Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

dusk007

macrumors 68040
Dec 5, 2009
3,415
105
I just hope 10.10.4 finally fixes those annoying wifi issues.
I like the chances to the mail app. Everything else is meh, it won't hurt but I am fine with what I have mostly. The few issues I have won't be fixed by it. They are with fan and cooling and Chrome which currently seems to have some flash and html5 issues producing way too much load. I still hate Safari's Usability and just cannot make myself switch, there are too many issues but I really hope Chrome gets its cpu efficiency problems fixed.
 

Tsuchiya

macrumors 68020
Jun 7, 2008
2,310
372
It is a smaller world in a sense, coupled with Apple's popularity, means word travels fast on any short comings.

I'm not so sure if this is strictly the case anymore. My 15" rMBP has a lot of...lets say quirks since Yosemite was released (such as a weird loop where it tries to send audio to my Apple TV, thus causing a never ending beachball). You'd think an isolated issue right? How about iOS? My family seems to have synced our upgrade cycles this year, and all use iPhone 6's. I have to continually troubleshoot them, because of unexplained issues such as not playing back video JUST taken with the phone camera, general unresponsiveness etc. Touchwood, none of these issues have completely broken the device or warranted a replacement, but there has been a continual stream of issues. Having said that, I'm keeping a close eye on my mothers iPhone 6 which doesn't seem to want to play nice with her iTunes backup from an older device.

Also a "buddy" of mine works at one of the larger London stores. Queues for the Genius Bar can stretch across the entire store. He claims that a significant proportion of queries he takes are related to software bugs. Telling customers to "backup then restore" is becoming his mantra. To a large degree, I do believe the popularity of Apple is just magnifying these problems. But the problems are there. And even as an experienced user, occasionally I find myself scratching my head because there clearly seems to be something rotten with Apples software.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jblagden

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
execsnoop(1m) iosnoop(1m) and iotop(1m) all apparently unusable in OS X 10.11.1.

https://twitter.com/kollross/status/629015436101873664
https://twitter.com/frostedmint/status/644668728622252032

Code:
cces3-gjp4-macbookpro82:~ grahamperrin$ sw_vers ; uname -a ; sudo execsnoop
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion:    10.11.1
BuildVersion:    15B42
Darwin cces3-gjp4-macbookpro82.local 15.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 15.0.0: Sat Sep 19 15:53:46 PDT 2015; root:xnu-3247.10.11~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

  UID    PID   PPID ARGS
dtrace: error on enabled probe ID 2 (ID 260: syscall::execve:return): invalid kernel access in action #8 at DIF offset 0
^C

cces3-gjp4-macbookpro82:~ grahamperrin$ sudo iosnoop

dtrace: invalid probe specifier
/*
  * Command line arguments
  */
inline int OPT_dump     = 0;
inline int OPT_device     = 0;
inline int OPT_delta     = 0;
inline int OPT_devname = 0;
inline int OPT_file     = 0;
inline int OPT_args     = 0;
inline int OPT_ins      = 0;
inline int OPT_nums      = 0;
inline int OPT_dtime     = 0;
inline int OPT_mount     = 0;
inline int OPT_start     = 0;
inline int OPT_pid     = 0;
inline int OPT_name     = 0;
inline int OPT_end     = 0;
inline int OPT_endstr     = 0;
inline int FILTER     = 0;
inline int PID     = 0;
inline string DEVICE     = ".";
inline string FILENAME = ".";
inline string MOUNT     = ".";
inline string NAME     = ".";
#pragma D option quiet
#pragma D option switchrate=10hz

/*
  * Print header
  */
dtrace:::BEGIN
{
    last_event[""] = 0;

    /* print optional headers */
     OPT_start   ? printf("%-14s ","STIME")   : 1;
     OPT_end     ? printf("%-14s ","TIME")    : 1;
     OPT_endstr  ? printf("%-20s ","STRTIME") : 1;
     OPT_devname ? printf("%-7s ","DEVICE")   : 1;
     OPT_ins     ? printf("%-3s ","INS")      : 1;
     OPT_nums    ? printf("%-3s %-3s ","MAJ","MIN") : 1;
     OPT_delta   ? printf("%-10s ","DELTA")   : 1;
     OPT_dtime   ? printf("%-10s ","DTIME")   : 1;

