Quality control in both hardware and software seems to have gone down since Steve Jobs died. Tim Cook needs to make fixing this first a top priority before it becomes ingrained in the brand instead of releasing new products at a fast pace.
Quote:
Originally Posted by paxman
I'd say that is complete rubbish. Can you produce any kind of evidence, stats, examples to back up your claim?
Don’t hold your breath. His type never replies with evidence. They just spout something as undeniable, established fact and it usually involves Steve Jobs’ ghost.
"the 290x does the picture glitches as well in yosemite. So I'm concluding its not an issue with the D700/280x model of cards. The 290 is a different chipset."
It could be AMD's GPUs or the drivers. Rendering UHD files on both GPUs will max them out. Motion's GPU exports have had glitches in the past too. Premiere users have noticed similar glitches. Adobe allows disabling use of the GPUs to get round it. Apple or BlackMagic should allow selectively processing on the CPU or even capping the GPU usage for stability. It should be able to detect when the GPU screws up a render and force it to reprocess on the CPU.
Someone said they had similar glitches on a new iMac. It would be nice if doing processing on a GPU was as stable as on a CPU, I'm not sure why that's not the case. Until it is, there needs to be a way to manually revert to CPU-only or limiting the GPU use by OpenCL.
Apple can put a system preference in place to say that OpenCL can only use a percentage of the GPU's capability. If UHD files are causing problems, they can try limiting OpenCL to 80% GPU usage so that it can be more stable over minutes/hours of solid rendering.
Having a debugging feature would help too. There has to be a fault occurring somewhere that causes the graphics to scramble. If they had something like Crashreporter or spindump for GPUs that could catch these driver errors/warnings and put them in a log file, Apple could at least see what's going on without having to replicate the conditions for it happening.
I have had a fully maxed out late 2013 Mac Pro since mid-January of this year. Until Apple issued a software update, I had random horizontal lines in both playback and render of projects in Adobe's Premiere Pro CC. The update solved those problems for me, but based on several posts in the Adobe Premiere Pro Forum the software update did not solve the problem for everyone, and to this day there are occasional posts by people having a rendering problem with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. I also have Resolve 11 installed on this Mac Pro. I have used it infrequently and to date I have not had a problem, but once again I respect the fact that a number of posts on both the Apple Mac Pro Forum and other forums are reporting rendering problems with Resolve 11.
I purchased my late 2013 Mac Pro for the purpose of doing 4K video editing in Final Cut Pro X. The 2013 Mac Pro was optimized for this, and it works beautifully with that software. I am able to handle multiple 4K video streams with no problem, and renders are fast and flawless. I love my 2013 Mac Pro for its speed, small footprint, and quiet performance. I have never experienced any temperature issues even when doing 3D modeling or 3D animation work or working with 4K video in FCP X. This is a great computer -- perhaps the finest that Apple has ever released.
With the above said, I am glad that Appleinsider has posted this article. There are too many reports of problems with the late 2013 Mac Pro using Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Resolve 11 for this to simply be ignored. These are professional applications that many people depend upon for their living. I am hopeful that Apple is working with AMD, Adobe and BMD to solve this issue and correct it. This has gone on too long (since at least May of this year) to be ignored.
From the title of this thread, you would think that all hell had broke lose. This for a VERY small percentage of professional users ... and for them this sucks. Hopefully ATI, BM and Apple will figure this out quickly and get these folks back up and running.
Otherwise, this thread was just click bait.
Hey AppleInsider, if you really want to give us some inside info, tell us when the next version of the Mac Pro is coming out and what will the changes be. That info would be useful.
Apologies to those that have this problem.
"VERY small" is an opinion. There are copious amounts of design and development firms, studios, and agencies that purchase and use Mac Pro machines over Windows workstations. In my 15+ year work career, I have worked at over 10 such studios. I currently work at an agency that has more than 200 Mac Pro computers. We have been slowly upgrading people based on the age of their current (old style) Mac Pro.
Besides, even if it was a "VERY small" number of people being affected, we are talking about a $3000+ computer plus the cost of software.
