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Apple's Software Quality Crisis

eliseomartelli.it

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Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#721

Post by henry_viii »

yalok wrote: post #685

This has been going on for years. I used to do a lot of iOS development, and have an eye for bugs. Almost every Apple app/service has been regressing in quality. Take basic functionality - a phone app (calling). After certain audio sessions use (calling via WhatsApp) I can’t make regular calls over cellular - the UI app immediately cancels the call. Only reboot helps. Or notes - for many years/iOS versions, they live…

On Notes:

1. If you copy some text

2. Select other text

3. Paste the text you copied to replace the selected text

Notes will crash. This has been known for years.

Also if you turn off all suggestions in Spotlight on iOS and just use it as an app launcher, it will still take seconds for Spotlight to show you the results. For something that's supposed to be an indexed look up.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#722

Post by RubberbandSoul »

yalok wrote: post #685

This has been going on for years. I used to do a lot of iOS development, and have an eye for bugs. Almost every Apple app/service has been regressing in quality. Take basic functionality - a phone app (calling). After certain audio sessions use (calling via WhatsApp) I can’t make regular calls over cellular - the UI app immediately cancels the call. Only reboot helps. Or notes - for many years/iOS versions, they live…

> can’t make regular calls over cellular

That's extremely serious because the call you're trying to make could be an emergency call. A bug like that would have top priority in the org I used to work in. If I'd had to guess it cancels the call because there's a crash in a process somewhere. Possibly because of audio handover between apps.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#723

Post by Zanfa »

My personal annoyance is Apple abandoning AppKit in favor of SwiftUI, which breaks down immediately once you do more complex interactions than basic demo apps. NSScrollView and NSCollectionView must be among the most buggy UI components, but SwiftUI ScrollView is so barebones (and also buggy), it's basically useless.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#724

Post by natrys »

grishka wrote: post #542
dandellion wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the feeling. I'm forced to use a Mac laptop for work, and it's really made me appreciate Linux.

Linux makes you use the terminal and read manuals and edit configs to accomplish the most basic tasks. At least neither Windows nor macOS need that. Linux is fine for servers, but I can't fathom using that on my actual computer.

Windows makes you open Registry Editor and tweak completely inscrutable key/value for those.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#726

Post by troupo »

Toutouxc wrote: post #659
jamil7 wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always been a lot of room for them to optimise performance on macOS to a level that they do iOS, but modern Apple basically wants macOS to go away and sees it as more of an annoyance, so they don't spend any time tuning it. Then the elephant in the room is SwiftUI itself, there's a performance cliff there, wherein if you've optimised everything else, you might just hit the brick wall that's the layout engine…

> modern Apple basically wants macOS to go away and sees it as more of an annoyance, so they don't spend any time tuning it [citation needed]

Oh, the leadership keeps saying that MacOS is separate from iOS and they care about MacOS.

And then they keep adding iOS UIs into MacOS, produce horrible laggy iOS-optimised software for it, and call it a day.

Actions speak louder than words.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#727

Post by sirwhinesalot »

latexr wrote: post #715
roody15 wrote: post #268

When you upgrade MacOS 15.3.0 apple automatically enables Apple intelligence and then turns on Apple intelligence reporting (15 min intervals) by default. You are not prompted or asked to enable. After disabling Apple Intelligence when you do the next mini update to 15.3.1 Apple intelligence is enabled. Again no prompt and your previous choice to disable is ignored. This IMO is a bad sign for Apple software quality.…

> and then turns on Apple intelligence reporting (15 min intervals) by default. That feature is so misunderstood, it feels like no one read the help text or tried it and is just going off the misplaced outrage of everyone else. That setting is not about sending information to Apple, it is a personal private report for yourself. There are enough legitimate reasons to criticise Apple, we don’t need to make up a problem…

I don't want any goddamn reports!

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#728

Post by whstl »

latexr wrote: post #700
yalok wrote: post #685

This has been going on for years. I used to do a lot of iOS development, and have an eye for bugs. Almost every Apple app/service has been regressing in quality. Take basic functionality - a phone app (calling). After certain audio sessions use (calling via WhatsApp) I can’t make regular calls over cellular - the UI app immediately cancels the call. Only reboot helps. Or notes - for many years/iOS versions, they live…

> Sometimes I’m so frustrated, and thinking of my options - it’s either move to Android, or go get hired at Apple with a mandate to fix bugs in various products… Those aren’t options, they’re fantasies. Like dreaming of suing out of existence a company that wronged you, or fixing the world by ruling it, or winning the lottery without playing. Android isn’t perfect either, it’s a different set of frustrations. And why…

While I agree that it's Tim Cook's responsibility to set the course and influence the culture, I doubt a new CEO will be able to so.

I'm not saying nobody can be like Steve Jobs, but Steve Jobs was an anomaly when it comes to C-Levels, and even when it comes to management in general, at least from reading things like www.folkore.org and interviews with people who worked with him.

And I'm not even talking about talent or vision or whatever, it's just about saying no to pointless features that are there for someone's ego or so that someone can get a promotion.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#729

Post by WithinReason »

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…

There is no reason why YCbCr should be visually worse than RGB if the conversion is accurate

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#730

Post by taneq »

rqtwteye wrote: post #258
progmetaldev wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Windows really had the same type of issues going from the old Control Panel to Settings. I still get large delays for some of the screens in Windows Settings.

I think it's pretty crazy how slow a lot of the newer things in Windows 11 are. Explorer is super slow, Settings are slow. Sometimes I think even if I wanted to make things that slow (without using sleep statements), I wouldn't know how do it.

The login screen and start menu both require a key press to start the process (enter pin or start typing search term) and both then drop all subsequent keystrokes for an indefinite period until they’ve finished initialising, displaying, and maybe phoning home and loading ads. It’s infuriating. It turns a simple open-loop “press win key, type search term, enter” into “press win key, wait for visual confirmation, type” which adds both computer latency and your own reaction time to the overall time taken.
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