    /* print main headers */
    OPT_dump ?
        printf("%s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s\n",
         "TIME", "STIME", "DELTA", "DEVICE", "INS", "MAJ", "MIN", "UID",
        "PID", "PPID", "D", "BLOCK", "SIZE", "MOUNT", "FILE", "PATH",
        "COMM","ARGS") :
         printf("%5s %5s %1s %8s %6s ", "UID", "PID", "D", "BLOCK", "SIZE");
    OPT_args == 0 ? printf("%10s %s\n", "COMM", "PATHNAME") : 1;
     OPT_args == 1 ? printf("%28s %s\n", "PATHNAME", "ARGS") : 1;
}

/*
  * Check event is being traced
  */
io:::start
{
    /* default is to trace unless filtering, */
    self->ok = FILTER ? 0 : 1;

    /* check each filter, */
    (OPT_device == 1 && DEVICE == args[1]->dev_statname)? self->ok = 1 : 1;
    (OPT_file == 1 && FILENAME == args[2]->fi_pathname) ? self->ok = 1 : 1;
    (OPT_mount == 1 && MOUNT == args[2]->fi_mount) ? self->ok = 1 : 1;
    (OPT_name == 1 && NAME == strstr(NAME, execname)) ? self->ok = 1 : 1;
    (OPT_name == 1 && execname == strstr(execname, NAME)) ? self->ok = 1 : 1;
    (OPT_pid == 1 && PID == pid) ? self->ok = 1 : 1;
}

/*
  * Reset last_event for disk idle -> start
  * this prevents idle time being counted as disk time.
  */
io:::start
/! pending[args[1]->dev_statname]/
{
    /* save last disk event */
    last_event[args[1]->dev_statname] = timestamp;
}

/*
  * Store entry details
  */
io:::start
/self->ok/
{
    /* these are used as a unique disk event key, */
     this->dev = args[0]->b_edev;
     this->blk = args[0]->b_blkno;

    /* save disk event details, */
     start_uid[this->dev, this->blk] = (int)uid;
     start_pid[this->dev, this->blk] = pid;
     start_ppid[this->dev, this->blk] = ppid;
     start_args[this->dev, this->blk] = (char *)curpsinfo->pr_psargs;
     start_comm[this->dev, this->blk] = execname;
     start_time[this->dev, this->blk] = timestamp;

    /* increase disk event pending count */
    pending[args[1]->dev_statname]++;

    self->ok = 0;
}

/*
  * Process and Print completion
  */
io:::done
/start_time[args[0]->b_edev, args[0]->b_blkno]/
{
    /* decrease disk event pending count */
    pending[args[1]->dev_statname]--;

    /*
     * Process details
     */

     /* fetch entry values */
     this->dev = args[0]->b_edev;
     this->blk = args[0]->b_blkno;
     this->suid = start_uid[this->dev, this->blk];
     this->spid = start_pid[this->dev, this->blk];
     this->sppid = start_ppid[this->dev, this->blk];
     self->sargs = (int)start_args[this->dev, this->blk] == 0 ?
         "" : start_args[this->dev, this->blk];
     self->scomm = start_comm[this->dev, this->blk];
     this->stime = start_time[this->dev, this->blk];
    this->etime = timestamp; /* endtime */
    this->delta = this->etime - this->stime;
    this->dtime = last_event[args[1]->dev_statname] == 0 ? 0 :
        timestamp - last_event[args[1]->dev_statname];

     /* memory cleanup */
     start_uid[this->dev, this->blk]  = 0;
     start_pid[this->dev, this->blk]  = 0;
     start_ppid[this->dev, this->blk] = 0;
     start_args[this->dev, this->blk] = 0;
     start_time[this->dev, this->blk] = 0;
     start_comm[this->dev, this->blk] = 0;
     start_rw[this->dev, this->blk]   = 0;

