Apple's monopoly on coherence

My partner’s iPhone died while we were abroad.

Not “the battery is a bit shit” died. The modem died. Cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, all gone at once, which is an impressively comprehensive failure for a device whose principal job is connecting to things.

So we went to book a repair. Apple would like to run diagnostics on the device first.

On the device.

The one whose modem is dead. The entire reason we are asking for help is that it can no longer reach anything, and the appointment is gated behind it reaching something.

Apple’s support process has been designed around the assumption that the broken thing you’re trying to get repaired is still perfectly capable of arranging its own repair. Which is particularly funny when the broken product is your phone: the thing holding your Apple account, your messages, your authentication codes, your wallet, and the website you are currently attempting to use to persuade Apple to look at the fucking phone.

Eventually you get through the obstacle course. Apple charged roughly $800 to replace the internals. Painful, but fine. Fix the phone.

A day later, it died again. Same phone, same fault, one day after an $800 repair.

Back it goes. You wait. Then Apple sends you a message.

Your repair is ready for collection.

Brilliant. So you go and collect it. And wait another thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes isn’t a human-rights violation. The point is what the sequence adds up to. The phone can’t book its own repair, the repair fails, and then you’re told it’s ready when it isn’t. Every individual step has an explanation. Together they produce an experience completely at odds with what Apple believes it sells. This is supposed to be the premium. This is the company I pay more to specifically so I don’t have to administer the machinery.

This is also approximately the moment where Apple’s famous vertical integration stops being charming. When everything works, it’s wonderful: one company made the hardware, one company made the operating system, one company runs the cloud, the stores and the support. Nobody points at anybody else. No Dell blaming Microsoft blaming Intel blaming a driver written in 2009.

But when that one company gets it wrong, there is also nowhere else to go.

My own phones have failed differently, and more often. Two iPhones have swelled their batteries enough to push the screen up out of the frame, each one smelling like a battery acid explosion waiting to happen. Both were replaced. I’m not turning my kitchen drawer into a statistical study of iPhone reliability, and Apple sells hundreds of millions of the things.

But in the middle of it I caved and gave Apple more money, buying another iPhone outright, purely so I could stay connected. That’s the bit that stings. The product failed, and my move was to hand the company that built it another thousand pounds, because the alternative was not having a phone.

There comes a moment, holding a £1,000 telephone that is attempting to disassemble itself, where you think:

Right.

Fuck this.

I’m buying something else.

So I sat down to work out what “something else” was. And that’s where the problem started.

The annoying bit is that Apple got the important thing right

Everything I actually like about Apple is incredibly boring.

I copy something on my phone. I paste it on my Mac.

A text arrives containing a six-digit code. The code appears above the keyboard on the device where I need it.

I buy another Mac. My passwords are there.

I join Wi-Fi on one device. The others know about it.

I put my headphones in. Usually, they work out which device I’m using.

There is no pairing ceremony. No onboarding wizard. No little tray application called Galaxy Cross Device Connectivity Experience Service asking to restart itself after a store update. Microsoft does, incidentally, ship something called Cross Device Experience Host. I promise I didn’t invent that for the joke.¹

Apple’s documentation for its own versions reads like a boiler manual. Universal Clipboard copies something here and pastes it there.² Handoff moves an activity from one device to another.³ iCloud Keychain remembers passwords, passkeys, security codes and Wi-Fi credentials.⁴ The genius is that these stopped feeling like features years ago. They’re just how the computer works.

And I deliberately said the computer, singular. Apple’s greatest product isn’t the iPhone, the Mac, the Watch or the iPad. It’s the idea that they’re all bits of the same computer. Your identity lives somewhere underneath them, and your passwords, files, messages, clipboard, photos, Wi-Fi networks and increasingly your current activity follow you around. Pick up another rectangle and there you are.

That is Apple’s real monopoly. I don’t mean it in the competition-law sense. There are extremely expensive lawyers who can argue about that. I mean a monopoly on coherence. If you want four different classes of device to behave like one familiar environment, there is basically one company selling it properly.

