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I have to reluctantly conclude: macOS Monterey is a horrible product, quality-wise
- Thread starter gctwnl
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It would explain why there are bugs everywhere.
2 000 000 x 2 000 000 = 4 trillion possible interactions. And that's if 1 file could only interact with 1 other file.
More realistically, if every file, on average, could interact with 10 other files... that would be 1024000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 possibilities.
In the second case, complete testing would take billions of years even using the worlds fastest supercomputer.
I can't tell if you consider this to be a criticism or just the normal and expected state of affairs.
The natural state of most complex software is that no single developer understands all of it; this was certainly true for Mountain Lion and is even true for the software I work on. Heck, it was even true when I started my career in software development in 1989. Group knowledge is how we accomplish things as a species that no individual could.
Monterey is more complex than Mountain Lion since it's doing so much more. It might very well be ten times more complex. But, complexity is measured many different ways. I don't consider file count to be an important measure of complexity. There is a tendency to break apart larger chunks of software (found in a single file) into smaller chunks to help with different aspects of development (e.g. modularity for the sake of reusability).
On the other hand, given my impression of Apple's lack of software development prowess, I would speculate that the very high file count that you see to be partially a result of entropy in their code base.
I believe it would have been possible for the best old-timers to fully understand Mountain Lion's codebase.
If someone joined Apple in 1982, after a few years of prior engineering experience, and retired right after the 2012 launch, they would have had 30+ years of experience working all the way up from foundational know-how.
They would have gone from programming directly machine code, which was just above the bare metal transistors and gates back then, all the way to 2012 Objective-C and everything along the way. Plus they would likely have participated in writing the XNU kernel, Darwin, and every version of OS X and from System 1 to 9.
Someone like this could have known how everything worked under the hood.
Whereas nowadays even though Apple is much bigger and much wealthier, there likely isn't anyone left with that kind of experience.
There's likely a few left with pre-OS X experience. And perhaps a handful left with pre-NEXTSTEP experience.
Even if I knew someone like that I obviously wouldn't reveal their name without prior permission.
But I don't need to.
Just going from public info., Apple was already a sizeable company in 1982, it had a headcount of over 3000. Obviously many of them left in the interim years and only a fraction were involved in software engineering, but it's not hard to imagine a handful of folks remained all the way till 2012 as engineers.
Plus Jobs recruited folks to NEXT that were already well seasoned by 1990 and had equivalent experiences. Perhaps 1 or 2 stuck around too.
Respect...I'll leave you to your opinion. I can't prove that no such person exists (someone who knows the entire Monterey code base, not just someone who worked at Apple till that time), so I'll shut up.
I would be interested to hear other software developers chime in on the topic. Every developer has had different groups of peers over time; they would have had different experiences that I had.
It's not possible for a few people to know every moving part. Consider what happens when even ONE person is added or subtracted from a team. That leaves a lot of balls in the air to catch and try to throw back into the rotation.
The off-axis beach ball is a sign of what is considered acceptable quality at Apple now.
The issues with Monterey etc, though, does not simply come down to complexity when you consider that no one-person could keep all of Snow Leopard in their head yet it is considered to be the best MacOS by a lot of YouTube trend followers and carpet baggers here.
Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, hell even Mavericks were a pleasure to use. People enjoy running these deprecated systems to this day and it's no wonder why. They were finely polished and purposeful. I will not deny that every OS has its bugs but at least in those systems it was not such a glaring flaw that it became the identity of the OS. When you think of certain iBooks you immediately think of the GPU solder joint issues. That's the negative association I'm referring to.
Today is a different story. Besides the rushed release cycles, there is no pride in the work. When you work at Apple as a developer, you get to go to the local bars and tell everybody you're an Apple developer but beyond that it doesn't mean much. Add to that the narcissistic control freak mentality of the Apple social system. Every time an update goes out, they forcibly enable features on YOUR system. They're basically telling you in so many ways that YOU are using THEIR system incorrectly and this is how you should be using it. They're also changing things for the sake of getting credit for change. Why did the Mac chime have to change? It didn't. There was just one guy that felt like they wanted something to add to their Indeed profile and "***ked up the Mac Boot Chime" was the best recognition they could achieve. It's just like people that vandalize art and historic sites.