    /*
     * Print details
     */

    /* print optional fields */
     OPT_start   ? printf("%-14d ", this->stime/1000) : 1;
     OPT_end     ? printf("%-14d ", this->etime/1000) : 1;
     OPT_endstr  ? printf("%-20Y ", walltimestamp) : 1;
     OPT_devname ? printf("%-7s ", args[1]->dev_statname) : 1;
     OPT_ins     ? printf("%3d ", args[1]->dev_instance) : 1;
     OPT_nums    ? printf("%3d %3d ",
        args[1]->dev_major, args[1]->dev_minor) : 1;
     OPT_delta   ? printf("%-10d ", this->delta/1000) : 1;
     OPT_dtime   ? printf("%-10d ", this->dtime/1000) : 1;

    /* print main fields */
    OPT_dump ?
         printf("%d %d %d %s %d %d %d %d %d %d %s %d %d %s %s %s %s %S\n",
         this->etime/1000, this->stime/1000, this->delta/1000,
         args[1]->dev_statname, args[1]->dev_instance, args[1]->dev_major,
        args[1]->dev_minor, this->suid, this->spid, this->sppid,
        args[0]->b_flags & B_READ ? "R" : "W",
        args[0]->b_blkno, args[0]->b_bcount, args[2]->fi_mount,
        args[2]->fi_name, args[2]->fi_pathname, self->scomm, self->sargs) :
         printf("%5d %5d %1s %8d %6d ",
         this->suid, this->spid, args[0]->b_flags & B_READ ? "R" : "W",
        args[0]->b_blkno, args[0]->b_bcount);
    OPT_args == 0 ? printf("%10s %s\n", self->scomm, args[2]->fi_pathname)
        : 1;
     OPT_args == 1 ? printf("%28s %S\n",
        args[2]->fi_pathname, self->sargs) : 1;

    /* save last disk event */
    last_event[args[1]->dev_statname] = timestamp;

    /* cleanup */
    self->scomm = 0;
    self->sargs = 0;
}

/*
  * Prevent pending from underflowing
  * this can happen if this program is started during disk events.
  */
io:::done
/pending[args[1]->dev_statname] < 0/
{
    pending[args[1]->dev_statname] = 0;
}
: probe description io:::start does not match any probes
cces3-gjp4-macbookpro82:~ grahamperrin$
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
When we all use something for a long time 20+ years or so, we all expect it to be always on, all the time, and software we use, just all works, tech just works, and any hiccup to the cycle assumes there is a 'problem' that needs fixing, despite we all loose track of the fact its the "internet" or software that has issues, and it was never designed to be prefect all the time, and at most "best effort is given",..and or compare it to something else that stays better up.

How quickly this thinking goes away quickly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jblagden

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
I personally feel that Apple's software quality has been on decline ever since they switched to Intel for their Macs. The PowerPC days (once matured) were rock solid. Now Apple's software always feels lazily written.

is that because its x86 ?
[doublepost=1452446472][/doublepost]
I personally feel that Apple's software quality has been on decline ever since they switched to Intel for their Macs. The PowerPC days (once matured) were rock solid. Now Apple's software always feels lazily written.

is that because its x86 ?
 

jasnw

macrumors 65816
Nov 15, 2013
1,030
1,134
Seattle Area (NOT! Microsoft)
is that because its x86 ?

The problem would not be the target processor but simply the fact that a large chunk of OS X's code base had to be rewritten for the change. It's possible that certain low-level functions were never really correctly coded nor fully tested and we are still living with problems from that transition. I'm not sure I agree with this assessment, but it might be part of a larger problem (I'm looking at you, focus-on-mobile!).
 
  • Like
Reactions: jblagden

MateuszAndrzejczuk

macrumors newbie
Jan 5, 2016
4
2
Silicon Valley
I'm constantly plagued with bugs for the first few months whenever apple updates one of their products.

Right now, I have a lot of compatibility issues with OS X El Capitan and Xcode.

A handful of my apps from Yosemite were no longer supported on El Capitan for the first 6-12 months when El Capitan was brand new. But now I need to prepare for OS X Sierra... It's as if apple will abandon El Capitan now since they're so focused on finishing Sierra.

And the bigger issue here is apple seems to update their OS X so frequently that OS X Mavericks will be obsolete and useless pretty soon.

Xcode 7.3.1 and Swift 2 have been horrible to work with. Xcode 7 crashes a lot (creating new tabs ALWAYS crashes, and the bug fix was abandoned by apple, not seeing a 7.3.2 hotfix for the problem), when I report my issues online, people just say "well, that's tough. But this is just how Xcode 7 is."

