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Apple’s declining software quality

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Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#411

Post by rmc »

doomlaser wrote: post #337
elsurudo wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everybody hates skeumorphism, especially when not taken to an extreme (okay, Apple under Jobs often did take it to an extreme... like the leather Calendar app). But skeumorphism, when used properly, provides affordances and hints to the user. > told developers that they don't need native apps because using HTML + WebView is enough That's because the SDK wasn't ready for developers yet. You must remember that, fir…

No, they weren't going to do a public SDK, until after the huge sustained public outcry. I understand the plan was to work with select third parties on a case by case basis, sort of akin to standalone game consoles.

I suspect people rooting and writing their own apps pushed them as well. If they didn't control the 3rd party apps, other people would.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#412

Post by threeseed »

Animats wrote: post #396
sandworm101 wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Apple has total control over the hardware, total control over third party developers, and $203 billion in cash. What are they doing wrong? Nothing. And that is the problem. When you are generally speaking doing everything well there is little room for massive improvement. The days of perpetually exponential improvement, and resulting growth, are over. Apple is not a startup. Like Ford, Sony and GE, they now have…

Apple is losing market share to Android. The gravy train may not go on forever. Apple today is in the position of GM in GM's glory days, the wonderful days of powerful V8 engines, HydraMatic transmissions, tailfins, and the "longer, lower, wider" wide-track Pontiac. GM didn't think they needed massive improvement in quality. They were wrong. Watch this commercial for the 1967 Pontiac GTO.[1] Looks a little like one o…

> Apple is losing market share to Android

Who cares ? They are siphoning profits from the market and selling more phones than they ever have before. They have periphery businesses e.g. Apple Pay, App Store that are doing very well and I am sure more will come in the future. They are never going to be the company that goes for market share above all else.

> Apple today is in the position of GM in GM's glory days

I don't think so. Apple seems to be quite happy just to acquihire their way out of any innovation slump. There are a ridiculous number of companies especially in the VR space that they have acquired that we have seen no evidence of in their problems.

Pretty exciting times ahead I imagine.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#413

Post by talldan »

Rumudiez wrote: post #269
wstrange wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect some of those crashes are hardware related. Anecdotal for sure, but Google Maps has been solid for me on Nexus devices.

Anecdotal * 2 = still anecdotal, but my 1st gen moto g has never given me any problems with Maps, other than being a little laggy from time to time. Samsung?

Rock solid for me on my OnePlus One, too. I've used it for some fairly long driving trips as well, where it's been running for a few hours.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#414

Post by bluedino »

nostrademons wrote: post #391
Animats wrote: post #372

This has to be a management problem. Apple has total control over the hardware, total control over third party developers, and $203 billion in cash. What are they doing wrong? Apple has the resources to approach software like aerospace. Formal interface specs, heavy Q/A, tough regression tests, formal methods. It's expensive, but Apple ships so many copies that the cost per unit is insignificant. Microsoft did that,…

Nah, I think it's a perception problem. As someone whose starry-eyed Mac obsession predated Windows 95 - Apple's software has always been buggy. It was buggy under Sculley, it was buggy under Amelio, and it was buggy under Jobs. I remember getting plenty of sad Macs under System 6 and 7, and early versions of OS X weren't any better. We just didn't care because Steve Jobs was really good at distracting us with promis…

>> Apple's software has always been buggy. It was buggy under Sculley, it was buggy under Amelio...

Classic Mac OS was buggy by design - it didn't have multitasking and memory protection, it was single user... Windows had that same problem before 2000 (well, NT 4, but not many people used that).

I use OS X daily and I use Windows 7 daily. I have far fewer issues with OS X for whatever reason that may be. My computers don't magically reboot or bluescreen nearly as much. It might happen every 6 months at the most, where with Windows it probably happens every 2 months.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#415

Post by melted »

Scaevolus wrote: post #397
Animats wrote: post #372

This has to be a management problem. Apple has total control over the hardware, total control over third party developers, and $203 billion in cash. What are they doing wrong? Apple has the resources to approach software like aerospace. Formal interface specs, heavy Q/A, tough regression tests, formal methods. It's expensive, but Apple ships so many copies that the cost per unit is insignificant. Microsoft did that,…

Apple's R&D budget seems to be mostly focused on hardware. It's hard to say definitively, given how secretive they are. Microsoft invests a massive amount of money into MSR, and creates tools out of the most useful results. The Static Driver Verifier depends on Z3, an SMT solver developed at MSR. Other verification tooling like SAL (C/C++ annotations to assert contracts for functions) has a similar history.

