Slashdot Asks: Should Tech Companies End the One-Year Software Update Cycle?

Software giants Google, Microsoft, Apple and others release a major software update to their desktop and mobile operating system (and OS for other platforms they have) each year. This model seemed viable -- to a consumer -- until a few years ago -- the days when shiny new features were exciting -- but of late the number of bugs that companies are failing to patch before shipping these operating systems has seemingly gone off the roof. For instance, Apple has released more than 10 software updates since seeding out iOS 11 in September this year (up from seven last year). Similar is the case with macOS.

The situation has gotten so dire that IT admins in many corporate environments are waiting for as long as six months before they are certain that it is fine to get the staff to move to the "newer" major software update. For companies like Apple, new software update also means a business opportunity. Several of the new features that they ship with the new update doesn't work with older iPhone and iPad models. And as we learned this week, new major software updates could hinder the performance of old gadgets. With these things in mind, should industry at large consider prolonging the duration between two major software updates? Or should they stick with a one-year software cycle model?

Comments

I just want the names to make sense.

[XXongo]

I just want the names to make sense. I'm not sure if my OS-X "Namibian Tiger" is supposed to be updated to "Mount Rushmore" or vice versa, and I'm not sure if either one is compatible with Hasta-la-vista. And I've completely given up trying to understand whether my red hat is a fedora or not, or whether peppermint comes before chocolate chip, or after.

Re:I just want the names to make sense.

[Dragonslicer]

Third-party stuff for Ubuntu is just as bad. "Use download link x if you're running Lounging Lizard, link y if you're running Moping Marmot." What the f--k is that? I've got 16.04. Do I need link x or link y?

Code names are cute and all, but come on, publishers, focus on something useful: cite version numbers.

That's more an issue with the third parties than with Ubuntu. For the most part, Ubuntu only uses version numbers on user-facing stuff, with version names used in things like the package repository names. They definitely aren't perfect about it, but they seem to be better than Apple.

Connecting names to numbers can be annoying, but the names are always in alphabetical order, so at least you know which version is newer than the other (unless you're going back 10+ years).

Yes

[PhunkySchtuff]

Yes /thread

Now that software companies are hooked on the recurring revenue of subscription-based pricing and their end users have seemingly accepted it with little fanfare, I don't see the subscription model going away any time soon.

The trap is that software companies now want to be seen as giving continual improvements (and therefore value) to their customers, so they push out annual updates (as most subscriptions are an annual subscription) just so that people are using WhateverApp 2018 instead of WhateverApp 2017. It's got a bigger number in it's name, it must be more better. Or, why am I paying a subscription for WhateverApp 2015 and it's nearly 2018? What has the vendor been doing for the last two years to deserve my money?

Re:Yes

[reanjr]

No one really sells operating systems to consumers, via subscription or otherwise. MS sells OEM licenses. Apple sells computers with free OS upgrades. Linux vendors sell support. No one is paying fees to subscribe to OS releases.

One year cycles aren't for consumers benefit

[rsilvergun]

they're for habituation. They want you in the habit of buying on a schedule so it feels 'off' if you miss a beat. Starbucks uses this to keep folks drinking their coffee flavored sugar water. Let it go too long and consumers forget about you. That's why we got Windows ME & Vista.

Agile

[sunderland56]

Internally all these companies preach "Agile" and "continuous software delivery". Guess that's just all to pacify upper management, since it isn't really working.

Basically, they can't.

[XSportSeeker]

The answer is yes, but tech companies won't do it, because these things have nothing to do with consumer needs, but are instead strictly tied to stuff like marketing, and advertising. And it has huge sprawling effects that are hard to predict and figure out.

For companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft, software cycles don't live in a vacuum. They are tied to advertisement campaigns, keynotes, presentations, relationships with press, developers, business contracts, and a whole ton of other stuff people might not be aware of.

It takes far more than what the article is complaining about to tip the scale.

Re:Basically, they can't.

[Hadlock]

This, pretty much. The product/sales/marketing departments are bred and educated on the yearly sales cycle; software development is ultimately dictated by them. The closest truce that I've seen has been the creation of LTS releases, which matches the annual or semi-annual cadence of the corporate sales/acquisition cycle with that of need for IT departments/software developers to ship and support stable software. Ubuntu's 2 years between LTS releases is rather long but it's extremely predictable and results in good stability with the interleaving releases being flexible enough to try out new features without screwing over seasoned IT professionals.
 
For consumer products like the iPhone there will almost always be an annual incremental upgrade over last year; you don't want to sell the same product (iPhone, Laptop, Tablet*) two years in a row with no improvements at Christmas, you're looking at a sales disaster. You'd have to get rid of the Christmas sales season to effectively kill annual software updates.
 
*The iPad seems to be the sole exception to this, the iPad Mini hasn't seen any significant upgrades since ~2013 and apple still sells the iPad Mini 2 despite being on version 4 or 5 now. Tablets with their larger batteries and internal volume pretty much maxed out on features within a couple of years of their introduction and hit full market saturation and last forever for whatever reason.

Re:Use the Debian model

[Dragonslicer]

Ubuntu which is the most like Debian instead has a 6 months release cycle and they constantly have shit-tons of problems with every new release, same with Windows which also moved to a 6 months cycle now.

If you don't like how quickly things change in the normal Ubuntu releases, stick to the Long-Term Support releases, which are, like Debian, every 2 years.

Re:release cadence

[leonbev]

You're not buying into that "Continuous Deployment, ship a new build to production every night!" BS, are you? Automated code testing is still no match for real end-user testing, and you're going to eventually release shit code to production if you rely on it.

Re:FF's frequent releases have ruined it

[Dayze!Confused]

I recall reading blog posts about app development and the author encouraging developers to release often so that users know your project is active. Personally I turned off auto update, and check through the list occasionally to see if an app I'm using has an update, and what features they have added. If all they say is "more bug fixes and features", or "we'll let you know of the features in the app", that app doesn't get updated, and may eventually be uninstalled. To me the frequent call for updates is annoying. Unless I'm actually experiencing a bug, or it's a security patch, I don't really care about the latest feature. If I did I would check if an update has been made available.

I did have a bank force an update on me so it would be compatible with iPhone X, even though I'm using an iPhone 6s.

I figure I've saved perhaps 100Gb of unneeded downloads for apps like YouTube, Facebook (while, this one is now uninstalled), and the various bundled iOS apps that are 500-1000 Mb.

From my experience at Intel when they were trying to get into Android phones we start a cycle on a new version with everything broken and barely get everything working again just in time for Google to release yet another update which breaks something again. The point updates would take a couple weeks maybe to fix, but the major version updates were hell.

My other experience from a user study which was for Intel's health and technology showed that it wasn't just Google that makes it shitty, and perhaps it wasn't Google at all, but every time we tested something and filed a bug the next day they would have marked all bugs as fixed and told us to test on the new version where we would inevitably find the same bug. Bug fixing makes them seem like they are making progress and looks like a good metric to management, where really they are just sweeping shit under the rug.