I consider myself very level headed when it comes to tech, because there is not one perfect device on the market. But I have to be honest and acknowledge that I've lost a little trust with Apple. If we're only looking at Apple compared to everything else on the market, then it's quite easy to say that comparatively they are the best and that the things we have to worry about are nowhere near what you have to worry about with other devices. But if we're comparing Apple to their own standard, which is what I care more about, there have been some things over the past year or two that have my worrying about things that I very seldom had to worry about before. I'm often scared to update now for fear that updates are going to completely break things, some with no support to fix. That's not just on computers, but iOS devices, airport routers and ATV. Every update to Airports over the last two years has made the routers worse. It's hard telling everyone around me to switch to Apple devices because they "just work," and then getting a million calls when things "just don't work." Normal end users are quick to blow things way out of proportion and I hate dealing with the blow back of trying to explain why it's not that big of a deal because Apple is usually pretty good about fixing things. I'm not freaking out, but I do not think that people are just complaining about nothing. Apple is having some quality control issues that they need to clean up and restore a little faith in it's users...
Quality control in both hardware and software seems to have gone down since Steve Jobs died. Tim Cook needs to make fixing this first a top priority before it becomes ingrained in the brand instead of releasing new products at a fast pace.
do you have any data to back up your conclusion? because i remember lots of hardware and software bugs under Jobs. and every other CEO of every other tech firm.
I think it's time for Apple to split into two companies- a mobile company and a computer company. Apple isn't giving as much attention and thought to the Mac anymore. This shows in making OS X more like iOS (blah!) instead of making iOS more like OS X. I don't need full screen Messages, Contacts, etc. apps for my 27" Cinema Display. In fact many full screen apps on my Mac are over 50% blank space. So silly.
And iTunes?? It's a total mess!! What used to be one of the friendliest, easiest to use pieces of software is now one of the most convoluted inefficient applications that Apple has released.
what a terrible idea. i like the increased unity between OS X and iOS.
why would you run Messages in fullscreen mode!? just because you can? well, easy fix -- dont.
as for the usual itunes complaints, i still dont get it -- it remains bafflingly easy to use for me. i buy songs, i play songs, i load loads to my devices.
Yes, technology isn't perfect. And Apple will therefore never be perfect. But owning up to mistakes and taking measures to prevent them in the future is the responsible thing to do. And I'm sure Apple will remedy this, but, they are still responsible. And they still make products far superior to anything else out there.
you mean like when apple apologized for Maps on iOS? that sort of owning up? yeah, they do that.
as for this -- you have no idea what is causing it, nor that its apple that's responsible. stop pretending.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple hold off on a Mac Pro update until late in 2015. The goal would be a new round of the latest Xeons and GPUs. By that time all new technologies should have stabilized and ideally prices will remain viable. If Apple does this, IE wait until late 2015 they will have a lot of new tech available to them such as DDR4, maybe even LPDDR4, new GPUs, TB3 and the like. Sometime in 2015 AMD is expected to start shipping their new RAM technologies for use with GPUs.
What would Apple gain from waiting? A significant jump in performance that would make the upgrade worthwhile. I'm of the mind that volumes are so low on the Mac Pro that the minor updates of new Xeons alone might not be seen as worth it in Apples eyes. Instead give the entire platform a make over and the engineering is justified.
Hey we can dream!
The new Xeon should be available in a couple of months, possibly three. I don't want to wait until the end of the year (whine).
I just don't get it with Apple sometimes, simply billions in the bank and every R&D $$ spent has to be scrutinised, or so it seems. Or too look at it another way, spend millions finessing the screws on a phone or something, but spend a whole lot less giving a few professionals a proper tool to work with is like pulling teeth.
Apple has been having graphic card problems year after year after year. It seems like it never ends and started so long ago I can't even remember it NOT being an issue. Time to move that shit in house and be done with it.
Most of the graphics card issues Apple has had over the years related to Nvidia.
I think that people have forgotten what a scandal this was in the industry. Nvidia was looking to reduce its manufacturing costs. In soldering chips to the sub boards, ball solder joints are often used. This is where tiny balls of solder are placed between the chip connections on the bottom, and the solder pads on the sub board. Then heat is applied, and the unit is soldered. Nvidia wanted to lower the cost of that. Somehow, they screwed up the certification process. That is, the compatibility of the solder on the pads with the solder making up the balls.
