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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

#181

Post by rusk »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #58
jamil7 wrote: post #3

Apple's software quality has certainly slipped. I'm not sure if I'm just getting old but I find software quality in general seems to have slipped. Or is it just because there's more software around?

It feels industry-wide to me. Quality was never a high priority, but in the past decade it’s fallen that much further. Everything has become centered around shoveling as much code as possible as quickly as possible, with little to no regard for how well it works. Nobody cares if it requires obscene amounts of memory, turns laptops into furnaces, and functions correctly only half the time so long as it’s getting shipp…

It is industry wide, but I don’t think this gets Apple off the hook. They sell a premium product so it’s not unreasonable to expect something a little better.

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

#182

Post by Kye »

Why does the desktop experience seem to diverge so much from the mobile experience? My Windows 11 laptop, iPhone, and iPad are all equally reliable: they rarely give me any trouble.

Meanwhile every piece of software Apple ever shipped for Windows was hot garbage. It sounds like whatever made their Windows stuff bad is afflicting OS X now.

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

#183

Post by gommm »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #162
gommm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doe…

>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 Well their shares have never been higher so as long as that's the metric by which a CEO's performance is judged then you can forget about Apple caring about SW QA and other such "nonsense". Also, before Jobs passed away, Cook was Apple's supply chain mastermind so it makes sense his stren…

Oh I don't disagree with you that he is great at managing the supply chain. World class even.

The thing is, there's inertia, Apple made great products and still have a great reputation, Amazon was a great place to buy online and while it has a counterfeit problem, it's still doing great, I'm sure it's possible to find a few examples of companies that have been doing great stock wise but that are slowly eroding their reputation. It doesn't show yet in the sales, but the narrative has changed.

The thing is, look at the threads in HN, they used to be very very positive of apple and now they're much more critical. Things no longer just work. People complaining about stability issues on a mac are common. Macworld which has always tended to be extremely positive about Apple complains, Ars Tecnica too, even Daring Fireball is less overwhelmingly positive than it used to be.

Apple relies on those power users to recommend their friends to buy their stuff and I no longer recommend buying an iphone to my friends and I know I'm not the only one.

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

#184

Post by Isthatablackgsd »

nickpp wrote: post #84
phoenixdblack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Internet Explorer is not supported anymore by most websites Safari has become the new worst browser in regards to having really bad CSS and Web API Support.

Yeah maybe you as a developer want some fancy CSS and bleeding fresh Web API but I as a user don't. The web is too bloated as it is, I feel that Apple is on my side putting a damper on that. Safari is powerful enough as it is. You want voip, notifications, codecs and so on - do the work and learn to write a native app. I'd rather pay for that than paying with my attention to ads in your "free" web app.

As an end user, I felt like Safari should have done better. And extension for Safari are gated behind app store only (no sideloading the extension).

Also I came across a few sites that Safari couldn't render it correctly whereas Firefox and Vivaldi show the site just fine. I only use Safari as a last resort and only used it for Zoom/Doxy/Whereby/etc.

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

#185

Post by gonehome »

AMD_DRIVERS wrote: post #172
gonehome wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Apple home and want to like it, but it mostly sucks. I think the main cause of this isn't so much Home, but the available third party hardware. I wish Apple would make a smart switch (I know that's fairly out of scope for them), but one high quality smart switch that actually worked reliably would resolve 90% of home tech issues. Homepods are similarly bad with basic actions. I have five of them in multiple roo…

In my experience, it's been pretty okay. Not amazing, but I can't really complain. I've got 2 HomePods in a small apartment, and they typically work okay in what I need them to do, and automatons always work. I sometimes have to close the app and open it again to get devices to respond IF I'm in not on my home network. Kind of annoying. What's funny is that I've noticed that it's been better since I bought an eero 6…

I have two smart switches attached to lights (since our apartment has no overhead lighting) and after a nightmare of setting them up (probably the hardware's fault, but homekit couldn't recognize them via normal pairing method) they worked for a few months.

Randomly though they fail to work in Home and I have to manually reset them by holding in the button on the device and redo the entire process. This isn't workable at any scale (it's even annoying with just the two that I have).

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

#186

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

gommm wrote: post #183
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 Well their shares have never been higher so as long as that's the metric by which a CEO's performance is judged then you can forget about Apple caring about SW QA and other such "nonsense". Also, before Jobs passed away, Cook was Apple's supply chain mastermind so it makes sense his stren…

Oh I don't disagree with you that he is great at managing the supply chain. World class even. The thing is, there's inertia, Apple made great products and still have a great reputation, Amazon was a great place to buy online and while it has a counterfeit problem, it's still doing great, I'm sure it's possible to find a few examples of companies that have been doing great stock wise but that are slowly eroding their…

> look at the threads in HN, they used to be very very positive of apple and now they're much more critical.

