Apple’s Software Quality Decline

[Wild-Bill]

I jumped on the bandwagon back in 2006 with a 12" PowerBook G4.

I gradually moved exclusively to Apple, and was generally an early adopter.

This is the first time I skipped an OS and an iOS. I'm still on Mavericks and iOS 7.1.2, with no immediate plans to upgrade.

Apple has morphed from a company that was driven by innovation into a company that is driven by dollars. Tim Cook seems like a nice guy, but he's a bean counter.

The core rot at Apple is obvious.

 

[tdale]

I jumped on the bandwagon back in 2006 with a 12" PowerBook G4.

I gradually moved exclusively to Apple, and was generally an early adopter.

This is the first time I skipped an OS and an iOS. I'm still on Mavericks and iOS 7.1.2, with no immediate plans to upgrade.

Apple has morphed from a company that was driven by innovation into a company that is driven by dollars. Tim Cook seems like a nice guy, but he's a bean counter.

The core rot at Apple is obvious.

Wrong, he is a logistics manager.

Core rot is the company is run my bean counters?

Wrong, its run by a board.

Innovation was easy when none of this product genre existed. When he did innovate with these new product genres, the others took over, leaving Apple products low featured, old. These days they are catching up, there are some minor innovations such as Contionuity, Handoff, Homekit.

These and your comments have bnothing to do with this topic. The topic is why has Apple software and hardware quality dropped, and thats 99% software IMO. I doubt shaving a few bucks from costs by laying off in house software devs is what has happened.

IMO they are too low on software dev employees, they need to get more. That cost is trivial. The bottom line is these people write software for Apple and it has mistakes

 

[Rogifan]

I see MacDailyNews is jumping on the bandwagon republishing an "open letter to Tim Cook".

http://macdailynews.com/2015/01/05/open-letter-to-tim-cook-apple-needs-to-do-better/

Some of the commenters want Apple to stop the yearly OS upgrades. Apple could probably get away with not releasing a new version of OS X every year but iOS? No way in hell that would fly. Almost everything Apple added to iOS in the past two years was just catching up to features Android already had. They have to stay current and relevant with their mobile software. Yes I hope this years iOS update put a focus on bug fixes and polish. But if WWDC came and went with nothing new for iOS there would be plenty of complaints here.

 

[iBlazed]

Chill out everyone, it's cool, I just emailed Tim personally. I told him to stop it. Expect a much smoother iOS 9 release.

 

[Rogifan]

Here's a piece from ZDNET taking apart Arment's post, specifically his placing blame on marketing. I agree a lot with this piece. Software needs to be iterative and that's what Apple should be moving towards.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-software-may-be-buggier-but-dont-blame-marketing/

 

[tdale]

Here's a piece from ZDNET taking apart Arment's post, specifically his placing blame on marketing. I agree a lot with this piece. Software needs to be iterative and that's what Apple should be moving towards.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-software-may-be-buggier-but-dont-blame-marketing/

Interesting reads.

I am not so sure that there needs to be a slowing of iOS or OS X. We see a new version of iOS8, but it isn't really. It is identical to iOS7, then they changed the UI look, they added some features, Continuity and Handoff. From what I have read, or not seen, is that these three features were bug free. So thats good. LOL, but there were other bugs. Yosemite has the new UI, and these features as well, and I think they are also bug free, awesome. So why does Yosemite have the issues, take wifi. My take is that Apples software people could be better, and/or their testing could be better. How in hell can the old standard wifi start being an issue?????

I thn=ink Apple is moving ahead well, but they have to ask their devs and testers, why are these bugs here? Are you lot not good enough, not thorough enough, or you don't test well enough? If Apple was not a large company, the answer is lack of staffing, but thats not the case. There ability to write software and test it is lacking, surely they can fix that, and surely they can undertake a 110% review of Yosemite and iOS, based on the wealth of user data that is available. On the surface it seems so easy to locate the errors. Hire one dude to be a 40 hour per week reader of Apples and others forums. Im sure they do that, but what happens after that? Is there a black hole? Are they blaming the users practices or in home supporting components?.

I just don't see this issue as based on what they are doing is too hard. Or too few staff.

