I keep seeing reports of stuff breaking as a result of upgrading to High Sierra. Does anyone know why this new version of the OS breaks so many different things?
Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#2Simple answer - no money in osx, it's all in ios.
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#3Simple answer - no money in osx, it's all in ios.
Which is funny because you can't build an iOS app without OS X (err.. MacOS*)
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#4Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#5Simple answer - no money in osx, it's all in ios.
Then why does iOS 11 break so much stuff?
If the answer is simple, it probably has to do with culture/QA. But I don't think it's that simple.
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#6When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, there was a huge backlog of bugs and deferred maintenance in system software, presumably because resources had been diverted to the failed Copeland project. Jobs addressed the problem immediately, and the result was a series of very solid OS releases, starting with System 8 in July 1997. Ironically, Apple seems to have come full circle. If Apple has their priorities straight, this year they will invest a chunk of their repatriated cash in Mac software.
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#7Simple answer - no money in osx, it's all in ios.
Tragically I think this is the answer - all of Apple's talented developers have most likely shunted over to iOS and the quality of macOS has been left to rot.
What's infuriating is that High Sierra, as referenced in its naming scheme, is supposed to be minor improvements on top of plain Sierra, but it breaks so many things that I am drawn to compare it to Vista - half-baked, unfinished, should never have been released. And yet Apple have previously managed good releases like this - Snow Leopard (my all-time favourite OS) and Mountain Lion were successful. High Sierra is a train wreck. I am holding all company laptops back from upgrading because I can't trust the thing.
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#8An alternative explanation, likely unsatisfactory, but possibly correlated to continued growth of social media such as this very site:
Stanford linguistics professor Arnold Zwicky coined [the term "frequency illusion"] in 2006 to describe the syndrome in which a concept or thing you just found out about suddenly seems to crop up everywhere. It’s caused, he wrote, by two psychological processes.
The first, selective attention, kicks in when you’re struck by a new word, thing, or idea; after that, you unconsciously keep an eye out for it, and as a result find it surprisingly often.
The second process, confirmation bias, reassures you that each sighting is further proof of your impression that the thing has gained overnight omnipresence.
–"There's a Name for That: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon..."
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/153166/what-is-t...
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#9Simple answer - no money in osx, it's all in ios.
Tragically I think this is the answer - all of Apple's talented developers have most likely shunted over to iOS and the quality of macOS has been left to rot. What's infuriating is that High Sierra, as referenced in its naming scheme, is supposed to be minor improvements on top of plain Sierra, but it breaks so many things that I am drawn to compare it to Vista - half-baked, unfinished, should never have been release…
I suspect the answer is more that Apple refuses to grow its teams beyond a certain size. It's not a lack of money or talent; rather they value a certain way of working (look at all the stuff about collaboration in the new building). But the size of the company and product range has pushed those teams beyond their limits.
Re: Ask HN: Why does High Sierra break so much stuff?
#10I have a mid 2014 Macbook Pro (top of the line, discrete GPU and all) and some recent update has made it really slow (not the Meltdown updates, something before that). It now takes an age to switch workspaces, to load the task switcher, to change applications etc. Stuff also seems to go wrong more. App crashes, iTunes refusing to open, Finder crashing etc.
The annoying thing is I tried to upgrade to a new Macbook Pro, but I just couldn't get on with the new machine (I detailed my thoughts here https://blog.willj.net/2017/08/14/why-i-returned-my-macbook-...).
I feel like Apple are pushing me away. My mac is still better for me than a Linux machine, but it's getting close now.
The thing with this is that I don't really think Apple cares that much. Apple is a phone company now, and OS X and Macs feel like an afterthought.
It wouldn't surprise me if in the next few years Apple slowly winds down all things Mac. Marketing, updates, upgrades etc. and while doing that makes XCode Windows compatible.