I was a decidedly Mac-first person but could not bring myself to buy a new Mac laptop and began testing iPads as my most-used computer.” Shahid Kamal Ahmad said, “My happiness at Apple appearing to listen to its customers was tempered by a feeling that all they’d done was lifted their boots from our faces.” John Moltz said, “You shouldn’t get much credit simply for fixing your long-term mistakes.” Andrew Laurence said, “It took far too long to fix the polarizing disaster of the butterfly keyboard.”ĭr. But its praise for that move was coupled with a whole lot of reservation and a sense that the job’s far from done.Ĭharles Perry said, “Apple really rescued their 2019 with the release of the new 16-inch MacBook Pro.” David Sparks said, “I’m so happy to see a new more reliable keyboard making its way into the line with the new MacBook Pro.”Ĭarolina Milanesi said, “They should have sorted out faster and also should have been more transparent about the issue.” Christina Warren said, “This is a black mark Apple will not be able to easily overcome.” John Siracusa said, “We can no longer take the longterm reliability of Apple’s laptop hardware for granted.”
The Mac’s score rose over last year, and you’d think that our panel would have given Apple credit for introducing the 16-inch MacBook Pro with a scissor-switch keyboard. Grade: B (average score: 3.6, median score 4, last year: B-) Read on for category-by-category grades, trends, and commentary from the panelists. The net changes between 20 surveys is displayed below: Since I used largely the same survey as in previous years, I was able to track the change in my panel’s consensus opinion on all but one question compared to previous years.
I received 65 replies, with the average results as shown below:
They were prompted with 12 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5 and optionally provide text commentary per category. This is the fifth year that I’ve presented this survey to a hand-selected group. It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. Apple in 2019: The Six Colors report card