 

[grahamperrin]

-1 to editors at ZDNet

Here's a piece from ZDNET taking apart …

-1 to editors at ZDNet for ignoring the first footnote, added by Arment more than half a day before publication by ZDNet:

"An important nuance that the many sloppy rewrites of this article keep getting wrong (intentionally for sensationalism?): I’m referring to marketing as a priority, not “the marketing department”. I have no idea about the internal workings of the marketing department and how it does or doesn’t influence the company’s direction. Marketing priorities seem to be a bit too influential, such as requiring a new major OS with every iPhone release, or a new OS X every year, for their marketing benefits"​

That -1 is also for either not reading, or failing to understand, Arment's tweets. This, for example – also more than half a day before ZDNet published. With additional emphasis:

"… marketing is the marketing department’s job. I’m suggesting there’s the wrong balance of priorities between departments."​

With or without the footnote, Larry Dignan should have understood – from this original phrase alone – that Apple (not marketing) has its priorities wrong:

"… marketing is too high a priority at Apple …"​

Plus, what Larry Dignan describes as Arment's theory is significantly different from what Arment wrote. And so on.

Still, +1 to Dignan for generally raising awareness of people's concerns.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Wrong, he is a logistics manager.

Core rot is the company is run my bean counters?

Wrong, its run by a board.

Innovation was easy when none of this product genre existed. When he did innovate with these new product genres, the others took over, leaving Apple products low featured, old. These days they are catching up, there are some minor innovations such as Contionuity, Handoff, Homekit.

These and your comments have bnothing to do with this topic. The topic is why has Apple software and hardware quality dropped, and thats 99% software IMO. I doubt shaving a few bucks from costs by laying off in house software devs is what has happened.

IMO they are too low on software dev employees, they need to get more. That cost is trivial. The bottom line is these people write software for Apple and it has mistakes

Someone mentioned in a podcast on sunday that Apple has projects that need attention and have no one working on them, it's sad.

----------

I see MacDailyNews is jumping on the bandwagon republishing an "open letter to Tim Cook".

http://macdailynews.com/2015/01/05/open-letter-to-tim-cook-apple-needs-to-do-better/

Some of the commenters want Apple to stop the yearly OS upgrades. Apple could probably get away with not releasing a new version of OS X every year but iOS? No way in hell that would fly. Almost everything Apple added to iOS in the past two years was just catching up to features Android already had. They have to stay current and relevant with their mobile software. Yes I hope this years iOS update put a focus on bug fixes and polish. But if WWDC came and went with nothing new for iOS there would be plenty of complaints here.

Indeed that on the IOS side, one a year has spoiled fans that Apple could never change that. On that Mac side, hire more people, profit is not everything when QC is on the line.

 

[Rogifan]

-1 to editors at ZDNet for ignoring the first footnote, added by Arment more than half a day before publication by ZDNet:

"An important nuance that the many sloppy rewrites of this article keep getting wrong (intentionally for sensationalism?): I’m referring to marketing as a priority, not “the marketing department”. I have no idea about the internal workings of the marketing department and how it does or doesn’t influence the company’s direction. Marketing priorities seem to be a bit too influential, such as requiring a new major OS with every iPhone release, or a new OS X every year, for their marketing benefits"​

That -1 is also for either not reading, or failing to understand, Arment's tweets. This, for example – also more than half a day before ZDNet published. With additional emphasis:

"… marketing is the marketing department’s job. I’m suggesting there’s the wrong balance of priorities between departments."​

With or without the footnote, Larry Dignan should have understood – from this original phrase alone – that Apple (not marketing) has its priorities wrong:

"… marketing is too high a priority at Apple …"​

Plus, what Larry Dignan describes as Arment's theory is significantly different from what Arment wrote. And so on.

Still, +1 to Dignan for generally raising awareness of people's concerns.

Whether he meant marketing in general or Schiller's org the broader point still stands that Apple isn't really different than other companies in this respect. It's not like Apple's placing a focus on marketing where other companies aren't. It could be that Apple needs to switch from waterfall approach to agile/iterative. Instead of saying we don't need a new operating system every year, we should instead be saying we need updates and a regular basis. For instance on iOS I would love it if Apple's core apps were updated/improved more frequently than once a year with a new OS version. That's what Google does.

Anyway Amrment has written a subsequent piece if you're interested. Basically he says he regrets wording his post in such a way that made it easy for the clickbait media to jump on it.

http://www.marco.org/2015/01/05/popular-for-a-day

Instead, I looked back at what I wrote with regret, guilt, and embarrassment. The sensationalism was my fault — I started it with the headline and many poor word choices, which were overly harsh and extreme. I was being much nastier and more alarmist than I intended. I edited some words to be more fair and accurate, but it was too late. I can’t blame the opportunists for taking the bait that I hastily left for them.