Once you realise that, you also realise how much Apple can get away with before you actually leave.

Customers like the boring bits too

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) commissioned a survey of 2,854 UK smartphone users and asked what mattered when they chose their phone.⁵

Among iPhone users, 39% picked compatibility with their other personal devices. Among Android users, it was 20%.

Then comes my favourite number. The survey also asked about the availability of AI features, meaning writing assistance, summarising text, photo search and the other things currently causing executives to involuntarily say “agentic” during earnings calls.

Six percent.

Six. Identical on both platforms. Battery life, camera, storage, price, brand and compatibility all mattered enormously more.

So Apple has spent fifteen years constructing an enormous competitive advantage around making technology disappear, its own customers say that advantage is why they buy in, and the strategic priority is apparently a bespoke emoji of me in a cowboy hat.

I’m not arguing nobody wants AI. I use it every day. I’m arguing that nobody buys a £1,000 telephone because what was missing from their life was a generated picture of an avocado wearing sunglasses. They buy it because they need the fucking phone to work.

Which is awkward, because the phone increasingly doesn’t seem entirely sure what it’s doing.

Apple has developed a phobia of telling me what’s happening

Open Apple Music. Tap a song. The row pulses grey, then goes white again.

That’s it.

Did I press it? Is it loading? Did the tap fail? Is AirPlay connecting? Has the app crashed? Is Tim Cook personally reviewing my request?

So obviously I press it again. Sometimes I get an error. Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes a HomePod elsewhere in the house begins playing the requested song fifteen minutes later, like a Victorian ghost has finally located the sheet music.

A button has a straightforward job. You press it, and the computer acknowledges that you pressed it. If something takes time, the computer says so. If you can’t press it again, the computer communicates that too. This isn’t advanced human-computer interaction research. This is the company that made the graphical interface mainstream, and we are apparently now too sophisticated for a fucking loading indicator.

I’m not the only one squinting. Nielsen Norman Group went through iOS 26 and came back with reduced legibility, tap targets shrunk and crowded below long-standing minimums, controls that appear and vanish depending on context, and back buttons that no longer tell you where you came from. Their verdict was that Apple is prioritising spectacle over usability.⁶

Missing feedback isn’t minimalism. And it crops up everywhere.

A download that needs the internet is not a download

Before a fourteen-hour flight, I downloaded some shows in Apple TV. This is exactly the situation the word download was invented for. I was about to sit inside an aluminium coffin hurtling over an ocean with 400 other people competing for precious bandwidth on an outdated satellite internet connection, so I instructed my Mac to put the video files onto the computer.

Plane takes off. Open Downloaded. Press play.

There’s a problem loading this content.

Another episode. Same. Another show. Same. Then the internet eventually returns and, miraculously, my downloaded television programmes become playable.

I have no idea whether that’s entitlement checking, DRM validation, account state, a bug, or an interaction that only occurs when Jupiter is in retrograde. I also don’t care. The product promised me a download. A download that requires an internet connection is not a download. It’s cached optimism.

Apple Music does a stranger version of this to me on the Tube. I’ve downloaded the music. The phone joins a Wi-Fi network with no usable route to the internet. Press play, and nothing happens while the phone sits there waiting for some request to fail. Turn Wi-Fi off entirely and the downloaded song plays immediately.

So the offline media works perfectly, once my iPhone has obtained sufficient legal proof that I am, in fact, offline. I downloaded the song. The entire reason it occupies storage on my phone is so we don’t have to convene a committee in Cupertino every time I press play.

Search has become archaeology

Apple Mail search is astonishing. Someone emails me on Monday. On Tuesday I type their name into the search box. Mail thinks very carefully, and presents me with an email they sent in 2013.

Thank you. That was, technically, an email from them.

Then I scroll until I find the message from yesterday. This is less a search and more an archaeological dig.

