Good article. I think this comment is right on the money. Apple needs to show innovation sooner then later to keep moving forward.
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Apples Software Quality Decline
- Thread starter Michaelgtrusa
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Good article. I think this comment is right on the money. Apple needs to show innovation sooner then later to keep moving forward.
I agree but its a different world, its easy to innovate when the product is young, now its mature.
"Nolan turned out to be right on the money at that point, but times have certainly changed since then. Sure, it would be great to still have Jobs at the head of Apple were he alive, but Apple hasnt shown any signs of slowing down on the innovation front since Tim Cook took over as CEO."
In 2014, where else can you go to use your phone or tablet or big hulky desktop computer to handle iMessage, SMS, MMS, and real phone calls? And flip from your workflow between devices seamlessly. Thats inovation. No one else has it yet.
I agree, apple and others are struggling to update their phones and tablets but there's not much else you can do. Apple was fortunate, in that they were able to leverage technology at the right time for computers, for music, for phones and tablets. No other company has ever done that. The downside of this success though is a level of expectation from them.
Safari in decline (an example)
In the General pane of System Preferences: prefer restoration of windows.
In Safari: minimise some windows, quit, relaunch the application.
Restored minimised windows are typically unidentifiable – untitled. If just one window is unidentifiable, it's not so bad. If there are a few (or many) untitled windows: no way of knowing which one to open. The windows are almost completely useless. It's like a lucky dip, a waste of time – and resources.
Blank, white, untitled blobs. Apple, why even bother?
That regression was so long ago that I have abandoned hope of Apple providing a fix.
That – that's the type of thing that makes me treat Apple's software as in decline.
In the General pane of System Preferences: prefer restoration of windows.
In Safari: minimise some windows, quit, relaunch the application.
Restored minimised windows are typically unidentifiable – untitled. If just one window is unidentifiable, it's not so bad. If there are a few (or many) untitled windows: no way of knowing which one to open. The windows are almost completely useless. It's like a lucky dip, a waste of time – and resources.
Blank, white, untitled blobs. Apple, why even bother?
That regression was so long ago that I have abandoned hope of Apple providing a fix.
That – that's the type of thing that makes me treat Apple's software as in decline.
Safari lucky dip (OS X regression/decline): screenshots and workarounds
The bug bit again this morning so I took the opportunity to create an album of images: Safari versus minimised windows (regression in Mac OS X).
My earlier description of the white blobs as "typically unidentifiable" was a slight exaggeration. For some types of blob I can identify the untitled whiteness by repeatedly combining Mission Control and then Quick Look, but that's time-consuming and frustrating.
It's less frustrating to treat the collection of whiteness as a lucky dip.
Or, to make the lucky dip less obscure, I could go through this workaround before quitting:
Apple, please. Neither the lucky dip, nor that workaround, is exemplary of good software quality.
The bug bit again this morning so I took the opportunity to create an album of images: Safari versus minimised windows (regression in Mac OS X).
My earlier description of the white blobs as "typically unidentifiable" was a slight exaggeration. For some types of blob I can identify the untitled whiteness by repeatedly combining Mission Control and then Quick Look, but that's time-consuming and frustrating.
It's less frustrating to treat the collection of whiteness as a lucky dip.
Or, to make the lucky dip less obscure, I could go through this workaround before quitting:
- un-minimise a minimised window that has no tabs
- add the tab bar, so that the title appears twice
- minimise the window
- repeat that routine for every other minimised window that has no tabs
- Mission Control for Safari
- point at one of the white blobs
- space bar for Quick Look
- observe part of the title of the untitled window in the tab (not in the title bar)
- no luck, space bar to escape Quick Look
- point at the next white blob
- space bar for Quick Look
- observe the tab bar
- no luck, escape
Apple, please. Neither the lucky dip, nor that workaround, is exemplary of good software quality.
I'm actually looking forward to Windows 10 compared to anything coming out for Apple. That's an odd thought considering I spent years not touching windows. 
I think that especially with 10.10.2 and iOS 8.1.2 the quality has muchly improved. If I compare iOS 7 to iOS 8, then iOS 8 is much more stable, so I cannot follow this discussion about declining software quality. On the contrary. I believe that Apple's software quality has increased.
that must be the reason why people don't buy iPhones anymore. Especially in the last quarter Apple sold only 74 million iPhones...
But we're many years on from the early days. Apple should have learnt from their mistakes and got better, not worse.