Another extremely annoying thing about all this... Xcode 7 is REQUIRED if your iPhone runs iOS 9 or higher. Oh you want Xcode 7? Well, you'll need to upgrade from your stable version of Yosemite right on over to El Capitan, so kiss some of your Yosemite apps goodbye. Why was I forced to upgrade to El Capitan?!?!?

For the love of god apple, please stop forcing me to upgrade OS X to the latest version... IT'S GOING TO BREAK STUFF!!

I would like to report more issues to apple, but it seems pointless because Xcode 8 is coming out soon anyway so I'll be replacing old problems with new problems. I'm cool with pushing out Xcode 8 so early, but I'd much rather have apple stabilize Xcode 7 until it's bug proof before they really started working on Xcode 8. I feel like this is something apple doesn't do anymore.

In short,
I can't stand this new model Tim Cook has taken on the lifecycle of OS X. I felt like it was 10 times better when every update to OS X was a huge doorbuster deal like OS X Leopard, which was a massive improvement over Tiger.

Now, I feel like OS 10.x updates are a hassle since they ruin compatibility for a handful of apps and the differences between OS X 10.11 and 10.12 seem extremely minor and feel like a pain to do just to get an extra feature or two.

Anyone else here share my frustration?
 

MateuszAndrzejczuk

macrumors newbie
Jan 5, 2016
4
2
Silicon Valley
Nah, I haven't seen any other threads like this on MacRumors before

Please tell me you're joking.

If that's the case, I might organize a petition to make major OS X updates bi-annually again instead of annually. I really don't want to see OS X end up like Vista, because I don't think it's the right philosophy to rush Apple products.

I doubt Apple will do what the petition says, but it's worth a try. Maybe they'll humor me.

But the amazing thing about apple doing bi-annual OS X milestone updates was that it kept the software in sync with Moore's Law.
 

MateuszAndrzejczuk

macrumors newbie
Jan 5, 2016
4
2
Silicon Valley
The worst part about annual updates is,

If I want to build an OS X app compatible with 90% of all hardware running OS X, I'll have to test it on:
  • Snow Leopard
  • Lion
  • Mountain Lion
  • Mavericks
  • Yosemite
  • El Capitan
  • Sierra BETA

This is a very serious problem, because most developers have tight deadlines and will very likely release apps which are not compatible with anything older than "Mountain Lion".

And Mountain Lion isn't even that old! It's from 2012!

'Compatibility' used to be a massive selling point of those "Get A Mac" ads, and it's gradually turning away to the path of the compatibility nightmares that killed the PC
 

MateuszAndrzejczuk

macrumors newbie
Jan 5, 2016
4
2
Silicon Valley
My god, the worst part about all this...

THE SOFTWARE QUALITY DECLINE COULD BE EASILY FIXED, APPLE JUST NEEDS TO RELEASE NEW iOS AND OS X UPDATES BI-YEARLY AGAIN!

I'm a Swift developer, and SOOO MANY of these compatibility issues could be fixed easily, as long as apple would release big updates every 2 years instead of 1 year.

If I want to ship a new SIMPLE-LIGHTWEIGHT OS X app, I NEED TO TEST IT ON FOUR DIFFERENT $%&#ING OPERATING SYSTEMS!! And the oldest of the last four operating systems released by Apple is from only 2013!!

Apple, you're killing your app ecosystem...
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,392
19,461
My god, the worst part about all this...

THE SOFTWARE QUALITY DECLINE COULD BE EASILY FIXED, APPLE JUST NEEDS TO RELEASE NEW iOS AND OS X UPDATES BI-YEARLY AGAIN!

I'm a Swift developer, and SOOO MANY of these compatibility issues could be fixed easily, as long as apple would release big updates every 2 years instead of 1 year.

If I want to ship a new SIMPLE-LIGHTWEIGHT OS X app, I NEED TO TEST IT ON FOUR DIFFERENT $%&#ING OPERATING SYSTEMS!! And the oldest of the last four operating systems released by Apple is from only 2013!!

Apple, you're killing your app ecosystem...
Again? Don't think it was ever done for iOS. And realistically a lot of the general public won't really be all too happy about that as most care more about something new than about something else in relation to it.
 