Maps has a related trick. I move the map to a city I’m interested in, then search for something, and Maps decides what I obviously meant was to abandon the city I deliberately went to and search near my current physical location. I know where I am. I moved the map over there because I wanted to know what’s over there. The computer has my location to an accuracy bordering on intrusive, and still can’t infer that when I’m staring at Berlin and type “coffee”, there’s a non-zero possibility I mean coffee in Berlin.

Apple’s nouns and adjectives have become aspirational

Somewhere along the way, Apple’s interface developed an unusual relationship with the English language. The words stopped describing what the computer is doing and started describing what it hopes eventually to achieve.

Downloaded. The file is here, provided we can first contact the internet to discuss whether you’re allowed to use it.

Instant. Instant Hotspot’s interpretation of the word appears to be “ask again after toggling several unrelated radios and restarting all your devices”.

Ready. We have begun considering the possibility that we may eventually give this back to you.

Connected. One or more devices in this room believe a connection exists.

Now Playing. A song may be playing somewhere. Possibly in this house. Possibly on the moon.

Underneath the joke is my actual complaint. I can forgive a computer for taking time. I can’t forgive it for lying to me about its state.

Loading is fine. Connecting is fine. Something going wrong is fine. Even “we need to check your licence before playing this downloaded programme”, while completely fucking ridiculous at 38,000 feet, would at least tell me what the computer was doing.

Hell, it might even tell the developer testing the software what the computer was doing.

When an interface reports its state accurately, I can make a decision. I can wait, retry, reconnect, or give up and do something else. When it doesn’t, I become the debugger.

Which is why the AI obsession annoys me

Apple’s answer to all of this cannot be another layer of intelligence. Before my computer learns to anticipate what I want, could it reliably tell me what it’s currently doing?

The technology industry has convinced itself that every existing product is an inconvenient launch surface for a conversational robot.

I don’t need an intelligence system between me and the button.

I need the fucking button to work.

I don’t need Siri to understand my emotional journey.

I need Siri to set a timer and go away.

I don’t care whether my phone can invent an emoji if downloaded video won’t play on a plane. I don’t care whether Mail can summarise an email it can’t find. I don’t care whether Maps can infer my preferences if it won’t respect the city I’m looking at.

John Ternus has had the top job for a matter of days.⁷ I don’t think his challenge is appeasing the people panicking that Apple hasn’t put enough generative AI into enough rectangles. People are buying the rectangles anyway.

The challenge is making them dependable again.

Not spectacular.

Not intelligent.

Not magical in the press release.

Dependable, in the old sense, where the word describes the thing rather than the ambition.

Bloomberg reports that iOS 27 is getting a Snow Leopard-style quality push, with engineers hunting bugs, bloat and performance problems.⁸ Good. Do more of that, everywhere.

Make a button visibly busy.

Make AirPlay boring.

Make a download work offline.

Make search find the obvious result.

Make settings predictable.

Make the computer feel finished, so that when I press the button I trust that something will happen.

You can add the robot afterwards.

The really irritating part is that I still can’t leave

This rant should end with me buying something else. It doesn’t.

Because then I look at Samsung, which sells excellent phones, excellent tablets, watches and laptops. On paper the feature list is all there: Multi Control, Quick Share, Second Screen, Samsung Notes, Storage Share, Link to Windows.⁹

Then you look at the setup requirements. The right version of One UI. The right version of Samsung Settings. The right version of Samsung Continuity Service. Microsoft Store applications updated. Compatible hardware. Wi-Fi on, Bluetooth on, same Samsung account. And then the footnote: some functionality, including copy and paste or drag and drop, may not be available on particular devices or applications.⁹

Copy and paste. May not be available.

Samsung’s engineers aren’t idiots. The reason is that at the laptop, Samsung stops owning the computer. There’s Windows underneath it. On the watch, there’s Google’s platform underneath it. Samsung is trying to build coherence across systems controlled by companies with different priorities.

