One problem is too many updates. This causes developers to care less about quality. They think the bugs can simply be removed by a quick update. They don't know the updates are using up users valuable time. Each update the user will not be able to use the device for more than half hour. If you multiply half hour by hundreds of millions of devices and by more than ten updates in a year, this is a tremendous waste.
I have used Windows at work. Windows will update almost weekly. Apple developers seem copying what Microsoft.
Forced updates are not enforced on the Mac - but your point is correct. There must be millions of hours lost by Window updates every year.
Why can’t Apple do continuous improvement rather than having to wait for a new OS version? How about decoupling apps like mail, calendar, notes etc. from the OS so they can be updated on a more frequent basis?
Whats coupled and decoupled with the OS seems to be a mystery inside an enigma. Same with the Mac where Safari is decoupled. but Mail is coupled. Meanwhile on iOs both are coupled. there is no logic.
Notsofast said: This often happens in the tech pundit world because even well intentioned writers are so absorbed in their work that they lose perspective.
It does seem like tech pundits have gone off the proverbial deep-end this year in a quest to find something that can be deemed a failure at Apple.
You're both welcome to believe what you want, but it took a big event to convince the Navy that they needed to up their game. It may take the same for Apple.
As clearly demonstrated, I am on Apple's side when I feel that they are in the right. I am not obligated to cheerlead them for everything they do -- or fail to do.
Operating systems are very large and already employ rigorous engineering practices or they wouldn't get built. The Linux kernel by itself is 5M lines of code. OS X Tiger was 86M lines of code. WindowsNT 5.2 had 2000 developers and 2400 testers for 50 million lines of code.
The defect rate is amazingly low and there hasn't been a real world "big event" for MacOS. Up their game? The number of software companies that can compete in the same game can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.
You guys are all full of it. Especially software developers who's never worked on a project involving more than 10 devs and still think they have a clue what large scale software development looks like and how "poor" Apple, Google and Microsoft defect rates are. The difference in scale is like building a barn and building the Burj Khalifa. One you can throw together with your neighbors who have built barns in the past. The other is the tallest building in the world with 211 floors.
Matchbooks from the launch ceremony, lessons in hubris.
Why is this hubris? The pressure hull of the Thresher failed after exceeding max depth by hundreds of feet. Diving below the ocean is inherently dangerous like space travel but it's not hubris to build subs or spaceships. It's only hubris to assume they won't ever blow up or sink.
Notsofast said: This often happens in the tech pundit world because even well intentioned writers are so absorbed in their work that they lose perspective.
It does seem like tech pundits have gone off the proverbial deep-end this year in a quest to find something that can be deemed a failure at Apple.
You're both welcome to believe what you want, but it took a big event to convince the Navy that they needed to up their game. It may take the same for Apple.
As clearly demonstrated, I am on Apple's side when I feel that they are in the right. I am not obligated to cheerlead them for everything they do -- or fail to do.
Operating systems are very large and already employ rigorous engineering practices or they wouldn't get built. The Linux kernel by itself is 5M lines of code. OS X Tiger was 86M lines of code. WindowsNT 5.2 had 2000 developers and 2400 testers for 50 million lines of code.
The defect rate is amazingly low and there hasn't been a real world "big event" for MacOS. Up their game? The number of software companies that can compete in the same game can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.
You guys are all full of it. Especially software developers who's never worked on a project involving more than 10 devs and still think they have a clue what large scale software development looks like and how "poor" Apple, Google and Microsoft defect rates are. The difference in scale is like building a barn and building the Burj Khalifa. One you can throw together with your neighbors who have built barns in the past. The other is the tallest building in the world with 211 floors.
And folks do have software QA on par with SUBSAFE but only for life critical software. Which MacOS and iOS isn't.
Large and small software companies alike use the same kind of engineering technologies. Agile linked with bug tracking. Large companies divide their engineers into teams, and those teams are never overly large. Apple in particular ( at least historically) never had large teams. It didn't in fact have Agile for years, and might have been better off without it.
