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If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

macworld.com

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Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#151

Post by Arrath »

dharmon wrote: post #143
superasn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Yes first thing I run if I ever have to use a Windows PC is this little gem called Shutup 10 (1). 2. Then there is another software called 10AppsManager (2) to remove further bloatware like Onedrive, Skype, etc. 3. After that I visit ninite.com (3) to get the usual software without toolbars and spyware. 4. For other software like ffmpeg I use choco or chocolatey (4). I am now a full time linux user but this was th…

This is great! Thanks! I am forced to use a Windows machine sometimes for work, and to me the unpardonable sin is that Windows seems to randomly reboot _without asking me_! I come to my office and all my open sessions are gone. How do you turn this off?! I try turning off the setting but it randomly turns itself back on. Also, how do people set up a reasonable dev environment not built around Visual Studio? On my Mac…

> I am forced to use a Windows machine sometimes for work, and to me the unpardonable sin is that Windows seems to randomly reboot _without asking me_! I come to my office and all my open sessions are gone. How do you turn this off?!

That's the neat part, you don't! Windows loves to revert those settings after every major update, even if you dig into the registry and scheduler and change the settings at the source. It is one of my biggest gripes.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#152

Post by leucineleprec0n »

buildbot wrote: post #44
sabellito wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not defending windows here, but don't you find that macs come with bloatware as well? Safari, apple music, maps, etc - some of which you cannot uninstall as well.

Sure, but Win 10/11 have had stuff like candy crush and other 3rd party apps installed by default for a bit. MacOS only has 1st party bloat, which may be a big difference for some.

First party bloat is arguably worse.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#153

Post by jasonlotito »

freediver wrote: post #24
phoenixdblack wrote: post #2

One important thing not mentioned here: Apple should make sure to keep up Safari Development. It's by far the worst browser available and the web platform is only growing.

On a Mac, Safari is the best browser (as defined by being fast, battery efficient and native app) by a far margin compared to other mainstream choices, only matched by the Orion browser (but I may be biased).

It's interesting that your list defining the "best browser" doesn't actually include properly rendering web pages and the general issues that safari has as a web browser outside what you mentioned. "Fast" is interesting, as if something doesn't work, is it really fast? I routinely see how Safari fakes speed. Being able to read a web page before someone else doesn't make it faster if you can't also interact with that web page. And while battery efficiency is critical, rarely do I know someone who is only using safari. And while being "native" is nice, it also means its use is limited to just the Apple ecosystem.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#154

Post by applgo443 »

taylodl wrote: post #144

Look at the mess that is Apple Home. They added it because Google and Amazon were doing it - and, that's about it. Hey, I can add some lights that I can change color to any color I want! Too bad if I want a thermostat, a doorbell, or... Okay, what about Apple Wallet? It'd be really nice to add my digital driver's license, health insurance cards, auto insurance card, frequent shopping cards - basically make it so I do…

> Okay, what about Apple Wallet? It'd be really nice to add my digital driver's license, health insurance cards, auto insurance card, frequent shopping cards - basically make it so I don't have to carry my phone and wallet. Can I do that? Not really.

As far as I know, things like driving license need user adoption. It's getting there - https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/09/apple-announces-first...

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#155

Post by fellellor »

taylodl wrote: post #144

Look at the mess that is Apple Home. They added it because Google and Amazon were doing it - and, that's about it. Hey, I can add some lights that I can change color to any color I want! Too bad if I want a thermostat, a doorbell, or... Okay, what about Apple Wallet? It'd be really nice to add my digital driver's license, health insurance cards, auto insurance card, frequent shopping cards - basically make it so I do…

I thought the software division had help. In the form of many many developers making apps for the platform. What happened to them?

