Apple’s declining software quality • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#81

Post by jernfrost » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

While I think this is exaggerated I also think there is truth to it. I would not blame this on inability to make quality products but bad high level choices. What is xCode today used to be multiple separate apps. The synch process for iPhone used to be separate programs. Now we are getting these huge monolithic programs like xCode and iTunes. Making big monoliths just isn't good software engineering IMHO. They should stick more to the original sound Unix philosophy. Make smaller apps which do a few things well. I think if users find it cumbersome to use multiple programs together, then the solution isn't to combine them all into one but to create an Operating System environment which makes it easy to use multiple programs together.

I think xCode e.g. which I use every day could easily be made into 3 different programs. 1) Project management and configuration. One program where you define which pieces go into your project. How they are compiled, deployed etc. 2) An Editor component which does syntax highlighting, refactoring, code navigation etc. 3) A GUI designer.

Sure integration has its benefits. But it also has many big disadvantages. Many people like to use different editor components, e.g. AppCode does refactoring and code navigation better in many people's view than xCode. Yet it becomes an incomplete solution as they do not have as sophisticated GUI design and project management tools. But it these were separate tools which could just as well be used with AppCode one could inspire much more diversity.

Likewise the monolithic iTunes locks out any kind of alternative third party solutions. There should be one synching applications which can sync content like pictures, books, music etc. But that is all it should do. Movies, Music, Apps etc should be separate apps and we should allow alternative third party alternatives to these. People might want other ways to display and organize their iTunes music e.g.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#82

Post by ktRolster » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

ssharp wrote: post #36

dplgk wrote: post #10

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. Perhaps, the years of oversimplifying applications has created an Apple that can't handle complex applications? Or, there's a chicken and egg question: XCode and the surrounding tools are atrociously buggy and hostile to the developer…

OSX doesn't need to handle that many hardware and driver issues, so I don't see how that's relevant to a Windows comparison. I've been using OSX since just after Panther. I generally agree with the idea that some things started getting worse after Snow Leopard, but I still don't think it's come close to a point where I'd actually move back to Windows or try out desktop Linux. And I'd say Windows had far more issues t…

>Also, a high percentage of OSX users have no idea what XCode is, let alone care if it's not as nice as VisualStudio.

I really liked XCode, a lot more than Visual Studio, until they remade it to look like iTunes (around 2012).

So there is definitely some preference involved for those people who say Visual Studio is better (and of course, vice versa).

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#83

Post by mrweasel » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #22

Is Apple's software quality truly declining? I've been an OS X user for a couple years now, and I'm perfectly happy with my laptop and its updates. Whenever I read articles like these, I wondered if the software quality has actually declined, or if it's received too many features to be properly maintained, or if now it has so many more users that the flaws have become more apparent.

>Is Apple's software quality truly declining?

I'm not really sure, it's hard to point to something that's just plain broken. I noticed that some small UI features that I don't like in El Capitan, it seems slower, but nothing's crashing or preventing me from working.

Part of it might be that Apple is moving in direction that many professionals/developers don't like.

iTunes is different story though, that piece of junk needs to get replaced. Half the time it would even find my iPod and I doubt Apple cares because "get an iPhone".

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#84

Post by lisper » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

pljns wrote: post #20

mattcantstop wrote: post #9

I love that an article entitled "declining software quality" is not pulling up because of "Error establishing a database connection" :)

I didn't suspect so much traffic, we're back up now :)

You mean "expect", not "suspect." "Suspect" refers to people or facts, "expect" refers to events. (I suspect that English is not your first language, so I expect that you will occasionally make mistakes like this.)

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#85

Post by Bud » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #41

Cache since server is currently overwhelmed: ---- Software quality is a nebulous and divisive topic. There are many parameters to software quality – reliability, speed, user experience, design, discoverability, and more – and a move towards any of these virtues leads to sacrifices in others, especially on a limited time schedule. Additionally, a number of forces influence software quality over time, like accommodatin…

Gotta put some newlines in your quotes, so we can read them. :)

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#86

Post by zwischenzug » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #59

dplgk wrote: post #10

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. Perhaps, the years of oversimplifying applications has created an Apple that can't handle complex applications? Or, there's a chicken and egg question: XCode and the surrounding tools are atrociously buggy and hostile to the developer…

A lot of awful software shipped under Steve Jobs. X Code has always been a buggy mess, iTunes bloated greatly under Steve (remember Ping?), iMovie '08, etc etc.

iTunes was hideous. I once tried to reverse engineer the XML that stored the library and concluded it must have been designed by a distracted intern.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#87

Post by rloc » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

jwcooper wrote: post #67

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #22

Is Apple's software quality truly declining? I've been an OS X user for a couple years now, and I'm perfectly happy with my laptop and its updates. Whenever I read articles like these, I wondered if the software quality has actually declined, or if it's received too many features to be properly maintained, or if now it has so many more users that the flaws have become more apparent.

