What on Earth is happening at Apple QC? LAUGHABLE BUG

[-BigMac-]

And now we know why companies often don’t offer beta releases to the general public.

It's been happening on stable versions for months. Heaps of reports - still there.

i saved a screenshot of this happening in production, not beta.

So (and apologies to Contact_Feanor, as I’m replying to a number of posts at the same time), this issue is one that a large number of testers have had since iOS 26 beta 1, reported throughout the entire beta cycle, and the bug shipped in iOS 26. Then it was present in iOS 26.1 beta 1 throughout its beta cycle, and is present in the release version of iOS 26.1, and has now been present through all the betas of 26.2.

It persists through a restore and setup as new, at least on an iPhone 15 Pro Max. It’s definitely present on both my parents iPhone 17’s, non-pro, both of which only run release software.

This isn’t some obscure bug; I’m sure there are a lot of folks out there who’s use or configuration doesn’t make the issue apparent to them, but if it’s reproducible on a DFU restore as new without logging into iCloud, it’s the software, straight up. I spent seven years troubleshooting Apple hardware at the Genius Bar, and this is absolutely the sort of thing a fresh install used to fix. It simply doesn’t anymore.

That’s straight crazy. Apple makes the hardware, decides what range of hardware an OS can run on, codes the software, and provides both the backup/restore functionality and data sync functionality. It’s nuts that this obvious of an issue can persist through, by my quick count, 10 betas and 2 release versions. I’ve tried each beta as a restore and setup as new without syncing, since it’s my test device, and it’s present on every single install. It’s so much worse if you actually try and use the new visual candy, like having your app icons clear with a colored background to show off “Liquid Glass”.

“It’s a beta” doesn’t work as an explanation here, since it’s also been glaringly obvious on two release versions. “Your configuration/“doesn’t happen on mine so it must be an issue on your end”” also doesn’t work, since it’s easily reproducible on a factory fresh general release if you use the features as advertised; the OS does not work as expected on Apples own hardware with a fresh install. Simple as that.

I’ve been an Apple fanboi for years, but ignoring the obvious slide in their QC over the years is just a bridge too far. It feels like Apple fans are in an abusive relationship now, and can’t acknowledge when Apple’s products make something from MS, which doesn’t have the same vertical integration, look reliable as hell.

That’s the issue here; folks keep saying “but it’s a beta!!!” when those who’ve been using each beta are saying “after something like ten betas and two release versions this insane bug is still somehow present”.

It’s funny too, so many issues like this used to fix themselves once spotlight indexing etc finished after the update; this particular bug seems to go away after each update and then pops back up a few hours later.

What about people who are reporting that the issue occurs on GA’d builds as fresh installs, who are still seeing it after multiple beta cycles and releases? Any patience for them?

Yep - thank you! Finally some actual Beta testers🙂.. unlike the keyboard warriors commenting "bUt iTs A BEta".
Btw I think some of them straight up copy and paste their comments in beta threads trying to portray Apple as some perfect, untouchable company - must be QC staff 😅

Homie still on 4G? Is your cell service in Chernobyl?

Haha yea - Melbourne, Australia. We have 5G in most places, then black spots in others haha
Apparently we are like 10+ years behind some countries in infrastructure 😂

I just pray 4G hangs on for dear life sometimes😅

 

[davidh2k]

I have four active bugs related to apples accessibility features in thefeedback app.
Two of those four bugs are fixed in the latest 26.2 beta and reflected in the feedback app as resolved, the third is known by Apple. Only the fourth is still not responded to but *appears* to be resolved in the latest round of 26.2 betas.
So I very much believe that Apple responds to feedback submissions. Not sure why there’s a conspiracy theory about that.

Mind sharing what those four active bugs related to accessibility features are? I have issues with improved contrast resulting in keystroks beeing HDR, and sometimes even breaking completely. Disabled it for now.

