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Apple's Software 'Problem' and 'Fixing' It (learningbyshipping.com)
According to media reports, Apple is planning to postpone some new features for iOS and macOS this year to focus on improving reliability, stability and performance of the existing versions. Steven Sinofsky, a former President of the Windows Division, shared his insights into the significance of this development: Several important points are conflated in the broad discussion about Apple and software: Quality, pace of change, features "versus" quality, and innovation. Scanning the landscape, it is important to recognize that in total the work Apple has been doing across hardware, software, services, and even AI/ML, in total -- is breathtaking and unprecedented in scope, scale, and quality. Few companies have done so much for so long with such a high level of consistency. This all goes back to the bet on the NeXT code base and move to Intel for Mac OS plus the iPod, which began the journey to where we are today.
[...] What is lost in all of this recent discussion is the nuance between features, schedule, and quality. It is like having a discussion with a financial advisor over income, risk, and growth. You don't just show up and say you want all three and get a "sure." On the other hand, this is precisely what Apple did so reliably over 20 years. But behind the scenes there is a constant discussion over balancing these three legs of the tripod. You have to have all of them but you "can't" but you have to. This is why they get paid big $.
[...] A massive project like an OS (+h/w +cloud) is like a large investment portfolio and some things will work (in market) and others won't, some things are designed to return right away, some are safe bets, some are long term investments. And some mistakes... Customers don't care about any of that and that's ok. They just look for what they care about. Each evaluates through their own lens. Apple's brilliance is in focusing mostly on two audiences -- Send-users and developers -- tending to de-emphasize the whole "techie" crowd, even IT. When you look at a feature like FaceID and trace it backwards all the way to keychain -- see how much long term thought can go into a feature and how much good work can go unnoticed (or even "fail") for years before surfacing as a big advantage. That's a long term POV AND focus. This approach is rather unique compared to other tech companies that tend to develop new things almost independent of everything else. So new things show up and look bolted on the side of what already exists. (Sure Apple can do that to, but not usually). All the while while things are being built the team is just a dev team and trying to come up with a reliable schedule and fix bug. This is just software development.
[...] What is lost in all of this recent discussion is the nuance between features, schedule, and quality. It is like having a discussion with a financial advisor over income, risk, and growth. You don't just show up and say you want all three and get a "sure." On the other hand, this is precisely what Apple did so reliably over 20 years. But behind the scenes there is a constant discussion over balancing these three legs of the tripod. You have to have all of them but you "can't" but you have to. This is why they get paid big $.
[...] A massive project like an OS (+h/w +cloud) is like a large investment portfolio and some things will work (in market) and others won't, some things are designed to return right away, some are safe bets, some are long term investments. And some mistakes... Customers don't care about any of that and that's ok. They just look for what they care about. Each evaluates through their own lens. Apple's brilliance is in focusing mostly on two audiences -- Send-users and developers -- tending to de-emphasize the whole "techie" crowd, even IT. When you look at a feature like FaceID and trace it backwards all the way to keychain -- see how much long term thought can go into a feature and how much good work can go unnoticed (or even "fail") for years before surfacing as a big advantage. That's a long term POV AND focus. This approach is rather unique compared to other tech companies that tend to develop new things almost independent of everything else. So new things show up and look bolted on the side of what already exists. (Sure Apple can do that to, but not usually). All the while while things are being built the team is just a dev team and trying to come up with a reliable schedule and fix bug. This is just software development.
This summary is way too long and mumble-speak. As long as they keep pumping out 2016-era Macbooks I'll be happy. No new features are needed and I will still never have any reason to buy anything from the iStore or whatever Apple's "app store" is called today.
So...does anyone know what this Sinofsky guy is trying to say (and if it matters)?
I wish everyone had the same quality interface and functionality that this leading provider of music has developed and improved over the last few decades!
I have an iPad 2 that won't go beyond iOS 9.3: The App Store says my iPad is "incompatible" for no reason. It's flaky, no security updates, more and more apps are dropping dead because the dev no longer supports older iOSes, ...I mean why can't it be updated with the latest iOS?
The hardware still works but the software is becoming crippled for no reason other than for forced obsolescence.
I'm not going to buy a new one because it wasn't worth the $400 I paid for it in the first place.
Can anyone explain what is a "Send-users"?
Can you explain why I now (as opposed to a couple years ago) have to reboot my iPhone 6 Plus almost every day? Why font size varies inconsistently throughout the day? Why for every incremental macOS update I need to download gigabytes of files overnight? Why Xcode is in a perpetual beta stage? And Iâ(TM)ll pass...
This article reads like the unfinished outline of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. If Apple is as lazy in development as this author is in writing then it's no wonder iOS is a buggy mess.