I was watching an LTT video about TV's. In that video, Linus and everybody involved in the shoot for that day admitted that when they go to somebody's house they adjust the TV settings whenever that person isn't looking. They clearly had no shame or reservation about doing so and even admitted that they do so in secret and to their own preference.
Actually, if you'd like to psychoanalyze Big Tech, you should watch a lot of Linus Tech Tip features. You'll quickly understand the neurotic, selfish, narcissistic, control-freak mentality of your typical Big Tech developers. If the LTT crew seem like "nice, normal, funny guys" to you, I got some bad news for ya.
The off-axis beach ball is a sign of what is considered acceptable quality at Apple now.
The issues with Monterey etc, though, does not simply come down to complexity when you consider that no one-person could keep all of Snow Leopard in their head yet it is considered to be the best MacOS by a lot of YouTube trend followers and carpet baggers here.
Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, hell even Mavericks were a pleasure to use. People enjoy running these deprecated systems to this day and it's no wonder why. They were finely polished and purposeful. I will not deny that every OS has its bugs but at least in those systems it was not such a glaring flaw that it became the identity of the OS. When you think of certain iBooks you immediately think of the GPU solder joint issues. That's the negative association I'm referring to.
Today is a different story. Besides the rushed release cycles, there is no pride in the work. When you work at Apple as a developer, you get to go to the local bars and tell everybody you're an Apple developer but beyond that it doesn't mean much. Add to that the narcissistic control freak mentality of the Apple social system. Every time an update goes out, they forcibly enable features on YOUR system. They're basically telling you in so many ways that YOU are using THEIR system incorrectly and this is how you should be using it. They're also changing things for the sake of getting credit for change. Why did the Mac chime have to change? It didn't. There was just one guy that felt like they wanted something to add to their Indeed profile and "***ked up the Mac Boot Chime" was the best recognition they could achieve. It's just like people that vandalize art and historic sites.
I was watching an LTT video about TV's. In that video, Linus and everybody involved in the shoot for that day admitted that when they go to somebody's house they adjust the TV settings whenever that person isn't looking. They clearly had no shame or reservation about doing so and even admitted that they do so in secret and to their own preference.
Actually, if you'd like to psychoanalyze Big Tech, you should watch a lot of Linus Tech Tip features. You'll quickly understand the neurotic, selfish, narcissistic, control-freak mentality of your typical Big Tech developers. If the LTT crew seem like "nice, normal, funny guys" to you, I got some bad news for ya.
Those versions really were quite something to use in the day. Having Tiger be my first macOS spoiled me right off the bat. Those versions were given time to breathe while not changing a whole lot and concerted efforts to fix longstanding issues.
The redesign of Big Sur stubbed macOS‘s toe and it’s been walking with a limp ever since even if it brought nice things like control center and better Notification Center.
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Think I saw the same video from LTT and yea as gross as it can look some people genuinely prefer motion smoothing. I think some of what they were referring to was overscan settings which makes the display fuzzy and often cuts off part of the image and people don’t realize it's missing but would want it fixed if it's pointed out.
Is it bad news for me if I find them amusing but sometimes misguided?
More frames-per-second in games is nice and all but when the game isn’t fun it doesn’t matter how smooth it is.
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Right about each person's personal preference. What I was referring to is when overscan is cutting off part of the actual image and even whole graphics. Maybe 10 years ago there was a news organization in our area who introduced a new theme and whatnot but they didn't take overscan into account and the bottom crawl was 80% gone.
But you're right, changing people's TV settings without permission is like reversing the bathroom toilet paper.
It's kind of hard for me to join in on your hatred of those "neurotic, selfish, narcissistic, control-freak" developers without knowing them or walking in their shoes. Of course you are trying to insult all such developers, some of whom read these forums and have stumbled on your posts.
Every developer I know doesn't have the charisma or personality to be a Youtube celebrity. I find it hard to lump them together with the Youtube people you watch.
Making generous assumptions rather than hateful ones, I'll guess that the developers try to take pride in their work, striving to produce work that's bug free, but might be disappointed in the output of the group as a whole. Bugs are often in the interplay between components that could be sourced from different developers. And, I feel sorry for them when they're pushed to get code out the door before it's thoroughly tested; I don't hate them for that. I don't assume they go to bars and tell everyone they work at Apple; they're probably too busy trying to meet deadlines.