What happened was that, over time, the different hardness and expandability of the different solders caused cracks in the connections, thus leading to failures.
All manufacturers who used those sub modules from Nvidia had these problems. Dell needed to recall over 20,000 units in one line alone. Hp needed to recall over 50,000 of one line, and other manufacturers had the same problem, including Apple. Hundreds of thousands of computers were directly involved in failures from these boards.
It became so bad that Nvidia investors were calling for action by the board. Meanwhile, Nvidia was denying the problems were their fault, but had to put up a $500 million bond to account for warranty, and out of warranty costs for manufacturers, who were threatening to sue. It took years before this problem went away.
So was this an Apple problem? Not really. Nor was it a Dell problem, or a Hp problem, or a Toshiba problem, etc.
According to the article, the people affected by this issue are only DaVinci users who actually use the software and render out a final product. That's it. How many users do you think that is? My assumption is a VERY small amount. I'll even hazard a guess and say under 5%. Even if ... "The pro user community in Hollywood has been seriously letdown." ... it's only the folks actually running DaVinci and outputting from it. BUT ... it's a very large PITA for those working professionals. Everyone else is fine ... no problems.
Mac's vs. PC's has nothing to do with it. 3000.00 has nothing to do with it. That is why this is click-bait with a misleading headline. Guys like you assume this is a widespread problem with all Mac Pros. It's not. It's just bad journalism and you got sucked in. We all did.
My real problem is with AI and the author. We who have been waiting on the sidelines for the bugs to shake out of the nMP have been hungry for real news, now that the 1 year anniversary has come and gone. This wasn't real news.
The problem with taking your own case as default is you really have no idea what is happening to anyone else.
Apple does and there is a reason it never talks. It maintains an air of quiet unchallenged superiority, probably unjustified, just hard to prove otherwise.
I have had countless Macs and Apple devices both privately and through businesses I have run, and there have been many lemons. Some where I purchased a number of exactly the same model at the same time, it was clear there was a pattern, but never did Apple own up to anything. The onus was always on me as the user having to prove my case. I always suspected the technicians knew, but weren't allowed to say that it was a common problem. When I used a third party repairer, I got much better feedback on which models had which common problems, but now it is all Apple and they keep it under close wraps.
Common sense tells you where there may be problems. The obsession with small size and thinness and oddball designs set off alarm bells, and I have long taken Apple's hype with a huge grain of salt. Now I hang hang back and wait for feedback like this. Just it takes a terribly long time for things to surface. I wish people were more ready to speak out and didn't face the knee-jerk Apple fanboi attacks when they make simple consumer complaints about faulty products or bad management/engineering decisions.
I consider myself very level headed when it comes to tech, because there is not one perfect device on the market. But I have to be honest and acknowledge that I've lost a little trust with Apple. If we're only looking at Apple compared to everything else on the market, then it's quite easy to say that comparatively they are the best and that the things we have to worry about are nowhere near what you have to worry about with other devices. But if we're comparing Apple to their own standard, which is what I care more about, there have been some things over the past year or two that have my worrying about things that I very seldom had to worry about before. I'm often scared to update now for fear that updates are going to completely break things, some with no support to fix. That's not just on computers, but iOS devices, airport routers and ATV. Every update to Airports over the last two years has made the routers worse. It's hard telling everyone around me to switch to Apple devices because they "just work," and then getting a million calls when things "just don't work." Normal end users are quick to blow things way out of proportion and I hate dealing with the blow back of trying to explain why it's not that big of a deal because Apple is usually pretty good about fixing things. I'm not freaking out, but I do not think that people are just complaining about nothing. Apple is having some quality control issues that they need to clean up and restore a little faith in it's users...
I absolutely agree with you on this. Apple is really going backwards. They have taken what was easy and "just worked" (mostly) then, through incessant fiddling and very poor quality testing, progressively fouled up one thing after another. It is the overall interaction between all their products that often is the problem and mostly inexcusable. The polish has gone out of a lot of their products, mostly because Apple has been making fashion statements rather than improvements.
The iWork suite Apple dumped on its users last year, which screwed up user's work, has progressively gotten worse. Currently what little it does, it only does in Yosemite and iOS 8, and that is buggy. iTunes has become a bizarre shambles the user has to constantly untangle as the deck chairs get shuffled with each version, some hidden somewhere out of sight of the user. A real time waster as is most of Apple's software of late.
