It’s that time of year again—Jason Snell of Six Colors has released his annual Apple Report Card, which compiles rankings from scores submitted by 56 Apple-focused writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other professionals, including yours truly.
For the fourth year in a row, Hardware Reliability topped the list, followed by the iPhone, iPad, and Services categories. On the other end of the spectrum, the Vision Pro and Developer Relations continued to dwell at the bottom, where they were joined by Apple’s Impact on the World, which received the lowest score in the survey’s eleven-year history.
Perhaps most troubling is that of the 14 categories, scores dropped in 11. Apple’s Impact on the World category suffered the largest decline, falling a full point to an F grade—a precipitous drop driven by Tim Cook’s obsequious relationship with the Trump administration. The controversial Liquid Glass design in macOS 26 Tahoe also drew heavy criticism, dragging the Mac’s score down by 0.7 points despite uniform praise for the hardware. The main bright spots were the iPhone (up 0.2 points thanks to the well-received iPhone 17 lineup) and iPad (up 0.2 points due to iPadOS 26’s new windowing system).
The panelists’ commentary was especially pointed this year. John Siracusa called Tahoe “the worst user interface update in the history of the Mac,” while John Gruber said, “There is nothing about Tahoe’s new UI that is better than its predecessor.” For the world impact category, Brent Simmons summed up the sentiment: “Apple once had a reputation as an ethical and humane big tech company—and that reputation helped the world by showing that it was possible to be that and to be successful. That reputation is gone, and that example is now gone too.”
For Jason’s category-by-category summary with additional charts and select quotes, check out the full report. Those who want to wallow in the details can read 32,000 words of unfiltered commentary from the panelists.
I wonder how much the world impact rating is related to the EU’s long anti-Apple stance? Another thing that is interesting is that hardware reliability remained high yet the Apple OS quality dropped almost as much as the world impact. Looks like Apple is having problems getting and keeping good software engineers.
Thank you for alerting us to another Jason Snell State of Apple Address. I have now read the condensed report and find myself in large agreement with the opinions of the writers in my personal use of Apple hardware, software and services.
I recently purchased an iPad and an iPhone and pleased to see that I made two decent purchase decisions. In response the the questions over the utility of iPads, I do not attempt work that is best done with a Mac, but I do use it for travel, image presentations, entertainment, and meetings because it is best at doing these things.
Again on the hardware side, my Mac Mini Pro and Studio Display have been good buys and have never given problems.
Their comments about Tahoe underwrite my extreme reluctance to upgrade from Sequoia. I am very disappointed that the Apple software designers and engineers have thrown out the worthy Human Interface guidelines that Apple pioneered now many years ago and are still first class in their concept. I am hoping with the new chief of software will bring sense into the Apple software development more or less immediately. I like the suggestions for Apple to take a break in introducing new features, of which most I think are class projects for new interns, and fix its OS and applications. Apple Music, for example remains maze for users.
Not really covered in Jason’s report was an assessment of Apple’s mess with Siri and AI. Maybe this mess is covered in the complete report.
I had one of those moments where Apple Music on a Mac didn’t do something that had worked for at least 5 years. I ended up reverting to a previous version, which is not something that most people would be happy to do. I also don’t know if it has been fixed.
WAY too generous on app quality! As I’ve said before, I have multiple Heisenbugs and one Bohrbug with Music.app. I don’t lose sleep over Liquid Glass, but daily I have to fiddle with Music to get it to work. And now, I’m getting continuing nags about upgrading to the new iWork apps.
Then why is it called WORLD IMPACT if it is not about Apple as is all the other ratings? To me that is about APPLE’s world impact; not that of these United States.
I agree as apps are software and the same problems that relate to them as those for system software.
