Apple’s declining software quality • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#461

Post by digi_owl » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:30 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #445

VeilEm wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They got a handle on security when Linux list a fire under their ass. I have my doubts that all 0.02% or whatever of PC users who are dedicated to using Linux as their desktop OS influenced Microsoft to do anything but if you have data to show otherwise I'd be interested in it.

I'd assume parent was thinking less of PC users and more of other OS consumers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

And those are the public ones.

BTW, i seem to recall that the London Stock Exchange had a spectacular failure when they went with Windows. The result being that they switched to Linux with in a year or two of bringing their brand new Windows system online.

Ah yes, found it: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2467082/data-center/lon...

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#462

Post by poopchute » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:30 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #99

The decline seems real to me. A shortlist of things I've noticed: * Spotlight no longer finds things as easily. I used to use it for everything. Since updating to El Capitan, it has missed some exact match folders. Planning to switch to Alfred. * iWork was gutted in '13. People used to use Pages professionally. I'm now using Pages '09, and planning to transition to Word or Latex. I tested Pages '13 intensively, and i…

iTunes and iCloud deleting all my data is what sent me to Android. Deleting data should be a cardinal sin and require some conscious effort to do.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#463

Post by digi_owl » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:31 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #436

digi_owl wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft finally got a handle on security & software quality just as the world ceased to care about them. Not quite. They got a handle on security when Linux list a fire under their ass. Competition, true honest to market competition, spurs improvement. The thing about Apple is that they may have competition on hardware, but they have no competition on Software. If you buy a Mac or a iPhone, you have already throw…

Not exactly, oem pc's have ( mostly ) an oem version of Windows on it ( which is pretty cheap, don't know what other incentives microsoft has though). But you can install Linux on it for sure :)

Yep, sure can.

https://access.redhat.com/ecosystem/search/#/vendor/Lenovo?s...

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#464

Post by jafingi » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

I think it's a management problem. I agree that the software quality have been declining the past years. Snow Leopard is probably the most stable OS I've ever used, and since then, the OS have become bloated IMO.

However, the major thing that bugs me is Apple's services. iCloud, iMessage and Apple Music have had some terrible issues. Especially when they launched Music, it was not only buggy, it was SLOOOOW. I can't believe that the giant Apple can't even compete with little Spotify in terms of ease of use, speed and stability.

It shouldn't take 10 seconds to search for a track, and not take a few seconds to start playing a track. Spotify is, and have (the past 4 years when I've used it) been INSTANTLY on when playing tracks.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#465

Post by HillaryBriss » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

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…

Fantastic commercial!

"The Great One"

I can almost see Don Draper standing in the shadows behind the car.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#466

Post by wycx » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #370

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…

There's been much talk about the "financialization of everything"[1], but how did it come to this? What change in laws, what shift in culture, produced this growth at all costs mentality? HFT? The Reagan Revolution? Moving manufacturing offshore? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9106983

I suspect also the end of Bretton-Woods, and western counties moving from dominantly Keynesian economic policy to dominantly Monetarism/Neoliberalism (which is responisble for your last two points).

I suggest the following article [1] for more on neoliberalism, as well as Philip Pilkington's series of articles on the origin on neoliberalism.

[1] http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/econ101/neoliberalis...

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#467

Post by cbsmith » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

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…

> We just didn't care because Steve Jobs was really good at distracting us with promises about how great things were going to be, really soon now.

I tend to characterize the "reality distortion field" as a magician-like talent to focus an audiences attention on a particular subject.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#468

Post by V-2 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:37 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #333

coldtea wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You probably wasn't paying attention when Job was running things. OS X 10.1 was a mess -- it took until several updates to become somewhat usable. The Finder was half-arsed for a decade. Mail.app had several issues. The Windows vers…

I remember the initial Windows release of Safari. Apple insisted on doing their own font rendering, and the result was blurry headache-inducing text.

That's right, the anti-aliasing didn't look good to me either. I'm sure it comes out very nicely in print.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#469

Post by jhasse » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:38 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #354

jhasse wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When closing your laptop Windows goes into standby. It should only install updates when shutting down and it tells you that beforehand. So it "did what it said" ;) > Windows scatters files all over the place! Just have a look into your Library folder on OS X. Also some programs don't use that, but create a dot folder in your home directory. Maybe I'm missing something though? I haven't used OS X much lately.

Library is pretty well organized. Settings go in Library/Preferences, cache files in Library/Caches, persistent files that don't need to be exposed to the user go in Library/Application Support, and they're all organized by app name or bundle ID. Apps which use dot folders in the home directory need to be smacked until they stop, but the OS can't really control where (non-sandboxed) apps put things, it can only estab…

I can't look it up right now, but I think it's called "Library Support" or something? Anyway: When I was writing a program for Mac OS I had to choose the name of the folder myself. Using the app name or bundle ID seems to be just a convention, I don't see the difference to %AppData% on Windows or ~/.config on Linux.

Also I remember a tool I used when I had a Macbook which helped you remove all the files when uninstalling something. I think it was this one: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/25276/appcleaner I remember some programs even putting files in other directories than Library Support.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#470

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 9:38 PM UTC

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…

They're losing marketshare in the phone market as a whole, but in the high end, premium market, they're doing quite well. And that's the market where the profit is, not in the low end, free on contract devices.