Walt Mossberg who regularly used to cheer Apple has suddenly launched a damning attack on the outfit’s software.

To put this into some perspective when he worked for the Wall Street Journal, Mossberg was one of the few trusted to review Apple gear in advance because he would only say good things and other pro-Apple reviewers like him, were a key part the outfit’s rise to fame. When credible names like the Journal say a product is good you might think there is some truth behind it. There wasn’t of course, it was just Mossberg who could not write a bad thing about Apple. In his list of top ten tech products of all time half of them were Apple products. Obviously when you have a lot to chose from getting Apple into the top five is a proble, he even had to mention Apple’s Newton Message Pad.

In his rant, Mossberg appears to have suddenly realised that Apple software is suddenly a pile of poo. He has not reached the point where he realised that it has always been like that and that he has to accept some responsibility for it, but some epiphanies start slow.

Mossberg said that standards have been poor “for a while now” and Jobs’ Mob was even being outclassed by Microsoft.

“In the last couple of years, however, I’ve noticed a gradual degradation in the quality and reliability of Apple’s core apps, on both the mobile iOS operating system and its Mac OS X platform. It’s almost as if the tech giant has taken its eye off the ball when it comes to these core software products, while it pursues big new dreams, like smartwatches and cars.”

Mossberg slammed the built-in Mail app on the iPhone, a critical piece of software for many Apple users. He dismissed it was "slow and unreliable” and will not play nicely with Gmail,
Mossberg wrote:

“Apple claims this is an issue beyond its control, or the control of any other email app vendor, because Gmail uses nonstandard technology that gives a speed advantage to the search giant's own apps and sites.”

It doesn’t of course but saying that is much easier than getting off your cash mountain and writing decent code.

Mossberg said that in email Microsoft Outlook for the iPhone is better than anything Apple has and works fine on with Gmail. In fact it is what you expect to see from Apple's built-in app.
He said that he now dreaded opening iTunes. It is bloated, complex, and sluggish and has become even worse since the recent integration of the new Apple Music streaming service. Just the other day,

“I tried to sync two iPads to it (a rare event) and it took forever for the program to recognize them. On my three Macs, which were built from 2013–2015, iTunes is just too slow at almost every task.”

We wonder of Mossberg is going to remain on Apple’s review and Christmas Card list.