I've had the opposite experience. I've bought many Macs for my own business over the years, a business that's been sold. But I also was involved with the NYC Board of Ed, where I was a technology advisor for many years.
While I would never say that Macs are always trouble free, my experience is that they are much more trouble free than their competition, both for software and hardware. It's also not true that Apple never owns up to problems. Sometimes they're slow, to be sure, but most of the time, they do step up to the plate.
One thing I've found in dealing with them is that they just hate to say anything until they're pretty sure they know what the problem is. They don't like to speculate. I remember when the iPod Mini first came out, there were some screens that were cracking quickly after being bought, and a few that were cracked upon opening the box. Apple said nothing for several weeks, just replacing the ones that were brought into the store. People were saying that Apple would never say anything. But they did. They announced that in one production run, the tolerances for the cutout where the glass went was off, and was too tight, causing tension on the glass, and causing it to crack. They gave out the serial numbers of the production run, and replaced all the iPods from that. They've done similar things for other models of devices over the years, including those that were out of warrantee.
Im certainly not a fanboy, as I get accused of disliking Apple every time I criticise them. But they do have a much better record than most everyone else. They're just not as vocal as everyone else, and sometimes, that's a problem.
So was this an Apple problem? Not really. Nor was it a Dell problem, or a Hp problem, or a Toshiba problem, etc.
Yes it is an Apple problem. They choose the supplier and we as consumers get no say in that choice and no way to rectify the problems that that choice causes. If it was a PC you'd rip out the faulty part and replace it. But it is a Mac. What can you do?
Apple even solders or glues in elementary parts now, to make the difficult impossible.
THAT is all Apple!
If Apple can wear the responsibility for what it gets right, how does it not wear the responsibility for what it gets wrong.
Lets not forget all the deadend technologies they took their users down over the years.
I just don't get it with Apple sometimes, simply billions in the bank and every R&D $$ spent has to be scrutinised, or so it seems. Or too look at it another way, spend millions finessing the screws on a phone or something, but spend a whole lot less giving a few professionals a proper tool to work with is like pulling teeth.
That's not really true though. First, we don't know what this problem is. Is it Apple's or is it the software these lRticular people are using? I've had problems with third party software over the years that caused machines to crash consistently. So if the problem is seen to be coming from the software on,y, then it may not be an Apple problem at all. It's difficult to tell.
If the latest update to Yosemite helps the issue, then possibly Apple is trying to find their own solution to Discreets problem. It wouldn't be the first time.
I'd like to know if this has anything to do with hardware, or is purely a software problem. Also remember that while Apple writes it's own drivers, it uses specifications from the hardware manufacture's own drivers. If those specs themselves are a problem, then whatever final driver is written will contain those errors.
If this were a simple problem, then it would have been solved already. I haven't been hearing Nything in the pro industry as to widespread issues with the Mac Pro. To this could be very targeted.
Comments
Quality control in both hardware and software seems to have gone down since Steve Jobs died. Tim Cook needs to make fixing this first a top priority before it becomes ingrained in the brand instead of releasing new products at a fast pace.
I'd say that is complete rubbish. Can you produce any kind of evidence, stats, examples to back up your claim?
Don’t hold your breath. His type never replies with evidence. They just spout something as undeniable, established fact and it usually involves Steve Jobs’ ghost.
http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=30542
"the 290x does the picture glitches as well in yosemite. So I'm concluding its not an issue with the D700/280x model of cards. The 290 is a different chipset."
It could be AMD's GPUs or the drivers. Rendering UHD files on both GPUs will max them out. Motion's GPU exports have had glitches in the past too. Premiere users have noticed similar glitches. Adobe allows disabling use of the GPUs to get round it. Apple or BlackMagic should allow selectively processing on the CPU or even capping the GPU usage for stability. It should be able to detect when the GPU screws up a render and force it to reprocess on the CPU.
The comments here suggest it's not heat related:
http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=30024
Someone said they had similar glitches on a new iMac. It would be nice if doing processing on a GPU was as stable as on a CPU, I'm not sure why that's not the case. Until it is, there needs to be a way to manually revert to CPU-only or limiting the GPU use by OpenCL.
