Live data from Hacker News

Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

tidbits.com

281–290 of 368 posts

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#281
post #142

Macos used to not have a yearly schedule. New versions took the time they needed. I think it's actually a better model, it allows engineers the time to test and make sure things work. Having arbitrary deadlines just increases the amount of crunch time which usually increases the amount of bugs. Other than that, I wish that Apple did another Snow Leopard and focused for one year purely on fixing bugs in macos x instea…

Although I like looking forward to the next macOS name unveiling and seeing new themed wallpapers, I think operating systems should get a regular stream of small updates for individual features and builtin apps, instead of monolithic yearly releases branded as distinct products. As for API sets, SDKs and third-party app compatibility, they could still be tied to yearly milestones, e.g. "macOS 2020 January", so there…

Rolling updates is the reason I loved using Arch Linux instead of the more common Ubuntu.

Though if quality control is bad, rolling updates means many broken updates spread over the year instead of an optional huge broken update every October. Right now I'm on Mojave, works well enough, and I can wait until next summer to update to Catalina, when hopefully the major bugs have been ironed out.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#282
post #104

I have a slightly different take on this. I think every company should dedicate a certain percentage of their revenue to handling bug reports from users. Yes, many bug reports will be bogus, but many will be pure gold (I speak from experience). Yes, it involves a lot of manual work. But it is so incredibly worth it — you get to catch the odd bugs that you will never catch with automated or in-house testing. In contra…

> If Apple also spent 10% of its revenue on processing bug reports and fixing bugs Just to be clear, you're suggesting they dedicate $25B/year to bug fixing? Seems high, given their total R&D budget for 2018 was only ~56% of that. https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/05/apple-2018-form-10-k-hi...

Using revenue is a bit silly. Speaking in terms of the dev budget would make more sense.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#283

I am also finding text selection in iOS 13 hit/miss. I either cannot activate the text selection or I cannot select without the cursor jumping all over the place. Also, I miss the magnifying glass for text selection. Did Apple remove that?

Yeah, the magnifying glass is gone.

The cursor will stay in the same place if you move your finger down some so it's not obscuring the selection; on a multi-line input, the first line's selection area extends down a half an inch or so, with all the lower lines displaced by a similar amount.

It's not too bad when you get used to it though I still miss the glass when I'm using my phone or my smaller iPad.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#284

Yesterday a coworker was frustrated with his computers, and said something insightful: "When software gets past a certain age it just gets bad." He was referring primarily to Android and Windows (10) but it applies to every piece of software that suffers from feature creep. If it's a cash cow they have to keep stuffing new things in and periodically repainting it to make it look new again. Around 10.9, MacOS reached…

> Running older Android versions reminds me of how fast and slick they were Those are some rose-tinted glasses for sure. Android lacked basic performance and stability for years after release.

Android hasn't gotten slower. Android apps have had feature creep and the lack of native code makes them slow. A good example is the Google Maps app which has consistently gotten slower every year because the devs clearly only test it on flagship phones with gobs of RAM.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#285
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I'm using High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G5019)and I don't have an update for Safari 13 I do (I won't upgrade past High Sierra on an older iMac as it breaks text rendering on it's non-retina screen so badly).

i had this problem as well, the first time i tried to upgrade to mojave. but at some point, apple made it possible to re-enable sub-pixel anti-aliasing.

https://www.howtogeek.com/358596/how-to-fix-blurry-fonts-on-...

at this point, i don't think you even have to do that terminal thing anymore; you can just enable it in settings.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#286
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although older software usually does what we need it to do, I question the wisdom of running an Internet-connected machine with software that no longer receives security fixes. If the various Linuxes might give you what you need, I encourage you to check them out. Debian with XFCE and Xubuntu's LTS are both very good options that stay stable and secure. Out of curiosity, what would you lose functionality-wise by upgr…

> If the various Linuxes might give you what you need Oh, how I wish! The problem is it's not just me. I'm the IT department for my wife as well, and there is no way she's going to switch to Linux. For on thing, she's a writer, and she uses MS Word. That is not going to change. :-( Also, what to do for a mobile device? They all suck big fat honking weenies AFAICT. We both have iPhone SE's which, AFAICT, are the least…

> she uses MS Word

I've always wondered about people that are able to switch platforms. I've always thought that you pick the operating system that best runs the software you want to use. So it makes sense that a Word user wouldn't switch to Linux.

> We both tried Android once and it was a disaster.

Why was it a disaster? Were the apps you needed not there? I use iOS (on an iPad) and Android (on a Pixel phone) and they both seem good enough.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#287
post #208
post #102

I have been told by multiple sources that Apple engineering salaries are not competitive with industry leaders and haven't been for a long time. I wonder if the dissolution of the Jobs anti compete agreements exacerbated the issue. However Apple seems to be willing to pay for highly sought after skills. I have also been told that they don't have company level hiring standards so you should expect uneven abilities acr…

They need to unionize. The company they work for has 60 Billion in profit!!!

Or they could get a new job at a competitor.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not accurate. This year had Catalyst and SwiftUI which sucked a lot of manpower from dev tools and frameworks.

I think Catalyst and SwiftUI are rather isolated activities at this point. I would be surprised if there was much overlap with teams working on iCloud and user facing apps. But I have no inside knowledge obviously.

iCloud had its own set of issues, but I wouldn't be surprised of many of the OS framework engineers were involved in those two projects (and other; there are rumors now of Apple AR glasses).

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#289
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember doing my first hackintosh, due to an attempt at a startup where we wanted to have a iOS and OSX client. The documentation blew me away, nicely packaged with XCode, and made it really look like a platform that would care about developers, especially given how niche it was. That was 10.6 time. Currently, I have a Mac forced on me by company. I look at docs... and they are the same docs I remember, with bits…

There are a surprising amount of Catalyst API documents that literally just have the function name and no description of what it does and an empty page.

That sounds an awful lot like a typical project that starts out on the right foot, everyone has a procedure they follow but crunch time approaches and they start to cut corners just to get things done. Documentation and testing are the first I’ve seen to go.

Re: Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy

#290
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the various Linuxes might give you what you need Oh, how I wish! The problem is it's not just me. I'm the IT department for my wife as well, and there is no way she's going to switch to Linux. For on thing, she's a writer, and she uses MS Word. That is not going to change. :-( Also, what to do for a mobile device? They all suck big fat honking weenies AFAICT. We both have iPhone SE's which, AFAICT, are the least…

> she uses MS Word I've always wondered about people that are able to switch platforms. I've always thought that you pick the operating system that best runs the software you want to use. So it makes sense that a Word user wouldn't switch to Linux. > We both tried Android once and it was a disaster. Why was it a disaster? Were the apps you needed not there? I use iOS (on an iPad) and Android (on a Pixel phone) and th…

> Why was it a disaster?

It was a long time ago so I don't remember the details, but it was just a slow, buggy mess. Maybe things have gotten better since then but the experience left such a bad taste in my mouth that I've not gone back to re-evaluate the situation. It's an expensive experiment to conduct in terms of both money and time. Also, the fact that Android is so intimately intertwined with Google gives me serious pause. At least with Apple there's a chance that my data is somewhat secure. With Google I know with certainty that it isn't because their entire business model is to surveil me and sell the data to third parties.

Post reply on HN