If you look at the features Apple is postponing, they're apparently re-writes of core systems. Which means that even if they iron out all the bugs in the next iOS, the iOS after that will then get all the bugs for the new systems anyway.
Apple's problem is that they don't ever let things mature and become stable. iOS's UI and APIs keep on changing. This is why they keep on introducing bugs: they keep on changing everything.
It doesn't matter how many bugs you fix if you keep on throwing away code and working UIs and replacing them with the new shiny every other release.
"Consistency?!" Are you fucking kidding? Apple is the poster child for inconsistency. If you had written that sentence in the 1990s people would take you seriously, because Apple had a good rep when it came to software at the time, and they had been keeping it for several years. But near the end of the 1990s they started to get technically better but the UI started getting vastly worse, and for the last ten years they have been horrible.
I don't say this just to flame Apple and say they're shit, but rather, to point out that they're all over the place. They have been good and they're currently bad. (I'm trying to talk about software, but their hardware has been the same: with lots of good and lots of bad.) "Consistency" couldn't be a more inaccurate word to choose. Apple has an unusually high level of inconsistency.
For all you know, Cook will go away and time now, and they'll start making good products again, furthering the inconsistency trend by failing to remain shitty! That'd be a relief for users, but another nail in the consistency coffin.
one still has to throw out an Apple product after three years because it can't be upgraded.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Amtrak's new slogan: Faster Service, Customer Safety...choose one."
I think that current fits Apple.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
...What is lost in all of this recent discussion is the nuance between features, schedule, and quality....
My impression is that those people who have been commenting on Apple's software problem know the golden triangle quite well. What they don't understand is why Apple cannot seem to (or does not want to) get the balance right from the customer's viewpoint. Apple is, after all, supposed to be an expert in this area.
You can install Windows 10 on an original 2006 Macbook. High Sierra?, no way. Shame that I have to switch OSes to keep my Macbook up to date. Meanwhile PPC users are left in cold too despite the technical superiority of the G5 processor compared to other processors of the era. Mac users keep their computers running for years, let laugh at the "5 year old PCs"
Apple had both for a long time. Firing Jobs to "let" him work his special project was the best thing they ever did. They no longer have vision, consistency or Jobs so they will lose market share, and have been for years. The only thing going for them is that practically no one else has these three things. But this only slows the bleeding.
It seems to me we're in a cooling off phase as the tech giants have wrung every last bit of profit from current technological capabilities. We're now just waiting for the next big leap in capability.
The nexus of Augmented reality, deep learning and wearables is the next big thing, and that's still a long time coming, due to technical hurdles. I hope a few of the tech giants are iterating over all possible uses starting yesterday. One of them will land on the killer app at the right time and will win.
This sounds like an attempt to defend Apple. The author apparently feels that Apple is being unjustly accused of crappy software, and wants to tell everybody that it's bloody miraculous that Apple software works at all, what with the enormous difficulty of being competent.
Sorry, Apple, if you were a saint you might get a pass. But your endless arrogance means that you sound whiny and petulant when you ask for sympathy.
Or, they've lost focus and it's showing (my opinion).
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
That sure is a lot of words to say that Apple's quality has gone downhill in the last few years.
open up mac os X to more systems if just HP / DELL for real workstations where looks do not get in the way or things like an TB loop back cable to a video card is not a big deal. TB is cool but why tie the HDMI to AN TB bus??? that eats up TB bandwidth???
The mac pro failed due to being held back by limited cooling driven by looks. and add real m.2 slots.
Imac pro more BS that should not be in pro workstation like forced raid0 / no easy way to change ram or storage out. And storage locked to the MB. Also the duel pci-e storage is limited by an pci-e x4 link that is also shared with an co-cpu.
iOS 11 broke Spotlight. I used to drag down from the top, type the app name, and it was given to me. Now even if I type the exact name I'm not guaranteed that I'll be offered it, or, sometimes, any apps. I have to remember where the heck I put it on the springboard now, and even if I do it still take me a bit of time to go to it.
Find out what went wrong there and you might find a can of worms that begs opening.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
Seriously, If you have a fairly bad landscape / problem with your OS, one of the people whom *I* have a healthy believe I would NOT be asking is S Sinofski.
The guy pretty much wrecked windows, and seems to have done so on a basis of his drooling fawning like smeagol gollum over Apple. The people at MS at the time should have told him to go work there, rather than allow the trainwreck of 8 (and all the subsequental disasters that followed that..)
