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Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

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Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#61

Post by bangonkeyboard »

shuckles wrote: post #57
jacobsenscott wrote: post #27

I doubt it is developer apathy. It smells like a management issue. iOS is where the money is. I don't know anyone at apple, but here's how I imagine it is there: Every OSX engineer probably has more bugs on their plate than can be fixed in one career, in addition to feature development tasks. The OSX team is severely understaffed both because it is not a priority at Apple, and because it is getting harder and harder…

Engineering is not organized by platform, but function. Apps that are cross-platform have engineers who move back and forth between macOS and iOS. Lots of code is also reused between the two. Both platforms use essentially the same tooling and languages (if anything, iOS development is more painful), though certainly iOS codebases tend to be better because they are newer. A fight for attention by a specific, resource…

> You have to come up with a different explanation for these perceived quality problems.

The developmental move to agile deadline-driven feature-sprints under Craig Federighi.

Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#62

Post by TimTheTinker »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #43
tomduncalf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone integrations (assuming you mean Handover) are one of my favourite parts of the MacOS/iOS ecosystem and one of many reasons why I can't see myself moving away from either OS for a long time. I've also experienced very few bugs in MacOS which have affected me on a day to day basis. Not saying they aren't there, but to me the MacOS team are doing a pretty great job.

For any feature on OSX there are some people who love that feature. But the reality is the core reliability of OSX has been declining for years, and many of the bugs are becoming more egregious. Especially some of the recent security issues. They are all symptoms of an under-resourced team. I have no doubt the OSX engineers are heroes to a person. But I can't imagine they have the resources they need. I also can't im…

My MBP (2016 model, touchbar, macOS Mojave) kernel-panics every time the battery runs out, while attempting to wake up after I plug it in. I frequently work away from my desk and have symptoms of ADHD (inattentive variety) so this actually happens at least 3 times a week.

The MBP I had previously (same model, exchanged out due to keyboard keys sticking) did the same thing.

Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#63

Post by jacobsenscott »

perfmode wrote: post #60
jacobsenscott wrote: post #27

I doubt it is developer apathy. It smells like a management issue. iOS is where the money is. I don't know anyone at apple, but here's how I imagine it is there: Every OSX engineer probably has more bugs on their plate than can be fixed in one career, in addition to feature development tasks. The OSX team is severely understaffed both because it is not a priority at Apple, and because it is getting harder and harder…

It’s dangerous to craft rich narratives without access to even the slightest bits of ground truth.

I did make it very clear twice I am just imagining, and have no ground truth. It does appear to have struck a nerve - it is not an uncommon scenario in this industry. Like I said, I don't know if that's what is actually happening at apple.

Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#64

Post by gcb0 »

Lol. Even when that dialog worked as intended, it was total crap! It mostly worked for certain menu items only.

Fun game: try to remap Ctrl+a to select all, Ctrl+c to copy etc to mimic unix/windows. (or god forbid, to make your limited mobility device that cost thousands of dollars several years ago to work on your work provided macbook pro)

Every single app will behave differently and you will see how broken usability/accessibility is on OSX. Some examples for Ctrl+c:

on Firefox, Ctrl+c will move the cursor to the end of the text area while cmd+c will still work as copy, despite the menu hint showing Ctrl+c next to edit>copy.

On Notes.app it will work fine and cmd+c stops working (correctly).

On safari, calendar and most apple office stuff ctrl+c just do absolutely nothing. In some apps it shows ctrl+c next to edit>copy though, because why not

Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#65

Post by TimTheTinker »

perfmode wrote: post #60
jacobsenscott wrote: post #27

I doubt it is developer apathy. It smells like a management issue. iOS is where the money is. I don't know anyone at apple, but here's how I imagine it is there: Every OSX engineer probably has more bugs on their plate than can be fixed in one career, in addition to feature development tasks. The OSX team is severely understaffed both because it is not a priority at Apple, and because it is getting harder and harder…

It’s dangerous to craft rich narratives without access to even the slightest bits of ground truth.

Narratives in general can be very dangerous, even if there is a lot of truth in them. In fact, our worldviews are constructed out of narratives that define our sense of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.

Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#67

Post by skywhopper »

shuckles wrote: post #57
jacobsenscott wrote: post #27

I doubt it is developer apathy. It smells like a management issue. iOS is where the money is. I don't know anyone at apple, but here's how I imagine it is there: Every OSX engineer probably has more bugs on their plate than can be fixed in one career, in addition to feature development tasks. The OSX team is severely understaffed both because it is not a priority at Apple, and because it is getting harder and harder…

Engineering is not organized by platform, but function. Apps that are cross-platform have engineers who move back and forth between macOS and iOS. Lots of code is also reused between the two. Both platforms use essentially the same tooling and languages (if anything, iOS development is more painful), though certainly iOS codebases tend to be better because they are newer. A fight for attention by a specific, resource…

Well, customizable menu-based keyboard shortcut support is not a cross-platform feature. So maybe there's no one responsible for it? Which amounts to a management/resource-allocation problem as suggested above. The team organization you describe would contribute to the problem of this sort of Mac-specific thing being marginalized and de-prioritized, exactly as described above.

Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#68

Post by skywhopper »

Bahamut wrote: post #39
jacobsenscott wrote: post #27

I doubt it is developer apathy. It smells like a management issue. iOS is where the money is. I don't know anyone at apple, but here's how I imagine it is there: Every OSX engineer probably has more bugs on their plate than can be fixed in one career, in addition to feature development tasks. The OSX team is severely understaffed both because it is not a priority at Apple, and because it is getting harder and harder…

There's no "OSX team" at Apple. That would go against Apple's whole corporate structure.

There is, presumably, a team responsible for the feature described in the article. Unless there isn't, in which case, that would explain some of the problems.

Re: Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts Killed by Bug

#69

Post by shuckles »

skywhopper wrote: post #67
shuckles wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering is not organized by platform, but function. Apps that are cross-platform have engineers who move back and forth between macOS and iOS. Lots of code is also reused between the two. Both platforms use essentially the same tooling and languages (if anything, iOS development is more painful), though certainly iOS codebases tend to be better because they are newer. A fight for attention by a specific, resource…

Well, customizable menu-based keyboard shortcut support is not a cross-platform feature. So maybe there's no one responsible for it? Which amounts to a management/resource-allocation problem as suggested above. The team organization you describe would contribute to the problem of this sort of Mac-specific thing being marginalized and de-prioritized, exactly as described above.

No. There is no fight for recognition or status of the kind the parent extrapolates. “Resource allocation problem” is general enough that it could explain basically every bug, so that’s not particularly helpful.

The way to think about this is that the menu bindings are AppKit features which share resources with UIKit.

An interesting theory would be one which identifies (i) who in the organization gets to gate what ships and decides it’s good enough (ii) what are their incentives. At a company like Apple which is huge, has marketing deadlines, and is coordinating hardware, software, and services releases, both items have very subtle and interesting answers.

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