I’ll never upgrade because of older Adobe software incompatibility. Sierra was the end of the road for me.
Even when Sierra stops getting security updates in a few years? Living dangerously, my friend.
That said, I wish Apple would slow down a bit. Every year is getting to be a pain.
I really don't mind if the changes are substantive. But they have been, for the most part, stylistic, and for me many of those stylistic changes have been steps back. Same is true with the iOS updates (for instance, the new iPad virtual keyboard in iOS11 had to be most utterly crappy, POS keyboard I've used in my life).
Just seems like a lot of 'busy work' is being thrown at the iOS/MacOS/tvOS/WatchOS folks.
Apple needs to fundamentally rethink its software upgrade strategy. It's pretty much like Microsoft used to be, at this point: intrusive and annoying.
I agree with all of the above. In edu needing to support every subtle nuance of OS incompatibility from year to year is getting to be a real challenge.
I don't necessarily see what Apple thinks they are gaining by offering a yearly major OS upgrade as opposed to incremental updates that fix bugs and security holes. In fact if anything I feel like they are removing features or further limiting what we are trying to do.
I discover new iOS bugs on an almost daily basis, at this point (yes, i report them all to Apple, but they don't care). Apple's QA seems barely extent, or they have only one full-time programmer in house...
Often they do care. I just got a response on Bug Reporter regarding a Safari bug I found in High Sierra asking for further clarification on duplicating the error.
A few weeks ago, I got a very detailed, thoughtful, page-long response from an Apple engineer regarding a problem I was having with duplicate volume names and stuff in Server's File Sharing.
It's kind of offensive to assert they have a dearth of programmers or QA — of course they have a ton of them, but these are complex products living in the hands of a billion (or whatever) people. Let's be real.
I’ll never upgrade because of older Adobe software incompatibility. Sierra was the end of the road for me.
Even when Sierra stops getting security updates in a few years? Living dangerously, my friend.
That said, I wish Apple would slow down a bit. Every year is getting to be a pain.
I really don't mind if the changes are substantive. But they have been, for the most part, stylistic, and for me many of those stylistic changes have been steps back. Same is true with the iOS updates (for instance, the new iPad virtual keyboard in iOS11 had to be most utterly crappy, POS keyboard I've used in my life).
What's wrong with the iOS 11 iPad keyboard? The swipe-down to access special characters/numerals is a huge improvement I think, not sure what else significantly changed off hand.
I discover new iOS bugs on an almost daily basis, at this point (yes, i report them all to Apple, but they don't care). Apple's QA seems barely extent, or they have only one full-time programmer in house...
Often they do care. I just got a response on Bug Reporter regarding a Safari bug I found in High Sierra asking for further clarification on duplicating the error.
A few weeks ago, I got a very detailed, thoughtful, page-long response from an Apple engineer regarding a problem I was having with duplicate volume names and stuff in Server's File Sharing.
It's kind of offensive to assert they have a dearth of programmers or QA — of course they have a ton of them, but these are complex products living in the hands of a billion (or whatever) people. Let's be real.
I'm being perfectly real. I want the level of attention to detail and quality Apple demonstrated between 2007 and 2012. The attention to detail that got me to become an Apple customer for all of my computing needs, abandoning the inconsistency and annoyance of Windows and PC hardware.
iOS was never this bad. In Apple's rush to keep people buying new iOS devices faster, they've wrecked the simplicity and reliability of the product, poisoned the Mac, and gutted Mac software into iOS back-ports with fewer features and ineffective or bad GUIs. The sheer number of bugs I've reported since moving from iOS 6 to iOS 9 (by way of being pushed to a new device) is staggering. They've never once communicated to me about these bugs and a number of them have been present since the OS that created them: iOS 7, FIVE major releases ago!!!
Please stop normalizing the downward spiral of quality. Computers are not some magically special product category. Nothing about software justifies special pleading. Software is as good as the effort put into making it. The industry and tech geeks have succeeded in promoting all kinds of logical fallacies to excuse computer industry product from all the rational expectations of usability and reliability we put on other products. This only promotes corporate profits and the degradation of standards.
I discover new iOS bugs on an almost daily basis, at this point (yes, i report them all to Apple, but they don't care). Apple's QA seems barely extent, or they have only one full-time programmer in house...
