Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#1

Post by MilkoFTW » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:36 PM UTC

Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?
tuaw.com

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

#2

Post by autism_hurts » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 8:59 PM UTC

I personally believe iOS 8 has been the exception, not the rule.

Yosemite, including the Public Betas, has been rock solid.

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

#3

Post by pseudometa » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

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.

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

#4

Post by owenwil » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

No, I don't think so. People are perceiving it that way because a few unrelated issues have cropped up lately. Coincidence, not correlation.

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

#5

Post by adamnemecek » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:01 PM UTC

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.

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

#6

Post by allsystemsgo » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:02 PM UTC

Yosemite is pretty fantastic.

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

#7

Post by dmix » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:02 PM UTC

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 feels out of the way instead of being flashy. Most importantly Gnome is improving rapidly. The new 3.14 looks amazing, where they revamped all the small details (icons, resolutions). A great demo of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhK_2M0B8Qo

I used to love getting new OSX releases. I'm really surprised to see it get sidelined in recent years. Maybe all of the good designers are working on iOS?

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

#8

Post by bsbechtel » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

I've noticed this over the past few years. What I've also noticed is a move by Apple towards marketing not what their products can do, but by counting how many new features they they've added to their software. They're still far ahead of their competitors in terms of quality and usability of their products, but not what they once were.

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

#9

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

[deleted]

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

#10

Post by fidotron » Wed, Oct 15, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

Apple has had a decline in software quality since around the Intel transition. Prior to that OS X had become really very respectable, but during it lots of typical things started happening, like suspend not quite working sometimes, and external display support going to hell. It doesn't seem like they ever recovered.

It's hard to admit now, but at one point I even liked XCode, but again, that was before they iTunesd it.

Maybe it's age, but in my mind they definitely did get worse, and as a result I've moved to Windows (7) as my main machine after over a decade in Mac land.