Apple convinced an entire generation that computers could be beautiful. Then they shipped Notes.

What happened to the company that obsessed over the curve of an icon, the weight of a font, the perfect spacing between elements? Apple Notes, in its present visual form, exists as evidence that even Apple has forgotten why design matters.

A new generation of developers is rediscovering that craft matters. That users deserve better than startup chaos with false momentum. Sometimes beauty is not vanity, it is a necessity.

The next breakthrough in personal computing won't come from adding more features. It will come from rediscovering why we fell in love with computers in the first place, actually to be specific, why we fell in love with the iPhone's interpretation of a personal computer. But, it will come in the form of software. Hardware is done, for now.

Do you remember when software felt magical? What happened to apps that made you excited to use them? Are we settling for "good enough" when we deserve "impossibly great"?

When did functional become the enemy of beautiful?