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#156

Post by mattnewton »

plorkyeran wrote: post #121
alphaomegacode wrote: post #70

As an anecdotal example that may be relevant, I wanted to upgrade to Monterey and my Mac Mini said there wasn't enough room. Hooked up a Western Digital external drive that I had used on previous Macs and launched Time Machine. And that's when it started. Time Machine presented what seemed like a stack of Finder windows in the middle, a timeline with hash marks on the right-side and the only button highlighted was th…

Time Machine's insane UI isn't an example of Apple's software quality slipping; it's basically unchanged since it first shipped 14 years ago. It's more of just an example of how Apple's software never was as good as some people would like to pretend.

When I was at apple, we did this thing people called "keybote-driven development" where everything was made to look great in and keynote presentation to an exec. If it looked great you got the go ahead to finish it and ship it, and if not it got skipped. There are a lot of things to like about this approach. However, Time machine's UI to me feels like a quintessential blind spot of this incentive structure, where it looks visually striking and cool but actually using it for real use cases it often falls flat quickly. To update it you would need to fit the motivation and payoff in a keynote presentation and it's hard to do so.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#157

Post by AMD_DRIVERS »

taylodl wrote: post #144

Look at the mess that is Apple Home. They added it because Google and Amazon were doing it - and, that's about it. Hey, I can add some lights that I can change color to any color I want! Too bad if I want a thermostat, a doorbell, or... Okay, what about Apple Wallet? It'd be really nice to add my digital driver's license, health insurance cards, auto insurance card, frequent shopping cards - basically make it so I do…

Your comments on Apple Home are factually incorrect. I have lights, cameras, smart blinds, thermostats, temperature/humidity/air quality sensors, my eero6 router and even my Roku added into Home.

Apple Wallet also supports some forms of ID, transit cards and even vaccine certificates.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#158

Post by gommm »

taylodl wrote: post #144

Look at the mess that is Apple Home. They added it because Google and Amazon were doing it - and, that's about it. Hey, I can add some lights that I can change color to any color I want! Too bad if I want a thermostat, a doorbell, or... Okay, what about Apple Wallet? It'd be really nice to add my digital driver's license, health insurance cards, auto insurance card, frequent shopping cards - basically make it so I do…

And the worst part is that their software division used to be great. Aperture was really good when it came out, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro were great. Eveh talking about iwork suite, numbers and page used to be better than they are now. Even Quicktime regressed.

It's frankly both puzzling and saddening how much Apple has lost in term of QA, user interface and vision in the last 10 years. I always feel that Tim Cook doesn't have a clue about what made Apple special and is slowly destroying it by not making sure to keep those qualities

EDIT: I do recognize Tim Cook's qualities, he is amazing at managing supply chain and apple does this better than anybody with very little impact in terms of chip shortage. He's original decision to target privacy as a marketing argument was on point (unfortunately the csam controversy kind of destroyed this) and under his tenure Apple has done tremendously well financially.

But the issue, is that Apple also benefits from its reputation and in the last few years, they've destroyed it by producing shoddy software, by having major hardware issues over multiple revisions (keyboards, staining screens)...

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#159

Post by threeseed »

EamonnMR wrote: post #79

This morning I plugged in my macbook and tried to turn it on. No dice. Hammered the external mouse and keyboard. No luck. Opened up the clamshell, started testing USB-C ports to figure out which one wants to charge today. Hammered the "on" button. It started asking out loud in what to me sounded like an old school macintalk voice for a username... I have to assume I provoked some sort of accessibility feature. Hammer…

So you clearly have a hardware problem since your USB-C ports aren't charging.

And rather than go to Apple you instead randomly press buttons and then are surprised when random things happen.

Okay.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#160

Post by handrous »

underscore_ku wrote: post #69
freediver wrote: post #18

Yesterday I prepared a few years old Windows laptop for my daughter to use in school. It took me a few hours just to install updates, remove bloatware (my oh my, the amount is staggering!) and fix privacy settings. And this was for Windows 10 which I hear is a mild version of a mess that Windows 11 is. I was instantly reminded why I appreciate Apple software more.

why do you people bother with windows? just use linux

There are lots of hardware configs that don't fully work, or are very unstable, under Linux.
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