Apple doesn’t have that problem. It owns the hardware, kernel, operating system, interface framework, account, password store, cloud services and default applications, from the watch on your wrist to the laptop on your desk. That’s an obscene structural advantage, and Apple earned it. The problem is that it now feels like they’re coasting on it.

Then there’s Google

Google should be the obvious answer. It has the account, Android, phones, watches, tablets, and years of ChromeOS. Its response to desktop computing has historically involved an unhealthy enthusiasm for the web browser. I know web applications are easy to distribute, I know they’re cross-platform, I know modern browsers are extraordinarily capable runtimes, and I don’t care. Build some native applications. I don’t want every computer I own to feel like somebody stretched a website until it reached the window borders.

Google is now bringing Android and ChromeOS together with Googlebook, with tighter phone integration and shared experiences across devices.¹⁰ Promising!

Then you reach Google’s framing of where Android itself is going. From an operating system to an “intelligence system”.¹¹

Of course. I’ve spent this entire article asking whether somebody could please build me one coherent operating system, and Google’s answer is: what if the operating system was an AI?

No, Google.

Make my fucking clipboard work.

Remember my Wi-Fi password.

Make my watch settings resemble my phone settings.

Make the tablet understand that the laptop beside it belongs to the same person.

Give me applications that aren’t websites in a trench coat.

Then you can tell me about the fucking robot.

And while we’re here, it’s my goddam computer

Coherence is only half of why leaving Apple is hard. The other half is control. I want four things.

My data is mine. Let me choose the company storing it and, where practical, the jurisdiction it lives in.
My devices should speak one language. Same icons, concepts, terminology, navigation, settings, account and state, so every new device is immediately familiar.
My computer belongs to me. Recommend where I get software. Notarise it. Scan it. Warn me. Put up a massive red box explaining why you think I’m an idiot. Then let me install it anyway.
Don’t make me administer the thing. Drivers, middleware, companion applications, pairing rituals and service processes are implementation details. Hide them.

Apple gets close to two and four, which is why I’m still here. It does considerably worse on one and three.

Apple’s privacy policy says personal data relating to UK and EEA users is controlled from Ireland, while personal data collected worldwide is generally stored by Apple Inc. in the United States.¹² I’m not alleging anything improper. I’m asking why I don’t get a choice. Keep my account in the UK. Keep it inside the EEA. Put it where I say. Apple demonstrably can vary this: in mainland China, iCloud is operated by a local company under local terms, because Chinese law requires it.¹³ The capability exists. Consumers just don’t get to ask for it.

I’m not naive about which government I’d be handing myself to, either. Mine is the one that ordered Apple to break its own encryption, and Apple pulled Advanced Data Protection from new UK users rather than comply.¹⁴ Choosing London has a cost. It should still be my choice.

Likewise, I can put individual files in Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. I can’t say: use this provider instead of iCloud for the underlying state of my Apple devices. Apple’s own backup options come down to iCloud or a computer.¹⁵

Software is simpler still. In some markets Apple now allows alternative app distribution. The UK isn’t one of them.¹⁶ So here, Apple decides what I’m allowed to install on the telephone I bought. The malware argument doesn’t convince me, because Apple already solved this on the Mac. Gatekeeper blocks untrusted software and warns me, and if I understand the risk and deliberately override it, the Mac accepts that I own the Mac.¹⁷

Do that.

Protect me without infantilising me.

I don’t want Apple to become something else

I’m not writing this because I hate Apple. If I hated Apple this would be much easier. I’d buy something else.

I’m writing it because Apple has demonstrated, repeatedly, that it knows what good computing feels like.

The best Apple features are unimpressive when you describe them.

Clipboard.

Passwords.

Wi-Fi.

Downloads.

Search.

Play.

Connect.

Remember.

They’re ordinary verbs, and Apple’s historical talent was making ordinary verbs happen so reliably that you stopped noticing the machinery underneath.