 

[Parowdy]

If you want to see a really ridiculous bug, use the camera from the lock screen horizontally.
The swipe gestures are all messed up and when you share a picture, it looks like this:

Also, let’s not forget the oldest bug still present in every single iPhone today, literally introduced the day iPhone X was released: the control center accessibility bug

A bug well known by Apple, but so was that the 2016-2019 MBP design was a regression and environmentally very unfriendly.

But here is some fun. You can take a look at an even older oversight on your iPhone right now, no matter the iOS version.
First, open your Photos gallery. Then, flick across the screen to move the thumbnails/previews up and down. Immediately after, swipe up to go into the App Switcher. You will see that the previously smooth scrolling animation in Photos becomes choppy.
Just like the previous bug, I’ve reported this to Apple many years ago. But oh well.

Right now I experience the bug where I can’t get the keyboard to go away since the bar with the X is gone. Fun.

 

[ThailandToo]

And Apple doesn't read those. You can vent here, sure. But don't expect any time on these threads to result in things getting better.


No matter how much money a company has, there is a limited talent pool to hire. And who is going to train and develop them but the same people who are not catching the problems in the first place? Do you trust the current Apple staff to train the next generation to be better than they are? As you build up your staff, you just need more supervisors, have more training classes to schedule, have more HR to hire, more bathrooms, more cafeteria space, more vending machines, etc. Throwing more money at a problem isn't the solution.

If Apple wants to do a major effort to fix bugs, they have two paths:

Option 1) Something like Google once tried with Fuchsia or is apparently trying again with Aluminum. That is, work behind the scenes for years making a new OS without any input from users. Something that replaces all the code, all the features. A complete restart that will need new hardware and most likely not be compatible with anything you currently own. Emerge from the shadows in 5 years with something called Apple Phone 1.0.



See? Tons of tech debt. Starting over is the only "pure" fix. The bug you are showcasing is an issue with Springboard, which has been the most slapdash piece of rickety code since they started bolting on new features to it in iOS 14. It has only gotten worse over the years. You don't fix that with money. You fix it with a do-over.

Option 2) Slow down. No more annual releases. Releases are generational - once every 5 years or so. Instead, new features enter beta every quarter year or half year as needed. Developer betas last months. Take the time to read the feedback. Communicate what testers should actually be testing. Blog about progress. Be open. This would probably need Apple to follow a format like the Google Play Store, where app updates are separate from system updates, because if your OS only updates twice a year then you need to be able to push out fixes for individual apps quicker in case something breaks. Componentized updates for apps would allow them to spend much longer on the big stuff. It would be a lot less flashy. No WWDC. Less press coverage. Apple would need to sell the phone on the hardware alone.

I truly believe Apple needs to stop with annual updates and introduce when ready. This push led to the problems with AI vaporware. And now Apple has let go the executive in charge of AI, when the CFO denied the funds that he required even though Crook approved them. I mean the buck has to stop somewhere and the big problem is the CEO doesn’t understand anything but how to run AAPL as a financial institution instead of a tech company. This is why everyone is destroying Apple on everything except hardware where Apple is furthering their anticompetitive behavior by wanting to control the entire stack of hardware. Blame third parties when they don’t pay their employees and treat them like slaves, and they all get away with it because they’re the top 1% that control the world making all the bank.

Apple needs to be run like a tech company with a tech CEO who understands products and consumers. Crook only understands money.

 

[Sami13496]

Beta versions are part of the testing process where bugs are found and reported.

 

[stocklen]

as everyone points out to you, OP, this is a BETA.

You know this.

Why complain here about a BETA in this way - is it even a public Beta or is a developer Beta, ive no idea. If its a developer beta then If you arent a genuine developer you shouldn't even be accessing it.

Direct your energies into helping Apple out in the Beta programme to which you are subscribed and do your job as a Beta Tester to find bugs and report them to Apple as part of the development process.


If this sort of thing was present in public releases then you can whinge - but not before.

 

[JaydenA]

The whole point of the Beta is to find and detect bugs and let Apple know about them.

