Don't upgrade Pages, Numbers, or Keynote for iOS if you rely on WebDAV

While I don't use WebDAV, I imagine there are a lot of people out there that do.

This is the type of stuff I have my gripes with Apple on. Why stop people who know what they are doing, building low cost in-house services, and force them to use more costly, maybe less secure services which they do not have complete control over?

Never mind, I think I just answered my own question...

Exactly.
This seems the new Apple since Jobs.
Why I am still using High Sierra on pro Macs from that era.
Why I no longer recommend macs, hoping (as unlikely as it may be) this will change, along with onboard memory, and all roads increasingly leading to the Cupertino iCloud.

THIS lifetime Apple user doesn't want ANYTHING on your foreign servers, encrypted or not, if for nothing more than dependence on the internet, the hack risk, the Patriot Act and the environment.

Apple's business, my wallet. So very disappointing after so many, many years.

razorpit said:

While I don't use WebDAV, I imagine there are a lot of people out there that do.

This is the type of stuff I have my gripes with Apple on. Why stop people who know what they are doing, building low cost in-house services, and force them to use more costly, maybe less secure services which they do not have complete control over?

Never mind, I think I just answered my own question...

Same for me. WebDAV isn't exactly a difficult thing to maintain, it's a pretty simple protocol based entirely on HTTP extensions. Removing things like this only makes things more difficult for Mac users, especially when it's not noted in the release notes. That may be a major feature for an enterprise user, and now it's gone with no way to revert. Great, thanks Apple.

Seems each release these days removes almost as much as it adds - Numbers got bigger sheets and background colours, a new theme browser (wow!) and lost WebDAV. That's it. All of that in a big-number point release. It's still hugely lacking in cell referencing (you still can't even fill down or specify a range). Lack of ranges is especially annoying when using graphs, as you have to add every single row's reference, plus with thousands of points Numbers slows to an absolute crawl (i9 2019 iMac here), while Excel and OpenOffice are both fine.

The push toward (or perhaps requirement to use) their own services and protocols is extremely reminiscent of MS in the late 90's and early 2000s, when Apple was championed as "open". Unfortunately these roles seem to be slowly reversing, I do not like it one bit.

elijahg said:

razorpit said:

While I don't use WebDAV, I imagine there are a lot of people out there that do.

This is the type of stuff I have my gripes with Apple on. Why stop people who know what they are doing, building low cost in-house services, and force them to use more costly, maybe less secure services which they do not have complete control over?

Never mind, I think I just answered my own question...

Same for me. WebDAV isn't exactly a difficult thing to maintain, it's a pretty simple protocol based entirely on HTTP extensions. Removing things like this only makes things more difficult for Mac users, especially when it's not noted in the release notes. That may be a major feature for an enterprise user, and now it's gone with no way to revert. Great, thanks Apple.

Seems each release these days removes almost as much as it adds - Numbers got bigger sheets and background colours, a new theme browser (wow!) and lost WebDAV. That's it. All of that in a big-number point release. It's still hugely lacking in cell referencing (you still can't even fill down or specify a range). Lack of ranges is especially annoying when using graphs, as you have to add every single row's reference, plus with thousands of points Numbers slows to an absolute crawl (i9 2019 iMac here), while Excel and OpenOffice are both fine.

The push toward (or perhaps requirement to use) their own services and protocols is extremely reminiscent of MS in the late 90's and early 2000s, when Apple was championed as "open". Unfortunately these roles seem to be slowly reversing, I do not like it one bit.

This has been an observation of mine for some time, too. Not just in regard to the pushed services, but also in the mounting plethora of unresolved bugs and clear obsession with MBA-style business “leadership”.

Apple aren’t what they used to be. At this point, Tim Cook’s progressive sociopolitical stances are the only thing for me to like about him...

...but I know he’s stuck in the wealthy-person’s bubble (or self-isolated in an ivory tower); his economic echo-chamber must have an impact on the way he sees things when he’s thinking “socially progressive”. Survivorship bias, a problem of so many “successful” business people, must be an issue there.

Also, Apple are another big company that have been using their cash stockpiles to increase share prices, which the current economic crisis has proven to be a short-sighted and self-destructive practice... as is the whole “public ownership” gambling system we’ve mistaken for an economic system.

Apple have a history of acting like they know what’s best for everyone via their product and design choices, but they’ve been doing a lot of self-sabotage since 2013, and it always seems to be about power users being shafted while pushing for yet more dependence on Apple and focus on mass-market end-users (“because iPhone sales”)... which is itself odd and notably flawed in how Apple keep behaving as though all customers are the same level of wealth as Apple’s neighborhood in California.

I don’t use WebDAV, but I do see this change as a way to push an Apple service... one which many power users and businesses don’t want to be forced to rely on because it costs them extra (extra time, extra subscription fees, reliance on outside management and support, etc). That hurts such users, and it will eventually contribute to how Apple are constantly hurting their opportunities with organizational customers.

Apple were always a weird company, but the weirdness continues to grow into increasingly self-blind territory. 

dysamoria said:

elijahg said:

razorpit said:

While I don't use WebDAV, I imagine there are a lot of people out there that do.