Often they do care. I just got a response on Bug Reporter regarding a Safari bug I found in High Sierra asking for further clarification on duplicating the error.
A few weeks ago, I got a very detailed, thoughtful, page-long response from an Apple engineer regarding a problem I was having with duplicate volume names and stuff in Server's File Sharing.
It's kind of offensive to assert they have a dearth of programmers or QA — of course they have a ton of them, but these are complex products living in the hands of a billion (or whatever) people. Let's be real.
I'm being perfectly real. I want the level of attention to detail and quality Apple demonstrated between 2007 and 2012. The attention to detail that got me to become an Apple customer for all of my computing needs, abandoning the inconsistency and annoyance of Windows and PC hardware.
iOS was never this bad. In Apple's rush to keep people buying new iOS devices faster, they've wrecked the simplicity and reliability of the product, poisoned the Mac, and gutted Mac software into iOS back-ports with fewer features and ineffective or bad GUIs. The sheer number of bugs I've reported since moving from iOS 6 to iOS 9 (by way of being pushed to a new device) is staggering. They've never once communicated to me about these bugs and a number of them have been present since the OS that created them: iOS 7, FIVE major releases ago!!!
Please stop normalizing the downward spiral of quality. Computers are not some magically special product category. Nothing about software justifies special pleading. Software is as good as the effort put into making it. The industry and tech geeks have succeeded in promoting all kinds of logical fallacies to excuse computer industry product from all the rational expectations of usability and reliability we put on other products. This only promotes corporate profits and the degradation of standards.
Honestly I don't experience a lot of major bugs in iOS, at least not lately. What bugs are talking about that've been there since iOS 7? I don't have many issues with macOS either. Usually bugs that I notice are put to rest within a few versions or the next major update.
Having been using Macs since the SE/30, I'm happier than I've ever been with macOS as it is currently. I know everyone pretends like Snow Leopard was the golden age of Mac computing, but even that had its problems until the final revision and was never perfect, by any means. Mac OS/OS X/macOS have always had issues. So has iOS. ¯\(°_o)/¯
I’ll never upgrade because of older Adobe software incompatibility. Sierra was the end of the road for me.
Even when Sierra stops getting security updates in a few years? Living dangerously, my friend.
That said, I wish Apple would slow down a bit. Every year is getting to be a pain.
I really don't mind if the changes are substantive. But they have been, for the most part, stylistic, and for me many of those stylistic changes have been steps back. Same is true with the iOS updates (for instance, the new iPad virtual keyboard in iOS11 had to be most utterly crappy, POS keyboard I've used in my life).
Just seems like a lot of 'busy work' is being thrown at the iOS/MacOS/tvOS/WatchOS folks.
Apple needs to fundamentally rethink its software upgrade strategy. It's pretty much like Microsoft used to be, at this point: intrusive and annoying.
I agree with all of the above. In edu needing to support every subtle nuance of OS incompatibility from year to year is getting to be a real challenge.
I don't necessarily see what Apple thinks they are gaining by offering a yearly major OS upgrade as opposed to incremental updates that fix bugs and security holes. In fact if anything I feel like they are removing features or further limiting what we are trying to do.
Okay so it’s all just “stylistic” and not “substantive”. So it’s a waste of time to update every year.
Except for, you know, the file system. But that’s too dangerous so Apple crazy if they think we should update.
So for you guys, incremental advances aren’t worthwhile as a yearly major release and large substantive changes are too dangerous.
WTF is it you want Apple to do? Just freeze MacOS in amber and call it a day? Because you want to run old versions of ADOBE stuff?
Those little “stylistic” changes is what allows us to have apps like Pixelmator Pro using Metal 2.
nht said: WTF is it you want Apple to do? Just freeze MacOS in amber and call it a day? Because you want to run old versions of ADOBE stuff?
Those little “stylistic” changes is what allows us to have apps like Pixelmator Pro using Metal 2.
Make actual improvements and try to minimize the fallout when implementing new stuff (and prioritize productive new stuff over silly new stuff).