True...... Not saying they shouldn't have learned by now. Heck, even MS has issues to this day! Please don't take it as an excuse. I agree with you completely.
Reading through the Jony Ive profile in the New Yorker I get the impression there were a couple "human interface" groups within Apple that have now been combined into one under Ive being lead by Alan Dye. According to Dye'd LinkedIn profile he was a graphic designer at Kate Spade and then spent several years as as a creative director within Apple marketing. It seems quite clear from this article that he was involved with the Watch interface. This article also says when the new campus is complete the human interface and industrial design groups will share the same space (30,000 sq ft compared to the current design studio that is 3,000 sq ft). I wonder what changes, if any, this portends for iOS and OS X?
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come
Yosemite Wi-Fi issues?
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I agree completely. I especially notice this with iMovie. It used to have an option to have the viewer on one monitor and the video clips on the other, as well as keeping separate project files instead of lumping them into one big file called iMovie Library.imovielibrary.
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Considering the decline in quality, I really don't care about innovation, especially if innovation means the barely-expandable 2013 Mac Pro. I just want good software. Innovation is nice, but not when a focus on innovation throws quality out the window.
Exactly! With all of the bugs in successive yearly releases, it's getting a lot harder to recommend Apple. I like Apple, but their software leaves a lot to be desired as of late. And yeah, it's being dumbed down as well. iMovie is a great example of that. It used to keep separate project files, which is particularly useful if you either have a low-capacity Solid State Drive or if you want to share the project file with someone else if they're going to work on it or if their Mac can export an MP4 file of it faster than yours. Also, the dual monitor functionality would be nice to have. Great old features have been removed and the software has gotten buggy. Apple really needs to get back to focusing on software quality.
Just look at the difference between iMovie 9 and iMovie 10. iMovie 9 is a lot more useful than it's successor. Software is supposed to get better over time, not dumbed-down. iMovie 9 uses individual project files and it can have the video viewer on a separate monitor. I just need Apple to make the newer version of iMovie capable of exporting individual project files. Once they do that, I'll delete iMovie 10 and just use iMovie 9.
Just doing a quick search via google, and I would imagine this forum, there have been issues with Mac OSX for the past three version, ML, Mav, Yosemite.
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/09...version-10-8-5-with-fixes-for-mail-and-wi-fi/
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/82371/wifi-problems-mac-os-x-10-8-2-macbook-pro
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1575579/
http://www.imore.com/how-fix-mavericks-wi-fi-zapping-bluetooth
http://howtoapple.com/mavericks-wifi-issues-fix/
So I don't think it is just Yosemite that has had these issues, maybe this particular WIFI issue, but there have been issues with wifi in the previous version OSX.
Heck, pretty much every version of their OS has had some issue or another.
I don't get the issue with complaints about iMovie, Photos etc. These are ancillary offerings. Do Windows users restrict themselves to apps in a default Windows install? They may use some of them, but more often they will install third party software that meets their needs. But Apple users appear stuck with whats in OSX. They made iMovie, Photos etc more for the consumer of all Apple users, those who need more should install what they need. Or should Apple make a tiny, simple photo app, then a better one, and another even better one, and a couple of Pro ones?
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Apple wifi implementation is not 100% compliant with the Wifi Alliance. Is that arrogance in that they want their version to be used, so bugger it, we will. Are they not prepared to use industry standard wifi as they want be different? Do they want sales of Airport devices?
I like how the "decline of Apple software" thread is full of comments, but in reality none of us can agree on how the software has decline.
The most common complaint is stability. And yet people are complaining there aren't enough power options. However, my experience is the more the software does, the less stable it becomes and the more things that can break.
Who does software better now? Windows is an unmitigated disaster and good luck getting a day's worth of battery on some Android phones (even Android Central admits the S6 battery is a step backwards).
Complain all you want about a decline, but the software does more than it ever (handoff, extensibility, etc) has done and does many things very well.
By contrast, ChromeOS isn't even a viable thing for many users and Microsoft cannot apologize enough for the state of its software.
The most common complaint is stability. And yet people are complaining there aren't enough power options. However, my experience is the more the software does, the less stable it becomes and the more things that can break.
Who does software better now? Windows is an unmitigated disaster and good luck getting a day's worth of battery on some Android phones (even Android Central admits the S6 battery is a step backwards).
Complain all you want about a decline, but the software does more than it ever (handoff, extensibility, etc) has done and does many things very well.
By contrast, ChromeOS isn't even a viable thing for many users and Microsoft cannot apologize enough for the state of its software.