This is the type of stuff I have my gripes with Apple on. Why stop people who know what they are doing, building low cost in-house services, and force them to use more costly, maybe less secure services which they do not have complete control over?

Never mind, I think I just answered my own question...

Same for me. WebDAV isn't exactly a difficult thing to maintain, it's a pretty simple protocol based entirely on HTTP extensions. Removing things like this only makes things more difficult for Mac users, especially when it's not noted in the release notes. That may be a major feature for an enterprise user, and now it's gone with no way to revert. Great, thanks Apple.

Seems each release these days removes almost as much as it adds - Numbers got bigger sheets and background colours, a new theme browser (wow!) and lost WebDAV. That's it. All of that in a big-number point release. It's still hugely lacking in cell referencing (you still can't even fill down or specify a range). Lack of ranges is especially annoying when using graphs, as you have to add every single row's reference, plus with thousands of points Numbers slows to an absolute crawl (i9 2019 iMac here), while Excel and OpenOffice are both fine.

The push toward (or perhaps requirement to use) their own services and protocols is extremely reminiscent of MS in the late 90's and early 2000s, when Apple was championed as "open". Unfortunately these roles seem to be slowly reversing, I do not like it one bit.

This has been an observation of mine for some time, too. Not just in regard to the pushed services, but also in the mounting plethora of unresolved bugs and clear obsession with MBA-style business “leadership”.

Apple aren’t what they used to be. At this point, Tim Cook’s progressive sociopolitical stances are the only thing for me to like about him...

...but I know he’s stuck in the wealthy-person’s bubble (or self-isolated in an ivory tower); his economic echo-chamber must have an impact on the way he sees things when he’s thinking “socially progressive”. Survivorship bias, a problem of so many “successful” business people, must be an issue there.

Also, Apple are another big company that have been using their cash stockpiles to increase share prices, which the current economic crisis has proven to be a short-sighted and self-destructive practice... as is the whole “public ownership” gambling system we’ve mistaken for an economic system.

Apple have a history of acting like they know what’s best for everyone via their product and design choices, but they’ve been doing a lot of self-sabotage since 2013, and it always seems to be about power users being shafted while pushing for yet more dependence on Apple and focus on mass-market end-users (“because iPhone sales”)... which is itself odd and notably flawed in how Apple keep behaving as though all customers are the same level of wealth as Apple’s neighborhood in California.

I don’t use WebDAV, but I do see this change as a way to push an Apple service... one which many power users and businesses don’t want to be forced to rely on because it costs them extra (extra time, extra subscription fees, reliance on outside management and support, etc). That hurts such users, and it will eventually contribute to how Apple are constantly hurting their opportunities with organizational customers.

Apple were always a weird company, but the weirdness continues to grow into increasingly self-blind territory. 

I completely agree. The occasional "fallow" year we get with iOS and macOS updates is supposed to fix vast numbers of bugs, but nothing much seems to change. I have no idea where all the R&D money Apple is spending is going, the R&D spend seems to be rising at an exponential rate with an exponential decline in the number of features/products, and the quality of the software. 

I've never been a fan of Cook. Whilst I do agree with his sociopolitical stances generally, I think him using Apple as a platform to spout them is wrong - I have met people who won't use Apple's products due to Cook's stances. And yes he is definitely stuck in the wealthy person's bubble. His fairly socialist ideals, sharing and equality, doesn't help Apple's sales or his message when their phones start at twice the price of the average Android one, plus Apple's wealth is more than anyone else. There's nothing socialist about that at all. 

I agree on the buying back shares point too. That again goes against Tim's message, all it does is increase income for shareholders, not the poorer in society. It also proves Apple hasn't a clue what to do with the cash pile they have - which wouldn't be so massive if their prices were a bit more reasonable.

The pushback against Apple's "we know best" seems to have become stronger in recent years. I'm still really pissed they removed 32-bit support, and essentially forced an upgrade to Catalina if you wanted (or had a new device with) iOS 13. It's unfortunate that Apple refuses to accept people want choices. People need to interact with Windows, with Windows servers, Linux servers, Oracle servers and everything that isn't Apple. They block themselves out through their own incompatibilities. It's not even just power users - businesses use those power user features too (WebDAV for example) and Apple just throws them in the bin. That's it, you're SOL, your entire business's workflow is screwed overnight. 

The forced reliance on an external service is especially stupid now when Internet load is at an all time high. With WebDAV you could have sync setup at quiet times, or overnight. With iCloud there is no option for that, it just uploads whenever it wants and if you don't live in an urban area with a high speed symmetric connection, your connection is hosed for hours. iCloud backups absolutely hammer ADSL connections. Maybe with Apple's software engineers working from home they'll realise how woefully lacking the iCloud sync client's bandwidth fairness/QOS is.

I have to agree. I used to love Apple, I would never hear a bad word said about them. I would suck up the things that weren't quite right as they were vastly outweighed by the progression. I used to be excited to see what new things they were adding or what new products they were releasing, I now have a fear for what has been removed in each release instead. Which really damps the elation I used to experience every time a keynote neared :(