Apple Might Be Having Its Windows Vista Moment, Says Analyst

Is Apple experiencing a "Vista-like drift into systemically poor execution?"

Windows Vista
That was a question posed by well-known technology analyst Benedict Evans, in a recent blog post covering Apple's innovation and execution, or seemingly lack thereof as of late. He is referring to Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, which was widely criticized when it launched in 2007 due to software bugs, performance issues, frequent warning dialogs, polarizing design changes, and several other problems.

Evans said Apple stumbled with the Vision Pro headset, which he believes was not ready to launch. Then, it previewed personalized Siri features at WWDC last year that were merely conceptual, and are now delayed.

"This is a concern," said Evans.

His thoughts on the Vision Pro:

The Vision Pro is a concept, or a demo, and Apple doesn't ship demos. Why did it ship the Vision Pro? What did it achieve? It didn't sell in meaningful volume, because it couldn't, and it didn't lead to much developer activity ether, because no-one bought it. A lot of people even at Apple are puzzled.

He said the personalized Siri delay is a "mirror image" of the Vision Pro situation:

Apple showed a demo, and it only does demos when things are nearly done, and it said it would ship 'later this year' and it never misses deadlines like that. So we should be using it, today.

And now we find that we didn't really see a demo, only a mock-up of a great concept, and that this product won't ship until maybe late 2025, and possibly (going by the rumour-mill) 2026, or even 2027.

All of this led to his "Vista-like" comment:

The failure of Siri 2 is by far the most dramatic instance of a growing trend for Apple to launch stuff late. The software release cycle used to be a metronome: announcement at WWDC in the summer, OS release in September with everything you'd seen. There were plenty of delays and failed projects under the hood […] but public promise were always kept. Now that seems to be slipping. Is this a symptom of a Vista-like drift into systemically poor execution?

Nevertheless, Evans acknowledged that critics have been claiming that Apple is no longer innovative since at least the 1980s, and that the company has historically continued to deliver more innovative and category-defining products over the years. Still, he said he is left wondering if that Apple still exists today.

Evans' full blog post, highlighted by Techmeme today, is worth a read.

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Top Rated Comments

abatabia Avatar
7 months ago
A reasonable comparison. The gulf between hardware and software continues to widen. Apple needs a pause on chasing the shiny new thing and really needs to focus on fixing the issues and just catching up on bugs. Would it be so bad if we had a year like that? I don’t think so.
Score: 69 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JoshuaBru Avatar
7 months ago
I’ve commented this several times but I’m dead serious. It’s time for Tim Cook to go.
Score: 69 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AngerDanger Avatar
7 months ago
Kinda funny that this coincides with their rumored visionOS-inspired redesigns of iOS and macOS when its frosted UI, blurring background elements behind, are reminiscent of Vista itself.
Score: 54 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ricketysquire Avatar
7 months ago
It comes down to tech's obsession with constantly pushing out changes. How about a stable underlying OS? Do things need to be redesigned? Must AI, Blockchain or some other stupid trend be shoved down our throats? Can we as a tech community just slow down, take advantage of what we have?

People get upset that Apple is not coming out with new redesigned hardware as if Tim is personally going to come to your home and hand you a brand new device at no cost as soon as it is announced, when in reality its a few week delay to come from some factory half way across the earth and the new redesign could/might/will probably have issues since its the first version of the redesign.

Same thing with software. We don't need a new iOS/macOS/watchOS/iPadOS every damn year.
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)
turbineseaplane Avatar
7 months ago
And another Sculley moment, if Tim is allowed to keep hanging around
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Onimusha370 Avatar
7 months ago
I think Apple’s hardware (including the Vision Pro) continues to be extremely impressive and industry leading. The issue is almost entirely software and services, as it has been for over a decade now.
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)