Notsofast said: This often happens in the tech pundit world because even well intentioned writers are so absorbed in their work that they lose perspective.
It does seem like tech pundits have gone off the proverbial deep-end this year in a quest to find something that can be deemed a failure at Apple.
You're both welcome to believe what you want, but it took a big event to convince the Navy that they needed to up their game. It may take the same for Apple.
As clearly demonstrated, I am on Apple's side when I feel that they are in the right. I am not obligated to cheerlead them for everything they do -- or fail to do.
Operating systems are very large and already employ rigorous engineering practices or they wouldn't get built. The Linux kernel by itself is 5M lines of code. OS X Tiger was 86M lines of code. WindowsNT 5.2 had 2000 developers and 2400 testers for 50 million lines of code.
The defect rate is amazingly low and there hasn't been a real world "big event" for MacOS. Up their game? The number of software companies that can compete in the same game can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.
You guys are all full of it. Especially software developers who's never worked on a project involving more than 10 devs and still think they have a clue what large scale software development looks like and how "poor" Apple, Google and Microsoft defect rates are. The difference in scale is like building a barn and building the Burj Khalifa. One you can throw together with your neighbors who have built barns in the past. The other is the tallest building in the world with 211 floors.
And folks do have software QA on par with SUBSAFE but only for life critical software. Which MacOS and iOS isn't.
Large and small software companies alike use the same kind of engineering technologies. Agile linked with bug tracking. Large companies divide their engineers into teams, and those teams are never overly large. Apple in particular ( at least historically) never had large teams. It didn't in fact have Agile for years, and might have been better off without it.
1) Many software estimation techniques don't work with small projects. Those that do work well on small projects (story points) aren't as useful at scale because bottoms up takes too much time/effort to produce. 2) Dividing 2000 developers into 400 agile teams does not reduce overall communication costs or complexity. It just moves it around. 3) There are 520 open job reqs for iOS developers at apple. Assuming a 15% churn rate thats around 3500 iOS developer positions across Apple.
My take is YES. And the bugs are only a tiny part of why. Apple has, yet again, done a keynote with absolutely nothing noteworthy. A few incremental changes, things that YET AGAIN look different, move around, don't work the same way.
It's more change for the sake of change, and no focus on what really matters: Making it work for users. Moving stuff around is the opposite of helpful. Making things look different is the opposite of useful. And not focusing on the things that really DO matter, the actual functionality and stability, is making it harder and harder to justify recommending Mac. And what I do for a living is make Macs work.
And yet again we've gone through another keynote and we have no new hardware. Well, ok, that's not entirely true, there's a new watch band. That's it, that's all we get.
The Mac mini is a joke. The Mac Pro is a joke. The MacBook "Pro" is a joke. The iMac Pro is a joke. All for different reasons, but for a computer company the size of Apple, it's inexcusable that they're selling one computer model that hasn't been upgraded since 2013, one that hasn't been upgraded since 2014, and BOTH of them are downgrades from the previous versions. It's inexcusable that their flagship laptop has soldered RAM and storage, and tops out at 16GB RAM in mid 2018. It's inexcusable that their concept of a current "Pro" desktop is an all-in-one that they made so thin that it can't even run to its full potential because it doesn't have sufficient thermal management.
Yes, Tim Cook needs to go. And Jony Ive needs to go with him. They've both lost sight of the vision to make insanely great computers.
(And seriously, they just finally figured out how to make Waze work on a car screen? Inexcusable.)
My take is YES. And the bugs are only a tiny part of why. Apple has, yet again, done a keynote with absolutely nothing noteworthy. A few incremental changes, things that YET AGAIN look different, move around, don't work the same way.
It's more change for the sake of change, and no focus on what really matters: Making it work for users. Moving stuff around is the opposite of helpful. Making things look different is the opposite of useful. And not focusing on the things that really DO matter, the actual functionality and stability, is making it harder and harder to justify recommending Mac. And what I do for a living is make Macs work.