Agree, but the thing is, the HN userbase is only a tiny fraction, and not representative of the entire more lucrative consumer base that Apple is targeting. I think Apple will be fine, even if it looses the super picky stickler developer HN userbase that is proficient in linux anyway.

Apple kinda stopped caring about the Mac SW quality as that's not its main cashcow anymore for a long time. iOS and app store subscriptions and fees are where the real money's at.

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

#187

Post by cblconfederate »

dkersten wrote: post #110
cblconfederate wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows and linux don't overlap much in use cases. I think macos and linux are more interchangeable

What are the Windows use cases that Linux doesn’t do? General web browsing type tasks are solid, text editing/note taking works. Videos and audio (including Spotify) work. Steam and games generally work (even most windows games through Proton). What else does ones daughter need for school? She’s not video editing or creating music (two use cases where you may need windows or OSX; art is more or less covered through b…

Gaming; general office stuff ; peripherals

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

#188

Post by loudthing »

joemi wrote: post #179
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #4

The good news is that for once we have a precedent of Apple listening to what people actually want with the new MBP lineup. Whether they'll be able to replicate that magic with their software teams remains to be seen, but at least now it feels within the realm of possible.

I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me, but I don't think this is a good precedent. Apple has always been opinionated, and that's a lot of what made Apple different. Admittedly, sometimes their opinionated takes weren't great, but a lot of times they really were great, even when some people didn't realize it. That's what allowed Apple to grow and soar to the heights it did. I worry that the new MBP line is a…

I agree that Apple's hot headedness in the past has helped the industry in the long run. For example, eliminating the floppy drive with the original iMac, or pushing for open alternatives to Flash by not allowing it on iPhones. It is concerning that they included a full size sd card reader (22 year old technology at this point).

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

#189

Post by aunty_helen »

azinman2 wrote: post #131
aunty_helen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality, you just don't realise how much bloatware osx has. Install a firewall and watch as studentd or 100 other services you never use contacts apple. Edit: List of most recent and trying not to include things that may be useful to me syncdefaultsd, nsurlsessiond, apsd, cloudd, transparencyd, mapspushd, cloudphotod, akd, parsec-fbf, appstoreagent, AddressBookSourceSync, com.apple.iCloudHelper.xpc, familycircled,…

So basically in that list you’re suggesting disabling the ability to download web content, syncing of address books, getting updated security signatures, connecting to iCloud, downloading dynamic assets that many apps use to reduce initial size and provide non-binary updates, Siri keyword suggestions in Safari, Airdrop, Maps integration, push notifications for Messages, etc. Most Apple users will definitively want th…

>If you don’t use a service, it typically will have very little traffic if any at all.

Like I said this was all from the last 3 hours and I haven't used any of those services listed. It's also missing the point a bit, I'm not bandwidth poor on a 3G connection trying to save my datacap.

I don't want apple turning my laptop into a thinclient for their cloud systems. I don't want telemetry and meta data going to them every ~30 seconds (the little snitch icon flashes a red X every time something is blocked, it's on a per minute basis).

Of all those services I use calendarsync. I miss having airdrop a little bit but everything else I don't need.

Also, the way you've phrased some of those, especially the notarisation

> getting updated security signatures

is a bit disingenuous when there's a massive privacy implication in that it allows apple to know every single application I run on my computer.

Most Apple users wouldn't agree to that if you stuck it in their face and the fact that it breaks the OS in subtle ways is a user hostile position to argue from. Hence why I'm giving up my Apple addicition.

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

#190

Post by aunty_helen »

gumby wrote: post #134
aunty_helen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality, you just don't realise how much bloatware osx has. Install a firewall and watch as studentd or 100 other services you never use contacts apple. Edit: List of most recent and trying not to include things that may be useful to me syncdefaultsd, nsurlsessiond, apsd, cloudd, transparencyd, mapspushd, cloudphotod, akd, parsec-fbf, appstoreagent, AddressBookSourceSync, com.apple.iCloudHelper.xpc, familycircled,…

Many of those are useful to me even if you don’t care about them…which proves your point: there’s no reasonable (and sometimes none at all) way to pick and choose.

Opt-in is no longer seen as a reasonable solution?
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