I oft wondered why well-reported bugs - like how nightstand mode always ends up displaying two temperature panels losing the important clock part - can be reported complete with not just screenshots and videos of how to make it happen, but detailed writeups (and I've lived in Mantis/Jira/et al. for decades so am no stranger to this)

Or how, Safari's navigation and address buttons, since liquid glass, keep tinting into the colour of pop-up advertising and locking to that colour.

Or how, when you zoom the screen to a mere 120% to account for old eyes, the iPad keyboard covers so much of the screen that you can't see the fields you are typing in, this one started in 18 and got far worse with Liquid A** and the movable searchbar - just why do I need letters that are so tall?

Or how the keyboard can no longer decide which colour it wants to be today.

Or how CSS full-page slide over ads break safari no end. Complete with videos showing it and descriptions.

Or AI changing words to obnoxious replacements when I've disabled the unwanted feature.

Or all the endless bugs I find in basic accessability operation that make my life harder, every day.

All reported, all ignored.


In terms of QA, it's about time Tim stopped with the "the next flashy thing we will announce but never deliver" stuff and really do some work on the meat of it. He needs to do a code red on bug fixing.

 

[Tim Jobs the 2nd]

well-reported bugs

Were they reported via the feedback app or posted on social media platforms?

 

[Tim Jobs the 2nd]

It’s the age of incompetence. Apple is not immune to it.

What is incompetent about having bugs such as the one OP posted in beta versions of software?

 

[tomtad]

If you keep buying the bugs keep happening.

 

[TumbleDryer]

I oft wondered why well-reported bugs - like how nightstand mode always ends up displaying two temperature panels losing the important clock part - can be reported complete with not just screenshots and videos of how to make it happen, but detailed writeups (and I've lived in Mantis/Jira/et al. for decades so am no stranger to this)

Or how, Safari's navigation and address buttons, since liquid glass, keep tinting into the colour of pop-up advertising and locking to that colour.

Or how, when you zoom the screen to a mere 120% to account for old eyes, the iPad keyboard covers so much of the screen that you can't see the fields you are typing in, this one started in 18 and got far worse with Liquid A** and the movable searchbar - just why do I need letters that are so tall?

Or how the keyboard can no longer decide which colour it wants to be today.

Or how CSS full-page slide over ads break safari no end. Complete with videos showing it and descriptions.

Or AI changing words to obnoxious replacements when I've disabled the unwanted feature.

Or all the endless bugs I find in basic accessability operation that make my life harder, every day.

All reported, all ignored.


In terms of QA, it's about time Tim stopped with the "the next flashy thing we will announce but never deliver" stuff and really do some work on the meat of it. He needs to do a code red on bug fixing.

Bugs get designated a priority level. As new bugs appear the very low level ones can basically be stuck at the bottom forever and never get fixed.

What I would like to see is every other year we get a 'Snow Leopard' maintenance release that fixes as many bugs as possible and adds literally no new features. As part of this the low level bugs that still might miss out on this approach could get handed out to a particular group of devs so that ALL bugs across the board get looked at every 18-24 months. It's basically the tick tock approach we were promised when Snow Leopard launched but we never actually got.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Apple should do a mental health check before a user can install a beta. Or may be give a 25 click messages. Do you understand what beta means?? OCD on beta is getting ridiculous.

 

[TechnoMonk]

I think I’m the luckiest person alive. I’ve been running betas on all my devices for years and haven’t come across a single problem that has been significant enough for me to report.

Expectations. I run beta on iPad Pro mostly as test bed for dev but not my main devices. I do find bugs but that’s why the beta is helpful. Expect to hit a snag if you running beta on your primary devices.

 

[macfacts]

we can always apply for a job at Apple QC

it is already your job, you just aren't getting paid for it.

 

[macfacts]

What is incompetent about having bugs such as the one OP posted in beta versions of software?

imo, the "incompetent" part is not having a publicly accessible bug tracker, so they are pretending everything is perfect and users have to guess if it has been reported. too many secrets.