And yet again we've gone through another keynote and we have no new hardware. Well, ok, that's not entirely true, there's a new watch band. That's it, that's all we get.
The Mac mini is a joke. The Mac Pro is a joke. The MacBook "Pro" is a joke. The iMac Pro is a joke. All for different reasons, but for a computer company the size of Apple, it's inexcusable that they're selling one computer model that hasn't been upgraded since 2013, one that hasn't been upgraded since 2014, and BOTH of them are downgrades from the previous versions. It's inexcusable that their flagship laptop has soldered RAM and storage, and tops out at 16GB RAM in mid 2018. It's inexcusable that their concept of a current "Pro" desktop is an all-in-one that they made so thin that it can't even run to its full potential because it doesn't have sufficient thermal management.
Yes, Tim Cook needs to go. And Jony Ive needs to go with him. They've both lost sight of the vision to make insanely great computers.
(And seriously, they just finally figured out how to make Waze work on a car screen? Inexcusable.)
Maybe it’s time for you to go, if you think they announced “absolutely nothing noteworthy”, which is intellectually dishonest at best. It’s not a hardware event, those things will come. But hey, let’s fire the leader of the most successful tech company ever along with the designer who helped take it there.
My parents taught me to read 76 years ago. They suggested I try not to waste time on reading STUPID. Trying to live up to that standard, this is the first I’ve learned of an attempted putsch on Apple leaders.
iOs quality is still great. I can't even remember what the issue was back last year.
Just this morning, my iPhone started popping up an iCloud login dialog... *AGAIN*. It seems to do this every month or so, attempting to teach me to indiscriminately enter my password when I see a popup box. (i.e.: to be phished).
This, is an example of modern Apple 'quality'. I'm sure they'll move UI elements around a bunch and make things less clear too...
I have no scientific basis for this, but subjectively, iOS 11 was one of the buggiest releases in quite a while. I feel like 11.4 is finally getting to where it should be. Not just were there bugs, but there were significant bugs. There was much that was re-written in iOS11, so it's not surprising, but as an end user it's frustrating nonetheless.
Maybe it’s time for you to go, if you think they announced “absolutely nothing noteworthy”, which is intellectually dishonest at best. It’s not a hardware event, those things will come. But hey, let’s fire the leader of the most successful tech company ever along with the designer who helped take it there.
And this is exactly the kind of useless post that I unfortunately expected.
I'd prefer they realize that they're not contributing any more, and decide to retire. But if they won't, then yes, fire them both.
Don't get me wrong, Ive did some amazing work in the early days. But he's out of good ideas, otherwise we'd have seen some. At this point, all we're getting out of him is garbage.
And at this point, Apple is riding on old innovation. Their hardware lineup is either ancient or inadequate. Their software is getting worse with every release, I constantly dread what's going to break when I install an update.
Sure, they're making money now. They were making money in the '80s too, riding on the Apple ]['s sales while letting the platform get stale and slowly decline for many years before it all came crashing down. Don't think it can't happen again, because it absolutely can. Apple is not invincible.
And no, it's not intellectually dishonest to say they announced absolutely nothing noteworthy. It's absolutely true. They announced a few "well, that's nice" features, along with a few "what took you so long" features. That's it, there's nothing else.
And hardware announcements frequently happen at WWDC. This year, they were sorely needed, and Apple failed to deliver AGAIN. Saying "those things will come" when they're YEARS late is what's intellectually dishonest.
Maybe it’s time for you to go, if you think they announced “absolutely nothing noteworthy”, which is intellectually dishonest at best. It’s not a hardware event, those things will come. But hey, let’s fire the leader of the most successful tech company ever along with the designer who helped take it there.
...
And hardware announcements frequently happen at WWDC. This year, they were sorely needed, and Apple failed to deliver AGAIN. Saying "those things will come" when they're YEARS late is what's intellectually dishonest.
