Apple had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week - here's what happened

MONDAY: The week started off pretty good! Apple unveiled three new premium services at its big event, including Arcade, News Plus, and TV Plus.

Lots of celebrities showed up to plug their upcoming shows for Apple TV Plus, including Jennifer Aniston, Jason Momoa, J.J. Abrams, Kumail Nanjiani, and others. Oprah Winfrey even made an appearance, to talk about her two original documentaries coming exclusively to Apple TV Plus.

It was a star-studded event — but also, Apple didn't announce a price or even a launch date for Apple TV Plus, making some scratch their heads.

Read more: Here's everything Apple announced at its big March event

TUESDAY: Just one day after Apple announced its subscription services for magazines and newspapers, Apple's News app crashed on both iOS and Mac devices.

Apple fixed the crashing issues later in the day, but once the service became operational, customers complained about the app's lack of intuitiveness.

TUESDAY: Apple continued its patent fight with Qualcomm, with one judge from the US International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling that Apple's iPhones infringe on a Qualcomm patent.

The ruling isn't final, but the judge recommended an import ban on iPhones that violate the patent — specifically, the iPhone 7 lineup, iPhone 8 lineup, and iPhone X models that use Intel's chips — which would prevent them from being sold in the US. A panel of judges would need to approve this ruling before it moved on to further presidential review.

For what it's worth, Apple was found to have not infringed on a handful of separate Qualcomm patents in a second ruling the ITC handed down on Tuesday. Apple released a statement to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, saying that Qualcomm is using these patent cases "to distract from having to answer for the real issues, their monopolistic business practices."

WEDNESDAY: Apple finally issued its first apology to MacBook owners who are still experiencing keyboard issues.

An Apple spokesperson provided Business Insider with the following statement: "We are aware that a small number of users are having issues with their third-generation butterfly keyboard and for that we are sorry. The vast majority of Mac notebook customers are having a positive experience with the new keyboard."

Customers that own Apple's MacBook laptops — specifically those with butterfly keyboard designs — have been experiencing issues ever since Apple decided to reinvent its keyboards to be thinner around 2015. Even after two redesigns of that keyboard, people complain about persisting issues like common keys not registering, or over-registering, like "E" and "R."

There are multiple class-action lawsuits being filed against Apple for these keyboards, and 35,000 people have also signed a Change.org petition asking for Apple to recall its defective keyboards.

FRIDAY: Alleged images of Apple's next iPhone leak online.

Steve Hemmerstoffer, a.k.a. "OnLeaks," released schematics on Twitter of what appear to be the new iPhone coming later this year. The schematics line up with previous rumors and reports, which point to Apple releasing an iPhone with a three-lens camera system in 2019.

Apple is big on secrecy, and does not like leaks. It has famously created a crack team of ex-NSA and FBI agents that work around the clock, year-round, to prevent and investigate product leaks.

Just another leak seemingly confirming my January #iPhoneXI prototype leak accuracy... 😏 pic.twitter.com/qVWF59GgKr

FRIDAY: Apple's lead architect on its custom iOS chips decides to leave the company.

Apple's A-series chips are one of the distinguishing factors that set Apple's mobile devices like iPhones and iPads apart from the competition: They are unique systems on a chip (SoCs), which handle the computing, graphics, image processing, motion processing, artificial intelligence, and security of the devices themselves. In other words, they are extremely important.

Gerard Williams III was Apple's lead designer on these chips, from the A7 chip that powered the iPhone 5S from 2013, to the A12X that powers Apple's latest iPhone XS and XS Max. And on Friday, CNET broke the news that Williams has left the company.

It's unclear what Williams will do next, but Apple's custom chips play a big role in Apple's mobile success. Of course, Apple still has an entire team dedicated to this effort, and losing one person doesn't necessarily mean anything at all in terms of short- or long-term change, but Apple will likely miss Williams in more ways than one.

FRIDAY: Apple cancels AirPower, its wireless charging mat that debuted almost two years ago.

In 2016, customers were not happy that Apple abandoned the headphone jack in the new iPhone 7.

So, in 2017, Apple wanted to make it clear to everyone that it was serious about a truly wireless future.

Apple did something at its September 2017 event it doesn't normally do: It unveiled a product that was still in its concept stages, and not close to ready.

The AirPower wireless charging mat could charge your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods simultaneously, and the mat could recognize each device and charge it accordingly. Apple even created nice software around this accessory so you could see the charging state of all of your devices, right from your iPhone's screen.

Apple said AirPower would be released in 2018, but the entire year passed, and we heard nothing from Apple. References of AirPower were quietly removed from Apple's website in September. The only things we heard were a few reports, which said Apple was having engineering issues with AirPower's thermals (as in, the product was overheating).

Finally, AirPower had some signs of life in March. References to AirPower popped up on Apple's Australian website. Apple released its second-generation AirPods, which actually showed a picture of AirPower on the back of the packaging (and still do, to this day), suggesting an imminent AirPower announcement.

But on Friday, Apple dropped the news to TechCrunch: It was canceling AirPower once and for all, saying could not live up to Apple's high bar for quality.

Apple canceling AirPower was, in many ways, unprecedented, and embarrassing. Apple had never announced and shown off a product, and then canceled it before its public debut. Of course, it's probably for the best that Apple recognized the issue and killed it instead of pouring time and resources into re-engineering the mat, which may not have been worth the investment. But it's not a good look that Apple was fine with unveiling a product that wasn't close to ready.

But, of course, the week wasn't all bad.

Some good things that happened to Apple last week:

• It shipped the third-generation iPad Air and fifth-generation iPad Mini, which both support the Apple Pencil for the first time.
• It released ECG functionality for Apple Watches in Hong Kong and 19 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
• Apple Pay expanded into six new countries: Austria, Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
• CEO Tim Cook rode Apple's magic elevator with Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg.

Apple also unveiled its most important announcement of 2019 so far: The Apple Card, its answer to the credit card.