Don't worry, the next release will be... thinner.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You can find.a number of USB-C hubs for under $30 that have HDMI and/or VGA (for those of you with truly ancient projectors). The point is that said adapters are cheap, you've needed an adaptor for years to hook up to a projector. I don't miss having an HDMI port in a laptop, because most of the time you do not need an HDMI port.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I find that MacOS and iOS are far more stable than Windows or Android BUT I would still rather Apple spend a year, or two, or three on enhancing stability, optimizing code AND improving legacy support.
There's a lot of old software we need to access our old data. The modern hardware has more than enough power to do the necessary emulation. Cross compilers would do wonders too. We need to be able to access our software from the '00's the '90's, the 80's and heck, might as well go all the way back to the '70's.
I find that MacOS and iOS are far more stable than Windows or Android
I always find people who make that claim suspect.
As a regular user of all 4 platforms, their stability seems about identical to me... They're all pretty damn stable.
Every single person I know uses their laptop as their primary computing device, which means when they get to their desks they plug their laptop into external monitors
Which if they are any good are not via HDMI. A fixed monitor you use all the time can just leave an adaptor attached, no different than having any other kind of monitor cable - oh wait, there IS a difference because you can plug into a USB-C port on either side, instead of having to use just one...
I realize if you are dirt poor that making do with just HDMI mentors or having to twist cables around to match the inevitably incorrect placement of monitor ports on laptops. But some of us have real work to do instead of browsing Facebook all day, and we have left that nonsense behind.
keyboards, etc.
Which for about the past DECADE have been primarily wireless except for about .00000000001% of the population. Or you are just using the laptop keyboard which is just there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dafuq did I just read? English as a second language, or modern college student?
open up mac os X to more systems if just HP / DELL for real workstations where looks do not get in the way or things like an TB loop back cable to a video card is not a big deal. TB is cool but why tie the HDMI to AN TB bus??? that eats up TB bandwidth???
The mac pro failed due to being held back by limited cooling driven by looks. and add real m.2 slots.
Imac pro more BS that should not be in pro workstation like forced raid0 / no easy way to change ram or storage out. And storage locked to the MB. Also the duel pci-e storage is limited by an pci-e x4 link that is also shared with an co-cpu.
NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE that purchases an iMac Pro will be storing their work-files LOCALLY. There simply isn't enough local storage for the types of files REAL Pros work with.
So, that means that EVERYONE who uses an iMac Pro will be using EXTERNAL RAIDs. Add Time Machine backup for Applications and Local Files, and there simply isn't a compelling reason to support RAID inside the iMac, sorry!
> If it's a zero-sum-game (favor profits OR favor customers, pick one), and Apple is making high profits, then why is Apple also ranking first in customer satisfaction [cultofmac.com]?
/.ers hate Apple and Apple is not aware of their existence.
Most Slashdotters just don't understand technology, in their hearts they believe it exists to give insecure nerds some measure of self-esteem--when in fact it exists to improve the quality-of-life for *regular people*. So
It's a story as old as [internet] time.
I agree with this. I work as a "creative" (commercial photography) and I keep nothing but the specific software I need on my machine's. All work files are kept on SSD's while in the field and dumped onto a RAID at the office. The computers themselves are kept clean free of anything that might degrade performance.
Nobody involved in the continuing slow-motion train wreck known as Microsoft Windows has a leg to stand on when it comes to criticism of any other software development organization.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I agree with this. I work as a "creative" (commercial photography) and I keep nothing but the specific software I need on my machine's. All work files are kept on SSD's while in the field and dumped onto a RAID at the office. The computers themselves are kept clean free of anything that might degrade performance.
Thanks.
I just can't believe how NON-forward-thinking so many Slashdotters are. In a lot of ways, It feels like it's 1990 in here.
The people of that mindset believe that The only real computer is a tower with a bunch of internal RAID storage, a bunch of barely-compatible peripheral cards with mostly-working drivers, running a version of Linix that "works pretty well, except for...", that it only took 9 months to get sound working, and don't ask about the scanner...
They simply can't fathom of a world where you can purchase an 18-core all-in-one computer, take it out of the box, and with very little fuss, have a fully set-up system, with attached external storage, automatic backups, and email, web browsing and much more in a few minutes.
These are editorial basics people!
But then you would be exchanging money for non-free software on closed hardware just to save you time and effort... we all know that's doomed to fail.
Just wait. 2018 is the year of Linux on the Desktop.
Well, I'm your #1 suspect then. Over the past 40+ years I've used Unix, CPM, DOS, Windows in many incarnations, Macs from Finder v1.0 to today, iOS, Android and many other systems. Perhaps you find flaw with the significants of my sample set at a mere few hundred. Perhaps your right. Or not.
I can't claim 40+ years, but I can claim the same list you've given, and more (as I imagine you could too)
I find that people who claim that one of the 4 discussed platforms is universally worse than the other doesn't lack experience, just objectivity.