Apple software sees disastrous, embarrassing week with iOS springboard crash, macOS root u...

2456

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 119
    nhughesnhughes Posts: 770editor
    tzeshan said:
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    I'm not denying there are bugs here. But the impact has been minimal due to the speedy response. I don't know anyone who had intruders from this zero-day exploit.

    In my mind, a true PR disaster -- having your product burn down cars and catch fire on planes, prompting every single domestic flight to cite it by name, triggering multiple recalls. That's a disaster, with real-world impact. This wasn't that. That's why I say it's hyperbolic to equate these relatively low-impact bugs to true disasters.
    But but it does affect goodwill toward Apple. Apple earn most profits on smartphone sales because people trust the high quality of Apple products. 
    Which is exactly why the first section of this editorial is about customer satisfaction, and not the bugs themselves. This guy gets it.
    waverboymuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 22 of 119
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    tonybenic said:
    At least they pushed out updates and fixes almost instantly! 
    But still sad to see that this happens more often despite the big increase in R&D...
    Probably happens because of the big increase in R&D
  • Reply 23 of 119
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    Here’s what I suggest. Decouple major software releases from hardware. If the new iPhone needs some new software updates then add them in a point point release. I’m
    convinced that the problems with the .0 release come from releasing to the hardware schedule. 

    Then you have time to fix bugs. 


    This bug is odd though. There’s nothing special about today’s date. It looks like somebody may have planted an issue? 
    edited December 2017 tenthousandthings
  • Reply 24 of 119
    nhughes said:
    tzeshan said:
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    I'm not denying there are bugs here. But the impact has been minimal due to the speedy response. I don't know anyone who had intruders from this zero-day exploit.

    In my mind, a true PR disaster -- having your product burn down cars and catch fire on planes, prompting every single domestic flight to cite it by name, triggering multiple recalls. That's a disaster, with real-world impact. This wasn't that. That's why I say it's hyperbolic to equate these relatively low-impact bugs to true disasters.
    But but it does affect goodwill toward Apple. Apple earn most profits on smartphone sales because people trust the high quality of Apple products. 
    Which is exactly why the first section of this editorial is about customer satisfaction, and not the bugs themselves. This guy gets it.
    Wouldn’t customers be satisfied that Apple have speedily fix bugs. I think more people would be upset if they had to wait weeks, days even for a fix. Yeah bugs suck but fixing them in a timely manner is equally, if not, more important. 
    docno42pscooter63jahbladerandominternetpersonStrangeDays
  • Reply 25 of 119
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    I'm not denying there are bugs here. But the impact has been minimal due to the speedy response. I don't know anyone who had intruders from this zero-day exploit.

    In my mind, a true PR disaster -- having your product burn down cars and catch fire on planes, prompting every single domestic flight to cite it by name, triggering multiple recalls. That's a disaster, with real-world impact. This wasn't that. That's why I say it's hyperbolic to equate these relatively low-impact bugs to true disasters.
    It surprising how few people were affected because I would have thought that local notifications were universal. No doubt millions were. 

    It has a very severe effect in my phone. In fact I thought the hardware was broken because a reboot didn’t solve it. The iPhone was literally unusable, running hot and black screening every 15 seconds. I had to google the issue on my laptop. 

    Also it didn’t happen at 12:15 AM here (GMT). I was using Netflix until 2am last night. When I awoke at 9 the phone was in the loop. So it looks like it was 12:15 am Pacific time. 
  • Reply 26 of 119
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    Your lock analogy is poor. Most people don’t have their macs out in the open making it available for anyone to access. Also, if they did, it would be locked via a password, you know, the door lock of our macs. 

    And I see that your personal device was affected. Sorry to hear that but normally people who have problems with their devices don’t get to pen an entire article in a reputable online magazine riddled with hyperbolic phrasing depicting a sky is falling on us Apple users. Most, as in an extremely large number, of us were not affected by the springboard crash and no one was affected by the root password bug. 
    philboogiemacplusplusjony0randominternetpersonStrangeDays
  • Reply 27 of 119
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    LukeCage said:
    nhughes said:
    tzeshan said:
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    I'm not denying there are bugs here. But the impact has been minimal due to the speedy response. I don't know anyone who had intruders from this zero-day exploit.

    In my mind, a true PR disaster -- having your product burn down cars and catch fire on planes, prompting every single domestic flight to cite it by name, triggering multiple recalls. That's a disaster, with real-world impact. This wasn't that. That's why I say it's hyperbolic to equate these relatively low-impact bugs to true disasters.
    But but it does affect goodwill toward Apple. Apple earn most profits on smartphone sales because people trust the high quality of Apple products. 
    Which is exactly why the first section of this editorial is about customer satisfaction, and not the bugs themselves. This guy gets it.
    Wouldn’t customers be satisfied that Apple have speedily fix bugs. I think more people would be upset if they had to wait weeks, days even for a fix. Yeah bugs suck but fixing them in a timely manner is equally, if not, more important. 
    They released a beta they didn’t intend to release for weeks immediately. That’s a very very panicky move. I suppose that a fix, even if it took a few hours, would still be a few hours later than releasing 11.2. 
    krawall
  • Reply 28 of 119
    nhughesnhughes Posts: 770editor
    LukeCage said:
    nhughes said:
    tzeshan said:
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    I'm not denying there are bugs here. But the impact has been minimal due to the speedy response. I don't know anyone who had intruders from this zero-day exploit.