 

[playtech1]

The annual OS update seems to encourage irrelevant features being added to bulk-up the list or, even worse, half-baked efforts (see Launchpad, the initial go at iCloud, Airdrop, etc.). I hate how later versions of the OS have dropped support for really useful things, like the Perian Quick Look plugin or dumbing down Airport Utility.

Macs have never been the most flexible machines compared to PCs, but what they did, they did very well. More polishing of features seems to be needed before release.

 

[tdale]

Someone mentioned in a podcast on sunday that Apple has projects that need attention and have no one working on them, it's sad.

----------



Indeed that on the IOS side, one a year has spoiled fans that could never change that. On that Mac side, hire more people, profit is not everything when QA is on the line.

Hire more people??? Absolutely. AS I said earlier, triple the staff working on software, thats less than trivial a cost. Too many zeroes on their bottom line for extra staff to have an effect on the profit.

----------

Whether he meant marketing in general or Schiller's org the broader point still stands that Apple isn't really different than other companies in this respect. It's not like Apple's placing a focus on marketing where other companies aren't. It could be that Apple needs to switch from waterfall approach to agile/iterative. Instead of saying we don't need a new operating system every year, we should instead be saying we need updates and a regular basis. For instance on iOS I would love it if Apple's core apps were updated/improved more frequently than once a year with a new OS version. That's what Google does.

Yes, let the marketers market. let the software devs do their bit. LET THE TESTERS DO THEIR BIT, caps intended.

Its not like the software doesnt work, its fully complete, there are mistakes that slipped through.

Where some mention that some apps have been reduced in features, well why would they do that? One gripe is I can do this on the iPad, but the iPad app is lite, so I have to use OS X app. They are integrating the iOS devices to the OS X devices, and app parity, or close has to be part of that

Its ironic that Windows is getting a bit of a positive chatter in this thread. I use Windows at work, all day. Well, it just works. Yes, maybe Apple has built up such a reputation that any minor bugs get over negatived, but they have slipped.

----------

Macs have never been the most flexible machines compared to PCs, but what they did, they did very well. More polishing of features seems to be needed before release.

Funny you say that as I am a convert, had my rMBP for a year. I do like OS X, and I could like it more, I pit that down to me being a newbie, but I do see Windows as a bit more flexible. OS X is prettier, leaner, and has Apple only features that I enjoy though.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

One more vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gbdggIm_T4

 

[VulchR]

I definitely think that Apple's software quality is declining, but I am not sure that marketing is the cause. I have no direct insight into Apple's internal workings, but time after time people working for Apple talk about a small, focused A-team that works on the software. I get the impression that perhaps the A-team is being asked to do too much...

In any case, I have been using Mac's and Apple devices since the Lisa (yes, the Lisa). There was a time a few years back when everything seemed to just work. Now, not so much. Moreover, Apple seems crass about ignoring its customers' feedback. Indeed, every time I try to get Apple support, I wind up in some support forum run by users who are just as clueless as I about how to fix a given problem. I want answers when I visit a support page, not suggestions for uncontrolled experiments in computing. Apple needs a good swift kick of OCD.

Recent examples of Apples decline: Maps; buggy iTunes; iOS 8 updates that nearly bricked my phone; crashes in OS X (for the first time in years); impenetrable errors messages that are uninformative for mere mortals; and the primitive Finder that still doesn't resize columns dynamically to adjust to file name lengths.

Oh, and one more thing: Why is it that in my fancy desktop Mac that has multiple cores, that I rarely ever see more than one core doing any work, even when I am stuck watching the spinning beach-ball?

 

[maflynn]

Interesting article on this topic
Apple software quality and the "sprint system" of OS X development

Unfortunately, a few of the problems which have plagued Apple users in recent months haven't been relegated to obscure use cases, but rather center on fundamental features such as, say, oh I don't know, Wi-Fi.

As Arment intimates, it's simply not feasible for Apple to release major new software updates to OS X and iOS every year and have the finished product be as polished and bug-free as one would expect from a more drawn out development process.

I'm not sure what to make of it, I do think they're rushing products out the door and while they're stable, they are not bug free. I also believe as the article touches on, that marketing is more of the driving force and that puts the developers in a bind

 

[grahamperrin]

This is "affecting customers who have otherwise loved their Apple devices"

From the opening post:

… This is a nice read and the painful truth. …

There's now a continuation …

Michael Tsai - Blog - Apple’s Software Quality Decline (2014-10-11, with various updates and comments)

Michael Tsai - Blog - Apple’s Software Quality, Continued (2015-01-06)
​

In today's post there's much of interest, include the quote from John Gruber (Daring Fireball). Take a look, folks.