Last year's hardware bonanza was an oddity. The previous three years there was precisely nothing for hardware.
Mike Wuerthele said: Last year's hardware bonanza was an oddity. The previous three years there was precisely nothing for hardware.
I can't remember which thread I posted this in the other day... but here you go...
Up until 2003, they were pretty much pure developers conference.
2003
Power Mac G5
iSight camera
2004
Cinema Display
2005
- (transition to x86)
2006
Mac Pro
2007
iPhone
2008
iPhone
2009
MBP
iPhone
2010
iPhone
2011
multi-touch trackpads
2012
MBP (& Retina display)
iMac
iPad
2013
MBA
Mac Pro
2014
-
2015
-
2016
-
2017
iMac
MacBook
MBP
iMac Pro
iPad
HomePod
Up until 2003, summer hardware announcements happened at MacWorld Boston/NY.
And really, 2012 was the last year of good hardware. The 2013 Mac "Pro" was (and still is, because it's still a shipping machine) a disaster.
Oh, and last year's incremental update on the iMac is now a year old. I guess Intel hasn't released any new... oh, wait. They have.
Honestly, the mini makes me angrier than anything else. I've got clients who need new computers. The best Mac mini is a used 2012. And at this point the iMac is a year old, I can't even advise buying that now.
darkvader said: Up until 2003, summer hardware announcements happened at MacWorld Boston/NY.
And really, 2012 was the last year of good hardware. The 2013 Mac "Pro" was (and still is, because it's still a shipping machine) a disaster.
Oh, and last year's incremental update on the iMac is now a year old. I guess Intel hasn't released any new... oh, wait. They have.
Honestly, the mini makes me angrier than anything else. I've got clients who need new computers. The best Mac mini is a used 2012. And at this point the iMac is a year old, I can't even advise buying that now.
I hear you. I'm probably going to have to overpay now and get a 2013 Mac Pro because they really have nothing else. I'll just buy the minimum one and maybe do some upgrading myself... a few places have somewhat reasonable prices on refurbs.
I haven't been recommending Apple for a couple of years now (non-mobile)... just been kind of neutral. I'm probably done being neutral now. And, I have to decide for my own family if it's time to jump from the sinking ship (at least as a Mac user). Unbelievable.
Since there had never been a 'perfectly good', from where one decided that it was 'bad'. Software is a continuously fluid improvements, sometimes you get it right but most of the times you don't. Hence: it would never stop revise.
When there is QA lacking due company culture, it makes zero sense to single out one person and fire him, unless the aforementioned lax QA was the direct result of that person knowingly sabotaging software development pipeline...
Apple's software quality has been noticeably on the decline for many years now. They're well still ahead of their main competition (Google and Microsoft), but this may or may not last. It seems to have gotten worse around the time that they started doing public betas - I'm wondering if in-house testing was scaled down in conjunction with that.
There have been show-stopping bugs in every version of System, MacOS, OS, MacOS X, and macOS, I've iterated most of them in another forum post.
Having seen them all in one form or another, I don't think that it's gotten worse -- but I think the cacophony about it is louder as there are more users.
I worked at Apple when System 7.5 was released. This was about a year before Jobs came back. A new Control Panel called the TCP/IP Control Panel made its debut with 7.5. It was a necessary component for Mac users because it allowed them to connect to the internet. And it didn’t work. It was a total piece of crap. The few engineers left at Apple that weren’t busy making a mess of Copland (which I saw, btw), couldn’t fix it.
So for several long weeks, customers were intensely irate after buying Apple’s new PowerMac 7200 (itself riddled with problems), only to find out that the Control Panel they needed to connect to the internet just wouldn’t work. For weeks Apple had no answers, placing a tremendous strain on Apple’s support staff (at that time Apple still had a tremendously talented in house support staff in Austin Texas). I was a member of the High End Group, which supported the Mac OS and the high end Power PCs.