But, Apple, the entity, deserves our ire. A company has no intentions, only behavior. The behavior is the net result of competing intentions of the people who work there. I suspect no one has the intention "let's not worry too much about bugs". But, I suspect there are too many people (or people with a lot of power) who have their eyes on other balls. Maximizing profit is the biggest intention of the people with the most power.
But, we do like to anthropomorphize. So we can imagine Apple has opinions and doesn't consider bugs to be that important. I'd like to slap that sucker silly. MacOS pisses me off daily.
Look no further than the head. Going from Jobs to Timmy was like dad going out of town and mom not having the spine to tell her kids they have to stop throwing ragers in their house and she makes excuses for them when they refuse to empty the trash.
I'm not saying "all developers". I'm saying that when developers deliver products like this consistently and without any honest attempt to address it then understand who's behind it. Every for-profit company exists with the goal of making money, yet I have personally witnessed the behavior I have been describing so it's clear that clock-milking and dole-dipping certainly does go on and in many cases will go on until the rot takes down the beams and foundation. The only pleasure I get out of the Twitter drama is that it's confirming what I've been saying for years and I have my old posts saying so for posterity.
At this point, Apple is essentially just an Adult Daycare Circle-Jerk Union. As long as everybody eats and gets nine company parties per year and (last priority) the shareholders get paid...then 🤷🏾
I'm not saying "all developers". I'm saying that when developers deliver products like this consistently and without any honest attempt to address it then understand who's behind it. Every for-profit company exists with the goal of making money, yet I have personally witnessed the behavior I have been describing so it's clear that clock-milking and dole-dipping certainly does go on and in many cases will go on until the rot takes down the beams and foundation. The only pleasure I get out of the Twitter drama is that it's confirming what I've been saying for years and I have my old posts saying so for posterity.
At this point, Apple is essentially just an Adult Daycare Circle-Jerk Union. As long as everybody eats and gets nine company parties per year and (last priority) the shareholders get paid...then 🤷🏾
And what irritates me the most isn't just that the bugs aren't getting fixed, it's that Apple keeps spending resources on adding new bugs instead of fixing the all the old ones. What's even more irritating is that this is not a company with limited resources. They absolutely have the capital and talent to fix this stuff so this is very much a choice and one borne of market domination and a disinterest in certain sectors of their userbase who they feel will remain loyal despite all these issues.
And what really takes the cake is that they're right. I refuse to use Windows or Linux so I'm **** out of options short of abandoning technology altogether and ****ing off the planet.
Either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
I’d read somewhere that for some time now once a bug is marked “shippable” they straight up won’t bother revisiting it in future iterations. The internal bug reporting teams have resubmitted longstanding bugs that don’t get fixed because of it.
Sadly it feels like Apple has adopted the development methodologies they lampooned Microsoft for 15 years ago. It’s probably only the robust foundation that had been painstakingly built that’s keeping it all up. Even then the strongest concrete will eventually crumble away if they’re not giving it due attention.
But hey, as long as the App Store is printing money what do they care.
The only way anything will change is if these flaws go viral. I’m talking to the point where you can’t mention Apple without talking about the bugs. Xbox 360, meet red ring of death.
Too bad that 100% of the Apple baiters on YouTube that upload a video twice per day about “OMG NOBODY KNEW ABOUT THIS HIDDEN MACBOOK FEATURE UNTIL…” and “Jonny Ive hid this from us!” are only saying good things or making hollow criticisms. They all focus on hyping new product releases and jumping on whatever the groaning commiserating bandwagon is. I can think of at least ten of these YouTube Apple clickbait factories and they’re all basically SXEPhil but instead of celebrities it’s the pattern on the Mac Pro grill.
We’d need something bigger than “antenna-gate” and bending iPhones. Companies are all about fan service. Remember that time everybody was meme-posting for DiCaprio to get an Oscar or whatever and that year he actually got one?