Apple can put a system preference in place to say that OpenCL can only use a percentage of the GPU's capability. If UHD files are causing problems, they can try limiting OpenCL to 80% GPU usage so that it can be more stable over minutes/hours of solid rendering.
Having a debugging feature would help too. There has to be a fault occurring somewhere that causes the graphics to scramble. If they had something like Crashreporter or spindump for GPUs that could catch these driver errors/warnings and put them in a log file, Apple could at least see what's going on without having to replicate the conditions for it happening.
I have had a fully maxed out late 2013 Mac Pro since mid-January of this year. Until Apple issued a software update, I had random horizontal lines in both playback and render of projects in Adobe's Premiere Pro CC. The update solved those problems for me, but based on several posts in the Adobe Premiere Pro Forum the software update did not solve the problem for everyone, and to this day there are occasional posts by people having a rendering problem with Adobe Premiere Pro CC. I also have Resolve 11 installed on this Mac Pro. I have used it infrequently and to date I have not had a problem, but once again I respect the fact that a number of posts on both the Apple Mac Pro Forum and other forums are reporting rendering problems with Resolve 11.
I purchased my late 2013 Mac Pro for the purpose of doing 4K video editing in Final Cut Pro X. The 2013 Mac Pro was optimized for this, and it works beautifully with that software. I am able to handle multiple 4K video streams with no problem, and renders are fast and flawless. I love my 2013 Mac Pro for its speed, small footprint, and quiet performance. I have never experienced any temperature issues even when doing 3D modeling or 3D animation work or working with 4K video in FCP X. This is a great computer -- perhaps the finest that Apple has ever released.
With the above said, I am glad that Appleinsider has posted this article. There are too many reports of problems with the late 2013 Mac Pro using Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Resolve 11 for this to simply be ignored. These are professional applications that many people depend upon for their living. I am hopeful that Apple is working with AMD, Adobe and BMD to solve this issue and correct it. This has gone on too long (since at least May of this year) to be ignored.
Tom
Jeez...
From the title of this thread, you would think that all hell had broke lose. This for a VERY small percentage of professional users ... and for them this sucks. Hopefully ATI, BM and Apple will figure this out quickly and get these folks back up and running.
Otherwise, this thread was just click bait.
Hey AppleInsider, if you really want to give us some inside info, tell us when the next version of the Mac Pro is coming out and what will the changes be. That info would be useful.
Apologies to those that have this problem.
"VERY small" is an opinion. There are copious amounts of design and development firms, studios, and agencies that purchase and use Mac Pro machines over Windows workstations. In my 15+ year work career, I have worked at over 10 such studios. I currently work at an agency that has more than 200 Mac Pro computers. We have been slowly upgrading people based on the age of their current (old style) Mac Pro.
Besides, even if it was a "VERY small" number of people being affected, we are talking about a $3000+ computer plus the cost of software.
Don't hear this happening with Final Cut or Premiere.
I consider myself very level headed when it comes to tech, because there is not one perfect device on the market. But I have to be honest and acknowledge that I've lost a little trust with Apple. If we're only looking at Apple compared to everything else on the market, then it's quite easy to say that comparatively they are the best and that the things we have to worry about are nowhere near what you have to worry about with other devices. But if we're comparing Apple to their own standard, which is what I care more about, there have been some things over the past year or two that have my worrying about things that I very seldom had to worry about before. I'm often scared to update now for fear that updates are going to completely break things, some with no support to fix. That's not just on computers, but iOS devices, airport routers and ATV. Every update to Airports over the last two years has made the routers worse. It's hard telling everyone around me to switch to Apple devices because they "just work," and then getting a million calls when things "just don't work." Normal end users are quick to blow things way out of proportion and I hate dealing with the blow back of trying to explain why it's not that big of a deal because Apple is usually pretty good about fixing things. I'm not freaking out, but I do not think that people are just complaining about nothing. Apple is having some quality control issues that they need to clean up and restore a little faith in it's users...