The problem got so bad that the engineers wouldn’t talk to us. We basically had to BS customers with unnecessary Clean Installs, “zapping the PRAM” (three times, not once!), and creativially imagining what Extension was conflicting with the TCP/IP control panel because it was Apple’s official stance that the OS and TCP/IP worked “out of the box.” I still remember my manger giving us instructions to say that. I felt really bad for the customers. But it really wasn’t a PR nightmare because Windows 95 was out and most of the industry wasn’t talking about Apple anymore. That’s when you know you’re in trouble.
My point is this. In 2012, after social media finished mourning Steve Jobs’ death, a giant target was painted on Apple’s back and we witnessed the first major social media bullying campaign in history directed at a company. There are YouTube channels that bash Apple on a daily basis, and yet they owe their entire YouTube fame and income to Apple. I wonder if some of these YouTube channels are really Samsung or Google propaganda channels.
Yet despite Tim Cook’s mistakes, (I’ve been a vocal critic of his handling of the Mac lineup, especially the Mac Pro), and Larry Ellison’s early predictions of doom for Apple, Mr. Cook has done a damn good job at out-lasting the haters. Tim Cook is way too smart to lose the Apple brand to those who want it to go away. Way too smart. After all, he had the best teacher in Jobs. Besides, the Apple haters have never actually figured out what it is that keep us Apple sheep loyal to Apple. It’s obvious to me. It’s the reason I went to work for Apple in the first place. Maybe it’s part reality distortion field. Seriously though, it’s the macOS, the Finder and the OS that runs it’s mobile device offshoots. Yeah, some of the hardware is cool. Apple is a hardware company after all. But even Tim Cook knows it’s the OS. Ever noticed that even now, the Finder isn’t much different than System 7s Finder? You know what the best thing Steve Jobs ever did? It was NeXT. You know what NeXT really was? It was Jobs’ 10-year sabbatical from the soul sucking tech industry of the ‘80s and ‘90s, that gave them the space to perfect the OS and the infrastructure that has powered our last 20 years. Even if Jobs didn’t see the future exactly as it would eventually turn out, he had the time and the taste to take a beautiful and stylish vector-based interface and build it on top of a UNIX like kernel, plus include the remainder of what he saw at Xerox - Interpersonal Computing. macOS and iOS are beautiful and powerful environments that are supported by a ton of developers. One cannot say the same for Windows or Linux. Android has no real shared desktop environment.
It’s now July 2018, and in a year or two when Apple finally gets its Mac offerings strong, and iOS and the A Series chips have discouraged many Android phone manufacturers out of business, (when Apple, Google and possibly Microsoft are left standing - Samsung looses interest in smartphones partially because Google will push them out), the Apple hate trend will have run its course and these little software issues will long have been forgotten. IMO, of course.
Comments
Whats coupled and decoupled with the OS seems to be a mystery inside an enigma. Same with the Mac where Safari is decoupled. but Mail is coupled. Meanwhile on iOs both are coupled. there is no logic.
The defect rate is amazingly low and there hasn't been a real world "big event" for MacOS. Up their game? The number of software companies that can compete in the same game can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.
You guys are all full of it. Especially software developers who's never worked on a project involving more than 10 devs and still think they have a clue what large scale software development looks like and how "poor" Apple, Google and Microsoft defect rates are. The difference in scale is like building a barn and building the Burj Khalifa. One you can throw together with your neighbors who have built barns in the past. The other is the tallest building in the world with 211 floors.
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/
And folks do have software QA on par with SUBSAFE but only for life critical software. Which MacOS and iOS isn't.
Why is this hubris? The pressure hull of the Thresher failed after exceeding max depth by hundreds of feet. Diving below the ocean is inherently dangerous like space travel but it's not hubris to build subs or spaceships. It's only hubris to assume they won't ever blow up or sink.
