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Apple’s declining software quality

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Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#31

Post by daheza »

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…

I haven't read much about Jobs but I wonder how he achieved the perfection in his product. Force the teams to work overtime to correct the bugs? Did he double the QA size in order to catch all these bugs? Did he demand that all code checked in must be at incredibly high standards, thus forcing the devs to QA more of their own code?

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#32

Post by Karunamon »

koralatov wrote: post #12

It feels a little clichéd to say it, but I do feel that Snow Leopard, outdated now as it is, was some kind of fortuitous confluence of factors that resulted in OS X being as close to perfect as it's ever been. Even putting aside the iOS-style elements being added, my experience has been that each version of OS X has been slightly worse than the last, and tends to introduce strange little anomalies and instabilities o…

I've noticed the same thing, but with one proviso: Only after an upgrade, rather than a clean install. And with quite literally every major OSX release since Snow Leopard.

Just generalized instability and "weirdness" for lack of a better term. The problems always seem to go away after a fresh load.

It sucks that this is required, but between Time Machine bringing my apps and settings back, and launching the upgrade at night before bed, it's not really that much of an annoyance.

I'd still rather use OSX than any other OS at this point. But I think we need a Snow Leopard 2, a release that only tightens up the backend stuff with no new shiny features.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#33

Post by ebbv »

koralatov wrote: post #12

It feels a little clichéd to say it, but I do feel that Snow Leopard, outdated now as it is, was some kind of fortuitous confluence of factors that resulted in OS X being as close to perfect as it's ever been. Even putting aside the iOS-style elements being added, my experience has been that each version of OS X has been slightly worse than the last, and tends to introduce strange little anomalies and instabilities o…

I think you have rose colored glasses about Snow Leopard. It had plenty of bugs and hiccups.

People deride the "iOS style" features of El Capitan but first, what specifically are you referring to besides Launcher? Do you think adding Notifications to OS X is bad? I find them extremely useful, and like the integration better than the spotty support Growler had among third party software.

I never use Launcher but it's not there for me. It's no skin off my nose that it exists for other people. And it's not like Finder or Spotlight have lost functionality, if anything I feel Spotlight in El Capitan is much better than it was in Snow Leopard or any prior OS X.

Mission Control works great and I think is much more elegant in El Capitan than in previous OS X releases. Granted in older OS X you could arrange your desktops in grids instead of just left to right but I only use about 3-4 desktops anyway, so I don't mind.

OS X has also improved for power users since Snow Leopard as well. Lion introduced FileVault 2 which I find to be a fantastically easy to use encryption system, that I have had no problems with. I enjoy my Retina screen and the Retina support that later versions introduced as well. Air Drop is also handy since my wife and coworkers have Macs as well.

In my mind, each new release of OS X, like each new release of iOS or anything really, has good things and less good things in it. But on the whole I'm glad to be running El Capitan today rather than Snow Leopard. I don't pine for those days.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#34

Post by JohnTHaller »

Grue3 wrote: post #4

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

It definitely is now. Quicktime was always pretty bad. iTunes worked well in comparison to its contemporaries when it came out which is why the iPod did so well initially (before Apple had a music store). Safari on Windows was always awful and was discontinued without notice leaving users insecure without knowing it.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#35

Post by chaz72 »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #22

Is Apple's software quality truly declining? I've been an OS X user for a couple years now, and I'm perfectly happy with my laptop and its updates. Whenever I read articles like these, I wondered if the software quality has actually declined, or if it's received too many features to be properly maintained, or if now it has so many more users that the flaws have become more apparent.

I think I'm in the same boat, only a Mac user for less than 5 years. It seems to me that it's never been perfect, but that it remains somewhat above its alternatives, especially with the hardware/software integration they can have... but it can't compete with its own reputation.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#36

Post by ssharp »

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…

OSX doesn't need to handle that many hardware and driver issues, so I don't see how that's relevant to a Windows comparison.

I've been using OSX since just after Panther. I generally agree with the idea that some things started getting worse after Snow Leopard, but I still don't think it's come close to a point where I'd actually move back to Windows or try out desktop Linux.

And I'd say Windows had far more issues that BSODs and memory problems. I've used Window for music production for years (by the time I switched everyday stuff to OSX, I was locked into my music workflow and haven't cared to spend the time learning a new package like Logic, even after all these years). The way I survive Windows problems is pretty simple: never plug in an ethernet cable. I'm sure things are far better now, but for a large part of the past 15 years, doing so opened you up to a lot of problems and required utilizing software you simply should not have to install in order to have a functional system.

Also, a high percentage of OSX users have no idea what XCode is, let alone care if it's not as nice as VisualStudio.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#37

Post by wlesieutre »

koralatov wrote: post #12

It feels a little clichéd to say it, but I do feel that Snow Leopard, outdated now as it is, was some kind of fortuitous confluence of factors that resulted in OS X being as close to perfect as it's ever been. Even putting aside the iOS-style elements being added, my experience has been that each version of OS X has been slightly worse than the last, and tends to introduce strange little anomalies and instabilities o…

One wonders if the yearly release schedule has something to do with this. It's got to be a constant rush to tick off the new feature boxes, and then we don't get the period of bug fixing and stability before the engineers all rush off to start implementing next year's new additions.

For a long time it was effectively on a two year clock; they had releases in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011. Now it's half that.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#38

Post by koralatov »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #22

Is Apple's software quality truly declining? I've been an OS X user for a couple years now, and I'm perfectly happy with my laptop and its updates. Whenever I read articles like these, I wondered if the software quality has actually declined, or if it's received too many features to be properly maintained, or if now it has so many more users that the flaws have become more apparent.

Depending how long ago you started using a Mac, you may have started using them after the slide started.

From my own experience, and the experience of other Mac users that I know, I think that the quality of their software has had a marked decline in the last decade or so. The exact reasons aren't totally apparent, but it seems like there's too much rush to add new 'features' without fixing and refining existing ones, and that annual releases aren't giving them sufficient time to polish what's already there. It's no accident that Tiger was incredibly stable and 'complete' after having nearly three years of work done on it.

I'm not advocating they work for three years on each version of OS X, but even 18 months, and fewer new 'features' per release, would give them more time to improve the quality of what they're releasing.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#39

Post by xutopia »

It's undeniably true that Apple software has lacked in quality in the last couple of years. I say this as my Siri stopped working altogether, Photos app upgrade destroyed my library and my iPhone keeps telling me the songs I downloaded aren't there.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#40

Post by ryanlol »

While my point of view is strictly limited to security, I really don't think Apples software quality has declined. I think it's always been really shit, but has been receiving unprecedented amounts of attention lately.
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