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Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

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Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#31

Post by ffreire »

jordhy wrote: post #27

You took the word out of my mouth! It is by far and it is also losing some of its legendary attention to detail. I've noticed the amount of patches going up as well as the stability of software go a little bit down. But that's not all, most major unix tools in Mac OS X are 2 to 3 years outdated and Safari is a bug nest. To bring some balance to my criticism I fell that innovation at Apple has not decreased but the qu…

As referenced in this article[0] a major blocker for shipping newer versions of the command line toolchain is the fact that newer versions of these tools moved to an incompatible GPLv3 license.

[0]: http://robservatory.com/behind-os-xs-modern-face-lies-an-agi...

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#33

Post by albeva »

dmix wrote: post #25
albeva wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is a matter of opinion - I find gnome to be incredibly ugly and unpolished. Large margins, padding issues, often badly rendered fonts (fuzzy, weird aliasing) just to name the few.

When was the last time you used it? Things have vastly improved recently. > often badly rendered fonts (fuzzy, weird aliasing) Gnome-tweak-tools and the infinality package makes fonts and aliasing comparable to OSX. As with most Linux things, it requires a bit of tweaking. Mostly due to politics and FOSS, as is the case with the fonts. Newer Gnome apps have clean padding and margins.

we are talking out of the box experience. One could make the same comment about os-x: it is possible to customise icons, change look & feel of the UI etc. to make it look the way you like it :D

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#34

Post by acornax »

pc2g4d wrote: post #29
owenwil wrote: post #4

No, I don't think so. People are perceiving it that way because a few unrelated issues have cropped up lately. Coincidence, not correlation.

But coincidence is a type of correlation, is it not?

Strong correlation requires a large number of 'coincidences'

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#36

Post by pessimizer »

say_what_say wrote: post #30

Wait - this supposes they had quality to start with. Not in my experience, and I have been using their offerings since almost the beginning. I think the difference is that people are finally feeling the confidence to state the obvious - why is the software so sucky?

>I think the difference is that people are finally feeling the confidence to state the obvious - why is the software so sucky?

I agree; the Jobs distortion field is wearing off. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance to get past (this must have been better before because I liked it before), and this dawning recognition is getting projected onto Apple.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#37

Post by tolmasky »

I'd just like to point out that this is likely not to get better with this (arbitrary) decision to release a new OS every year. It used to be that we'd have a new release roughly every 2 years (from 2003 - 2011). This meant: 1. it was in development for 2 years and thus probably stabler to begin with, and 2) there were then 2 years to iron out the bugs. You'd get the new OS, there were some understandable kinks, but then by 6-12 months later it was pretty solid and you had another year of a solid OS ahead of you. It was perfectly reasonable to wait on the OS and let the early birds kick the tires first.

This is no longer possible. It feels that as soon as version N is out, they are scrambling to make version N+1. There is no downtime. There is no stabilization phase. You are eternally in brand-new isn't fully working mode. Of course the software is going to be worse.

Couple this with the stark reality that Apple has simply run out of ideas in terms of software. Every new version of OS X boils down to: 1. arbitrary UI tweak (forcing developers to refresh), 2. Gimmick features in Mail.app/Safari (RSS in Mail/Safari, Postcards in Mail, yet another 3d effect to re-arrange your tabs in Safari, annotations in Mail, etc etc etc), and 3. regressions of features that worked for years. Occasionally .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud will be renamed in hopes everyone forgets about the last round of data loss bugs/hopefully people get excited about this vague thing they don't really know the scope of.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#38

Post by derefr »

rayiner wrote: post #12

My iPhone 6+ has shown more bugs in 2 weeks than the three iPhones I had prior to that (the original, 3G, and 4). Has hard locked at least half a dozen times, particularly when receiving calls.

Oh man, the crazy bugs I've seen in iOS 8 on my 5S. Last week I had an alarm go off, unlocked my screen, and it kept going. And going. Disabling the alarm in the Clock app did nothing. Re-locking and re-unlocking the screen did nothing. In the end, I had to just power the device off.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#39

Post by billions »

It is difficult to maintain focus on software as a hardware company (and vice versa). While Steve Jobs was around he was able to emphasize importance of both hw & sw. Over time the part of the company which brings the money receives increasing investment at the expense of the other. For Apple, maintaining a balance will be a challenge going forward. QA seems to be the first compromise.

Re: Is Apple experiencing a problematic decline in software quality?

#40

Post by mamcx »

pessimizer wrote: post #36
say_what_say wrote: post #30

Wait - this supposes they had quality to start with. Not in my experience, and I have been using their offerings since almost the beginning. I think the difference is that people are finally feeling the confidence to state the obvious - why is the software so sucky?

>I think the difference is that people are finally feeling the confidence to state the obvious - why is the software so sucky? I agree; the Jobs distortion field is wearing off. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance to get past (this must have been better before because I liked it before), and this dawning recognition is getting projected onto Apple.

But the distortion field that before exist a magical distortion field is still strong...

Similar to: Jobs make everything at apple, apple say it invented first (about everything), people that buy apple is a lunatic fanboy, bla, bla...

You have a more stable software or not. You can show numbers, or at worst, anecdotal evidence. But blaming in a distortion field?

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