Too bad that 100% of the Apple baiters on YouTube that upload a video twice per day about “OMG NOBODY KNEW ABOUT THIS HIDDEN MACBOOK FEATURE UNTIL…” and “Jonny Ive hid this from us!” are only saying good things or making hollow criticisms. They all focus on hyping new product releases and jumping on whatever the groaning commiserating bandwagon is. I can think of at least ten of these YouTube Apple clickbait factories and they’re all basically SXEPhil but instead of celebrities it’s the pattern on the Mac Pro grill.
We’d need something bigger than “antenna-gate” and bending iPhones. Companies are all about fan service. Remember that time everybody was meme-posting for DiCaprio to get an Oscar or whatever and that year he actually got one?
In defense of Apple, maintaining large software products is difficult. Complexity grows exponentially with every feature added, and things quickly spiral out of control. Even if you had a magic wand that fixed all your bugs, it would take more than one wave. Some piece of perfectly functioning software may inadvertently depend on a bug elsewhere, so fixing one "bug" introduces another. Hence the old saying, "there are no bugs, only features."
Even after waving your wand like a madman to fix all your bugs, things like user data and 3rd-party applications would suddenly become corrupt and buggy, because they too were inadvertently depending on your bugs. If these are legacy products, you can't push the problem onto the developer: you need to emulate enough of the old buggy behavior so their stuff works again.
Now add in increasingly complex hardware, standards, and peripherals, and you have a recipe for disaster.
This beast can be somewhat tamed with discipline and time, but unfortunately, "stability" is just a single line on the list of selling points. As others have pointed out, Apple isn't in the business of writing robust software, they are in the business of making money. If the computer crashes or requires a reboot sometimes, big deal, users are well conditioned to accept it as normal. Plus, where would they go – they are in the ecosystem, and the competition isn't any better. If something is slow or inefficient, big deal, the next generation hardware will have more memory and processing power to "fix" the problem. Plus, that's just more revenue, both from selling new hardware, and from adding new features instead of optimizing.
The truth is probably more nuanced than this though.
Even after waving your wand like a madman to fix all your bugs, things like user data and 3rd-party applications would suddenly become corrupt and buggy, because they too were inadvertently depending on your bugs. If these are legacy products, you can't push the problem onto the developer: you need to emulate enough of the old buggy behavior so their stuff works again.
Now add in increasingly complex hardware, standards, and peripherals, and you have a recipe for disaster.
This beast can be somewhat tamed with discipline and time, but unfortunately, "stability" is just a single line on the list of selling points. As others have pointed out, Apple isn't in the business of writing robust software, they are in the business of making money. If the computer crashes or requires a reboot sometimes, big deal, users are well conditioned to accept it as normal. Plus, where would they go – they are in the ecosystem, and the competition isn't any better. If something is slow or inefficient, big deal, the next generation hardware will have more memory and processing power to "fix" the problem. Plus, that's just more revenue, both from selling new hardware, and from adding new features instead of optimizing.
The truth is probably more nuanced than this though.
Unfortunately the issues with Apple’s software isn’t as big as red ring or antenna-gate. Both of those were existential “the whole system doesn’t work” at the hardware level. Their hardware is very solid but the software has fallen behind. Instead it’s annoyance/death by 10,000 little issues.
Its felt like Apple needs to take a year or two just to address as many bugs as they can and not introduce a single feature. Not going to happen but I can wish.
It also feels like Apple used to code to a “specification” which meant code that wasn’t working could be swapped out. Whereas now it feels like they’re coding to an “implementation” like you mention about bugs becoming integral parts of the system.
Probably also doesn’t help that they’re developing Swift as a language underpinning the frameworks being constructed underneath apps they’re also trying to write.
There are other options for absolutely guaranteed stable, bug-free, computing.
IBM still has their z/OS POWER systems or mainframe systems which can run a hypervisor of any OS you like. Or run several dozen of them simultaneously so that a single bug can't ever mess things up.
But very few people are willing to send IBM a million dollars every quarter for legally binding guarantees. But they do come with enterprise level support, you get the phone number of the relevant engineering department.
For smaller budgets Microsoft also sells Windows embedded OS for things that will never connect to the internet after getting installed, so they must ship bug free. And these licenses cost a lot more than a brand new Mac when bought in small quantities. Since they can't upsell you on anything.
Apple will likely never bother shipping a 'bug-free' product in that sense, since not enough consumers are willing to actually pay for it.