 

[kody137]

Are you saying I caused the home screen icons to disappear?😂

Yes by installing the beta

 

[Tim Jobs the 2nd]

imo, the "incompetent" part is not having a publicly accessible bug tracker, so they are pretending everything is perfect and users have to guess if it has been reported. too many secrets.

If you ever actually tried to report a bug, you'd know it does tell you how many similar reports there have been.

I fail to see how having a feedback app with a bug submission feature like they already do, is pretending that everything is perfect.

But the vast majority of beta users never try to report a bug anyway.

 

[HouseLannister]

Why complain here about a BETA in this way

Oh you must be new to the internet. Let me give you a tour... 🤣

 

[al_berto39]

Option 2) Slow down. No more annual releases. Releases are generational - once every 5 years or so. Instead, new features enter beta every quarter year or half year as needed.

One can dream...

 

[maxoakland]

The release is still a beta.

Quit ringing this bell. Apple ignored dozens of obvious and serious bugs when they released 26.0.

How much you want to bet they’ll ship 26.2 with this bug?

 

[Rafagon]

LOL cmon Apple… this has to be a joke.

26.2 beta 2 on 16ProMax

Is Apple Quality Control even in the room with us anymore?

Reminder: this is a 4 Trillion dollar company.. their budget for QC is $WhatEverTheyWant

And yes - it’s a beta (mistakes happen), but these ‘mistakes’ are happening a lot more often than I ever remember.

So for now - while this bug has been reported to Apple - we can all laugh at all its glory, and let it serve as a reminder to us all.. that no matter how inexperienced, inattentive, unqualified, or uncaring we may be - we can always apply for a job at Apple QC 🤣

Screenshot and video attached for the shared lols🙏🏼🤭

View attachment 2584266
View attachment 2584267

What language(s) are you learning?

I'm learning Russian.

 

[maxoakland]

And now we know why companies often don’t offer beta releases to the general public.

Smart companies at least

 

[I7guy]

I truly believe Apple needs to stop with annual updates and introduce when ready. This push led to the problems with AI vaporware. And now Apple has let go the executive in charge of AI, when the CFO denied the funds that he required even though Crook approved them. I mean the buck has to stop somewhere and the big problem is the CEO doesn’t understand anything but how to run AAPL as a financial institution instead of a tech company. This is why everyone is destroying Apple on everything except hardware where Apple is furthering their anticompetitive behavior by wanting to control the entire stack of hardware. Blame third parties when they don’t pay their employees and treat them like slaves, and they all get away with it because they’re the top 1% that control the world making all the bank.

Apple needs to be run like a tech company with a tech CEO who understands products and consumers. Crook only understands money.

You keep saying this but consumers say otherwise.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

But the vast majority of beta users never try to report a bug anyway.

This, so much this.
And even those who report bugs, likely aren’t keeping their submissions up-to-date.
Personally I update my Feedback submissions with every single software or beta release.
It’s not just about making the submission and then hoping Apple fixes it, you have to stay on top of your submission. Updated every single time a new Beta drops to let them know the issue still hasn’t been resolved. Something as simple as “Bug still present in (build number).
Also, Feedback has to be well written and detailed, if people are writing their feedback to Apple the same way that they are making posts on MacRumors it’s understandable why they are not seeing any responses.

 

[dannyyankou]

Haha Ive been at MR since 2011, and had the newest iPhone every year since 3G.

Bugs have only recently started getting this bad again in my experience. I’ve been reporting them across the years, and all reports bar one are sitting there unread😂

How long have you been a Mac user for? If you were using Mac in the Leopard days, you’d know just how bad it was. There’s a reason Snow Leopard was primarily bug fixes.

Some of the same complaints back then, just look at the last sentence of the OP of this post-

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/time-machine-is-really-buggy.396764/

Keep in mind, that was a public release, not a beta.