For me personally, it's more the threat of hostility to come that's unsettling.
Apple has gutted formerly excellent programs meant for professionals. I believe the photography and videography fields had controversies. But I'll speak to what I use personally.
Apple had an excellent word processor, Pages. It could be used for print publishing. Then in 2013 they rewrote Pages to sync is with iOS.
In doing so they removed most of the features professional writers needed. Many authors, such as myself, were left stranded.
The old program still runs, but eventually an OS X update will break it.
Increasingly Apple has turned away from its professional user base, and caters to mass needs. This is shortsighted, as the pro users tend to be evangelists, and also the ones that create software. Every developer apple loses to Microsoft hurts its ecosystem.
But, all that said, I find OS X is generally still great. I'm just....uneasy in a way I never was before. And I'm glad Microsoft is now a viable alternative. I never thought I would say that, and that says something about Apple.
I'd forgotten about, mostly because I don't use them, their applications. I'd used Pages ages ago in grad school, but that's before 2013 so I didn't experience that transition.
I do realize I'm probably a bit of an outlier. I primarily use Safari, Mail.app, and a terminal with tmux and emacs. Scrivener, as well, when I'm in a more creative phase. The handful of other apps I use haven't had any problems (that I've noticed) with recent OS updates.
I will concede that, regarding hardware, they're heading towards a gray area for me. I really like the idea of the MacBook, but dislike the single connector (we'll see what happens today). And the relative stagnation of their hardware is annoying for many. But the 2012 rMBP has lasted quite well for me, I've only recently begun to notice issues with the battery life and I'm pretty sure that's because I forgot to turn off Docker (wanting to understand containers/VMs better, trying to bring my current office's development workflow into the 21st century).
EDIT: Given my relatively low resource use on the laptop, the reason I don't go with Linux is (from another post the other day), I got tired of trying to make things work on laptops. Along with rayiner, the MBP is a really solid and reliable laptop, and I want the Unix-underpinnings of OS X, without the hassle I experienced in Linux. Building a new desktop soon so I'll install linux there, see if things have changed enough for me.
As the quality of 3rd party Mac software has improved, Apple has stepped back their own software products. To me, that makes good sense.
Back when they were struggling with relevance, they had to supply it all. Who else would? They wanted to be the "digital hub," digital hub software wasn't available, so they had to provide it themselves.
That's not the situation anymore. Adobe stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Microsoft stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Google stuff is great and it runs on Macs. Why should Apple try to compete with all them?
I disagree that Apple is turning away from professional users. They still sell great computers for professionals. They're just stepping back from trying to compete in the space of professional application software. That's not hostility, that's focus.
I know some customers really liked the Apple productivity products, and disappointed that they've been scaled back or killed. But I think it's a good move, and I hope Apple continues to focus more resources on improving their OS, developer tools, security, and services.
Apple has gutted formerly excellent programs meant for professionals. I believe the photography and videography fields had controversies. But I'll speak to what I use personally.
Apple had an excellent word processor, Pages. It could be used for print publishing. Then in 2013 they rewrote Pages to sync is with iOS.
In doing so they removed most of the features professional writers needed. Many authors, such as myself, were left stranded.
The old program still runs, but eventually an OS X update will break it.
Increasingly Apple has turned away from its professional user base, and caters to mass needs. This is shortsighted, as the pro users tend to be evangelists, and also the ones that create software. Every developer apple loses to Microsoft hurts its ecosystem.
But, all that said, I find OS X is generally still great. I'm just....uneasy in a way I never was before. And I'm glad Microsoft is now a viable alternative. I never thought I would say that, and that says something about Apple.