Another sign of Apple's quality control at its best! /s
I hope Apple can turn their quality issues, both software and hardware around soon. The old "It just works" has been a thing of the past for too long now.
Yes, I am aware that Apple's hardware and software was never perfect, but neither were they the clusterfuck of problems that they are now.
What are you talking about? There are issues involving the T2 chip. That sucks.
Where is the "clusterfuck"?
There was a pretty massive Firewire driver issue that would intermittently affect virtually all Firewire interfaces on OS X for about a decade, until BJ of Metric Halo finally fixed it for Apple. There was the issue of incorrectly safetied FW chips that would blow on occasion when connecting bus-powered devices, requiring a logic board replacement, that persisted for years (from 1998 until, IIRC, June of 2003). Blew my iMac two times IIRC, and my friend had his Powerbook replaced outright after his audio interface blew the chip three times in a row. Which was around the time of that nasty iTunes update that would irrecoverably erase every single connected hard drive that had a space in its name. I also had a Performa 5200 — you know, the machine that had a seven-year warranty on the inexplicably routed and defect-prone monitor cable.
I've been in the loop for thirty years now. I can tell you that even in the Good Old Days, things were better in The Good Old Days.
So catastrophic whoopthies at Apple are not a recent thing. Apple has a long history of major malfunctions. Quality control at Apple isn't deteriorating, it's ALWAYS been spotty!
I know what you're saying -- shit happens and it happens to everyone, not just Apple -- and while that does contradict the assertion that quality control at Apple ain't what it used to be, somehow it doesn't make me feel any better to know that even after decades of opportunity to learn from colossal flubs they continue to happen. Is it unrealistic to expect anything better than at least one fairly serious issue with each annual release, or is it fair to hold a company with such vast resources and capability charging premium prices to a higher standard? Do things like this happen at Mercedes or Bosch?
I don't know the answers to either of those questions.
If only there were a way to search for answers on the internet:
I obviously wasn't questioning whether either of them ever had a fault, but whether their hit-to-miss ratio is similar to Apple's. Your insulting sarcasm is misplaced.
Because I follow what's happening at Apple, I have a some sense of what's typical and what's unusual. Since I don't pay much attention to cars or appliances, as arbitrary examples, I don't have the same baseline for assessing how any particular issue fits into the big picture.
So, while to me it seems like Apple suffers relatively significant deficiencies more often than other companies making similarly positioned products, what "I don't know the answer" to is whether that's because it's true or if it only seems that way to me because I'm exposed to more information about Apple.
Yes, I think it is unrealistic to expect software to be entirely bug-free.
Sure, that's completely fair. There are relative degrees of bugs, though. Some are relatively minor, others are likely to impact a large group of users, others may only impact a small group but have fairly serious consequences. Is it fair to say Apple has more of the third type than one might reasonably accept as normal?
Every new release of Pro Tools audio software comes with pages and pages of known issues. That tells me that Avid is testing the hell out the product and knows which issues are going to matter and which ones will only crop up in rare circumstances. They steadfastly refuse to release a product on a timeline. So we have a situation where users are screaming and bitching that Avid STILL hasn't released a version of Pro Tools for use with Mojave, but maybe that's better than a chorus of angry users discovering that a key function misbehaves with that OS (which it does). Maybe Apple's model of software being released by a certain calendar date results in less thorough testing?
FWIW, my 2016 15” MBP has been trouble-free since I got it.
I like mine and I'm not sorry I bought it, but it hasn't been trouble-free. I had the issues with stuck and repeating keys, and in the last two or three weeks a couple frequently-used keys have started to become unresponsive.
I also have a strange, faint blue cloud on my display. It's most evident with a white screen, like a web browser. Some areas fade from white to a light cyan.
My most-used USB-C port is also getting loose.
I've been too busy to take it in and live without it while Apple chews on it, so I don't yet know what the outcome will be.
Another sign of Apple's quality control at its best! /s
I hope Apple can turn their quality issues, both software and hardware around soon. The old "It just works" has been a thing of the past for too long now.
Yes, I am aware that Apple's hardware and software was never perfect, but neither were they the clusterfuck of problems that they are now.
What are you talking about? There are issues involving the T2 chip. That sucks.
Where is the "clusterfuck"?
There was a pretty massive Firewire driver issue that would intermittently affect virtually all Firewire interfaces on OS X for about a decade, until BJ of Metric Halo finally fixed it for Apple. There was the issue of incorrectly safetied FW chips that would blow on occasion when connecting bus-powered devices, requiring a logic board replacement, that persisted for years (from 1998 until, IIRC, June of 2003). Blew my iMac two times IIRC, and my friend had his Powerbook replaced outright after his audio interface blew the chip three times in a row. Which was around the time of that nasty iTunes update that would irrecoverably erase every single connected hard drive that had a space in its name. I also had a Performa 5200 — you know, the machine that had a seven-year warranty on the inexplicably routed and defect-prone monitor cable.
