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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

#321

Post by have_faith »

gcanyon wrote: post #239
noneeeed wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current UX of notifications is terrible . After months of using it I still don't understand the mental model. A notification comes up, I hover and wait for the cross to appear and click it. But then some time later I unlock my machine or something happens and apparantly all my notifications are still there for some reason and I have to clear them again, only this time they are in groups and I have to clear multip…

For me the issue is notifications that appear, then disappear, and I can’t find them again, or what they refer to. If it’s important enough to do a notification, it’s important enough to keep in a notification log that I can go through chronologically, search, group, sort, etc. I will high five the person who tells me how that feature exists and I’ve just missed it.

This happens to me a lot. Somehow I miss the initial notification but catch it as it animates away and I don't know how to find out what it was or what app caused it.

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

#322

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

doubled112 wrote: post #284
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Tim Cook doesn't have a clue about what made Apple special and is slowly destroying it by not making sure to keep those qualities Well their shares have never been higher so as long as that's the metric by which a CEO's performance is judged then you can forget about Apple caring about SW QA and other such "nonsense". Also, before Jobs passed away, Cook was Apple's supply chain mastermind so it makes sense his stren…

> notifications on the new MBP can get hidden behind the notch; WTF, how did this pass QA?! Developer and QA team tester were using older MBPs? So it worked on their machines? Rendered fine in the automated test?

Those all sound like terrible mistakes for a 2 trillion dollar company.

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

#323

Post by laurent92 »

noneeeed wrote: post #231
makecheck wrote: post #204

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…

The current UX of notifications is terrible . After months of using it I still don't understand the mental model. A notification comes up, I hover and wait for the cross to appear and click it. But then some time later I unlock my machine or something happens and apparantly all my notifications are still there for some reason and I have to clear them again, only this time they are in groups and I have to clear multip…

The new generation (some young employees/interns) are awesome about notifications. I arrive on their screen and tell them they have a notification pending. And then they showed me:

They ignore them. Red dot? Ignore. Blinking red dot jumping in the docker? They live with it. They say macOS is terrible because it has red dots, sometimes worse than Windows. One is colorblind which helps, but really, they got used to Windows nagging them, Youtube nagging them, websites where the cookie banner and the consent form. They try to deactivate as many notifications as they can, but they tend to avoid the cross itself, or they avoid clicking on the Slack icon to remove the dot. They just let it jump on the sidebar.

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

#324

Post by skrtskrt »

throwvirtever wrote: post #262
loudthing wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big yikes.

> When I was at apple, we did this thing people called "key[n]ote-driven development"... > Big yikes. If Apple's products are essentially sold via a "keynote", it makes sense to have a keynote presentation as the internal hurdle as well. If it can't be presented in way that looks like something people want to buy, there's no point in moving forward with the project.

Yeah but this is the classic type of bureaucratic effort-justification hurdle that leads to tech debt or just general crappiness never getting improved.

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

#325

Post by the_other »

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…

Maybe don't hammer it so hard?

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

#326

Post by paxys »

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.

For a fair comparison you have to use an equivalent priced device sold by Microsoft itself (so a premium Surface), and that has none of the problems you described.

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

#327

Post by mixmastamyk »

jjoonathan wrote: post #276
notpachet wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with a developer at whose main claim to fame was that she'd deleted more features than she'd added. We need more people like her.

eBay has deleted a lot of features that made my life better. There was no replacement -- things just suck more, now.

Delete code yes, features only if obnoxious.

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

#328

Post by WalterBright »

makecheck wrote: post #204

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…

I don't use my iphone for email because I get 200-300 emails per day, and there's no way to mass delete the inbox. I have to select-delete for every email.

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

#329

Post by brodo »

It’s not an Apple problem, it’s industry-wide. This talk [0] is a great warning about the general decline in software quality. I think we are at some sort of second software crisis. We need to get rid of the OOP and DRY mindset and build things with a focus on speed, stability, security and minimal dependencies.

[0]: https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko

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

#330

Post by ziml77 »

josephg wrote: post #224
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately it doesn’t really matter who’s fault it is from the perspective of the user. All the windows computers at the computer shop ship with bloated 3rd party crap. Except the apple computers. It’s also not Google’s fault that most android vendors don’t support old devices for long. Or Linux’s fault that hardware vendors make linux drivers an afterthought. As a consumer, I don’t care why any of this happens. I…

Who decides what's bloat? macOS ships with Apple News, Podcasts, the App Store, Books, Garageband, Stocks, iMovie, Keynote, etc. A lot of their stuff is even pinned to the taskbar by default. Should be consider that bloat? I don't need any of those programs (or prefer alternatives), so it seems like it's bloat for me.
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