Serious question: Why doesn't Apple eliminate simple bugs quickly?

[danielceleste]

Several betas and public point releases following iOS 10.0.0, and on my iPhone 7 Plus, I'm still noticing what seem like petty bugs.

Like how turning your phone sideways in a portrait-only app followed by double-clicking the Home button causes the app to fly to the corner of the screen (with orientation lock off).

Or how 3D-touching in Notification Center with Reachability engaged results in the "Clear All Notifications" button appearing in the wrong place.

Or how the sound effects volume is obnoxiously quiet even when set to max, yet this phone's speaker is supposed to be – and very much is – louder at doing everything else.

And not to mention intermittent issues in the Camera app, often related to frequent zooming.

I've reported all of these to Apple and they were all marked as duplicates months ago. What gives? Curious to hear serious answers and speculation. Please leave the whole "iPhone 7/7+ iOS 10 app close animation" controversy out of it since we don't know for sure whether it's a bug or intentional (and I'll leave my opinion out for this one, too).

 

[chabig]

The serious answer is that Apple has to prioritize its work, just like normal people.

 

[C DM]

The serious answer is that Apple has to prioritize its work, just like normal people.

A big part of it is that.

Another part of it is that some bugs might require more work than it would seem and/or in more parts of the code that perhaps aren't places that are up for modification at the moment perhaps because they'll be going through some changes in the near future and it would be better to do it all then or perhaps for some other reasons.

Yet another part is being able to reproduce some of the bugs consistently enough and also dig around to find the actual cause, which in some cases might be a much bigger effort than it might seem from the outside (even for little things at times).

 

[Mlrollin91]

No bug is a 'simple' bug. Nothing is simple about millions of lines of code. And sometimes when you fix one bug, you create another bug just by changing the first 'bugs' code. Because everything in iOS pretty much works together, in order to solve the one bug you are trying to fix, you kind of have to make sure that change in code isn't going to create a new mess.

And for the record I do not have a single bug you have listed above. My 7Plus is significantly louder than my brother's 6sPlus, I don't have that weird app flying issue, I don't have the notification reachability issue and I don't have a camera freezing issue.

Because not everyone experiences the same bugs, it makes it even harder for Apple to fix them.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

No bug is a 'simple' bug. Nothing is simple about millions of lines of code. And sometimes when you fix one bug, you create another bug just by changing the first 'bugs' code.

This, exactly. "Jelly code" - you wiggle something over here, and it causes other stuff to wiggle waaaay over there. The reason that the big things work as well as they do, is because Apple doesn't take shortcuts on the little things.

 

[t0mat0]

A guess:
When the bug is reported, how severe it is, how many are affected are all issues.
Getting in early with a good bug report helps a fair bit i'd imagine. If it's a simple fix, that might help too?

For long standing dupes, I guess they may have less priority than new bugs created and found within a new (beta) version? Fixing niggles, small long term issues seems generally a lower priority than other things.
From what occasionally mentioned of the process in interviews etc, dupes do help in some ways - if lots of dupes are made it shows how big an issue is.

 

[andy.ringwood]

Two things. Firstly, nothing is simple. You change one line of code and it can affect other places. Secondly, "simple" bugs that affect the UI for example, aren't a priority.

"Oh Control Center is only running at 58FPS, what a rubbish operating system, I'm jumping ship."

Seriously, any software is complex, iOS takes it to another level.

 

[Bladery]

As I understand your answers, I don't agree that cosmetic bugs are just simple!
These are the bugs most of the people notice!

But anyway, iCloud doesn't work properly literally since its beginning yeeears ago!

They are able to hire a loooot more software engineers!

 

[Armen]

A few things to consider:

- Apple has to prioritize issues. It doesn't matter if Apple has 1000 developers or 100. Everything cannot be fixed in a given timeline.
- Issues that may seem important/critical to a user may not be when looking at the big picture.
- There is no such thing as a simple fix. If a developer is working on 1 specific section of iOS he needs to notify every iOS team that he is making a change and to have them check their code to make sure his change doesn't break what the others are working on.

 

[SpecMode]

They are able to hire a loooot more software engineers!

From https://gist.github.com/raskchanky/6241981:

A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application.

The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers
to it?"

"It will take one year," said the master promptly.

"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers
to it?"

The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."

"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"

The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.​

 

[C DM]

As I understand your answers, I don't agree that cosmetic bugs are just simple!
These are the bugs most of the people notice!

But anyway, iCloud doesn't work properly literally since its beginning yeeears ago!

They are able to hire a loooot more software engineers!

What does "iCloud doesn't work properly literally since its beginning yeeears ago" really mean? Plenty of people have been using iCloud just fine for a long time.

 

[CTHarrryH]

The OP obviously has no experience writing complex systems and code. Anything you touch can have other affects and needs thorough testing. Some of what you complain about aren't necessarily bugs but functions that you don't want or agree with.