That’s what people mean when they say Apple products “just work”.

It was never literally true. Computers break, networks are networks, software has bugs.

The magic was that Apple understood which complications belonged to the computer and which belonged to the user.

Those complications are leaking through again, now underneath translucent glass, with an AI feature I didn’t ask for waiting nearby to summarise the error message.

The company doesn’t need to rediscover innovation.

It needs to rediscover embarrassment.

Downloaded media failing offline should be embarrassing.

Mail surfacing a thirteen-year-old email above yesterday’s should be embarrassing.

A play button leaving me unsure whether I pressed it should be embarrassing.

An ecosystem company should be obsessive about all of it, precisely because the ecosystem is the product.

Apple calls it an ecosystem.

Fine.

Maintain it.

The bees are dying, the flowers are going brown, and I don’t need a Genmoji of a gardener.

I need someone to water the plants.

Because the frustrating thing isn’t that Apple has built an ecosystem I can’t leave.

It’s that nobody else has bothered building one worth leaving for.

Microsoft Q&A, What is the function of the Cross Device Experience Host application?, 2024. A Microsoft Store component used by Phone Link to talk to Android devices. Link ↩
Apple Support, Use Universal Clipboard to copy and paste between your Apple devices. Link ↩
Apple Support, Use Handoff to continue tasks on your other Apple devices. Link ↩
Apple Support, Set up iCloud Keychain. Link ↩
Accent for the Competition and Markets Authority, Mobile Consumer Survey: Final Report, July 2025. Figure 9, question Q6B, “Which factors were most important at the time in your decision to get that particular personal smartphone?” 2,854 completed responses, fieldwork closed 7 April 2025. Bases: iOS 1,525, Android 1,257. Compatibility with other personal devices was selected by 39% of iOS users and 20% of Android users. Availability of AI tools and features was selected by 6%, with no difference by operating system. Link ↩
Raluca Budiu, Nielsen Norman Group, Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26, 2025. “Apple is prioritizing spectacle over usability.” Link ↩
Apple Newsroom, Tim Cook to become Apple Executive Chairman, John Ternus to become Apple CEO, April 2026. Ternus became chief executive on 1 September 2026. Link ↩
Mark Gurman, Bloomberg, Apple iOS 27: Snow Leopard-Like Quality Focus, AI Features, 2025 (paywalled). Link. Reported by 9to5Mac as engineers “combing through Apple’s operating systems, hunting for bloat to cut, bugs to eliminate”. Link ↩
Samsung UK, Connected Experience. Multi Control setup requirements, version dependencies, and the note that “some functions (such as Copy & Paste or Drag & Drop) may not be available on certain devices or apps”. Link ↩ ↩²
Alex Kuscher, Google, Introducing Googlebook, designed for Gemini Intelligence, 2026. Link ↩
Mindy Brooks, Google, A smarter, more proactive Android with Gemini Intelligence, 2026. “As Android transitions from an operating system into an intelligence system, your devices are becoming even more helpful.” Link ↩
Apple, Apple Privacy Policy. “Personal data relating to individuals in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland is controlled by Apple Distribution International Limited in Ireland.” Personal data collected worldwide “is generally stored by Apple Inc. in the United States”. Link ↩
Apple Support, Learn more about iCloud in China mainland. “iCloud in China mainland is operated by GCBD (AIPO Cloud (Guizhou) Technology Co. Ltd).” Link ↩
9to5Mac, reporting the Financial Times, Apple launches second legal challenge to UK iCloud backdoor order, per report, 2026. Apple stopped new UK users enabling Advanced Data Protection in February 2025. Link ↩
Apple Support, How to back up your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The options given are iCloud, a Mac, or a PC. Link ↩
Apple Support, About alternative app distribution. “Alternative app distribution is available in Brazil, Japan, and the countries or regions of the European Union.” The UK is not listed. Link ↩
Apple Support, Open a Mac app from an unknown developer. Link ↩