Indeed, I rarely have any kernel panics, or system crashes on OS X, and especially iOS with the latest iPhone. Other than iTunes, their software (that I use) has been pretty good lately. I've actually had more problems with the hardware. My late 2011 Macbook Pro was just returned from the offsite Apple Repair with it's 3rd logic board (that being said, it's still under an extended warranty from Apple, which is at lea…

I'm not sure any OS really suffers from system crashes these days. The expected quality bar is now much higher (Fyi: I use Windows, Mac and Debian every day).

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#88

Post by untog » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #69

ebbv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have rose colored glasses about Snow Leopard. It had plenty of bugs and hiccups. People deride the "iOS style" features of El Capitan but first, what specifically are you referring to besides Launcher? Do you think adding Notifications to OS X is bad? I find them extremely useful, and like the integration better than the spotty support Growler had among third party software. I never use Launcher but it's…

It's less about Snow Leopard having been supposedly perfect and more about how OS X feels like it's just floundered around randomly since then. In fact, for me, I can honestly say that OS X has almost strictly regressed in terms of my day-to-day experience. Spotlight now covers up way too much of the screen for almost no gain; if I'd wanted that, I'd have just used Alfred. Mission Control is still not as powerful and…

It's less about Snow Leopard having been supposedly perfect and more about how OS X feels like it's just floundered around randomly since then.

Agreed. It's not that Snow Leopard was some magic release that can never be bettered, it's that it has never been bettered. I can't think of any new features since then that I really value in OS X.

there was a day where I never wanted to touch Windows again

I switched from Windows to OS X back in 2006 thinking I would run Boot Camp for Windows 90% of the time. Boy was I wrong. But nowadays, if the Surface Book trackpad was as good as the Macbook's (it might be, I don't know) and cygwin was better integrated into the OS, I would be very tempted to switch back.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#89

Post by FussyZeus » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

I wouldn't say it's degraded to the point of being Windows yet, but it is definitely in danger. Personally I noticed the software quality started taking a dive around iOS 7. 7 was practically a beta.

OS X Yosemite was a travesty, made worse by the fact that as an iOS developer I HAD to run it, I couldn't stay on Mavericks like I would've greatly preferred. Yosemite had a lot of good things to add, but at the same time it was plagued with tons of bugs and horrifically un-optimized graphics code (full screen blur with no caching brought my Macbook Pro Retina to it's knees many times). El Capitan has been a huge step in the right direction but I can't help but notice so much of the OS's new features weren't so much optimized or fixed as simply regressed.

Additionally, speaking as a developer, many of Apple's API's and SDK's are outright terrible. iCloud implementation for any iOS app is a nightmare, as is using the shared keychain. Then there's the constant obfuscation of the file system on both iOS and OS X which just drives me insane, and the tendency of all Apple apps to operate as if they are the only app you'll ever use for any given purpose, which seems obnoxious at it's best and outright nefarious at it's worst.

Re: Apple’s declining software quality

#90

Post by leviathant » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

koralatov wrote: post #43

ssharp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX doesn't need to handle that many hardware and driver issues, so I don't see how that's relevant to a Windows comparison. I've been using OSX since just after Panther. I generally agree with the idea that some things started getting worse after Snow Leopard, but I still don't think it's come close to a point where I'd actually move back to Windows or try out desktop Linux. And I'd say Windows had far more issues t…

It's sad that so many people, myself very much included, now stick with OS X merely because ``it's not quite shitty enough to switch''. When I switched to the Mac initially, I switched because it was vastly better option than XP; now, I feel that lead has been eroded and that Windows 10, while different, isn't far behind OS X in most respects.

As far as workflow and window management goes, OS X is a good half decade behind Windows, and in a lot of system-level ways, it feels a decade behind. I use a MBP Retina at work, and it feels primitive compared to Windows 10, which I use everywhere else. Everywhere else, I'm doing audio, video, and photo editing though. If your day to day work is more CLI and *nix oriented, I can understand the appeal of OSX... although some of the variations of Vim that I see people running might as well be GUIs.