I get what you're saying about 'freezing' to run old software. I don't necessarily want that (some do). I'm happy to keep updating OS and software, if there is real benefit (I hate update just for the sake of update, or visual changes just to keep things 'fresh'.)
And, regarding Metal 2, I get your point. But, IMO, several of the 'core' technologies of macOS have been left to languish or have been re-written with more problematic successors.
So, yes, we get some new stuff like more integration with iOS and the cloud (positive when it all works, or if we use it), but we've also gotten more problems and instabilities, along with increasing UI mess, problematic patches, apps stripped of crucial features, UI inconsistency, etc. While macOS is still out ahead, it feels like it's moving towards where Windows once was... which is what prompted many of us to use Macs in the first place.
I'm *hoping* that the iMac Pro (and coming Mac Pro) are serious indications that Apple is shifting some focus back on the Mac, and that this will also involve more care and attention to macOS. We'll see. (And, I'm not just some lone whiner, either. I can point you to podcasts of a number of industry leaders who are complaining of similar things... so please don't come back with the fanboy, "It's all in your imagination stuff.")
Or, here's John Siracusa talking about iOS (negative) influence on Mac apps and how they feel compared to Mac apps of the past, which is dead on in my experience. (Larger context was choice of development frameworks.) https://overcast.fm/+CdQP59ws/2:06:13
I discover new iOS bugs on an almost daily basis, at this point (yes, i report them all to Apple, but they don't care). Apple's QA seems barely extent, or they have only one full-time programmer in house...
Often they do care. I just got a response on Bug Reporter regarding a Safari bug I found in High Sierra asking for further clarification on duplicating the error.
A few weeks ago, I got a very detailed, thoughtful, page-long response from an Apple engineer regarding a problem I was having with duplicate volume names and stuff in Server's File Sharing.
It's kind of offensive to assert they have a dearth of programmers or QA — of course they have a ton of them, but these are complex products living in the hands of a billion (or whatever) people. Let's be real.
I'm being perfectly real. I want the level of attention to detail and quality Apple demonstrated between 2007 and 2012. The attention to detail that got me to become an Apple customer for all of my computing needs, abandoning the inconsistency and annoyance of Windows and PC hardware.
iOS was never this bad. In Apple's rush to keep people buying new iOS devices faster, they've wrecked the simplicity and reliability of the product, poisoned the Mac, and gutted Mac software into iOS back-ports with fewer features and ineffective or bad GUIs. The sheer number of bugs I've reported since moving from iOS 6 to iOS 9 (by way of being pushed to a new device) is staggering. They've never once communicated to me about these bugs and a number of them have been present since the OS that created them: iOS 7, FIVE major releases ago!!!
Please stop normalizing the downward spiral of quality. Computers are not some magically special product category. Nothing about software justifies special pleading. Software is as good as the effort put into making it. The industry and tech geeks have succeeded in promoting all kinds of logical fallacies to excuse computer industry product from all the rational expectations of usability and reliability we put on other products. This only promotes corporate profits and the degradation of standards.
Honestly I don't experience a lot of major bugs in iOS, at least not lately. What bugs are talking about that've been there since iOS 7? I don't have many issues with macOS either. Usually bugs that I notice are put to rest within a few versions or the next major update.
Having been using Macs since the SE/30, I'm happier than I've ever been with macOS as it is currently. I know everyone pretends like Snow Leopard was the golden age of Mac computing, but even that had its problems until the final revision and was never perfect, by any means. Mac OS/OS X/macOS have always had issues. So has iOS. ¯\(°_o)/¯
I've listed them here on AI forum posts many times. I'm sorry but I'm not going to go into it again except to mention one example:
Text selection and editing in Safari text boxes is a disaster. The highlight of selection almost perfectly consistently does not work correctly (it jumps somewhere else that it isn't actually located or it vanishes entirely). iOS 7 introduced this. It's spreading to other apps in iOS like Mail because Apple is replacing older API text edit objects with the new one that has this egregious bug. (I'm not sure if it's related, but undoing editing of text with bulleted lists in Notes can kill paragraphs of text with no way to undo the damage)
Test this in Safari, in a forum, with multiline sentences, within paragraphs (use tap selection, not force touch). I just reproduced it here on my end by selecting from "with..." to "...with" in my text above (overshot one letter and then went back) and it left me with a selection where the blue highlight was only on the first "with". You can reproduce this in non-edit text areas but of course iOS' lousy web page text selection will complicate things (another thing that got notably worse in ios 7 compared to iOS 6; and why is autocorrect so inconsistently executed in Safari text editing views on forums like AI?).
