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Apple's Software Quality Crisis

eliseomartelli.it

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Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#891

Post by [deleted] »

jeffhuys wrote: post #736
henry_viii wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't reproduce the crash. Does it happen every time for you or only after a few times?

[deleted]

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#892

Post by [deleted] »

EigenLord wrote: post #575

My take: over success breeds complacency. Apple knows where its money is coming from. It has carved out an extremely hard to establish hardware production chain via iphone and macbooks, and is able to provide a certain consistent level of quality for it. Software is an afterthought, especially for software that is not in service of this primary hardware revenue source. From a business point of view it literally does…

[deleted]

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#893

Post by fsflover »

criddell wrote: post #151
dsr_ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably would, but that's the number one complaint about Debian: "Where is my fix of new shiny?"

My complaint isn't about new shiny, but new safe . Sandboxing apps on Linux is getting better but it still has a ways to go to catch up to macOS. I'm talking about things like how a weather app shouldn't have access to the filesystem, or camera, or microphone, etc... A calculator shouldn't be able to see my location or even what networks I'm connected to.

Did you consider Qubes OS?

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#894

Post by bangaroo »

this makes me feel less crazy

apple ebbs and flows in terms of how on the ball they are in any given area, but it feels we're at a strange inflection point where their hardware is the best it's ever been and the software is inexplicably in a death spiral

i've been a heavy safari user for a while, mainly because i do make extensive use of the tab and history syncing across all my devices, and safari is the only actual browser you get on iOS - might as well use the native version.

lately safari has this habit of, on some websites, entirely locking up my device while loading web pages. like full on hard lock can't switch windows, nothing can be done, sometimes for upwards of 30 seconds. to go to my electric company's website, i have to use chrome. otherwise my computer becomes unusable.

i am not suggesting that their website isn't awful (it is) but it is inexcusable that on an M2 max laptop with 64 GB of ram that loading a slow or bulky website should make my computer completely unusable. i do not understand how this hasn't been addressed. it was intermittent before but it's a daily occurrence now.

this along with all the weird visual glitches, notifications snapping between sharp-edged boxes and rounded boxes repeatedly, sudden drops in frame rate on my iPhone display that seem to start and end for no reason, and it's starting to feel like everyone at apple uses their devices as beautiful paperweights primarily and doesn't actually interact with the software at all...

the thing that frustrates me deeply is i've explored the android ecosystem extensively (i've owned several samsung and pixel devices, even very recent ones as second phones) and find that whole space even worse and more unpleasant, with the shovelware play store and a general unpleasant and janky UI that has never felt right to me. so it's like... what's the GOOD option now?

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#895

Post by datadrivenangel »

agys wrote: post #776

Yeah, it’s been a while: - Music (the app, not the service): almost unusable UI/UX, sync problems, two search fields, etc. - Calendar is confusing, glitchy UI. - Mail is a disaster… even the simple search filter doesn’t deliver as expected. - Safari “Inspector”: will swallow async errors, unusable for development. - Control panel: messy, ugly and slow. - Spotlight: was good, doesn’t work so well anymore (web results,…

Yeah what happened to finder? About 6 months ago my mac just stopped giving good results. Before that finder was basically magic, and now it just has junk?

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#897

Post by cosmic_cheese »

brigade wrote: post #647
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Apple, perhaps naively, expects display manufacturers to adhere to spec when in reality they often don’t. Either way macOS has no trouble with my 27” 2560x1440 Asus and Alienware monitors. Both connect with 10bit RGB no problem, at least over USB-C and DisplayPort (haven’t tried HDMI).

macOS really wants to do different things for TVs vs monitors, so if it decides your monitor is a TV for whatever reason, it’ll probably prefer YCbCr and also not offer any HiDPI modes except exactly 2x 2560x1440 is a strong indicator of a monitor, but 4k over HDMI tends to get detected as a TV

That makes some amount of sense, I avoid using HDMI if at all possible. Even on other platforms I’ve generally had less trouble out of DisplayPort and USB-C DP alt mode. I wish it became standard for TVs to have at least a single DisplayPort, it’d make hooking computers up more pleasant.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#898

Post by LeftHandPath »

henry_viii wrote: post #721
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.

I wonder why they don't bother fixing it. Clearly it hasnt hurt their bottom line much, but you'd think they'd sell more phones if they were still the kings of "it just works" (and they aren't).

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#899

Post by kossTKR »

One of the craziest ones are basic search in osx has been broken for 10 years now - it might work for a while but for power users it almost always gets weird then stops working.

Another wild one is syncing photos between iphone and mac meant ‘this photo will sync at random point in the next 5 days’ - it’s just recently been fixed after like 8 years of not working.

And don’t even try to use their stupidly simple proprietary apps like Numbers where basic spreadsheet functionality is bizarre or missing.

Mac is still my favourite but i don’t get why a trillion dollar company can’t fix their software for what’s ‘pennies’ for them.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#900

Post by fsflover »

> Apple should return to its roots - creating products that prioritize user experience over feature creep. Apple needs to reclaim that ethos.

This is the good, old enshittification, which started with Google and Windows, https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/ursula-franklin/. I wouldn't expect that Apple listens to this.

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