Also from one of the posts to which Tsai refers:

"… What Apple needs now is not a partisan media that will rationalize whatever issues Apple has; what Apple needs now is honest feedback about what’s going wrong. …"​

– ignore the code: State of Apple (2015-01-05)​

Much respect to Lukas Mathis (Ignore the code) for that post, and many others over the years. Mathis draws attention to more posts, where I found this:

"… This simply isn’t an issue that developers grouse about and move on from. This is something that, at least in my experience, has been affecting customers who have otherwise loved their Apple devices.

… I also really hope that priorities can be examined and release dates changed in order to support the best possible software releases rather than the most systemic."​

– “We Don’t Need” | kickingbear (2015-01-05)​

… Amrment has written a subsequent piece …

He's suitably thoughtful. I saw many tweets of reassurance. Amongst my favourites from yesterday:

• https://twitter.com/VivekxK/status/552184382820483072
• https://twitter.com/tedsvo/status/552187675055493121
• https://twitter.com/jakemcgraw/status/552186515837956096
• https://twitter.com/DigitalPoss/status/552184293246504960
• https://twitter.com/mdoudoroff/status/552184790305492994
• https://twitter.com/gorskic/status/552184454475948032
• https://twitter.com/cunarders/status/552195184893886464
• https://twitter.com/richfletcher/status/552152755465224192
• https://twitter.com/ashkendo/status/552184259176595458 resonates – "sometime negativity is the first step to improvements. You complain because you care."

For the record, https://twitter.com/grahamperrin/status/552212880964460545 "… Apple's responses to my own minor rebellion have been faultless".


Echoing Arment's feelings

From Apple’s Software Problems Are Eroding Confidence in the Brand | Kirkville (2015-01-05):

"Apple is losing its trust among long-term users. The company may be gaining plenty of new users, who, for now, are willing to accept this kind of problem, since they’re used to platforms where things may be even worse. But if Apple loses the loyalty of their oldest users, the company’s reputation will change from the company that we trusted, to just another computer and device manufacturer.

… Neither I nor the many others who echoed his feelings did so because of any desire to trash Apple; it was rather because we are genuinely concerned that this company with which we have a long relationship is showing signs of decreasing quality in its software."​

 

[grahamperrin]

"… super-annoyed … Yosemite is one of the worst releases of OS X – ever …"

One more vid. …

Thanks. Around http://youtu.be/8gbdggIm_T4?t=28m50s on that timeline:

"… super-annoyed … Yosemite is one of the worst releases of OS X – ever. … And I'm not the only one to think so …"​

(I didn't listen to the whole thing – sorry – I'm not a coder.)

 

[Rogifan]

Interesting article on this topic
Apple software quality and the "sprint system" of OS X development



I'm not sure what to make of it, I do think they're rushing products out the door and while they're stable, they are not bug free. I also believe as the article touches on, that marketing is more of the driving force and that puts the developers in a bind

I'm not convinced that marketing is the issue. And no one so far has provided solid evidence that marketing is the root cause. And I'm saying this as someone who is not really a fan of Phil Schiller and the marketing department (quite honestly I wouldn't mind if Cook offered him an early retirement).

In the article you linked to an alleged Apple employee references "useless features". I'd love to know what he/she thinks are useless features. We get the anecdote but no examples.

 

[maflynn]

I think those "employees" offer some insight but I believe the main article is where the meat of it is. I do think Marketing is the root cause. They're probably not the only cause as the story continues. The embrace of the fast turn around releases.

I do think that makes so much sense when you look at the recent rewrites of the apps, the sprint methodology prevents apple from re-adding all the same functionality in the sort time span, so they release the new apps a shell of their former selves. Just look at iWorks apps.

 

[Rogifan]

I think those "employees" offer some insight but I believe the main article is where the meat of it is. I do think Marketing is the root cause. They're probably not the only cause as the story continues. The embrace of the fast turn around releases.

I do think that makes so much sense when you look at the recent rewrites of the apps, the sprint methodology prevents apple from re-adding all the same functionality in the sort time span, so they release the new apps a shell of their former selves. Just look at iWorks apps.

Again people pinning it on marketing with no solid evidence to support it.