They should probably consider using that "static driver verifier" because Surface Pro 4 is crashy as hell.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#416

Post by threeseed »

bsbechtel wrote: post #409
mwfunk wrote: post #367

I blame the stock market pressure towards growth. The stock market rewards growth at the expense of everything else. It's like a kid pinching his arm to blow up a mosquito that was biting him- it's forced to grow and grow and grow until it pops. It's no longer acceptable to simply run a profitable business with happy employees and customers. It creates a push towards constant acceleration in all things- shorter relea…

I don't think it's the stock market. If anything, it's the CEO not focusing on making products that make people's lives better and instead focusing on what everyone else in SV (and the tech industry in general) is making.

Since when are the two mutually exclusive ?

And I am confused what Apple could be doing that the tech industry isn't already doing. There aren't many raw innovation areas to get into now. It's all about execution and innovation at the micro level.

For me Apple's foray into health e.g. Apple Watch, HealthKit, ResearchKit as well as their pretty amazing stance on encryption and privacy is absolutely about making people's lives better. It sure as hell isn't particularly profitable.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#417

Post by natch »

symlinkk wrote: post #373
natch wrote: post #351

I happen to disagree about software quality getting worse. Most of the people in this thread bashing Xcode don't even know how to spell it, which should tell you something about their level of ignorance on the matter. I use it every day and the Xcode team has been knocking it out of the park. And OS X -- it's hardy bad by any stretch. Mostly it's fantastic. There are the rare glitches, but as other commenters have sa…

I don't think releasing stable software is harder than rebuilding a 747 while it's flying. Especially for one of the most valuable companies in the world. If they can't deliver stable, high quality, easy to use software, while also meeting their goals, then they need to change their goals. >multicore CPUs >64-bit >"evolution of security and networking technologies" (?) >Swift >"unstable third party platforms" (?) >"w…

Obviously opinions differ on whether the software is stable or broken. I think is stable, and not broken, and I'm speaking as someone who actually uses it.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#419

Post by bluedino »

I might pine for the days of Snow Leopard, but part of that was the hardware - for the first time you got some powerful Intel hardware running a mature version of OS X. It was bliss compared to a G4 running 10.2 or the original MacBook Pro on 10.4. Plus, SSD's started to enter the mainstream in 2010.

That said I'm not too upset with 10.12 or whatever the heck we are running right now. What bugs me is iOS 9. Long pauses, freezing up, graphical glitches, first-party apps crashing, sound lagging...it's just terrible.

I guess I'm happy that I haven't had the old problems of not syncing up, the phone getting hot and eating battery life, apps not refreshing, etc. But the current iPhone experience reminds me of amateur hour shit I'd expect form a low-end, no-name smartphone.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#420

Post by KirinDave »

melted wrote: post #415
Scaevolus wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's R&D budget seems to be mostly focused on hardware. It's hard to say definitively, given how secretive they are. Microsoft invests a massive amount of money into MSR, and creates tools out of the most useful results. The Static Driver Verifier depends on Z3, an SMT solver developed at MSR. Other verification tooling like SAL (C/C++ annotations to assert contracts for functions) has a similar history.

They should probably consider using that "static driver verifier" because Surface Pro 4 is crashy as hell.

Yeah, but that's because Skylake is buggy as hell. It's a bit of a bummer. MS cannot publicly blame Intel for the raft of skylake bugs, but it's first gen hardware, first gen software, and first-gen firmware.

For what it's worth, my Surface Book (obviously a product they care a lot about) has basically gotten to a crash rate equal to my mac, which is maybe 1 actual problem every 2 weeks). I suspect the Surface 4 Pro will get that love next as the other Skylake power issues sort out.

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