iOS/OSX updates = Russian Roulette

[Lloydbm41]

Apple may be faster than Google at getting updates out to all of its users, but it has become a game of Russian Roulette. You risk your phone/tablet/Mac if you are one of the first to update once the update rolls off the Apple servers.

I remember Apple TV updates completely screwing up my ATV 3's. iOS 8 was a complete mess. iOS 9 hasn't been much better, with 9.3 messing with iPad 1-3. Latest OSX update has corrupted login verification for iMessage and Facetime for Macs.

The more products Apple adds to their line up, the worse their updates seem to get. Looks like Google is smarter using a rolling update. Causes less issues and bugs can be squashed without corrupting a billion phones/tablets all at once.

 

[BradWould]

I've read stories of people running into trouble due to various updates. I have never had an issue myself and I'm not all that concerned about it. I'm an early adopter in every sense of the word. I will continue to update the moment an update is available. If I get burned so be it. I think its a very small risk.

 

[webslinger85]

I've never had an issue updating my iPhone or iPad, in fact i'm fairly certain that if you actually looked at the stats, it's a small portion of people that actually have issues when they update, it's nowhere near "a billion phones/tablets" thats quite a stretch.

 

[Flow39]

I haven't had any major issues with software updates, but I will admit that the quality and stability of each update have taken a sharp turn downwards ever since Scott Forstall got the boot and Jony took over iOS. Updating from iOS 4 to 5 had no issues for me, and neither did 5 to 6. Going through various updates on my Apple products since then, I have had a number of lock screen rotation issues, home screen rotation issues, and general bugs throughout that weren't present in previous versions of iOS.

I will say that every time I've updated my Android devices they (usually) don't get more buggy. Going from 5.0 to 5.1 on my Moto X fixed a number of things, and then from 5.0 to 6.0 and the various 6.0.1 builds on my Nexus 6 has only improved the experience (minus the buggy YouTube scrolling while video watching). My Apple devices still prove far more reliable than my Android devices, but it's concerning that software updates on iOS and OS X have become more and more buggy over the years.

 

[Lloydbm41]

I've never had an issue updating my iPhone or iPad, in fact i'm fairly certain that if you actually looked at the stats, it's a small portion of people that actually have issues when they update, it's nowhere near "a billion phones/tablets" thats quite a stretch.

I was referring to Google updates. If Google didn't do a rolling update and catch a critical bug that bricked devices, a billion devices could be effected.
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I haven't had any major issues with software updates, but I will admit that the quality and stability of each update have taken a sharp turn downwards ever since Scott Forstall got the boot and Jony took over iOS. Updating from iOS 4 to 5 had no issues for me, and neither did 5 to 6. Going through various updates on my Apple products since then, I have had a number of lock screen rotation issues, home screen rotation issues, and general bugs throughout that weren't present in previous versions of iOS.

I will say that every time I've updated my Android devices they (usually) don't get more buggy. Going from 5.0 to 5.1 on my Moto X fixed a number of things, and then from 5.0 to 6.0 and the various 6.0.1 builds on my Nexus 6 has only improved the experience (minus the buggy YouTube scrolling while video watching). My Apple devices still prove far more reliable than my Android devices, but it's concerning that software updates on iOS and OS X have become more and more buggy over the years.

This is what I was getting at. I update an iPhone 5 I just bought to 9.3 and for some odd reason, the app store disappeared. Had to do a complete restore via iTunes to get it to update properly. PIA.

 

[C DM]

This kind of thing happens pretty much with many software updates at one point or another sometimes affecting a few users other times more users. It's certainly not great or anything, but it's just how reality works when it comes to something fairly complex like an OS and one that runs on many many devices with different configurations in one way or another.

 

[Fernandez21]

I suppose, I haven't really had any issue so far (*knock on wood), and I've even signed up for the beta program and used those on my main iPhone. I've also noticed that my daughters iPad mini (first gen) and sons iPhone 5s are performing better after the 9.3 update.

 

[macrem]

I've been updating multiple Apple products immediately for many years and never got burned. Don't have to worry about that on my Nexus 7 as Google stopped pushing updates to my device so I'm stuck on an old release that's laggy. It looks like now I'd have to buy a new Android device to get the latest updates.

 

[Lloydbm41]

I've been updating multiple Apple products immediately for many years and never got burned. Don't have to worry about that on my Nexus 7 as Google stopped pushing updates to my device so I'm stuck on an old release that's laggy. It looks like now I'd have to buy a new Android device to get the latest updates.

Well, if you want to discuss being left behind on a 4 year old device, you could say the same thing about the iPhone 4 series. Although you can technically download iOS 9 on the 4S (not the 4), it looks like crap on a 3.5" screen. It isn't scaled properly and of course, many features from ios9 don't work. Take a look at iMessage on a 4S and you'll see a big issue.

 

[Sensamic]

But then again, they're faster at fixing those bugs, because their updates are faster and global.

 

[Michael Goff]

Well, updates are a hard computer science problem ...