 

[Bladery]

What does "iCloud doesn't work properly literally since its beginning yeeears ago" really mean? Plenty of people have been using iCloud just fine for a long time.

For example sometimes photos doesn't sync properly. There isn't an option for manually refreshing so that the device can automatically download/upload new photos.

Same for safari tabs. Doesn't sync properly!

Just two examples.
[doublepost=1481320669][/doublepost]

From https://gist.github.com/raskchanky/6241981:

A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application.

The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers
to it?"

"It will take one year," said the master promptly.

"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers
to it?"

The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."

"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"

The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.​

I get what you mean.
But in my case it's meant like you have a manager (e.g. Jony Ive) and many engineers who solve problems.
E.g. One solves iCloud issues, one solves iMessage issues etc.
So the more you have the better

 

[Yun0]

"eliminate bugs quickly", instant mixture of face palming & laughing soons i saw that title...

developers have to:

-reproduce the problem
-find & isolate where the problem is happening
-create a proposed fix for the problem
-test the fix
-test the fix some more, try to break it, try to reproduce the original problem again in other similar ways
-send it to QA for approval or whatever large corporations like apple do

that takes time, or would u rather have a rushed out fix like near ios 9 launch, that prevented the baseband radio from working? choose.

 

[MEJHarrison]

They are able to hire a loooot more software engineers!

Impregnating 9 different women doesn't get you a baby in 1 month. Being over-staffed isn't anymore useful than being under-staffed. 1 person can build the wall in a week, 10 people can do it in a day, 100 people can do it in a week, 1000 people can do it in a month.

Take your pick. They're all different ways of saying that you can't always throw more people at a problem and expect quicker results. What you need is the right amount of people. Anything more than that and you just have people getting in the way of each other.

 

[stooovie]

Also, something that manifests itself as "simple" may be a signal of some pretty serious deep low-level problem (I'd say the rotation bugs are lime this).

 

[michael31986]

The sound issue is crazy. The 7 has stereo speakers. Like come on.

 

[Mlrollin91]

The sound issue is crazy. The 7 has stereo speakers. Like come on.

Not everyone has sound issues. My 7Plus is significantly louder than my brother's 6sPlus. Even coming from a 6s, I only keep my speakers at 4-6, vs 8-10 on the 6s.

 

[QuarterSwede]

They can also be bugs specific to your device. I've got one right now that is random when I call or get called it just shows the lock screen after I've answered. The phone UI isn't there and I have to go back to home, tap the green status bar to get it back just to mute/end a call. They literally don't know why it's doing that as I can't always reproduce it. Happens at work, happens at home. Happens on AT&T Wifi, happens on just AT&T. Maddening.

 

[Galacticos]

I agree with what is being said about how complicated and troublesome changing code can be but we should only be as willing to accept those reasons as the software bosses are

 

[NoBoMac]

To add to what Yun0 said: another step, send the beta software to the cell service providers for their QA process.

As much freedom Apple has re: control over their software on their phones, they still have to get OK from the cell providers before pushing new releases.

 

[stooovie]

To add to what Yun0 said: another step, send the beta software to the cell service providers for their QA process.

As much freedom Apple has re: control over their software on their phones, they still have to get OK from the cell providers before pushing new releases.

Really? I don’t think so.

 

[Jayson A]

They recently fixed a TON of the bugs I found in 10.1 and for that I'm grateful. However, sometimes they'll leave issues in there that just look sloppy and I think to myself, isn't overall presentation important in making the user enjoy using the device?

Sometimes I see all of these graphical and UI glitches and I'm like... what happened to Apple? They used to be so thorough at making sure the user experience was first priority. Making a solid system, you know?

 

[stooovie]

They recently fixed a TON of the bugs I found in 10.1 and for that I'm grateful. However, sometimes they'll leave issues in there that just look sloppy and I think to myself, isn't overall presentation important in making the user enjoy using the device?

Sometimes I see all of these graphical and UI glitches and I'm like... what happened to Apple? They used to be so thorough at making sure the user experience was first priority. Making a solid system, you know?

Bugs grow exponentially with features. Fixing stuff in old iOS was much easier than now with all the extensibility and interoperability that people demanded (widgets, keyboards, photo extensions, all this stuff). That's just a fact. They push a lot of bug fix updates. That doesn't mean the software isn't buggy - it is. But it's not like they don't care or fix it.

 

[Jayson A]

Bugs grow exponentially with features. Fixing stuff in old iOS was much easier than now with all the extensibility and interoperability that people demanded (widgets, keyboards, photo extensions, all this stuff). That's just a fact. They push a lot of bug fix updates. That doesn't mean the software isn't buggy - it is. But it's not like they don't care or fix it.

I wish they'd release major iOS versions every 2 years because it seems like just when we get most of the bugs fixed, they release Anne version and we start all over again.

Also, I hate when they break things that we're working perfectly prior to a minor update (like the auto brightness feature they ruined in 9.3... only to fix it in 10.0)