Apple’s declining software quality • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#281

Post by JustSomeNobody » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

dplgk wrote: post #10

There's just no way in hell Steve Jobs would be putting up with this and I wish he was alive to tear some people a new one. I didn't like Jobs but respect his ability to achieve things. Perhaps, the years of oversimplifying applications has created an Apple that can't handle complex applications? Or, there's a chicken and egg question: XCode and the surrounding tools are atrociously buggy and hostile to the developer…

> Windows got so much flack over the years. It wasn't the prettiest but it worked and did what it said.

No. Just No. Windows loves to "forget" things. Things like Bluetooth devices. Or wifi devices. Windows likes to update your laptop for you when you're trying to close it ("Don't turn off your computer..." Wait, what? I have a plane to catch!). Windows scatters files all over the place! And that registry. UGH!

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#282

Post by JustSomeNobody » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

dplgk wrote: post #10

There's just no way in hell Steve Jobs would be putting up with this and I wish he was alive to tear some people a new one. I didn't like Jobs but respect his ability to achieve things. Perhaps, the years of oversimplifying applications has created an Apple that can't handle complex applications? Or, there's a chicken and egg question: XCode and the surrounding tools are atrociously buggy and hostile to the developer…

> Windows got so much flack over the years. It wasn't the prettiest but it worked and did what it said.

No. Just No. Windows loves to "forget" things. Things like Bluetooth devices. Or wifi devices. Windows likes to update your laptop for you when you're trying to close it ("Don't turn off your computer..." Wait, what? I have a plane to catch!). Windows scatters files all over the place! And that registry. UGH!

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#283

Post by toyg » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #270

toyg wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always baffled by heavy Calculator users, to be honest. I've never understood the popularity of dedicated calculator apps or widgets, on any platform. 90% of the time you can simply round numbers in your mind, and if precision is necessary for big numbers that's likely a job for Excel. Same for clock apps. Clock in your taskbar, sure; but who would ever start a dedicated clock app? I barely touch Contacts and alw…

> Same for clock apps. That's where the alarm is, and personally I use it several times a day, to wake me up and to remember the occasional meeting or random events I would otherwise forget about. I hate ios Photos, mostly because of the white backgrounds however.

> That's where the alarm is

Good point. I never really used alarms until Siri, because it was too cumbersome. Now setting and deleting alarms via Siri is probably the best voice-recognition experience I've ever had.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#284

Post by sohailk » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:19 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #115

Grue3 wrote: post #4

Um, Quicktime? iTunes? Apple's software was always terrible (as a Windows user).

You forgot Xcode. Xcode has always been mess.

tbf, xcode has gotten a lot better in the last few years I've been working with. stability especially improved between xcode 6 & 7.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#285

Post by arprocter » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

planetjones wrote: post #65

It's surprising just how bad Apple's software has got in a seemingly small space of time. Yosemite was the biggest disgrace of all. My mouse or keyboard would not wake the iMac after it went to sleep. And the beach ball was seen so frequently that my 1500 CHF iMac was useless after just 2 years. El Capitan finally fixed the sleep issue and the beach ball is seen much less, but I'd expect much more for the price I pai…

iOS low battery mode disabling itself once charge goes over 80% is really annoying, but maybe I'm just used to how it behaves on the platform they copied the feature from...

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#286

Post by btbuildem » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

dplgk wrote: post #10

There's just no way in hell Steve Jobs would be putting up with this and I wish he was alive to tear some people a new one. I didn't like Jobs but respect his ability to achieve things. Perhaps, the years of oversimplifying applications has created an Apple that can't handle complex applications? Or, there's a chicken and egg question: XCode and the surrounding tools are atrociously buggy and hostile to the developer…

> Visual Studio is a dream, if you're into that ecosystem. MS dev tools are actually very nice

Most likely because dogfooding

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#287

Post by vidoc » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

Silly question but we read all the time those complains from tech journalists or 'apple geeks' about those macos bugs, while I'm not a huge fan of the OS myself, my complains are usually UI or performance related, rarely on actual bugs: curious, is there an obvious, known list of bugs those guys are talking about?

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#288

Post by biot » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:25 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #175

ktRolster wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's just no way in hell Steve Jobs would be putting up with this Maybe. I felt like the quality started going downhill shortly after iOS came out, starting with low-level APIs, then xcode, then making it into user-level applications. My theory is that a lot of the really experienced engineers (the one who started with NEXT and OpenStep) left when they were rich after the iPhone stock jump. So really there is no…

I agree. I don't think this is a Steve Jobs thing at all. In fact, I think post Steve Jobs Apple actually pays a lot more lip service to better software than they did before. I simply think the attempts to build stuff in common with iOS is taking its toll.

Aren't you contradicting yourself? If post-Jobs they only pay lip service to quality but with Jobs they actually took action, doesn't that suggest Jobs may have been a positive influence on quality?

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#289

Post by btbuildem » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:26 PM UTC

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #70

It is not fair to single out Apple - all the software has gone downhill in the past couple of years - browsers, websites, apps, appliances, virtually everything. My suspicion is that it's the proliferation of new ways of doing things - new languages, no-sql/key-value db's, new hosting platforms such as AWS, docker, big data stuff like hadoop, storm and spark, all kinds of embedded software (tv's, cars), etc - we've g…

Agreed - the barrier to entry has been lowered significantly, and legions of bro-kiddies who now call themselves developers have been pumping out garbage

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#290

Post by bl4ckdu5t » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 6:26 PM UTC

Apple software quality is not declining. The previous versions weren't better. It's just not advancing with its competitors. Apple software products are still great but it feels like they've been too relaxed and that's the major fear (that others may meet up with them and surpass them)