ok this might read like a rant and a little disjointed because i am just listing out the varied problems i see with apple's software design (also some hardware). getting a little frustrated seeing these little thigns that add up to dampen the experience. so here goes.

Inconsistent UI

• Apple now has two ui styles. one that was introduced in ios 7 and another with the music & news apps in ios 10 with the bold fonts and all. The problem is that i just dont see a clear direction that apple wants to take ios towards like i could when google introduced material design. its just something new without a larger picture. material design now influences all of google's software and services.
• Click For Photo- where else in any other ios app do we see a search bar and two tabs side by side. i cant think of any (might be wrong). But the point i am making here is there is just no consistency. the bigger issue is ios just dosent have as strong design guidelines as google with material design.
• another example is the reminders app. has an ui all its own with no connection to how rest of ios looks.
• health app suddenly has these graphic thumbnails. came out of nowhere. its the only app that has those. google evolved their graphic style slowly from google now. and now google search, google calender and the inbox app have these graphics representing events and things.its used across products by google. there is a theme. apple's feels disjointed and sudden
• when i delete an email, its gone. have to go to thrash and retrieve it. no handy undo ui pops up like in the gmail app. gives you confidence to make mistakes, knowing you can immediately undo. seems small but these are better design choices google makes.
• ios feels stale with white backgrounds and pencil thin blue gylphs. might be subjective but thats what i feel.

Non Fluid Animations

• open 2 tabs in private mode and no tab in non private mode. now switch between private and non private mode, a blank non private tab slides on top. the private tabs scale back and abruptly disappear in a single frame. over all very stuttery looking animation. no fluidity.
• Favouriting People In Photos - this is only when you favourite the first person by dragging their thumbnail over the dotted rectangle....but man...what the hell is that animation.....the thumbnail slides up out of frame. reappears for 2 or 3 frames, then again disappears. reappears slightly bigger in the favorites area. rest of the thumbnails rearrange. what the hell. so stuttery and inelegant. feel like pulling my hair out.
• iBooks - have you seen how slowly a thumbnail preview of a pdf zooms in when you tab on it. its so slow gives me nausea. why is it not consistent with say how a photo zooms in when tapped.

these are just examples. but the point is apple was the one who introduced animation in software. google has taken it much further giving users a much more fluid experience.its not a gimmick. it actually makes a difference. just see this

iCloud Confusion

apple users have apple id's that can be gmail or any other email account. you can use the apple id to access icloud.com which also has an email service with its @icloud.com email address. this seems simple to you but most non techie users are totally confused by this. they often forget their apple id's and icloud emails addresses.

a gmail account to access all of google. isnt that a much better pitch.

Half Baked Services

Many of apples services are work in progress. Maps, iWork for icloud (just added collaboration) , siri,

icloud email and mail app - dont have the AI chops some other services have. like detecting events, reminding about shipments, travel etc

Hardware - can ignore this part but wouldn' t have felt satisfied without ranting about it :)

• ok this is where apple shines but the numbers of different versions apple sells of each product makes their lineup feel cluttered. example ipad pro, ipad air 2, ipad mini 4, ipad mini 2. i know i am pushing it a little here and its the need of the hour and other companies have far cluttered line ups. but we just expect more out of apple .

when you combine apples hardware, software and services, they are quiet a bit ahead of the competition.

But this post is mostly about software & services and design in particular and apples software just doesn't feel cohesive, fluid or modern to me anymore. It doesn't delight. it just gets the job done.

not saying google makes better software, but they have a far better vision for software design compared to apple. Apple lacks something that binds everything together. starting to feel disjointed and non cohesive. i keep bringing up google as i feel the difference when i use a google app on ios.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. feels better after the rant :)