    In my mind, a true PR disaster -- having your product burn down cars and catch fire on planes, prompting every single domestic flight to cite it by name, triggering multiple recalls. That's a disaster, with real-world impact. This wasn't that. That's why I say it's hyperbolic to equate these relatively low-impact bugs to true disasters.
    But but it does affect goodwill toward Apple. Apple earn most profits on smartphone sales because people trust the high quality of Apple products. 
    Which is exactly why the first section of this editorial is about customer satisfaction, and not the bugs themselves. This guy gets it.
    Wouldn’t customers be satisfied that Apple have speedily fix bugs. I think more people would be upset if they had to wait weeks, days even for a fix. Yeah bugs suck but fixing them in a timely manner is equally, if not, more important. 
    The fact that my wife couldn't even update her phone without multiple attempts because of the bug is a bit of a problem.

    And, as I said in the editorial, imagine a less tech savvy user who is currently on hold with Apple, or making their way to the Genius Bar.

    Kudos to Apple for getting the bugs fixed so quickly, for sure. But the rush job patches have led to their own problems, And the reasons the patches have been rushed is because the bugs are so astoundingly bad.
    macky the mackybeowulfschmidt
  • Reply 29 of 119
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    kruegdude said:
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    Your lock analogy is poor. Most people don’t have their macs out in the open making it available for anyone to access. Also, if they did, it would be locked via a password, you know, the door lock of our macs. 

    And I see that your personal device was affected. Sorry to hear that but normally people who have problems with their devices don’t get to pen an entire article in a reputable online magazine riddled with hyperbolic phrasing depicting a sky is falling on us Apple users. Most, as in an extremely large number, of us were not affected by the springboard crash and no one was affected by the root password bug. 
    I am honestly surprised that that was the case. I would have thought that most people would have notifications on. It was a serious bug - effectively bricking the phone unless you hacked the date. Or turned all notifications off. ( I turned low power mode on but that didn’t help. You’d think it would). 
  • Reply 30 of 119
    Tempest in a teacup.  This time next week, no one will remember the issue.  Further, it’s like,

    ”Apple was less than 97% perfect for 3 whole days!  News at 11.”

    There are certain OS features and Apple Apps that I think are dumb and unintuitive.  iMovie for Mac is my least liked.  However, my perception, having been a Mac power user for over 20 years, is that stability and reliability have never been better.  


    kruegdudephilboogiedocno42jony0pscooter63randominternetperson
  • Reply 31 of 119
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    There's no way to sugarcoat what has happened over the past week at Apple. Apple's software team has to bite down and swallow hard on this week's series of events. This has to be a learning experience, with equal parts of tending to the technical integrity of the people & processes and with activating & amplifying the humility of the entire staff. Some root cause failure analysis, process mapping, soul searching, understanding the checks & balances that impact software/product quality, and defining and committing to an action plan to move forward with an additional commitment and emphasis on building quality into their product early and often. I can't help but see a classic pattern of relying too heavily on the test and QA team as a quality backstop when it is the designers and developers who really need to be the greatest influence on the quality that goes into the software/product - long before the final test and QA folks see it. Fumbling on the response like they did also demonstrates that they were not well prepared to handle the situation/incident that they were presented with and reacted with haste that bit them a second time. These late breaking surprises and panic mode reactions are brutally expensive and disruptive for everyone involved. 

    I have confidence that Tim Cook and the leadership team will make sure that this is a painful lesson soon not forgotten and one that is taken to heart by the entire team. Those who cannot or will not learn or believe that they are above reproach for what's happened will soon find other vocations.

    randominternetperson
  • Reply 32 of 119
    nhughesnhughes Posts: 770editor

    kruegdude said:
    nhughes said:
    nhughes said:
    Hyperbolic piece, our week after Thanksgiving was joyous and without issue on any of our devices? What are we doing wrong??

    Guessed the byline by the headline. 
    "Major problems did not affect me, therefore they are not major problems."

    I said Apple, the company, had a week that was not joyous. By any measure it was a public relations disaster. I am genuinely glad to hear your week was joyous, though.
    By the same exact token -- just because some people experienced problems doesn't mean many or most. I've been with family all thru and after Thanksgiving, all Apple devices, and none of us were in a living nightmare because none of us experienced any problems. Sure bugs exist, but the way the techie echo chamber makes it out you'd think everyone's devices were failing everywhere. They aren't. 
    If you found out that your front door lock didn't work properly, even though no actually one took advantage of it and broke into your home, would you give the lock company a pass for their mistake? The root bug in macOS is an embarrassment for Apple, and they deserve to be taken to task for it.

    My iPhone X was not affected by the iOS 11.1.2 bug, but my wife's was. Took multiple attempts to install the 11.2 update because the springboard kept repeatedly crashing. On any week, that would be a bad bug. On this week, it's the capstone for an unfortunate series of self-inflicted wounds.
    Your lock analogy is poor. Most people don’t have their macs out in the open making it available for anyone to access. Also, if they did, it would be locked via a password, you know, the door lock of our macs. 

