In software development 'cultural shift', Apple won't hold features for major annual point...

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  • Reply 21 of 29
    dewme said:
    This is completely in-line with modern software development practices, i.e., continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) as part of an integrated and automated DevOps software development culture. Totally the right thing to do, and not because "all the cool kids" are doing it, but because it results in better tested and higher quality software. 
    Better a CI and/or CD than a (CSI) continuous shitty implementation...
  • Reply 22 of 29
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    dewme said:
    This is completely in-line with modern software development practices, i.e., continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) as part of an integrated and automated DevOps software development culture. Totally the right thing to do, and not because "all the cool kids" are doing it, but because it results in better tested and higher quality software. 
    Better a CI and/or CD than a (CSI) continuous shitty implementation...
    I guess. But until you've been in the breach of a major software development project that's being pressured to ship it's easy to point fingers. The most egregious issues with software quality have less to do with the quality of the implementation than business driven factors. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google can afford to, and do, hire A-grade architects, programmers, and UX folks. Bad implementation is fairly easy to find and will get the people who generate crap designs or code fired. What rarely leads to people getting fired are overcommitments and accumulation of technical debt.

    Too often organizations grade themselves on how many projects that can get started and have running to address anticipated future product and business goals/objectives and competitive positioning. They pride themselves on all the strategic fronts that they are executing against. But having too many inflight initiatives and work-in-process (WIP) burns a lot of capital, burns tons of cash, and spreads the talent thin. If these same organizations were instead looking at how many projects were actually finishing with the required quality they'd realize that they are basically screwing themselves by focusing too heavily on how many battles they are fighting instead of how many battles they are winning. What Apple is doing, I believe, is changing their culture to concentrate more on the completion rate of good quality software (winning battles) even if it means deferring other initiatives (new battles) that they are committed to going after. This isn't a trivial culture change because there are typically many layers within an organization that not only pride themselves on fighting battles and the promotion paths of so many middle managers is based on having many readily available battles to sign up to fight for.

    None of this cultural inertia within the business that leads to poor outcomes has anything to do with crap code. Crap code is much easier to eradicate.
    edited February 2018 watto_cobra
  • Reply 23 of 29
    No point in introducing “iOS 12” if a zero point release isn’t bringing bigger updates.

    Instead they are probably better off starting again with another versioning number, just labeling it ‘iOS’ and just increment the versioning number with each update. 
  • Reply 24 of 29
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    So what happens to developer API's?

    Is the ARkit 1.5 part of this plan already with all the Kits having a chance to release a non-breaking feature release mid year as it suits. Also will this mean they decouple iOS release from iPhone release and move it earlier in the year possibly at same time as macOS maybe even earlier with iOS 12 and macOS 14 only running short beta from the start of WWDC. Then 12.x at the launch of the iPhone. This could help them spread hardware over the year as well.

    So many questions and fingers-crossed to what this could mean in practice.
    The biggest why not earlier?
    edited February 2018
  • Reply 25 of 29
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    No point in introducing “iOS 12” if a zero point release isn’t bringing bigger updates.

    Instead they are probably better off starting again with another versioning number, just labeling it ‘iOS’ and just increment the versioning number with each update. 
    Apple coreOS?
  • Reply 26 of 29
    I keep hearing the same thing over and over.  Apple's focus on features is sacrificing stability of the platform as a whole, and allowing "new features" to be spread across the entire range of releases means that there will be absolutely no benefit to Apple in fixing old problems.  

    These "old problems" are compounding on themselves, and will eventually lead to huge performance, efficiency, and reliability problems.  I would rather Apple focus on NO NEW FEATURES and devote time to fixing some of these problems before they cripple the platform; sadly, that's apparently not the world Apple lives in.

  • Reply 27 of 29
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    Exceedingly good news. As others have said they will be able to release features as they're ready and not for the big September date. An aspect I'm looking forward to are all the new things I'll discover. With a big monolithic release you hear the bullet points, but there are always a huge number of little improvements, smaller new features and tweaks that get lost in the shuffle. I regularly discover things that my systems will do, only to discover that it was introduced a year or two before. Nobody mentioned it because of the giant thing that came out at the same time. This will help show how Apple is making lots of refinements and improvements to their systems
  • Reply 28 of 29
    darkvaderdarkvader Posts: 1,146member
    I keep hearing the same thing over and over.  Apple's focus on features is sacrificing stability of the platform as a whole, and allowing "new features" to be spread across the entire range of releases means that there will be absolutely no benefit to Apple in fixing old problems.  

    These "old problems" are compounding on themselves, and will eventually lead to huge performance, efficiency, and reliability problems.  I would rather Apple focus on NO NEW FEATURES and devote time to fixing some of these problems before they cripple the platform; sadly, that's apparently not the world Apple lives in.

    New features aren't the problem.  Apple keeps on removing features, they're completely destroying Server, I just discovered today that Bonjour no longer works in Messages in 10.13, they're breaking AFP, they're going to break 32-bit apps, they can't seem to stop f*****g up what they've got.  Or when they decided I don't want to be able to manage my iOS apps on my Mac - because yes, I f*****g well do.  Upgrading back to iTunes 12.6.3 from 12.7 was a real pain.

    Well, maybe the new features are the problem, because they're mostly useless fluff, or worse actually disastrous like the iCloud desktop sync that they decided to turn on by default.  I have exactly one client who wanted that feature, and I've spent a lot of time helping a lot of others recover from it.  Even worse was when they decided to actually remove files from computers and store them only in iCloud - literally nobody wants that to happen ever, but Apple turned it on by default.
    edited February 2018 SpamSandwich
  • Reply 29 of 29
    darkvader said:
    [...] Well, maybe the new features are the problem, because they're mostly useless fluff, or worse actually disastrous like the iCloud desktop sync that they decided to turn on by default.  I have exactly one client who wanted that feature, and I've spent a lot of time helping a lot of others recover from it.  Even worse was when they decided to actually remove files from computers and store them only in iCloud - literally nobody wants that to happen ever, but Apple turned it on by default.
    Somebody at Apple has a real hard-on for having user content reside on their servers rather than local machines. Apple's Mac apps try to save everything in the cloud unless one tells them not to, one of the primary features of the HomePod only works with remote content, and the Apple TV 4 & 4K treat local files like second-class citizens. I don't understand Apple's goal with this. What's the payoff?

    I don't think I have any particular philosophical objection to Apple's approach, it just seems weird, and sometimes it's a hassle. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that If there's some benefit, I haven't yet figured out what it is.
    muthuk_vanalingam
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