Quality control in both hardware and software seems to have gone down since Steve Jobs died. Tim Cook needs to make fixing this first a top priority before it becomes ingrained in the brand instead of releasing new products at a fast pace.
do you have any data to back up your conclusion? because i remember lots of hardware and software bugs under Jobs. and every other CEO of every other tech firm.
some guy on safari in africa editing his natGeo documentary in the bush, calling the Genius Bar from his satphone
I think it's time for Apple to split into two companies- a mobile company and a computer company. Apple isn't giving as much attention and thought to the Mac anymore. This shows in making OS X more like iOS (blah!) instead of making iOS more like OS X. I don't need full screen Messages, Contacts, etc. apps for my 27" Cinema Display. In fact many full screen apps on my Mac are over 50% blank space. So silly.
And iTunes?? It's a total mess!! What used to be one of the friendliest, easiest to use pieces of software is now one of the most convoluted inefficient applications that Apple has released.
what a terrible idea. i like the increased unity between OS X and iOS.
why would you run Messages in fullscreen mode!? just because you can? well, easy fix -- dont.
as for the usual itunes complaints, i still dont get it -- it remains bafflingly easy to use for me. i buy songs, i play songs, i load loads to my devices.
You would think a company with $150B in the bank and the highest valuation on the planet would be able to dedicate some resources to the Mac Pro. No?
but they do. how do you think they invented it if they didnt have resources on it?
Yes, technology isn't perfect. And Apple will therefore never be perfect. But owning up to mistakes and taking measures to prevent them in the future is the responsible thing to do. And I'm sure Apple will remedy this, but, they are still responsible. And they still make products far superior to anything else out there.
you mean like when apple apologized for Maps on iOS? that sort of owning up? yeah, they do that.
as for this -- you have no idea what is causing it, nor that its apple that's responsible. stop pretending.
The new Xeon should be available in a couple of months, possibly three. I don't want to wait until the end of the year (whine).
I just don't get it with Apple sometimes, simply billions in the bank and every R&D $$ spent has to be scrutinised, or so it seems. Or too look at it another way, spend millions finessing the screws on a phone or something, but spend a whole lot less giving a few professionals a proper tool to work with is like pulling teeth.
Most of the graphics card issues Apple has had over the years related to Nvidia.
I think that people have forgotten what a scandal this was in the industry. Nvidia was looking to reduce its manufacturing costs. In soldering chips to the sub boards, ball solder joints are often used. This is where tiny balls of solder are placed between the chip connections on the bottom, and the solder pads on the sub board. Then heat is applied, and the unit is soldered. Nvidia wanted to lower the cost of that. Somehow, they screwed up the certification process. That is, the compatibility of the solder on the pads with the solder making up the balls.
What happened was that, over time, the different hardness and expandability of the different solders caused cracks in the connections, thus leading to failures.
All manufacturers who used those sub modules from Nvidia had these problems. Dell needed to recall over 20,000 units in one line alone. Hp needed to recall over 50,000 of one line, and other manufacturers had the same problem, including Apple. Hundreds of thousands of computers were directly involved in failures from these boards.
It became so bad that Nvidia investors were calling for action by the board. Meanwhile, Nvidia was denying the problems were their fault, but had to put up a $500 million bond to account for warranty, and out of warranty costs for manufacturers, who were threatening to sue. It took years before this problem went away.
So was this an Apple problem? Not really. Nor was it a Dell problem, or a Hp problem, or a Toshiba problem, etc.
It's not really an opinion. It's an assumption.
According to the article, the people affected by this issue are only DaVinci users who actually use the software and render out a final product. That's it. How many users do you think that is? My assumption is a VERY small amount. I'll even hazard a guess and say under 5%. Even if ... "The pro user community in Hollywood has been seriously letdown." ... it's only the folks actually running DaVinci and outputting from it. BUT ... it's a very large PITA for those working professionals. Everyone else is fine ... no problems.
Mac's vs. PC's has nothing to do with it. 3000.00 has nothing to do with it. That is why this is click-bait with a misleading headline. Guys like you assume this is a widespread problem with all Mac Pros. It's not. It's just bad journalism and you got sucked in. We all did.
My real problem is with AI and the author. We who have been waiting on the sidelines for the bugs to shake out of the nMP have been hungry for real news, now that the 1 year anniversary has come and gone. This wasn't real news.
Come on AI. You are better than this.
