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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

#201

Post by nouveaux »

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.

This is the Little Snitch[0] problem. If you have ever used Little Snitch, you will soon realize that 1) there is so much crap phoning home and 2) most people do not want to deal with giving permission to each and every one of these services.

I have tried giving permission and at the end of the day, it's just not worth the time. For me, Little Snitch is great as a reporting tool but it's just too much work as a firewall.

[0]https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

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

#202

Post by greedo »

taylodl wrote: post #174
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…

It's the dearth of 3rd party hardware that I find frustrating. It's not apparent that Apple has done much to flesh out that ecosystem.

Is it Apple's job to flesh it out, or is it better if they come up with a spec for HomeKit and have third parties create devices?

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

#203

Post by mulmen »

loudthing wrote: post #188
joemi wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The full size SD card slot is awesome for photography.

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

#204

Post by makecheck »

While this article focused primarily on things being left unmaintained, etc. there is also a huge problem with things being touched for no reason and making them worse.

When handed what must be a mountain of bugs and unfinished items, why the hell did they prioritize things like breaking notifications and Safari tabs, for instance? They’re in a position where engineering resources desperately need to be closing gaps, not creating huge new ones.

There seems to be a prioritization problem at the very least. Which I get, on some level who wants to work on the broken things? But if they threw some money at this they could fix it.

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

#205

Post by hmrr »

passivate wrote: post #47
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.

Sounds like your PC vendor installed a whole bunch of crap. I put W10 on a fresh PC just a couple of months back and it was a painless process. It was a W10 Pro ISO from Microsoft.

I did the same. I disagree. It required two rounds of reboots even though it was the latest iso and the Ethernet didn’t work (i219). Then whenever the thing goes to sleep all the windows move to the top left of the screen when it wakes up.

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

#206

Post by josephg »

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.

Yep. I have a system tray CPU monitor running on both my Linux mint and mac computers. On mint when I don’t touch the computer it just sits at 0% basically all the time. On macos there’s always some junk flitting around doing who knows what. photoanalysisd, or sending telemetry for 3rd party apps, or iCloud syncing or something. It’s like the 2 E cores are there just to run apple’s bloaty crap. Shame those processes don’t limit themselves to E cores.

Is there any way to turn all this stuff off?

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

#207

Post by bwindels »

handrous wrote: post #129
city41 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds pretty reasonable to me. But that still doesn't excuse Apple not implementing it. Apple doesn't implement features like this because they want to maintain app store sales. They do this for them, not their customers.

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…

they sort of do, albeit with a custom api and requiring you to register as a developer: https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push-notifi...

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

#208

Post by boringg »

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

I feel like running linux is like voting for a 3rd party candidate in the US. FWIW linux is great I just can't convert all the people who aren't developers to linux without an unnecessarily steep learning curve.

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

#209

Post by joconde »

AlexandrB wrote: post #88
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 has been neglected for so long . The UI was never great for power users, but at least it worked. For a novice computer user it was a pretty good "set it and forget it" experience. In the last 3 years it has become so unreliable (every time it tries to backup it claims the backup is corrupted and needs to be re-created) that I've given up and switched to Carbon Copy Cloner.

It's too bad, because it could be a set-it-and-forget-it solution if it were more reliable.

I gave up and wrote a Python script that calls Borg Backup. At least it's more customisable.

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

#210

Post by Anunayj »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #164
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.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but a vanilla Windows 10 install isn't very bloated imo. Did you perhaps start with an image provided by the laptop vendor? It's not Microsoft's fault that they're usually full of trash.

I think perhaps you are in the EU and were using the "N" version of windows 10. I realized that the normal windows 10 installs a LOT of bloatware (Like I don't need candy crush), while the N version did not do that.
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