I thought Apple cut their QA department a few, maybe 5 years ago.
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How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
31–40 of 234 posts
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#32Steven Sinofsky has a good Twitter thread about this [1]. He's one of the few people actually qualified to talk about managing platforms and operating systems at Apple's scale. [1] https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/963142502604779520
Given what he pushed for with Windows 8, and killing WP 7 alongside XNA, I am not so sure.
Seems to me like a person who has made mistakes and learned from them is exactly the type of person whose opinion matters here.
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#33What originally made the iPhone unique and powerful was that it included a full blown web browser, in the form of the Safari app. Steve Jobs announced the iPhone as a "Phone," "iPod," and "Internet Communicator." The name "Internet Communicator" indicates how different it is from the other two apps. The Phone and iPod functionality are really a subset of the Internet Communicator. And because the future is open web t…
That’s definitely not what made the iPhone unique. It was one benefit, but hardly the only one, or even the main one.
You hope that open technologies are the future, but it remains to be seen.
Regardless, a rapid shift to PWAs is not at all in Apple’s interest, and I highly doubt they’re going to do that.
They want all the best apps, developers, and customers to be concentrated on iOS. That’s how things are now (I’m sure many will disagree), and making it easier for users to exit the Apple ecosystem will only hurt them. Apple’s strategy is to invite users into a high-quality, comprehensive ecosystem, and then sell them more devices (and increasingly services) over time. The best way to do that is to provide a differentiated experience that can’t be replicated elsewhere.
Given that, why on earth would they shift to focus on PWAs over increasing their hold on the factors that differentiate them?
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#34This comment from a former employee on the iOS team provides some more context around the software quality issues. I think this is the more interesting point around which we should have this discussion. https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/7x0eif/how_apple_pla...
I have a slightly different perspective (I worked on iOS 7 - 11). One of the things about Apple that's different to many of the other tech conglomerates is that engineering teams are given huge freedom to work the way they want (for better and for worse). Because engineering is so fragmented you should always take what one person says about the process with a pinch of salt.
So that means there are hundreds of source repos, patch review systems, and the like. When I was there I saw teams using Phabricator, GitLab, GitHub, plain e-mailed diffs, and more. In the same way EPMs and project process varies massively across teams, so what that employee experienced is by no means the norm. Certainly I didn't find this to be true at all:
> Nothing could be worked on if it wasn’t in Radar with a priority number attached and signed off by the teams’ EPM. No room for a side project or time away from your daily duties because there were always P1s to fix.
In fact, I worked on a major feature that was keynoted one year that came out purely because of my side project work. If anything it was a frustration to enter the "real world" where PMs had so much more power and influence than they did when I was at Apple (where PMs didn't really exist, and EPMs existed only to manage project timelines and drive features that HI / ID came up with).
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#35This comment from a former employee on the iOS team provides some more context around the software quality issues. I think this is the more interesting point around which we should have this discussion. https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/7x0eif/how_apple_pla...
Based on this comment, it sounds like engineers are more like line workers.
"EMs at Apple are powerless to push back. Every engineer's performance is tied to the number of Radars fixed and closed. Every EM's performance is tied to their team's total Radars fixed and closed, so they have an incentive to keep everyone focused on the prize."
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#36Steven Sinofsky has a good Twitter thread about this [1]. He's one of the few people actually qualified to talk about managing platforms and operating systems at Apple's scale. [1] https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/963142502604779520
> 43/... Someone should do this poor guy a favor and set him up with a blog. Twitter is only slightly worse for writing essays than "yo" (yes, it exists; no, I have no idea whether it's a joke).
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#37This rumor has been around past few months, hoping it's true. Though while us technies in the minority would rather bug fixes than new features that don't apply for us, the general public would be very upset if iOS12 changes are all under the hood, as they would say Apple has fallen behind and people will insert common statements every years like they are finally considering switching etc. So while I hope the do fix…
The Mac has had an optimization-centric release following a feature release many times (all the Snow releases, El Capitan). I don't remember mass complaints. (By its name, High Sierra ought to be an optimization of Sierra also, but its bugginess suggests otherwise.)
There wouldn't be mass complaints. My family are absolute non-techies, while I am something like a techie, and none of us would complain if Apple did a few pure bug-fix releases. Non-techies don't completely understand the current situation where developers care far more about themselves than their users, but they have learned that software "upgrades" will usually waste their time and make their lives worse. Apple can actually fight this, since their users are their customers.
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#38I tried to upgrade OSX the other day and the upgrade hung half way, leaving me to restore my hard disk from backup.
More quality assurance and testing would be welcomed.
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#39I thought Apple cut their QA department a few, maybe 5 years ago.
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Yeah, but you get releases where I could hard lock the OS by plugging/unplugging an HDMI monitor approx 20 times (7 MBPs bought over the course of 3 months in late 2014; 3 different brands of HDMI monitor) and that's the only way you can make sense of someone letting a bug like that out the door.
Re: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs, Revamp iPhone Software
#40What originally made the iPhone unique and powerful was that it included a full blown web browser, in the form of the Safari app. Steve Jobs announced the iPhone as a "Phone," "iPod," and "Internet Communicator." The name "Internet Communicator" indicates how different it is from the other two apps. The Phone and iPod functionality are really a subset of the Internet Communicator. And because the future is open web t…
Interestingly, Steve Jobs's vision for apps on iOS was essentially PWAs. He was forced to back down after developer found their way around these restrictions (i.e. jailbroke) and realized they could write much higher quality, faster, and more efficient apps natively.