    And I see that your personal device was affected. Sorry to hear that but normally people who have problems with their devices don’t get to pen an entire article in a reputable online magazine riddled with hyperbolic phrasing depicting a sky is falling on us Apple users. Most, as in an extremely large number, of us were not affected by the springboard crash and no one was affected by the root password bug. 
    I've been the managing editor of AppleInsider for 8 and a half years, prior to which I worked in print. You're welcome to disagree with my opinion or this editorial, but to suggest that I am abusing my position because of some isolated personal experience I had with my wife's phone, solely with the intent to besmirch Apple, is quite silly. I don't exactly have a reputation for clickbait or hyperbole. This has just been a rather unprecedentedly bad week (and fall) for Apple software. The sky is not falling.

    Also, thank you for calling us reputable! :)
    gatorguyasdasdmuthuk_vanalingamkrawallrevenantwelshdog
  • Reply 33 of 119
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    Tim cook’s gonna fire all those lazy assholes responsible for this..
    kpom said:
    I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a management shakeup after this. Perhaps a new C-suite level position over quality control. 
    Why do people think that just because there's an issue, someone needs to be fired for it? I'm sure you've never made a mistake where you work, right? Maybe you should be fired from where you work as well because you made a mistake and overlooked something. 

    Hell, might as well fire Tim Cook while were at it so someone else can come in and then we'll fire their ass as soon as something goes wrong at Apple again. Lets just have a revolving door of people coming in and out of Apple. Thats always good for a company. /s
    muthuk_vanalingampscooter63LukeCage
  • Reply 34 of 119
    If I were to hazard a guess as to why were seeing a higher than normal number of bugs in the code I’d pin it on either parts of the code base being rewritten in a new language or the disruptions caused by the move to a new physical development environment. Or a bit of both. JMHO. 
    LukeCage
  • Reply 35 of 119
    I’ve heard that more and more is being written in Swift. I wonder if that explains some of the bugs? 
  • Reply 36 of 119
    kpom said:
    I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a management shakeup after this. Perhaps a new C-suite level position over quality control. 
    I doubt it. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some engineers no longer work at the company.
  • Reply 37 of 119
    Whoa... pulling a inverse DED here!
    Let's call it iDED!

    Jokes aside, Neil appears to have overblown the issue. The macOS flaw was serious, but patched within a day almost. File sharing is so "touch and go" (mine is the only mac on the department, and for the life of me, Windows users just don't know how to enable it—properly—on their systems) that it's hard to notice a diference. All in all, mac users are a considerably small fraction of the Apple customer base.

    As for the iOS bugs, as irksome as they might have been (my iOS devices weren't affected), were not serious per se. Although, considering the scale of iOS user base. It's no surprise Apple pushed an update out of the door before cosmetic things, like the update notes, were updated (pun not intended, but welcomed nonetheless). Even though their impact on a Saturday morning should be limited (I awoke to find my iPhone already running iOS 11.2).

    I'm not saying there is no problem. I myself think it unseemly to have Apple scrambling like that, but this piece appears to have been written for Gizmodo (or so I heard, since I've never read anything from them). So hold your horses Neil. It's my understanding that AI readers are not fond of inflammatory anti-Apple clickbait.
    magman1979StrangeDays
  • Reply 38 of 119
    I wrote here a few weeks ago about Apple's awful software development process that is creating crappy software & 
    Apple's fanboys went nuts as usual...   Since then, the worse software security problems seen in years has vindicated my position that Tim Cooks rabid concern for profits instead of equal passion for product performance is the root cause of what we are witnessing... Apple management team publicly recognized their immediate failures & said they would review their software processes, but if they don't start making changes at the top of the management team these problems will continue to embarrass Apple as witnessed by all the software issues that appeared this week...

    By the way, the latest updates for MAC OS have had unintended consequences on other Apple software (iPhoto) which I fail to grasp why...  Since the latest MAC OS update, my iPhoto now gets the spinning ball every minute or so, no matter what I am doing...  In addition, it is now totally crashing every 5 to 10 minutes, again without notice and I am not seeming a specific pattern as to what is causing it... Apple software is a real mess these days... 
  • Reply 39 of 119
    nhughesnhughes Posts: 770editor
    osmartormenajr said:
    The macOS flaw was serious, but patched within a day almost. 
    Supposedly the flaw was publicized on Apple’s developer forums months ago, over the summer. It just didn’t get wide publicity until Tuesday. But it was not patched within a day.
    gatorguywelshdog
  • Reply 40 of 119
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    nhughes said:

    I've been the managing editor of AppleInsider for 8 and a half years...
    Can you explain the decline in the number of posts? Articles used to get hundreds of replies, but nowadays it seems only every now and then an article receives over 30 posts. Most articles are getting single digit posts, making this site feel like a ghost town. There used to be really great discussions on all things tech, which I always loved to read and participate in.
    pscooter63StrangeDays
Sign In or Register to comment.