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Apple's Software Quality Crisis

eliseomartelli.it

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Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#941

Post by LexGray »

hajile wrote: post #849
latexr wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The way I see it, the yearly release cycle is to blame. I don't see a connection between yearly release cycles and a broken notes application. They shouldn't be doing anything that is particularly affected by such changes and the problem they are trying to solve has been mostly solved for 40+ years now. While it certainly applies to some things, there's a different, bigger issue happening as well. My understanding…

The release cycles seem to lead to an annual reshuffling of teams to meet deadlines causing quality issues for anything that is not an advertised feature.

Some of this could be resolved by open sourcing their less important apps like Files, Notes or Home which barely ever get touched, yet are full of quirks and bugs. Those apps should be public examples of good SwiftUI coding.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#942

Post by pcdandy »

pcdandy wrote: post #873

Late last year after an OS update, notifications in macOS mysteriously stopped popping up. They were getting triggered and could be seen by opening the right sidebar, but the banners were no longer popping up in the corner anymore. I had been using them to remind me of any upcoming meetings in my employer's Google calendar, so when they stopped appearing, I suddenly found myself unintentionally missing those meetings…

edit: Looked further, found that the cause ultimately turned out to be the 'Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display' setting under Notifications, which was off by default. I use an external monitor almost the entire time but I would expect that setting to be on by default, at the very least.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#943

Post by ryandrake »

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…

> The way I see it, the yearly release cycle is to blame. No one inside the company has time to do anything properly anymore. Features are announced and rushed every year, and we’re reaching the point where by the time something which was announced at a WWDC is out of beta, we’re preparing for the next one.

At many places where I've worked, the mentality is: "If that bug didn't block last year's release, then why would it block this year's release?" So it survives one release, it never gets fixed.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#944

Post by ryandrake »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #922
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…

My favourite one is getting voicemail spam with no records in my call log for a number to block. Lovely.

Spam callers rotate the fake numbers they use for Caller ID, so blocking individual numbers doesn't work.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#945

Post by ryandrake »

liminalsunset wrote: post #690
doix wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire apple monitor settings are just awful. I have a small portable projector which accepts 4k input but just downscales it to 1080p. I cannot get osx to actually output at 1080p, all it does is output at 4k and scale the result. The downscaling in the projector adds input lag and just drives me crazy. I really wish they'd just let you control these things rather than poorly guessing. I didn't know about better…

Does the 1080p resolution show up if you go to Advanced > Show Resolutions as List and then tick "Show all resolutions" under the list? The resolution you are looking for is probably 1920 x 1080 (low resolution). If you choose a non "low" resolution the OS will output at 4K but scale the UI to the virtual resolution.

I still won't forgive Apple from dropping 1080i resolution from macOS. I've got a home theater Mac mini hooked up to my TV which only supports 720p or 1080i. I've always displayed 1080i fine, and then one upgrade later, it's suddenly "Fuck you, user. Use 720p LOL."

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#946

Post by [deleted] »

nicce wrote: post #244
alberth wrote: post #30

Is this a real problem, or a perceived problem? I know people like to complain about Apple's software quality - but is this actually an issue - or just the popular thing to say?

I don’t have any issues, but I am that person who uses just web browser and terminal on Macbook. Almost all software comes from Nix package repository.

[deleted]

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#947

Post by ramraj07 »

Angostura wrote: post #813
ramraj07 wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved out of iPhone because of one such thing: the call log can only be 100 items long, like what? The most powerful processor ever, hundreds of GB and i can't see who I called last month?? I was done at that moment.

That doesn’t seem to be correct (any more?) I just spent a while scrolling back through the call log. It goes back to 2019 - certainly more than 100 calls

God damn lol. I'm interestingly not regretting the shift though. It truly is useful more often than I thought to request desktop sites and actually see desktop sites, or open two apps side by side.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#948

Post by saagarjha »

Animats wrote: post #924
saagarjha wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably something chewing up CPU cycles.

If the hardware can't run at full power, cooling and power consumption are out of balance. What's the point of building such hardware?

So you can put it in your pocket

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#949

Post by fmajid »

RubberbandSoul wrote: post #722
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.

I did a MS in Telecoms Engineering. Our Telephony teacher Claude Rigault drummed it into us that when people can't make emergency calls, pople die, thus the importance of reliability.

Re: Apple's Software Quality Crisis

#950

Post by mung »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #299
brailsafe wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Successfully reproduced. Rough. Maybe they counted on people bailing out after attempting to trudge through the sloppy mess that is the newish Settings app before they even got to the Change wallpaper section, forgetting that there was another path.

And that also raises a huge issue: The problem isn't just functional defects, but also design defects and regressions. The new Settings panel is pretty much universally hated, from all the feedback I've seen. Apple is spending time dicking around with things that already worked and that will not drive sales through changes... so WTF? This faffing points to a major priority-setting problem within the firm. Look at the…

Bit late to this thread, but you mention their design defects which bother the shit out of me. It’s been this way a long time now, but I hate, absolutely HATE how they changed save as (cmd+shift+s) to duplicate document in some of their apps. And then you close the duplicated document because that is not what you wanted, and it asks you if you really want to delete it. Delete what? It does not exist on the file system! I know one might say that technically it does or something because of versioning or some shit… the way every other OS and non-Apple app works was not broken. And I dont know anyone who likes pasting in text formatting as a default. MS broke that too. Why would ya change the functionality of an existing keyboard shortcut?
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