Consumers are willing to pay for things like better cameras and screens, hence the enormous effort they put into iPhone cameras, Retina, wide color, OLED, etc.
IBM still has their z/OS POWER systems or mainframe systems which can run a hypervisor of any OS you like. Or run several dozen of them simultaneously so that a single bug can't ever mess things up.
But very few people are willing to send IBM a million dollars every quarter for legally binding guarantees. But they do come with enterprise level support, you get the phone number of the relevant engineering department.
For smaller budgets Microsoft also sells Windows embedded OS for things that will never connect to the internet after getting installed, so they must ship bug free. And these licenses cost a lot more than a brand new Mac when bought in small quantities. Since they can't upsell you on anything.
Apple will likely never bother shipping a 'bug-free' product in that sense, since not enough consumers are willing to actually pay for it.
Consumers are willing to pay for things like better cameras and screens, hence the enormous effort they put into iPhone cameras, Retina, wide color, OLED, etc.
Having worked closely with developers of large code bases I would say that it almost impossible that such a person exists.
1. The expertise to master any particular section of code (Networking, Display, Graphics, etc.) is very specific. It is hard enough to keep up in with even one active code area more or less several. Look at Apple job listings, they are very specific. For example:
This engineer will work to create cutting-edge imaging algorithms for both mobile and desktop photographic applications. The ideal candidate will have experience with advanced imaging techniques such as multi-scale, wavelet, or gradient-domain processing. In addition, experience with processing video for computational information is desired including experience with image registration methods. Also, experience working with multi-spectral imaging systems is desired. 5+ years algorithmic development for general image processing, computational photography, color and image quality. Strong understanding of digital imaging/camera pipelines. Strong computational and imaging for information experience. Excellent coding skills in C, C++, and MATLAB Ability to optimize/debug imaging algorithms. Familiarity with common development and debugging tools, ideally for both mobile and desktop applications. Strong verbal and written communication skills in English. Ability to manage multiple tasks and self-prioritize. PhD in image processing or computational photography field required.
How helpful would a person with this expertise be working cellular or AI code issues? In my experience developers are experts in one area, and focus on the code in just that area. Maybe they could help if directed by an expert but you couldn't say "Here's an 6E bug. Fix it" as they would not know the total picture. They could cause damage without supervision.
2. There are exceptional developers who may be moved from one project to another based upon priorities. We have seen Apple move developers to different OS's (MacOS, IOS) during crunch time. In this case they do gain expertise in other areas of the code. In the early days when the code base was small it might have been possible to have been moved between all of the code teams. There are way too many for that to happen now. Even it you had worked with a team before if you were transferred back things would have changed.
3. Apple is notorious for segmenting activities. One team has no idea what the other is working on unless there is a need for integration. This makes it even more unlikely that developer knows more than a few code lines.
Getting rid of x86 may eventually help reduce the complexity somewhat, since ARM assembly is a lot more straightforward. And all the hacks needed to work around x86 quirks could theoretically be removed.
Plus it's possible for better tooling to make devs 'smarter' in a sense.
But I agree it's exceedingly unlikely any person will ever again fully understand macOS from machine code on up.
It does pose an interesting question if a 'simplified' macOS could be released with roughly the logical complexity of an older version, though perhaps that is iPadOS?
Plus it's possible for better tooling to make devs 'smarter' in a sense.
But I agree it's exceedingly unlikely any person will ever again fully understand macOS from machine code on up.
It does pose an interesting question if a 'simplified' macOS could be released with roughly the logical complexity of an older version, though perhaps that is iPadOS?
Yeah, I never look at the machine code that ultimately runs my software. I suspect the same is true for most all developers; the development tools take care of that.
When I asserted that no individual developer has an understanding of all the code of Mountain Lion, I was only referring to that code that some developer wrote. And thanks for your thoughts on that matter.
Depends on the sector. Anything oriented around high performance, low latency, or limited resources (embedded systems, kernels, game engines, boot loaders, etc) requires a solid understanding of the instruction set and architecture. A compiler is just a tool, and like any tool, it has limitations and can be used poorly.
It's like pushing the auto button on an oscilloscope: you can push it, but you better know how to do it manually when it doesn't work.