I consider myself very level headed when it comes to tech, because there is not one perfect device on the market. But I have to be honest and acknowledge that I've lost a little trust with Apple. If we're only looking at Apple compared to everything else on the market, then it's quite easy to say that comparatively they are the best and that the things we have to worry about are nowhere near what you have to worry about with other devices. But if we're comparing Apple to their own standard, which is what I care more about, there have been some things over the past year or two that have my worrying about things that I very seldom had to worry about before. I'm often scared to update now for fear that updates are going to completely break things, some with no support to fix. That's not just on computers, but iOS devices, airport routers and ATV. Every update to Airports over the last two years has made the routers worse. It's hard telling everyone around me to switch to Apple devices because they "just work," and then getting a million calls when things "just don't work." Normal end users are quick to blow things way out of proportion and I hate dealing with the blow back of trying to explain why it's not that big of a deal because Apple is usually pretty good about fixing things. I'm not freaking out, but I do not think that people are just complaining about nothing. Apple is having some quality control issues that they need to clean up and restore a little faith in it's users...
I absolutely agree with you on this. Apple is really going backwards. They have taken what was easy and "just worked" (mostly) then, through incessant fiddling and very poor quality testing, progressively fouled up one thing after another. It is the overall interaction between all their products that often is the problem and mostly inexcusable. The polish has gone out of a lot of their products, mostly because Apple has been making fashion statements rather than improvements.
The iWork suite Apple dumped on its users last year, which screwed up user's work, has progressively gotten worse. Currently what little it does, it only does in Yosemite and iOS 8, and that is buggy. iTunes has become a bizarre shambles the user has to constantly untangle as the deck chairs get shuffled with each version, some hidden somewhere out of sight of the user. A real time waster as is most of Apple's software of late.
I've had the opposite experience. I've bought many Macs for my own business over the years, a business that's been sold. But I also was involved with the NYC Board of Ed, where I was a technology advisor for many years.
While I would never say that Macs are always trouble free, my experience is that they are much more trouble free than their competition, both for software and hardware. It's also not true that Apple never owns up to problems. Sometimes they're slow, to be sure, but most of the time, they do step up to the plate.
One thing I've found in dealing with them is that they just hate to say anything until they're pretty sure they know what the problem is. They don't like to speculate. I remember when the iPod Mini first came out, there were some screens that were cracking quickly after being bought, and a few that were cracked upon opening the box. Apple said nothing for several weeks, just replacing the ones that were brought into the store. People were saying that Apple would never say anything. But they did. They announced that in one production run, the tolerances for the cutout where the glass went was off, and was too tight, causing tension on the glass, and causing it to crack. They gave out the serial numbers of the production run, and replaced all the iPods from that. They've done similar things for other models of devices over the years, including those that were out of warrantee.
Im certainly not a fanboy, as I get accused of disliking Apple every time I criticise them. But they do have a much better record than most everyone else. They're just not as vocal as everyone else, and sometimes, that's a problem.
So was this an Apple problem? Not really. Nor was it a Dell problem, or a Hp problem, or a Toshiba problem, etc.
Yes it is an Apple problem. They choose the supplier and we as consumers get no say in that choice and no way to rectify the problems that that choice causes. If it was a PC you'd rip out the faulty part and replace it. But it is a Mac. What can you do?
Apple even solders or glues in elementary parts now, to make the difficult impossible.
THAT is all Apple!
If Apple can wear the responsibility for what it gets right, how does it not wear the responsibility for what it gets wrong.
Lets not forget all the deadend technologies they took their users down over the years.
That's not really true though. First, we don't know what this problem is. Is it Apple's or is it the software these lRticular people are using? I've had problems with third party software over the years that caused machines to crash consistently. So if the problem is seen to be coming from the software on,y, then it may not be an Apple problem at all. It's difficult to tell.
If the latest update to Yosemite helps the issue, then possibly Apple is trying to find their own solution to Discreets problem. It wouldn't be the first time.
I'd like to know if this has anything to do with hardware, or is purely a software problem. Also remember that while Apple writes it's own drivers, it uses specifications from the hardware manufacture's own drivers. If those specs themselves are a problem, then whatever final driver is written will contain those errors.
If this were a simple problem, then it would have been solved already. I haven't been hearing Nything in the pro industry as to widespread issues with the Mac Pro. To this could be very targeted.