Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales
Apple&#x27;s losing its mojo in a slow steady drip and there&#x27;s going to be more of this if they don&#x27;t get it together soon.<p>Apple used to be synonymous with premium equipment an a &quot;It Just Works&quot; experience. It made it really, really easy to just get the Apple version of anything knowing it was going to be good.<p>My parents need equipment, I get them an iMac, an Airport Extreme, iPhone, iPad, etc...knowing it&#x27;s all just going to work.<p>And then somebody in the business unit started getting involved. Airport extreme is basically dead. They started trimming their product line so that they no longer have an option in every category like 17&quot; laptops. They remove features that people don&#x27;t want removed like the headphone jack and leave you with no other option aside from buying attachments or more expensive battery powered headphones. They started building in batteries in slices on the laptops they do sell, welding parts to boards so you can&#x27;t open it up and change things out without paying somebody at an Apple store.<p>They started making design decisions that are almost purposely irritating like the new Magic Mouse. Look, it&#x27;s got a rechargeable battery built right in! <i>battery dies</i> flip it upside down to plug in the charger and just wait until you can use your computer again. God forbid you put the charger on the front so people could use it as a wired mouse if they wanted&#x2F;needed.<p>Let&#x27;s not forget using $30 USB cords to charge your phone&#x2F;mouse.<p>The combination of all these little decisions is what is finally driving me away after being nothing short of a fanboy for about 10 years. I&#x27;m just tired of having a company that I tend to disagree with lately trying to make decisions for me so I&#x27;m starting the slow exit from Mac life.<p>Laptop first (<i>waves at Dell</i>). Then a new router (<i>waves at Asus probably</i>). Then a new phone (<i>waves at Samsung&#x2F;Google</i>).<p>And then, because the geeks in your friends lives tend to get asked for recommendations on what they should get for themselves...that stuff is probably going to spill over. I don&#x27;t seem to be the only person feeling this way lately, so I hope whoever started making bottom line decisions at Apple is happy with the long term side effect.