I was disappointed to see Marco Arment say he wishes he never wrote his post on Apple’s software quality, “Apple has lost the functional high ground.”
The point he made is one I’ve tweeted about (though not written about) a number of times over the years. The big problem facing Apple isn’t a deficit of innovation, but bitrot creeping into their codebase. You don’t have to look far to see it: for example, there’s a race condition in text handling that has been there since at least OS X 10.3.
The point needed to be made by someone who knows and loves Apple, someone who is a leader in their developer community, and someone who has a reputation for being fair and even-handed. That’s Marco. He did an excellent job of offering constructive criticism to a company that he genuinely loves.
Yes, there is a risk that anything you write will turn into a media storm. That’s a risk you have to live with; it’s unfortunate, but it’s not going away. It’s also important to say what needs to be said. Self-censorship is not the way forward.