2) Dividing 2000 developers into 400 agile teams does not reduce overall communication costs or complexity. It just moves it around.
3) There are 520 open job reqs for iOS developers at apple. Assuming a 15% churn rate thats around 3500 iOS developer positions across Apple.
https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?jobFunction=SFWEG#&ss=iOS developer&t=0&so=&j=SFWEG&lo=0*USA&pN=0
It seems to do this every month or so, attempting to teach me to indiscriminately enter my password when I see a popup box. (i.e.: to be phished).
This, is an example of modern Apple 'quality'.
I'm sure they'll move UI elements around a bunch and make things less clear too...
I haven't been recommending Apple for a couple of years now (non-mobile)... just been kind of neutral. I'm probably done being neutral now.
So for several long weeks, customers were intensely irate after buying Apple’s new PowerMac 7200 (itself riddled with problems), only to find out that the Control Panel they needed to connect to the internet just wouldn’t work. For weeks Apple had no answers, placing a tremendous strain on Apple’s support staff (at that time Apple still had a tremendously talented in house support staff in Austin Texas). I was a member of the High End Group, which supported the Mac OS and the high end Power PCs.
The problem got so bad that the engineers wouldn’t talk to us. We basically had to BS customers with unnecessary Clean Installs, “zapping the PRAM” (three times, not once!), and creativially imagining what Extension was conflicting with the TCP/IP control panel because it was Apple’s official stance that the OS and TCP/IP worked “out of the box.” I still remember my manger giving us instructions to say that. I felt really bad for the customers. But it really wasn’t a PR nightmare because Windows 95 was out and most of the industry wasn’t talking about Apple anymore. That’s when you know you’re in trouble.
My point is this. In 2012, after social media finished mourning Steve Jobs’ death, a giant target was painted on Apple’s back and we witnessed the first major social media bullying campaign in history directed at a company. There are YouTube channels that bash Apple on a daily basis, and yet they owe their entire YouTube fame and income to Apple. I wonder if some of these YouTube channels are really Samsung or Google propaganda channels.
Yet despite Tim Cook’s mistakes, (I’ve been a vocal critic of his handling of the Mac lineup, especially the Mac Pro), and Larry Ellison’s early predictions of doom for Apple, Mr. Cook has done a damn good job at out-lasting the haters. Tim Cook is way too smart to lose the Apple brand to those who want it to go away. Way too smart. After all, he had the best teacher in Jobs. Besides, the Apple haters have never actually figured out what it is that keep us Apple sheep loyal to Apple. It’s obvious to me. It’s the reason I went to work for Apple in the first place. Maybe it’s part reality distortion field. Seriously though, it’s the macOS, the Finder and the OS that runs it’s mobile device offshoots. Yeah, some of the hardware is cool. Apple is a hardware company after all. But even Tim Cook knows it’s the OS. Ever noticed that even now, the Finder isn’t much different than System 7s Finder? You know what the best thing Steve Jobs ever did? It was NeXT. You know what NeXT really was? It was Jobs’ 10-year sabbatical from the soul sucking tech industry of the ‘80s and ‘90s, that gave them the space to perfect the OS and the infrastructure that has powered our last 20 years. Even if Jobs didn’t see the future exactly as it would eventually turn out, he had the time and the taste to take a beautiful and stylish vector-based interface and build it on top of a UNIX like kernel, plus include the remainder of what he saw at Xerox - Interpersonal Computing. macOS and iOS are beautiful and powerful environments that are supported by a ton of developers. One cannot say the same for Windows or Linux. Android has no real shared desktop environment.
It’s now July 2018, and in a year or two when Apple finally gets its Mac offerings strong, and iOS and the A Series chips have discouraged many Android phone manufacturers out of business, (when Apple, Google and possibly Microsoft are left standing - Samsung looses interest in smartphones partially because Google will push them out), the Apple hate trend will have run its course and these little software issues will long have been forgotten. IMO, of course.