Ask HN: The Problem with Apple's “Decline in Quality”
I have been an Apple user since the early 1980s. I would consider myself an advanced user. I am a Web Applications Developer who pushes his OS and computer pretty hard.
I have heard quite a lot lately about the decline of Apple's software quality. Marco's piece linked above is a good read and he is not alone in claiming Apple's quality is declining. There is one thing that really confuses me about all this:
I can't see anything wrong.
I'm running the latest OSX and iOS, use multiple Apple apps (Calendar, Pages, Keynote, iPhone, etc. I don't use Mail however) as well as various other third-party apps. I store data on iCloud. Despite using my computer 8 hours a day every day, I really can't see any of these various issues people talk about.
I have a feeling for every person who experiences a particular bug, there are millions who don't experience that bug.
While people may look back at Apple from 10 years ago and say the quality was much better then, Apple of today is doing much more advance things.
I do agree that Apple needs to use their rapid release cycle to fix bugs, not push out new features which may not be fully ready.
What are your thoughts?
A lot of the problems sound like hardware problems, and it may just be a symptom of having more hardware out there. And that hardware is being used more intensely. Bad hard drives, bad RAM...it all contributes to problems. Let's not ignore very real hardware problems like the bad GPU solder joints.
The traditional advice that Macs don't get viruses still holds. But who writes "viruses" anymore? The "beginner" category has people getting all sorts of malware installed alongside pirated software, keygens, "codecs", and other things they downloaded & gave sudo access during the install. Like on other platforms, that kind of stuff is going to slow your system down & make it behave differently.
And let's be honest - there are actual bugs. Some are downright terrible. iOS 8.3 finally fixes a text selection bug that's been driving me nuts on some sites, including Hacker News. All software has bugs. Mine sure does! But it feels worse when surrounded by all the other stuff.
If you're not a developer, you get no feedback from Apple on your bug reports, which makes you feel alone in your suffering. And that may be the key for Apple right there. Break down the wall of silence, engage with people reporting bugs, and maybe individual things will seem less tragic.