I've been in the loop for thirty years now. I can tell you that even in the Good Old Days, things were better in The Good Old Days.
Now just stop with that kind of talk! Back before Apple wasn't ran by Tim, Apple was absolutely PERFECT!!!! Tim just can't run Apple! /s
The whole point of the T2 chip is to no longer allow hard drive upgrades. You now have to buy them at a 200%+ mark-up from Apple. Also, if you get too little, you have to buy a new machine! Win-win for Apple! Lose-lose for consumers!
You might want to read up on the T2 chip and its functionality as an SSD controller, encryption, and the relative speeds vs. previous systems.
Another sign of Apple's quality control at its best! /s
I hope Apple can turn their quality issues, both software and hardware around soon. The old "It just works" has been a thing of the past for too long now.
Yes, I am aware that Apple's hardware and software was never perfect, but neither were they the clusterfuck of problems that they are now.
What are you talking about? There are issues involving the T2 chip. That sucks.
Where is the "clusterfuck"?
There was a pretty massive Firewire driver issue that would intermittently affect virtually all Firewire interfaces on OS X for about a decade, until BJ of Metric Halo finally fixed it for Apple. There was the issue of incorrectly safetied FW chips that would blow on occasion when connecting bus-powered devices, requiring a logic board replacement, that persisted for years (from 1998 until, IIRC, June of 2003). Blew my iMac two times IIRC, and my friend had his Powerbook replaced outright after his audio interface blew the chip three times in a row. Which was around the time of that nasty iTunes update that would irrecoverably erase every single connected hard drive that had a space in its name. I also had a Performa 5200 — you know, the machine that had a seven-year warranty on the inexplicably routed and defect-prone monitor cable.
I've been in the loop for thirty years now. I can tell you that even in the Good Old Days, things were better in The Good Old Days.
The list you could make on their current portfolio would be very long, from Keyboard issues to Audio over USB-C on the iPads, from logic board issues to, yes, the T2 chip.
You are right, there has never been a perfect product, and there never will be. But the issues that they have no are widespread and over the whole line.
I dunno. FireWire chipsets blowing out from bus-powered devices on every single FW-equipped product from 1998 until mid-2002 seemed pretty “widespread” and across a lot more of “the whole line” than popping audio — which was an intermittent issue with various FW interfaces through much of the aughts as well, as mentioned. But then there was the graphics cards causing interference on FW audio interfaces on the cheesegrater Mac Pros, to balance things out. That wasn’t very widespread.
Not nearly as widespread as the failing upper RAM slots on MacBooks Pro, or the MacBook topcase thing.
The whole point of the T2 chip is to no longer allow hard drive upgrades. You now have to buy them at a 200%+ mark-up from Apple. Also, if you get too little, you have to buy a new machine! Win-win for Apple! Lose-lose for consumers!
That actually isn't the whole point of the T2 chip.
Comments
Because I follow what's happening at Apple, I have a some sense of what's typical and what's unusual. Since I don't pay much attention to cars or appliances, as arbitrary examples, I don't have the same baseline for assessing how any particular issue fits into the big picture.
So, while to me it seems like Apple suffers relatively significant deficiencies more often than other companies making similarly positioned products, what "I don't know the answer" to is whether that's because it's true or if it only seems that way to me because I'm exposed to more information about Apple.
Every new release of Pro Tools audio software comes with pages and pages of known issues. That tells me that Avid is testing the hell out the product and knows which issues are going to matter and which ones will only crop up in rare circumstances. They steadfastly refuse to release a product on a timeline. So we have a situation where users are screaming and bitching that Avid STILL hasn't released a version of Pro Tools for use with Mojave, but maybe that's better than a chorus of angry users discovering that a key function misbehaves with that OS (which it does). Maybe Apple's model of software being released by a certain calendar date results in less thorough testing?
I like mine and I'm not sorry I bought it, but it hasn't been trouble-free. I had the issues with stuck and repeating keys, and in the last two or three weeks a couple frequently-used keys have started to become unresponsive.
I also have a strange, faint blue cloud on my display. It's most evident with a white screen, like a web browser. Some areas fade from white to a light cyan.
My most-used USB-C port is also getting loose.
I've been too busy to take it in and live without it while Apple chews on it, so I don't yet know what the outcome will be.
What you write sounds like Fox News to me.
You are right, there has never been a perfect product, and there never will be. But the issues that they have no are widespread and over the whole line.
Not nearly as widespread as the failing upper RAM slots on MacBooks Pro, or the MacBook topcase thing.