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Apple's Software Quality Crisis

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Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#481

Post by cosmic_cheese »

Take8435 wrote: post #467
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is better than Windows on most counts for sure, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to use it full-time without making significant concessions on preferences about how desktop environment stuff works. If you’re someone who grew up on Macs there’s almost nothing in the Linux desktop space that tries to replicate that set of patterns… it’s all Win9X-type taskbar setups, mobile-type setups (GNOME, Pantheon), old ni…

> If you’re someone who grew up on Macs there’s almost nothing in the Linux desktop space that tries to replicate that set of patterns… it’s all Win9X-type taskbar setups, mobile-type setups (GNOME, Pantheon), old niche *nix setups (e.g. WindowMaker), and of course minimal tiling WMs. There’s no clones of Mac OS of any flavor. Have you seen https://hyprland.org ?

I know of it but haven’t tried it. It looks kin to minimal tiling WMs like i3, but with a lot of polish applied. It’s nice I’m sure, but it’s not all that Mac-like.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#482

Post by stackskipton »

ethbr1 wrote: post #466
pengaru wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having joined a large established FAANG, it's become quite apparent that in any large established entity with so much management and meta work, with strong incentives driving more energy towards the meta work than where the rubber meets the road, it's inevitable for product quality to deteriorate. Internally the prioritized output becomes the meta work, not what reaches customers. What reaches customers is almost som…

Interesting observation. I suppose most startups haven't existed for long enough for the meta-optimizing employees to be promoted over work-optimizing employees, yet.

Meta optimizing employees have issues hiding at smaller companies where one person has a vision of what needs to happen and quickly identify someone not pulling in one direction.

Once you get big enough, upper management has tough time figure out who is meta optimizing over work-optimizing. Not to mention there might be multiple meta optimizing employees.

IME, it's around 100-150 employees which lines up with Dunbar's Number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#483

Post by stronglikedan »

pico303 wrote: post #331

As someone forced to use a Windows laptop for work with the new job, I've stopped complaining about my Mac. It's so much worse on the other side of the fence... Working on Windows makes me appreciate the Mac ecosystem so, so, so very much.

As someone who wants to be productive at work, I chose Windows over Mac and Linux. Thankfully I had a choice.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#484

Post by Aloisius »

karmakaze wrote: post #208
flohofwoe wrote: post #68

Here's my personal canary in the coal mine that something must be fundamentally broken in Apple's software development process: - on a recent macOS version, right click on the desktop, select 'change wallpaper' => the new settings panel opens - click on 'Custom Color' - now hold and drag around the 'color cursor' in the color selection circle for a few seconds - stop dragging and notice how the color cursor continues…

My indicator for if Apple is for the customer vs for Apple is how macOS 'negotiates' YPbPr instead of RGB for non-Apple branded monitors (some LG monitors also get a pass) which results in worse color quality. I believe this to be carefully engineered to be a plausible bug rather than a real one. BTW I have found a workaround using BetterDisplay and an EDID override (to more closely match what the monitor is actually…

The same thing happens under Linux with some monitors and AMD graphics drivers. A lot of monitors have poor standards compliance (and the standards aren't great either).

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#485

Post by cageface »

bondolo wrote: post #390

While I worked at Apple in 2021-22 their issues seemed about the same as nearly every other company producing consumer apps and devices; bloated slow garbage with very mediocre quality. Their engineering culture is terrible, especially as it relates to transfer of the “Apple ethos” to the next generation of devs. Apple is going to be indistinguishable from the rest of the pack within the next decade. But most of all…

You can really see this when trying to build apps with Swift & SwiftUI. The language and the framework seem to be optimized for nice terse WWDC demos but both fall apart pretty quickly when you start to do any heavy UI lifting with them. And I think that's starting to bleed into their own native UI now too. The lousy macOS settings app is a good example.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any good alternatives to Apple. Windows is even worse.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#486

Post by FabHK »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #396
bondolo wrote: post #390

While I worked at Apple in 2021-22 their issues seemed about the same as nearly every other company producing consumer apps and devices; bloated slow garbage with very mediocre quality. Their engineering culture is terrible, especially as it relates to transfer of the “Apple ethos” to the next generation of devs. Apple is going to be indistinguishable from the rest of the pack within the next decade. But most of all…

