Thread by @northead

In 2016, when the Pixel came out, Material Design (to this day, the largest-ever effort in applied, at-scale digital design) was maturing, folks including me started wondering whether Google could bridge the hardware gap faster than Apple in software.

It's been 7+ years now and, typing these tweets from my iPhone 15 Pro, it's abundantly clear that Apple has won the race. Their software still has quirks here and there, but it's largely a delightful experience that plays off their biggest strength, i.e. the integrated ecosystem.

You don't get a Dynamic Island anywhere else. You don't get a proper Taptic Engine anywhere else. You don't get Apple Silicon anywhere else — etc.

And, of course, you don't get the App Store anywhere else, with millions of apps taking advantage of the incredible package.

Yes, package: because Apple adds and refines, every single year, and these things *compound*. They don't 180 every other year, like, seemingly, most. Looking back, their roadmap is sensible, smart, crystal clear — building up confidence for future years and further entrenchment.

Apple's stuff is as simple to use as ever, and now mostly looks beautiful too. They cover every need. Plus, most everyone else uses it, with the move to USB-C further cementing its easy integration into most people's lives.

No other company does this, and it's not even close.

Microsoft has some good products, but its lack of a mobile offering is still tremendous. While Google, the other major firm in the race, seems to have completely lost its way. Not just in hardware, where its products have been forgettable and mediocre at worst and "good" at best.

No, there's software too. I can't remember the last great Google software thing, and the ones everyone uses every day haven't gotten better either — nowhere has this become more plastic than with the explosion of LLMs, with Google's scrambled, borderline farcical response.

I don't know what is under the hood with Gemini. But I've had to rely on this "surely there's something great cooking" refrain for almost a decade now. When does the good stuff ship? I don't know. But it's not here now; not in hardware, not in software. And that's a damn shame.

With AI on the (very near) horizon, I don't know what role hardware will play in the 20s. It might become less important, making the long-sought-after AR/MR space moot (Vision Pro included). But the fact people would bet on OpenAI more than Google is telling.

In the meantime, if you can afford it and unless you have specific needs, a particular passion for some other OEM (Samsung still makes some slick stuff!), or some weird societal hate for Apple... just buy Apple.

It's stuff worth the money, even not at the high end (you truly don't need all of the latest and greatest to enjoy most benefits), and the more you spend in the ecosystem the more you amortize. It's genuinely awesome.

Indeed, the very fact this company exists, at this scale, is a goddamn miracle.