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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

#191

Post by GoodJokes »

sabellito wrote: post #35
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.

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.

How is Apple Music or Shari considered bloatware. They are universally used apps. What?

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

#192

Post by handrous »

city41 wrote: post #177
handrous wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if Apple really really wanted to implement it if not for the risk to app sales, they'd have it on desktop Safari, at least. As it is, I just think they don't want to implement it, App Store or no. From observing non-geeks use the "feature", I think that's the right call regardless. It needs to go back to the drawing board, or be scrapped. In general, anything that expands the reach & capabilities of websites…

You must feel that way about push notifications from apps too then? You seem strongly against push. If you only dislike push on websites, why? If Apple thinks push notifications are annoying, why does iOS have them? Again, Apple is protecting their walled garden. That's all this is. There really is no other good faith argument for this.

People don't switch between ten just-installed apps in under a minute. They do that all the time on the Web. There's more focus on what you're doing when you open an app for the first time, and installing the app in the first place is a strong signal that you're open to entertaining requests to expand permissions, like to receive push notifications. Browsing to a website is something people do on a whim while barely paying attention, which they don't consider any kind of commitment at all, and they're used to sites going away entirely when they close the tab, not sticking around because they clicked "allow" on a dialog that they don't even remember because the action didn't rise to the level of conscious thought, since the web bombards them with "allow/deny" boxes all day long, where "allow" is just the thing that consistently makes the dialog go away the fastest so they can get on with looking at the site.

Web notifications are not comparable to app push.

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

#193

Post by Skunkleton »

rch wrote: post #23
Skunkleton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the slip in quality we are seeing is a result of increased complexity more than anything else.

I'd expand your reasoning to include organizational complexity, which sometimes overrides technical factors.

That's a good point. I've observed in my own work that complex organizations have a way of driving out expertise. I don't mean that experts quit, as that is an unavoidable fact of doing business. Rather the organization is structured in such a way it is difficult to build expertise in the first place, and many of the experts are the people that were around before the organizational complexity arose.

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

#194

Post by Skunkleton »

city41 wrote: post #71
Skunkleton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the slip in quality we are seeing is a result of increased complexity more than anything else.

I'm not so sure, at least in the context of Apple because they have slipped far more than their competitors. Android is way more stable and has far fewer bugs than iOS as a simple example.

Yeah, I agree. Apple has slipped while competitors have improved. Android today (especially the Google-only flavor) is pretty impressively stable. Even worse is that iOS is supposedly more "simple" than Android.

Mostly, my comment was projecting my own experiences with complexity on the projects I have been involved with. You are right, in this case other factors probably dominate.

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

#195

Post by Gys »

threeseed wrote: post #159
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.

> go to Apple

Is there an easy way to do that in the moment? Genuine question.

I (we) have many Apple devices and in my experience ‘it just works’ until it does not. And if not you are out of luck. No errors, no warnings, nothing. It ‘just does not work’. Googling mostly does nog give any usable solutions.

I would love to gave an instant phone or chat service. For free, because I feel like like really paying a lot already.

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

#196

Post by Skunkleton »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #15
Skunkleton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the slip in quality we are seeing is a result of increased complexity more than anything else.

I think this is hard to recognize but almost certainly true. I have the Airpod Pro and was recently annoyed at how it wasn't quite doing the audio source switching like I wanted. Clearly some sort of software issue. Yet, if I honestly take a step back, the fact that I can put these in my ear and be using one of 3 devices that are right next to me and it seamlessly and correctly switches the audio based on what I am d…

This sort of story always reminds me from a bit in Seinfeld where Kramer's phone number is one digit off from the Movie Phone number. He would say something like "press 1 for Total Recall, Press 2 for...". Of course he would not be able to determine which button was pressed, and would say "why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see?"

I feel like we are creating really unpredictable, and hard to implement UIs in the name of "magic". Would a button in the UI been better? I think it would have been, at least for me.

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

#197

Post by hodgesrm »

aunty_helen wrote: post #77
SamuelAdams wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey so I’ll be getting my first MacBook Pro in a couple weeks, so I’m still learning the details about OS X. I’m coming from a windows / Linux background. I thought the OS shipped with its own firewall? Would you recommend using a third party firewall despite having its own?

Get little snitch. This is a firewall that dosen't care what apple thinks is useful. There was some controversy in the previous year because apple tried to deprecate the firewall hooks and allow their junk passed the replacement they offered. I'm leaving apple for linux as we speak for two reasons, privacy and they can't help but mess with shit every time they release an update. The most recent, this week they releas…

> I'm leaving apple for linux as we speak for two reasons, privacy and they can't help but mess with shit every time they release an update.

"Mess with shit" was what drove me to Linux by around 2015. It seemed like every major MacOS upgrade torched my Eclipse-based Java dev environment, generally requiring a reinstall.

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

#198

Post by rchaud »

loudthing wrote: post #180
mattnewton wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Big yikes.

Remember that the 2007 iPhone demo had showed AT&T reception at full strength? That was hardcoded for the purpose of the Keynote. I recall iPhones having iffy phone reception for at least the first couple of years.

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

#199

Post by boringg »

mschuster91 wrote: post #136
azinman2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Most Apple users will definitively want those on, and will break your system in subtle ways if you disable them. What happened to the good old days of "ask for user consent before phoning home"? I mean, Apple is miles ahead of Windows in that regard, but your average Linux or BSD setup won't phone home outside of repository downloads unless requested.

I think you have your target demographics mixed up for MacOS and Linux. Once you reframe it in that light, you've answered your question. One is a poweruser who wants complete control of their environment, the other is a much broader user who wants a convenience of experience and safe environment. Trade offs to both of them.

The only happy medium I would consider to your approach is that if MacOS had two set up routes, one defaulting as a power user turning everything off and then initiating things are you want and another as a general user. Maybe that would solve it (though would be a heavy lift I am sure).

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

#200

Post by mattlondon »

irskep wrote: post #48
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.

The difference is that none of that stuff is running in the background when you aren't using it. Maps doesn't take up a global menu slot. Apple Music doesn't open unless you explicitly open it (unless you happen to hit an Apple Music URL on the web). You can ignore it and it doesn't bother you. Whereas on Windows, bloatware tends to add a Start menu icon, tray icon, background process, startup item, etc. And Apple's…

Last time I got a fresh Mac, the bloatware all had an icon on the dock - so that is a combination of a start menu entry AND a tray icon.
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