have to bow and kiss the ring.
I’ve never been much of the kiss the ring kind of guy unless it comes to Jesus Christ.
But, so I understand what they’re saying, and I think Apple needs to look at the world as a whole and see what they want to be as a company and have the willpower, the strength, the commitment, the conviction to stand up for who they are and who they want to be.
I’m not sure what that means because at the end of the day they need to make money for their shareholders, and if they don’t do that and they make decisions that hurt that, then maybe these pundits that follow Apple would be happy and rate their world impact much higher, but the people who pay for Apple stock,
