Apple’s declining software quality • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#141

Post by tkinom » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #99

The decline seems real to me. A shortlist of things I've noticed: * Spotlight no longer finds things as easily. I used to use it for everything. Since updating to El Capitan, it has missed some exact match folders. Planning to switch to Alfred. * iWork was gutted in '13. People used to use Pages professionally. I'm now using Pages '09, and planning to transition to Word or Latex. I tested Pages '13 intensively, and i…

Agree on all the items.

Not just Apple, I see similar issues with Google.

Google's Youtube IOS app has issue playing video correctly. It can't even buffer the segments correctly.

Google latest Android Map crashes all the times 1-2 minutes into the navigation, extremely dangerous when I have to restart the navigate while driving. I can't depend on it at all.

I have to roll back to the default factory install older version google map to make it work. Lately I see the older stable version start crash more often, probabaly cause by the "update" on the server API side.

It will be a very scary world if this type of SW development processes are applied to tomorrow's "self driving car".

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#142

Post by BuckRogers » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

I think the decline is overstated. Couple related points-

- They at least offer updates, many other vendors offer few to none. Is that how you achieve quality? My wife's iPhone4S is still receiving updates and she's been happy with the device since 2011 to today. I've always used competitor's products and never achieved this. As a result, we will continue and increase our scope of purchases from Apple.

- Software is hard, many pieces of software that I've dug into I'm left amazed it even works.

I'm not outright dismissing this blog, but I wish it included who is the leader of software quality- since the statement is that it's not Apple.

My experience leads me to think that if they're an example of failing software, wow... what about the rest?

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#143

Post by SyneRyder » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:02 PM UTC

koralatov wrote: post #19

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #7

While I agree that Apple's software quality has declined in recent years, I fear that their hardware and other advantages (even with superior hardware and software I don't trust a Google-or-Amazon-based phone for a second to be anything but a data mine for them), I fear Apple's existing lead in general quality will allow them to become (remain?) complacent and allow things to slide.

I agree with your concerns about a Google or Amazon phone being a datamine in your pocket, but I think that, for most people, it's not an issue: they simply want a phone that works for them and don't give much thought to how much information about them is being squirrelled away. A huge factor in Apple's sliding software quality is lock-in: once you're on iOS using an iPhone, it's so much easier to simply stay on iOS…

The reverse is also true - once you decide to leave Apple, the lock-in becomes something you don't go back to. I used to be entirely Apple devices, MacBooks & iPods & iPhones & AirPlay everywhere. But I was fed up enough with my iPhone 4 that I got a Nexus 5 instead - which led me to a Chromecast, a Galaxy Tab A with S-Pen, which led me to a Samsung TV. The grass has definitely been greener for me. I still have my new MacBook Pro, but I don't "love" it like I used to love Apple products.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#144

Post by galad87 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #110

galad87 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true at all. QuickTime container can represent each frame timestamp exactly, and it has got some advanced features like edit lists. Every frame has got a start and stop time, and each sync sample is marked as such, it's even possible to mark on which sample each sample depends. In Matroska for example the stop time is so unreliable you often have to analyse the frame content or wait for the next frame to k…

No, I am referring to the delay introduced by compressed audio streams within QT container files. The issue I refer to does not seem to occur for lossless audio. In these situations, the cslg atom, among others, allow the QT format to reliably copy edited stream data without re-writing to the container file. AAC, like MP3, introduces a padding of silence at the beginning of the stream. Because modern QT container fil…

From what I read on https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/QuickT... it seems it's possible to explicitly represent the delay.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#145

Post by nxzero » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

rogersmith wrote: post #129

I suspect this reflects a wider trend which is most probably a consequence of the ease to ship software nowadays (no need to manufacture physical medium anymore, just ship a hotfix), which incites software companies to skip QA and let early adopters find the bugs themselves...

True, though it's also easier to test code too, right?

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#146

Post by autoreleasepool » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

For a desktop OS, what's the alternative? Windows 10? Ubuntu? I've used both recently and neither felt like a step up from OS X.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#147

Post by cname » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #99

The decline seems real to me. A shortlist of things I've noticed: * Spotlight no longer finds things as easily. I used to use it for everything. Since updating to El Capitan, it has missed some exact match folders. Planning to switch to Alfred. * iWork was gutted in '13. People used to use Pages professionally. I'm now using Pages '09, and planning to transition to Word or Latex. I tested Pages '13 intensively, and i…

You don't use any of the default iPhone apps? I find that hard to believe. What about these:

- calculator - camera - clock - contacts - messages - phone - photos - safari

If you literally use none of these apps, I would be really surprised.

Since we're sharing anecdotes: I've never had a problem with WiFi connectivity or Spotlight on El Capitan across multiple devices. I don't use iWork or Siri, so I can't speak to that. iCloud seems fine to me, but I don't use it extensively.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#148

Post by fuzzywalrus » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #134

nextos wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed the trend with Snow Leopard. Also the tendency towards iOS-ification of Mac OS, so I decided to switch back to Linux. I think Apple's best hour came with Tiger and Leopard. Simple applications that did one thing well and were robust. Now there's a lot of feature bloat. A nice Linux set up with minimal software (e.g. xmonad, mutt, emacs or vim) is a joy to use, but takes time to set up and learn to use. So i…

IIRC, Snow Leopard was actually the best release -- essentially Leopard but with a focus on stability and performance, plus the code signing stuff. It's the last OS X release that felt like an improvement to me, and one of the last OS X releases that I trusted. Every one since has actually had feature regressions (let's make a formerly visible folder invisible!) or stability issues. I still have a 2008 Macbook Pro ru…

Mavericks was tough to give up, stable, fast. No discoveryd. IMHO, its the best release of OS X. Maybe everyone has amnesia but pre 10.3, OS X wasn't really usable full time. Each 10.2.x release was a whirlwind of changes.

Early iOS had wonky reset issues too.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#149

Post by jonknee » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #140

Alupis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iTunes was decent or even good You clearly never used iTunes for Windows.

You clearly have never read his biography ;) via an All Things D event: > What’s more, thanks to the popularity of iTunes on PCs, Apple has become a major Windows software developer. “We’ve got cards and letters from lots of people who say that iTunes is their favorite app on Windows,” noted Jobs. “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in Hell.” That quip apparently caused Bill Gates to become quite angry…

Steve Jobs publicly mentioning only praise about things Steve Jobs made? Unbelievable!

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#150

Post by ssharp » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 5:06 PM UTC

koralatov wrote: post #43

ssharp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX doesn't need to handle that many hardware and driver issues, so I don't see how that's relevant to a Windows comparison. I've been using OSX since just after Panther. I generally agree with the idea that some things started getting worse after Snow Leopard, but I still don't think it's come close to a point where I'd actually move back to Windows or try out desktop Linux. And I'd say Windows had far more issues t…

It's sad that so many people, myself very much included, now stick with OS X merely because ``it's not quite shitty enough to switch''. When I switched to the Mac initially, I switched because it was vastly better option than XP; now, I feel that lead has been eroded and that Windows 10, while different, isn't far behind OS X in most respects.

I switched to OSX originally because the company I was working for was all-Apple. I probably wouldn't have thought XP was shitty enough to change otherwise, even though it obviously was.

Conversely, I'm now working at a company that's all-MS, but even after two years now (albeit, only a month on W10, previously on W7), I'm still not feeling much of a desire to switch to Windows at home. My Macbook is getting pretty old now and I'm going to want to replace it sometime soon and it's going to be another MBP.