Apple: Waking Up Is Hard to Do
October 16, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read a letter. I think this letter or at least parts of it were written by a human. These days it can be tough to know. The letter appeared in “Wiley Hodges’s Open Letter to Tim Cook Regarding ICEBlock.” Mr. Hodge, according to the cited article, retired from Apple, the computer and services company in 2022.
The letter expresses some concern that Apple removed an app from the Apple online store. Here’s a snippet from the “letter”:
Apple and you are better than this. You represent the best of what America can be, and I pray that you will find it in your heart to continue to demonstrate that you are true to the values you have so long and so admirably espoused.
It does seem to me that Apple is a flexible outfit. The purpose of the letter is unknown to me. On the surface, it is a single former employee’s expression of unhappiness at how “leadership” leads and deciders “decide.” However, below the surface it a signal that some people thought a for profit, pragmatic, and somewhat frisky Fancy Dancing organization was like Snow White, the Easter bunny, or the Lone Ranger.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Sorry. That’s not how big companies work or many little companies for that matter. Most organizations do what they can to balance a PR image with what the company actually does. Examples range from arguing via sleek and definitely expensive lawyers that what they do does not violate laws. Also, companies work out deals. Some of these involve doing things to fit in to the culture of a particular company. I have watched money change hands when registering a vehicle in the government office in Sao Paulo. These things happen because they are practical. Apple, for example, has an interesting relationship with a certain large country in Asia. I wonder if there is a bit of the old soft shoe going on in that region of the world.
These are, however, not the main point of this blog post. There cited article contains this statement:
Hodges, earlier in his letter, makes reference to Apple’s 2016 standoff with the FBI over a locked iPhone belonging to the mass shooter in San Bernardino, California. The FBI and Justice Department pressured Apple to create a version of iOS that would allow them to backdoor the iPhone’s passcode lock. Apple adamantly refused.
Okay, the time delta is nine years. What has changed? Obviously social media, the economic situation, the relationship among entities, and a number of lawsuits. These are the touchpoints of our milieu. One has to surf on the waves of change and the ripples and waves of datasphere.
But I want to highlight several points about my reaction to the this blog post containing the Hodge’s letter:
- Some people are realizing that their hoped-for vision of Apple, a publicly traded company, is not the here-and-now Apple. The fairy land of a company that cares is pretty much like any other big technology outfit. Shocker.
- Apple is not much different today than it was nine years ago. Plucking an example which positioned the Cupertino kids as standing up for an ideal does not line up with the reality. Technology existed then to gain access to digital devices. Believing the a company’s PR reflected reality illustrates how crazy some perceptions are. Saying is not doing.
- Apple remains to me one of the most invasive of the technology giants. The constant logging in, the weirdness of forcing people to have data in the iCloud when those people do not know the data are there or want it there for that matter, the oddball notifications that tell a user that an “new device” is connected when the iPad has been used for years, and a few other quirks like hiding files are examples of the reality of the company.
News flash: Apple is like the other Silicon Valley-type big technology companies. These firms have a game plan of do it and apologize. Push forward. I find it amusing that adults are experiencing the same grief as a sixth grader with a crush on the really cute person in home room. Yep, waking up is hard to do. Stop hitting the snooze alarm and join the real world.
Net net: The essay is a hoot. Here is an adult realizing that there is no Santa with apparently tireless animals and dwarfs at the North Pole. The cited article contains what appears to be another expression of annoyance, anger, and sorrow that Apple is not what the humans thought it was. Apple is Apple, and the only change agent able to modify the company is money and/or fear, a good combo in my experience.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2025
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