Why does this go unfixed (and unacknowledged by so many people)? Text selection via force touch isn't a fix. For starters, you don't fix something broken by leaving it as it is and offering an alternative method. Secondly, force touch text selection can result in similar or other bugs being revealed (such as first attempt leaves no functioning cursor, not being able to scroll text that overflows a text view, and not being able to move the cursor to the left of the first character in a text view, as well as crashes but they're infrequent while the previous problems are frequent).
there are others.
And theres res an [sic] example of autocorrect messing up on a new line on this forum with no first letter capitalization (just try to not type first caps on a Smart Keyboard on an iPad; you can't willingly NOT use initial caps with that).
PS: the Smart Keyboard has arrow keys on it for moving the text insertion cursor. On many forums, using these keys also jumps the webpage scroll to the bottom of the page. I first noticed it on MacRumors and it has spread to many other places as forums get updated. It might be a forum software bug or it might be an iOS bug or a combination. I'm mentioning it because it's another example of Safari and text editing that is a PITA that I would expect to have seen corrected quickly by one or the other party... if they actually used their own product enough to notice.
There's a hack to circumvent it, but it can be a pain.
You’re telling me. I had to clean install Snow Leopard to be able to run the firmware flasher again, and then restore up to Sierra before going to High Sierra.
I discover new iOS bugs on an almost daily basis, at this point (yes, i report them all to Apple, but they don't care). Apple's QA seems barely extent, or they have only one full-time programmer in house...
Often they do care. I just got a response on Bug Reporter regarding a Safari bug I found in High Sierra asking for further clarification on duplicating the error.
A few weeks ago, I got a very detailed, thoughtful, page-long response from an Apple engineer regarding a problem I was having with duplicate volume names and stuff in Server's File Sharing.
It's kind of offensive to assert they have a dearth of programmers or QA — of course they have a ton of them, but these are complex products living in the hands of a billion (or whatever) people. Let's be real.
I'm being perfectly real. I want the level of attention to detail and quality Apple demonstrated between 2007 and 2012. The attention to detail that got me to become an Apple customer for all of my computing needs, abandoning the inconsistency and annoyance of Windows and PC hardware.
iOS was never this bad. In Apple's rush to keep people buying new iOS devices faster, they've wrecked the simplicity and reliability of the product, poisoned the Mac, and gutted Mac software into iOS back-ports with fewer features and ineffective or bad GUIs. The sheer number of bugs I've reported since moving from iOS 6 to iOS 9 (by way of being pushed to a new device) is staggering. They've never once communicated to me about these bugs and a number of them have been present since the OS that created them: iOS 7, FIVE major releases ago!!!
Please stop normalizing the downward spiral of quality. Computers are not some magically special product category. Nothing about software justifies special pleading. Software is as good as the effort put into making it. The industry and tech geeks have succeeded in promoting all kinds of logical fallacies to excuse computer industry product from all the rational expectations of usability and reliability we put on other products. This only promotes corporate profits and the degradation of standards.
Honestly I don't experience a lot of major bugs in iOS, at least not lately. What bugs are talking about that've been there since iOS 7? I don't have many issues with macOS either. Usually bugs that I notice are put to rest within a few versions or the next major update.
