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Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

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Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#81
post #55

Tangentially related: GitHub has already dropped support for Mojave. The whole site is now broken in Safari 12 because it’s no longer the “current” version of the browser. Well, it is if you run Mojave, as you need to upgrade the entire system to get Safari 13. I can understand not developing new features for Safari 12, but speaking of regressions, why would you go break things that used to work a week ago?

GitHub has already dropped support for Mojave. The whole site is now broken in Safari 12 because it’s no longer the “current” version of the browser.

Is that a message Github have put out, or have they accidently rolled out a new feature that has a bug in Safari 12? That seems more likely to me. Github's browser support is usually very good, and it'd be incredibly disappointing if they've broken something intentionally.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#82
post #5

I can only surmise (hope) that their resources are diverted towards Something Big. Could be ARM macOS and/or AR glasses. Not that this excuses the bugginess of their current core products. Bringing up comparisons to Steve Jobs must be the tech equivalent of Godwin's Law, but if there was one thing about him, it's that he actually was a user of his own products, like us. It feels like there's no one at Apple (or other…

>Bringing up comparisons to Steve Jobs must be the tech equivalent of Godwin's Law, but if there was one thing about him, it's that he actually was a user of his own products, like us. It feels like there's no one at Apple (or other companies) like that anymore. They can only try to guess at what it must be like to be a user, so they can't nitpick all the little things that annoy us.

Exactly this. As he famously said on stage he was the low paid beta tester for Apple. He was also sensitive to certain users opinion. I could only wish he was replying email on this latest MacBook Pro and decide to throw the damn thing out of the Window. Calling up Engineers at midnight and demand this to be fix or redesigned ASAP.

Without Steve we have been stuck with this butterfly keyboard for 4-5 years now, because Tim Cook decided it is a small problem and they need to amortise the cost of R&D.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#83

This article explains why something is buggy. Maybe why Apple's software is buggy. It does not explain why the latest stuff is so buggy. Is Catalina that much more complex than, say, Mavericks? Are managers playing deadline chicken more? I don't see evidence for this.

The author used to work at Apple, but no longer does, so they probably can’t comment accurately on anything super recent. I agree with you, it doesn’t really deliver on the title, but I still found it an interesting read. But yeah, a more accurate title would be something like “common causes of quality issues in Apple software.”

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#84
I expect the number of the new security vulnerabilities to be a lot more than the bugs visible to the users. Considering the MacOS track of record in the last year ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222 ), I am pretty worried.

When I see a weird behavior I always wonder if it is a Apple's bug or a bug introduced by something trying to exploit a vulnerability.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#85

I did not work for Apple but this article describes exactly what I was thinking. Apple has very waterfall cycle. Everything is planned year after year to be released for the September event. When the deadline approach teams realized that are behind and they need to overwork. And when people get tired and under pressure, they usually introduce even more bugs. The article also nails the solution: a more Agile workflow.…

They could simply decouple the apps from the OS, like Android. Safari and Mail.app do not need to be tied to OS releases.

Android OS releases do not get nearly as much fanfare because a lot of core functionality is decoupled from the OS: app store(s), mail clients, browsers, todo lists, even the text messaging apps and some security frameworks.

Which of course is exactly why Apple keeps everything in one big release. They want lots of press talking about the brand new features.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#86

I did not work for Apple but this article describes exactly what I was thinking. Apple has very waterfall cycle. Everything is planned year after year to be released for the September event. When the deadline approach teams realized that are behind and they need to overwork. And when people get tired and under pressure, they usually introduce even more bugs. The article also nails the solution: a more Agile workflow.…

I think we should not conflate SDL and long term product and feature planning. You can have both agile SDL and long term planning.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#87
I could understand iOS 13 being buggy as they are trying cramp more features in every year. But the thing is, there is nothing on Catalina that felt new, unless you take removal of iTunes and new PodCast / Apple Music App as new.

99% of the macOS remain the same. The removal of 32bit Apps are long time coming. I just dont understand why it had so many problems.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#88
post #63

> apart from a few specific areas, Apple doesn’t do a lot of automated testing. Apple is highly reliant on manual testing, probably too much so. That's the last thing I expected to know about such a big company.

They should have more automated tests. But considering this article does not surprise me at all. That also mean probably almost no exploration/fuzzy tests. The kernel may be one of the few exceptions.

Considering the secrecy infra-team I would expect almost no integration tests.

That also means that Apple products are pretty bad when it come to security contrary to what Apple's marketing wants you to believe.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#89
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. My experience is opposite. Been in iOS development for over 10 years already, little less for Android. App made for iOS still works with very minor adjustments, while on Android it’s a mess. We was forced to change build system several times, breaking changes and just silly API renames, service depreciations, generations of push services, forcing firebase and AndroidX, change of permission model, of concurrency…

Unfortunately, just because the developer experience on Android can be even worse, that doesn't mean the developer experience on iOS isn't bad.

Yes. Thing is this are de-facto only two platforms alive. Yes. Mobile (and desktop) developers life suck. But someone has to write all that software.

And, IMO, iOS/macOS/Cocoa/Xcode is best out there. And most importantly - most stable. Nice boutique experience, nice API, good documentation, everything is integrated and working.

Other platforms are even worse. Way worse. I am also doing Switch, KaiOS, Xbox, PS3/4, did Symbian and like dozen more obscure ones.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#90
post #55

Tangentially related: GitHub has already dropped support for Mojave. The whole site is now broken in Safari 12 because it’s no longer the “current” version of the browser. Well, it is if you run Mojave, as you need to upgrade the entire system to get Safari 13. I can understand not developing new features for Safari 12, but speaking of regressions, why would you go break things that used to work a week ago?

> Well, it is if you run Mojave, as you need to upgrade the entire system to get Safari 13. You don't; Safari 13 runs on macOS Mojave (and macOS High Sierra, if you're still using that).

I'm using High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G5019)and I don't have an update for Safari 13
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