> Enter a birth date in a contact entry without a year. I’m glad I’m not the only one. It’s mind boggling . I’ve had to start putting in my best guess just to have it save…

FWIW, I've had the expiry month of credit cards stored in Safari increment on occasion (leading to failed online payments, trouble getting a flight, etc.) several times, to the extent that I now always include the expiry month in the card nickname. Mind boggling.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#487

Post by kyledrake »

cschep wrote: post #457
kyledrake wrote: post #437

I tried a Macbook again when the M1 chips came out, and wasn't impressed with the performance. Despite incredible benchmarks, the interface just felt bloated and sluggish. The biggest issue for me though was Darwin's weird psuedo-complete unix environment. All of my production servers are Linux, and it's a real pain to have to torture software that works great on Linux over to Apple's OS. Homebrew is nice, but even t…

What distro do you run on the framework? Ubuntu feels bloated and the software is old. The framework laptop is much, much worse than a MacBook Pro. The comparison isn't even remotely apples to apples. I wish there was a perfect solution, but man. Comparing a framework laptop with ubuntu to an MBP with MacOS is crazy from anything but a cost perspective.

Xubuntu. It doesn't feel bloated at all. The software I use is Firefox and VSC, which update almost on a weekly basis sometimes, neither of them feel "old". I've actually been considering switching to something else from VSC because it changes too much and is getting kind of bloated for me, I really just want a text editor with syntax highlighting and a file list on the left panel.

If I was to nit-pick, I would say that having competing package managers apt and snap is annoying and I've considered switching to Debian over that.

The real surprise to me was that I liked the Framework trackpad more than the Macbook one. I assumed that would be the best thing about the Macbook and was surprised when it wasn't.

I sold it to a friend and she loved it. To each their own I guess.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#489

Post by lukevp »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #479
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is better than Windows on most counts for sure, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to use it full-time without making significant concessions on preferences about how desktop environment stuff works. If you’re someone who grew up on Macs there’s almost nothing in the Linux desktop space that tries to replicate that set of patterns… it’s all Win9X-type taskbar setups, mobile-type setups (GNOME, Pantheon), old ni…

I "grew up" (from college, before then didn't use computer much) on Linux and I use a Mac at work, it's pretty easy to switch back and forth for me. Just need my tiling WM, my always on screen. I do miss that you could close the laptop lid on Linux without it sleeping. But otherwise, not much complaints either way.

My Mac only sleeps on closing if it’s not plugged in and connected to external monitors. That’s how I would want it to work. How are you wanting it to work? Closing it keeps it on no matter whether it’s plugged in or not?

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#490

Post by nikolay »

bee_rider wrote: post #447
nikolay wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true and your opinion is subjective. Windows 11 is a great developer platform.

How can their opinion be both “not true” and subjective? Windows 11 might be an ok developer platform though (does Cygwin still work?)

It's not true, because it's subjective.

For many years, Windows has had WSL and now it's the second generation WSL2 and you can run graphical Linux even without a VM. It has a decent package manager out of the box, a great open-source terminal. Containers and VMs are also available out of the box. Windows also has a developers' hub, which allows you to install toolchains easily, including IDEs such as VS Code.

Meanwhile, macOS comes with its own version of CLI tools such as find, which have quite different parameters than Linux, it doesn't have a package manager, when I install an app on my iPhone, it somehow decides that I want to install it on my macOS, too, etc. And I won't even mention how poor the menubar is! I have at least 10 apps I need to install to make macOS usable - PopClip, Moom, Bartender, etc., while the Windows equivalent for things like Dock and menubar are working pretty well, including notifications - I've accidentally have clicked so many times on notification banners, covering my scroll bar or window controls. Not to mention that so many times I'm typing something in window, which has my input focus, then another window pops up, steals my input focus, and I end up trying parts of my password in the wrong window due to that!

There are so many things wrong with macOS, Apple doesn't really care to improve it, and the System Settings is growing out of control! Windows' settings are much better organized!

And, yes, macOS freezes and crashes not less frequently than Windows. In fact, I haven't had any such issues with a heavily constrained Windows 11, running in VMware Fusion!

Also, Windows now has a free equivalent of the paid CleanMyMac app, and it works pretty well. Not to mention the free security software. But even with CleanMyMac, uninstalling software leads to tons of junk all over the place.

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