Having been using Macs since the SE/30, I'm happier than I've ever been with macOS as it is currently. I know everyone pretends like Snow Leopard was the golden age of Mac computing, but even that had its problems until the final revision and was never perfect, by any means. Mac OS/OS X/macOS have always had issues. So has iOS. ¯\(°_o)/¯
I've listed them here on AI forum posts many times. I'm sorry but I'm not going to go into it again except to mention one example:
Text selection and editing in Safari text boxes is a disaster. The highlight of selection almost perfectly consistently does not work correctly (it jumps somewhere else that it isn't actually located or it vanishes entirely). iOS 7 introduced this. It's spreading to other apps in iOS like Mail because Apple is replacing older API text edit objects with the new one that has this egregious bug. (I'm not sure if it's related, but undoing editing of text with bulleted lists in Notes can kill paragraphs of text with no way to undo the damage)
Test this in Safari, in a forum, with multiline sentences, within paragraphs (use tap selection, not force touch). I just reproduced it here on my end by selecting from "with..." to "...with" in my text above (overshot one letter and then went back) and it left me with a selection where the blue highlight was only on the first "with". You can reproduce this in non-edit text areas but of course iOS' lousy web page text selection will complicate things (another thing that got notably worse in ios 7 compared to iOS 6; and why is autocorrect so inconsistently executed in Safari text editing views on forums like AI?).
Why does this go unfixed (and unacknowledged by so many people)? Text selection via force touch isn't a fix. For starters, you don't fix something broken by leaving it as it is and offering an alternative method. Secondly, force touch text selection can result in similar or other bugs being revealed (such as first attempt leaves no functioning cursor, not being able to scroll text that overflows a text view, and not being able to move the cursor to the left of the first character in a text view, as well as crashes but they're infrequent while the previous problems are frequent).
there are others.
And theres res an [sic] example of autocorrect messing up on a new line on this forum with no first letter capitalization (just try to not type first caps on a Smart Keyboard on an iPad; you can't willingly NOT use initial caps with that).
PS: the Smart Keyboard has arrow keys on it for moving the text insertion cursor. On many forums, using these keys also jumps the webpage scroll to the bottom of the page. I first noticed it on MacRumors and it has spread to many other places as forums get updated. It might be a forum software bug or it might be an iOS bug or a combination. I'm mentioning it because it's another example of Safari and text editing that is a PITA that I would expect to have seen corrected quickly by one or the other party... if they actually used their own product enough to notice.
Are you certain these are iOS bugs and not bugs with these rich text editors in the forum software, which are often buggy themselves? I've noticed some weirdness on this forum on my iPad, and don't bother with MR forums anymore, but in general I don't have a lot of problems on forms in Safari that I'm aware of, where I couldn't reasonably place blame on poor programming on the website's side of things. In this particular forum I just figured it was the WYSIWYG editor that was messing with things. Just wondering if you're sure it's Apple's fault for some reason.
dysamoria said: Text selection and editing in Safari text boxes is a disaster. The highlight of selection almost perfectly consistently does not work correctly (it jumps somewhere else that it isn't actually located or it vanishes entirely). iOS 7 introduced this.
I think text selection on iOS is rather frustrating in general, but it was better back when I got my iPad 2 (not sure which iOS that was). In one of the last couple versions, it got considerably worse. I often end up in situations where it's nearly impossible to get hold of one or the other selection point to drag it, especially w/o hitting one of the buttons in the pop-up (i.e. cut, copy, etc.).
Comments
I don't necessarily see what Apple thinks they are gaining by offering a yearly major OS upgrade as opposed to incremental updates that fix bugs and security holes. In fact if anything I feel like they are removing features or further limiting what we are trying to do.
Ahh, I see - apparently Apple has pushed out an update that installs this new folder. I don't let updates happen automatically, so I don't have the nagware installed. This article explains it better:
https://eclecticlight.co/2017/11/09/what-is-macos-installer-notification-and-why-did-i-get-it/
A few weeks ago, I got a very detailed, thoughtful, page-long response from an Apple engineer regarding a problem I was having with duplicate volume names and stuff in Server's File Sharing.
It's kind of offensive to assert they have a dearth of programmers or QA — of course they have a ton of them, but these are complex products living in the hands of a billion (or whatever) people. Let's be real.
iOS was never this bad. In Apple's rush to keep people buying new iOS devices faster, they've wrecked the simplicity and reliability of the product, poisoned the Mac, and gutted Mac software into iOS back-ports with fewer features and ineffective or bad GUIs. The sheer number of bugs I've reported since moving from iOS 6 to iOS 9 (by way of being pushed to a new device) is staggering. They've never once communicated to me about these bugs and a number of them have been present since the OS that created them: iOS 7, FIVE major releases ago!!!