If we're going to throw out random theories, I'll throw out mine: Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall allowed iOS to fall behind the competition and become stale. As an example, according to Rene Ritchie the reason we didn't previously have Airdrop for the Mac is because those two vetoed it. He also says extensions were something that came together in the last 18 months. I think Tim Cook recognized some of these issues and it might be one of the reasons Scott Forstall was let go. Rene Ritche and others have said that Craig Federighi is much more of an 'engineering nerd' that Forstall was. So basically you have an executive team that felt huge functional shifts were needed in iOS and OS X for the future and there is a cost to the audacity of what they've attempted to do in roughly 2 years.

While I would like to see a 'Snow Leoppard' kind of year this year I don't think Apple can afford to not keep up with competition. I've said before that I think Eddy Cue's org needs to be split up. I think Cook should hire an executive level leader who oversees all of Apple's cloud initiatives. Let them oversee iCloud, Maps and Siri. Then Cue can focus all his attention on iTunes, App Store, TV and services like Pay. And I also think Apple needs a VP level position that consolidates developer relations, app review and app editorial. And I don't think this group should be in marketing. Perhaps move all of it under Cue with a dotted line to software engineering. And obviously Apple just needs more resources so this new campus can't come soon enough.

 

[kazmac]

Chill out everyone, it's cool, I just emailed Tim personally. I told him to stop it. Expect a much smoother iOS 9 release.

From your fingers to the team's brains, make it so.

Seriously, I would love nothing more than to forget my grief with Mavericks and iOS 8.

 

[tdale]

Apple is responding

http://9to5mac.com/2015/01/07/apple...sting-by-roping-in-retail-employees/?pushup=1

 

[grahamperrin]

Broader prerelease testing of iOS, and a guess about Feedback Assistant

Apple is responding …

I like the optimism, but I suspect that Apple's preparations for broader testing of iOS began many months ago (not a direct response to the recent blog post).

Feedback Assistant

… Amongst my first thoughts, when I saw it on a Mac, was "it's iPad-shaped" – something like what's attached to this post. …

Why the openness of the OS X Beta Program did not result in a more widely-pleasing release of OS X 10.10

Please note that some of the following points are, necessarily, guesswork:

1. for the transition from iOS 6.x to iOS 7, there was no widespread (public beta) feedback from customers; nothing like the 'Feedback Assistant for iOS' visualised (imagined) above …

 

[maflynn]

Apple is responding

http://9to5mac.com/2015/01/07/apple...sting-by-roping-in-retail-employees/?pushup=1

I don't think increasing the population of testers is the only solution. They need time to fix the bugs and that's where the compressed annual roll out hurts them. True they'll be able to get feedback on more bugs but they'll not do anything about it until a subsequent update instead.

 

[Rogifan]

On the recent imore.com podcast Rene Ritchie and the crew talked about Apple's software issues. They brought up a good point regarding how Apple is structured (small teams, need to be in Cupertino etc.) and how that could be hindering them now that they're a much bigger company. And also a lot more pressure from competition, Wall Street, the media etc. to do more, to prove that they are innovating.

4 years ago Apple reported selling 16M iPhones in the holiday quarter. Some estimates for this holiday quarter are 69M. That's over 300% increase in just 4 years. Perhaps the real issue is the way Steve Jobs set up and ran Apple was great when it was a much smaller company. But that way doesn't work any more and its left to Tim Cook to make the changes necessary now that Apple is so big and gets 1000x the attention and scrutiny.

http://www.imore.com/imore-show-438-ces-2015-software-quality-12-inch-macbook-air

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I don't think increasing the population of testers is the only solution. They need time to fix the bugs and that's where the compressed annual roll out hurts them. True they'll be able to get feedback on more bugs but they'll not do anything about it until a subsequent update instead.

On the recent imore.com podcast Rene Ritchie and the crew talked about Apple's software issues. They brought up a good point regarding how Apple is structured (small teams, need to be in Cupertino etc.) and how that could be hindering them now that they're a much bigger company. And also a lot more pressure from competition, Wall Street, the media etc. to do more, to prove that they are innovating.

4 years ago Apple reported selling 16M iPhones in the holiday quarter. Some estimates for this holiday quarter are 69M. That's over 300% increase in just 4 years. Perhaps the real issue is the way Steve Jobs set up and ran Apple was great when it was a much smaller company. But that way doesn't work any more and its left to Tim Cook to make the changes necessary now that Apple is so big and gets 1000x the attention and scrutiny.

http://www.imore.com/imore-show-438-ces-2015-software-quality-12-inch-macbook-air

I can agree that this problem is within, not more beta testers. Apple need to hire a LOT more people and the answer is NOT outsourcing those jobs.