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
… COULD BE EASILY FIXED, APPLE JUST NEEDS TO RELEASE NEW iOS AND OS X UPDATES BI-YEARLY AGAIN…

I understand the wish (from a testing perspective) but I don't imagine so easy a fix.

From what I saw in the months before Yosemite was released, I got the impression that there was no longer a single shared vision for OS X. A fix for that? I have no idea.

What's to come in and around macOS? I imagine pockets or oceans of quality, marred by some 'software misfit' neighbours (for want of a better expression).
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
Yea, there's something wrong when even a simple thing like updating apps OTA is impossible because:
1) The servers are so busy the apps just don't update
2) If I use itunes the badge does not change to reflect that. :mad:

It's the "little" that probably overlook.. The major things are more important... But the "small" details on their own arn't that bad, *until* u add all of them up..

Suddenly it IS a big deal.

I have no idea why Apple does that..... such a small change most manufactures would just badge the icon always......

And the usual conception is when they have no idea, is "do a restore" even though i never mention on their website about "how OTA updates of an OS can cause all types of issues *as well*

That's what i can't understand.

For example... After u've taken a photo with the camera app in 9.3.4, and use image Capture on a Mac to transfer photo, if u delete it from "image capture" (not from phone), the icon in camera stays as the last image taken, even though its actually removed from the device..

9.3.3 kind of fixed this "only after a clean install".. 9.3.4 seems it's back again... however based on what was done last time to "fix" I figure a restore would "fix" this again

So, here we have an issue of Apple Not fixing these kind of things in "updates" just to say "Do a restore and it will be good" to the customer.
 
Last edited:

Zirel

Suspended
Jul 24, 2015
2,196
3,008
After all the Walt Mossberg buzz to make him appear in the TV, nobody talked about it anymore.
 

pat500000

Suspended
Jun 3, 2015
8,523
7,515
The worst part about annual updates is,

If I want to build an OS X app compatible with 90% of all hardware running OS X, I'll have to test it on:
  • Snow Leopard
  • Lion
  • Mountain Lion
  • Mavericks
  • Yosemite
  • El Capitan
  • Sierra BETA

This is a very serious problem, because most developers have tight deadlines and will very likely release apps which are not compatible with anything older than "Mountain Lion".

And Mountain Lion isn't even that old! It's from 2012!

'Compatibility' used to be a massive selling point of those "Get A Mac" ads, and it's gradually turning away to the path of the compatibility nightmares that killed the PC
Apple is putting each update out like hotcakes....they should slow down.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jblagden

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
Four days ago in Apple Developer Forums, for Disk Utility in a Sierra golden master candidate:

"… buggy as ****, so beware. I managed to recover using an older version of Disk Utility from a network install service, but when I retried Sierra's Disk Utility did the same thing: It hangs while "Resizing Core Storage Physical Volume structures." And if you force-quit it, it may or may not leave your hard drive in a corrupt state with regard to partition sizes. That state took all day to recover from, painfully.

"Almost as bad, … if you create a 64GB partition for El Capitan and then try to split that one for Yosemite, you can never resize either of them predictably. You have to split the main Fusion Drive each time to avoid this SNAFU. … wait forever for your main partition to resize … avoid the whac-a-mole problem.

"I have yet to see Sierra's Disk Utility complete a partitioning job without hanging with the spinning rainbow cursor of death, … should not be shipping …"​

An unlucky developer? I doubt it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ebenezum

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
We might expect a bookmarks-oriented application to lack ease of use if the application was less than version 1.0.

Now, with Apple's version 10 to be released in a few hours, we have this, from a Problems adding bookmark topic:

"… the thing to be dragged is invisible …"​

Yeah, right, Apple, the quality of your software has soared. Up, up and away, beyond the intuitive and to the point where someone actually has to write, to assist Mac users, "the thing to be dragged is invisible". Apple software designers: can you stop, stop for just a moment and consider the long-term sanity of design decisions such as that? Just for a moment, then you can return to the corporate priority of making Apple Pay possible with lesser versions of Safari.

Maybe I'm too harsh. The wishes of sane and conscientious software designers are probably overruled by marketing, board and other senior management duckwits.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.