Please stop normalizing the downward spiral of quality. Computers are not some magically special product category. Nothing about software justifies special pleading. Software is as good as the effort put into making it. The industry and tech geeks have succeeded in promoting all kinds of logical fallacies to excuse computer industry product from all the rational expectations of usability and reliability we put on other products. This only promotes corporate profits and the degradation of standards.
Having been using Macs since the SE/30, I'm happier than I've ever been with macOS as it is currently. I know everyone pretends like Snow Leopard was the golden age of Mac computing, but even that had its problems until the final revision and was never perfect, by any means. Mac OS/OS X/macOS have always had issues. So has iOS. ¯\(°_o)/¯
Except for, you know, the file system. But that’s too dangerous so Apple crazy if they think we should update.
So for you guys, incremental advances aren’t worthwhile as a yearly major release and large substantive changes are too dangerous.
WTF is it you want Apple to do? Just freeze MacOS in amber and call it a day? Because you want to run old versions of ADOBE stuff?
Those little “stylistic” changes is what allows us to have apps like Pixelmator Pro using Metal 2.
Go pound sand.
I get what you're saying about 'freezing' to run old software. I don't necessarily want that (some do). I'm happy to keep updating OS and software, if there is real benefit (I hate update just for the sake of update, or visual changes just to keep things 'fresh'.)
And, regarding Metal 2, I get your point. But, IMO, several of the 'core' technologies of macOS have been left to languish or have been re-written with more problematic successors.
So, yes, we get some new stuff like more integration with iOS and the cloud (positive when it all works, or if we use it), but we've also gotten more problems and instabilities, along with increasing UI mess, problematic patches, apps stripped of crucial features, UI inconsistency, etc. While macOS is still out ahead, it feels like it's moving towards where Windows once was... which is what prompted many of us to use Macs in the first place.
I'm *hoping* that the iMac Pro (and coming Mac Pro) are serious indications that Apple is shifting some focus back on the Mac, and that this will also involve more care and attention to macOS. We'll see. (And, I'm not just some lone whiner, either. I can point you to podcasts of a number of industry leaders who are complaining of similar things... so please don't come back with the fanboy, "It's all in your imagination stuff.")
https://overcast.fm/+CdQP59ws/2:06:13
Text selection and editing in Safari text boxes is a disaster. The highlight of selection almost perfectly consistently does not work correctly (it jumps somewhere else that it isn't actually located or it vanishes entirely). iOS 7 introduced this. It's spreading to other apps in iOS like Mail because Apple is replacing older API text edit objects with the new one that has this egregious bug. (I'm not sure if it's related, but undoing editing of text with bulleted lists in Notes can kill paragraphs of text with no way to undo the damage)
Test this in Safari, in a forum, with multiline sentences, within paragraphs (use tap selection, not force touch). I just reproduced it here on my end by selecting from "with..." to "...with" in my text above (overshot one letter and then went back) and it left me with a selection where the blue highlight was only on the first "with". You can reproduce this in non-edit text areas but of course iOS' lousy web page text selection will complicate things (another thing that got notably worse in ios 7 compared to iOS 6; and why is autocorrect so inconsistently executed in Safari text editing views on forums like AI?).
Why does this go unfixed (and unacknowledged by so many people)? Text selection via force touch isn't a fix. For starters, you don't fix something broken by leaving it as it is and offering an alternative method. Secondly, force touch text selection can result in similar or other bugs being revealed (such as first attempt leaves no functioning cursor, not being able to scroll text that overflows a text view, and not being able to move the cursor to the left of the first character in a text view, as well as crashes but they're infrequent while the previous problems are frequent).
there are others.
And theres res an [sic] example of autocorrect messing up on a new line on this forum with no first letter capitalization (just try to not type first caps on a Smart Keyboard on an iPad; you can't willingly NOT use initial caps with that).
PS: the Smart Keyboard has arrow keys on it for moving the text insertion cursor. On many forums, using these keys also jumps the webpage scroll to the bottom of the page. I first noticed it on MacRumors and it has spread to many other places as forums get updated. It might be a forum software bug or it might be an iOS bug or a combination. I'm mentioning it because it's another example of Safari and text editing that is a PITA that I would expect to have seen corrected quickly by one or the other party... if they actually used their own product enough to notice.