Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

tuaw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 98 posts

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#11

Post by sigzero »

adamnemecek wrote: post #5
autism_hurts wrote: post #2

I personally believe iOS 8 has been the exception, not the rule. Yosemite, including the Public Betas, has been rock solid.

I definitely would not say that Yosemite Betas have been rock solid.

For betas they have been good. I don't set the bar high for those. The last public beta is working really well. Yosemite reminds me of KDE in some of the stuff Apple has done.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#13

Post by adamnemecek »

sigzero wrote: post #11
adamnemecek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely would not say that Yosemite Betas have been rock solid.

For betas they have been good. I don't set the bar high for those. The last public beta is working really well. Yosemite reminds me of KDE in some of the stuff Apple has done.

The later versions have been decent but I installed the first public beta and really regretted it for like a month or two until it got a bit more stable.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#15

Post by pessimizer »

pseudometa wrote: post #3

Betteridge's law of headlines strikes again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines Edit: Why the downvotes? It's true. The answer is No.

I prefer 'Blot's Headline.'

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7954867

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#16

Post by Osmium »

dmix wrote: post #7

Apple's OSX design work seems stagnant as well. I find Gnome since version 3.12 (yes Gnome) looks better than Yosemite. I use Yosemite at work every day and find it's a step down from Mavericks. Most of the improvements seem to be to apps I never use (Maps, Safari). The new dark top bar is embarrassingly ugly compared to Gnome dark theme. The icons look childish and half-baked. Gnome's design in minimal, clean, and f…

I second your enthusiasm for Gnome. It really is in a great place right now and is my shell of choice on Linux. But I disagree with the Yosemite criticism. Unlike Linux, OS X actually has a large degree of uniformity between third-party apps thanks to Cocoa and (historically) the human interface guidelines. Apple just can't make sweeping changes to the OS X design without severely damaging the coherence of the OS X ecosystem; design changes have to be incremental. And they're doing a pretty good job. Yosemite brings design changes specifically optimised for high-DPI (font, line weights) and a general toning down of brashness (e.g. the new dock). I imagine the new 'dark mode' (which, let's face it, will be unseen by most consumers) is just a signal of things to come; I wouldn't be surprised to see a dark set of Cocoa controls in a future release too. But it'll take time.

Honestly, I'm glad that Apple isn't being brash on the Mac. They can get away with it on iOS (the 6->7 transition) because it's such an active platform, with so much demand, that developers have put in the time and money to re-design, but a similar design transition on OS X would take much much longer and I imagine would be a lot more painful for the end user.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#18

Post by albeva »

dmix wrote: post #7

Apple's OSX design work seems stagnant as well. I find Gnome since version 3.12 (yes Gnome) looks better than Yosemite. I use Yosemite at work every day and find it's a step down from Mavericks. Most of the improvements seem to be to apps I never use (Maps, Safari). The new dark top bar is embarrassingly ugly compared to Gnome dark theme. The icons look childish and half-baked. Gnome's design in minimal, clean, and f…

that is a matter of opinion - I find gnome to be incredibly ugly and unpolished. Large margins, padding issues, often badly rendered fonts (fuzzy, weird aliasing) just to name the few.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#19

Post by dmix »

Osmium wrote: post #16
dmix wrote: post #7

Apple's OSX design work seems stagnant as well. I find Gnome since version 3.12 (yes Gnome) looks better than Yosemite. I use Yosemite at work every day and find it's a step down from Mavericks. Most of the improvements seem to be to apps I never use (Maps, Safari). The new dark top bar is embarrassingly ugly compared to Gnome dark theme. The icons look childish and half-baked. Gnome's design in minimal, clean, and f…

I second your enthusiasm for Gnome. It really is in a great place right now and is my shell of choice on Linux. But I disagree with the Yosemite criticism. Unlike Linux, OS X actually has a large degree of uniformity between third-party apps thanks to Cocoa and (historically) the human interface guidelines. Apple just can't make sweeping changes to the OS X design without severely damaging the coherence of the OS X e…

Fair enough, OSX is still a fine operating system. My taste for change is that of early adopters so I'm at least happy Gnome is filling that void for me.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#20

Post by sandis »

adamnemecek wrote: post #5
autism_hurts wrote: post #2

I personally believe iOS 8 has been the exception, not the rule. Yosemite, including the Public Betas, has been rock solid.

I definitely would not say that Yosemite Betas have been rock solid.

I've had way less issues with 10.10 previews than I've had with Mavericks or Mountain Lion ones. Those actually crippled my development environments. I've had zero issues with Yosemite thus far, apart from the new features breaking at some point (iCloud Drive and the like).
Post reply on HN