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Apple's Software Quality Crisis

eliseomartelli.it

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Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#61

Post by DrillShopper »

1980phipsi wrote: post #48
tbeseda wrote: post #27

Anecdotally, Apple Music has deteriorated exponentially for me. iTunes was such a stable, usable piece of software, but I can't get reliable use out of Apple Music for the life of me. It _feels_ like a shoddy Electron app. But that's not fair to the actual Electron (or similar) apps that actually work. For all its many design and product flaws, Spotify actually works.

The podcast app is the same shoddy-ness. Re-arranging things in the queue is such a PIA.

Apple Music, at least when I last used it, could not handle copying podcasts to my old iPod Video - this is now handled in Finder, as best as I can tell. It will copy the tracks, but it doesn't properly flag them as podcasts so if I switch to another track and then go back to the podcast it does not remember my location.

Never had that problem with iTunes.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#62

Post by csomar »

FredPret wrote: post #55
dharmab wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using fundamentally the same Linux setup for over ten years now. I think the biggest change it went through was migrating the audio system to Pipewire, which took about an hour to figure out and hasn't need attention since. I have no solutions to offer for smartphones sadly.

Amazing. The mental peace you've gained this way probably vastly outweighs the initial investment and missing out on the newest "features".

My archlinux has moved from a bunch of scripts to just a window manager with Chrome. At the end of the day, you realize you don't really need all these gadgets and notifications but just a terminal and a browser.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#63

Post by raverbashing »

Huh let me guess: it is Apple Intelligence causing it

Now while it is true that some aspect of the Apple experience suck, my experience is that Windows and Linux are also sucking more (Linux less than MS, but still, not helpful)

I definitely would want more transparency for Apple but this is one of the things they "no can do", they just fix it one day (usually) and off you go.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#64

Post by IgorPartola »

diggan wrote: post #4

I drank the "creating products that prioritize user experience over feature checklists" kool-aid back in ~2013 sometime, and got myself a first Macbook when I worked at a software startup the first time. While it certainly gave a more "premium" impression in terms of hardware/UI/UX for the first few years, around 2016 I had to move back to Linux because the software experience and the user experience is just too poor…

Personal pet peeve: CarPlay not pausing what you are playing when you hit the infotainment power button is really dumb.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#65

Post by hbn »

tbeseda wrote: post #27

Anecdotally, Apple Music has deteriorated exponentially for me. iTunes was such a stable, usable piece of software, but I can't get reliable use out of Apple Music for the life of me. It _feels_ like a shoddy Electron app. But that's not fair to the actual Electron (or similar) apps that actually work. For all its many design and product flaws, Spotify actually works.

Apple Music on Mac definitely needs a ground-up rewrite, though I worry it'll lose uncommonly used features, like the ability to upload and stream your own music. I think a lot of Apple Music weirdness is from the fact that it's been built up over the years upon iTunes, which was essentially a completely different product that offered different thing. No one is really buying digital music any more, but they still need to handle everyone's old libraries and purchases, so there's a weird disconnect between your local music library and your cloud Apple Music library. So there are completely separate screens for viewing e.g. an album in your local library versus "in the cloud" even though they're both views for the same content.

Incidentally the iOS Music app has generally been pretty good to me, but starting in the most recent iOS update has been having crashing issues. I'm not sure what exactly causes it, but it's typically when I rearranged the queue then minimize the player to get back to the home/library screen.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#66

Post by markus_zhang »

I just don't understand why Apple UI designers hate scroll bars with such a passion.

It's probably just me, but I feel that many apps on Apple follows the same pattern. For example checkout and compare the scroll bar experience on ChatGPT website (Chrome) between a Mac-book and a Windows laptop.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#67

Post by lostlogin »

JoshTko wrote: post #58
1980phipsi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The podcast app is the same shoddy-ness. Re-arranging things in the queue is such a PIA.

podcast app is the worst, I can never find what I'm looking for

> I can never find what I'm looking for

Overcast might be the app for you. No affiliation, I just like it.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#68

Post by flohofwoe »

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 jumping around erratically (it's impossible to actually select the exact color you want)

- same thing happens when using the linear slider below the color circle

This bug doesn't lurk deep in some obscure part of the settings panel, it's the only way to change the desktop background color. A QA specialist would stumble over this in 5 minutes of trying to break the app.

I made it a hobby to check this bug after each OS update, it's broken since the new settings panel was introduced in Ventura. As a good citizen I also wrote a Feedback Assistent ticket (FB13805690 - 21-May-2024) with attached screen recordings and all, but of course I could just as well have sent that report into a black hole :)

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#69

Post by Someone1234 »

deegles wrote: post #46

I would bet that the reason for the drop in quality is the focus on delivering features in order to secure promotions and ongoing positive performance reviews.

Yep. A lot of software companies are suffering from this short-term-ism that results in incentive structures that value things that move the stock price rather than make for a strong long term company.

It may eventually blow up in faces, but a lot of the people making money on it today won't be around to see it.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#70

Post by judofyr »

realo wrote: post #37
kome wrote: post #17

but the hardware premium is kinda real... i have been using my macbook air 11 daily for 10 years (I am writing this comment on it), and it works flawlessly. somehow i don't think other brands are so well made, or they weren't so well made 10 years ago.

Yes but... but... Did you update it to the latest version of Mac OS (Sequoia) with all the security patches via official Apple channels ? No you did not.

Not quite sure what you're trying to say, but the MacBook Air 11" 2015 model supports macOS Monterey[1] which got a security update 6 months ago[2].

[1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/103260

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Monterey

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