 

[Lloydbm41]

As I was saying... Now front page news here on MacRumors: IOS 9.3 pulled by Apple. I know it gave me issues on an iPhone 5 I bought for my wife's patents.

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/03/24/apple-pulls-ios-9-3-older-devices/

And this is why staged rollouts are better when you have a lot of devices with different configurations. Apple is learning what Google went through 6 years ago.

 

[maxsix]

The updates I've been enjoying from Google for ANDROID OS as well as Android and IOS APPS have been fast and stutter free. The best experience yet.

 

[I7guy]

I have (luckily or what?) never had an issue with any OTA update. I just updated two 5s, two ipad 2, iphone 6 and iphone 6s to 9.3. All went smoothly.

 

[oddnendz]

The update for my iPhone 6+ and the iPad mini 3 went smoothly. Both updates were within an hour of availability of the update. My iPad Air is in "iOS 9.3 failed verification because you are no longer connected to the internet" hell. I'm going to wait to update the iPad 2....

 

[C DM]

As I was saying... Now front page news here on MacRumors: IOS 9.3 pulled by Apple. I know it gave me issues on an iPhone 5 I bought for my wife's patents.

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/03/24/apple-pulls-ios-9-3-older-devices/

And this is why staged rollouts are better when you have a lot of devices with different configurations. Apple is learning what Google went through 6 years ago.

Weren't there some more recent Android updates within the past couple of years or so that messed up some phones?

 

[Michael Goff]

As I was saying... Now front page news here on MacRumors: IOS 9.3 pulled by Apple. I know it gave me issues on an iPhone 5 I bought for my wife's patents.

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/03/24/apple-pulls-ios-9-3-older-devices/

And this is why staged rollouts are better when you have a lot of devices with different configurations. Apple is learning what Google went through 6 years ago.

We're pretending Google does staged rollouts for Android to prevent this sort of thing from happening?

 

[Truefan31]

We're pretending Google does staged rollouts for Android to prevent this sort of thing from happening?

Yeah I've never had an issue updating any of my Apple devices. Nor have I had an issue with my past Google devices either. But there's always hiccups with software updates but I know I can simply restore if needed or actually go to an Apple Store or call for real support. I'd take that.

 

[Truefan31]

I have (luckily or what?) never had an issue with any OTA update. I just updated two 5s, two ipad 2, iphone 6 and iphone 6s to 9.3. All went smoothly.

Yeah you must've hit the lotto cuz didn't you know all your Apple devices should be bricked by now lol

 

[L_Virtue]

I've been updating multiple Apple products immediately for many years and never got burned. Don't have to worry about that on my Nexus 7 as Google stopped pushing updates to my device so I'm stuck on an old release that's laggy. It looks like now I'd have to buy a new Android device to get the latest updates.

https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#razorg

Can easily update to MM (6.0.1) and not be stuck on a "old release," just have to take a few minutes to manually update.

 

[robE89]

When you update the software of millions of users, it's hard to believe that there won't be someone with problems. I also never had problems with ios devices and i had many, even if now i use android. Google also had their problems, we can remember how bad the release of android 5.0 was, and that update had widespread issues.

I think it's pointless to speak about updates, we can dislike apple devices as much as we want but we all know that software update department is something that android phones can't compete with apple, at this moment.

 

[macgeek88]

I'd rather have updates the day of release and potential bugs than waiting for updates from Google, the phone maker, or the carrier. I like being on the cutting edge with the latest features.

I've had 0 issues with iOS 9 and El Capitan, even supposed confirmed bugs.

 

[Hastings101]

That 9.3 password bug was so annoying, but I think it's relatively minor. iOS just feels better to use in my experience.
On the other hand, I think OS X has gone from the best OS around at 10.6 to an ehh at 10.11, with 10.10 being awful. So many little quirks and issues I've encountered since Lion, I sold my old iMac in January to build a Windows desktop and have no regrets. 10's hardware detection is really incredible, it's now like using a linux distro (but with the fun of Microsoft spying on you).

 

[zonazolazia]

That 9.3 password bug was so annoying, but I think it's relatively minor. iOS just feels better to use in my experience.
On the other hand, I think OS X has gone from the best OS around at 10.6 to an ehh at 10.11, with 10.10 being awful. So many little quirks and issues I've encountered since Lion, I sold my old iMac in January to build a Windows desktop and have no regrets. 10's hardware detection is really incredible, it's now like using a linux distro (but with the fun of Microsoft spying on you).

Yosemite is the worst OS X since 10.6 but I'm having a very good experience with El Capitan.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Every update on my A5 devices seems to get longer and longer to install, but the 9.3 update worked fine. The OS X El Capitan update scared me though because it took like 20 minutes just at the boot screen. I was sure I was going to end up with a broken partition or something. Saying that, I have never successfully upgraded OS X major releases on two MacBook Pros now, they've always had to be reformatted. I always somehow end up with a Lion Recovery partition, even on this machine that shipped with Snow Leopard.

Why Lion?!