It's not hard to have stability and few bugs when iOS 6 hardly introduced any new features. I still view 2012 as Apple's lost year.
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Who wants Scott Forstall back for iOS 9?
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It's not hard to have stability and few bugs when iOS 6 hardly introduced any new features. I still view 2012 as Apple's lost year.
However, even this, Apple does a not good job for optimisation. See how windows should do on the overall optimisation? They need to fit hundreds, if not thousands, of configuration templates to make sure windows runs smoothly on all of them.
Yosemite leaves a really bad impression in my side. Endless network connection issue, and extremely fragile OS, almost lead me to blame mac OS X to the dust. I tried to ask for help, but what they do, is simply nuke everything, and start over. I have to say this is a very effective way to wipe out everything mess, but this should be the last resort.
Now, all of my hope ties with the upcoming wwdc, and everything happened after that. If apple is wise enough to know how to keep customers, they should know, there are not many options for them to choose.
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Maps having not enough data is not a "bug". It simply is what it is, lack of data.
For an app dependent on mapping data, a lack of data is by definition a bug. ;-)
No, it's not a bug. Here is the definition of a software bug via Wikipedia:
A software bug is an error, flaw, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.
Lack of data does not produce an unexpected or incorrect result. Garbage in = garbage out. It's totally expected. A bug would be when you give it correct data and it fails to map a certain area correctly, or can't locate a certain point of interest, or get your current location.
It would be the equivalent of me taking some photos with a very low resolution camera, uploading them to iCloud or any other cloud storage, and complaining they look all pixelated. Would you say that's a bug with the application itself, or a simple lack of good quality input?
skeuomorphism was good when smartphones were taking off and it helped people relate to the software and have some resemblance of real life objects...I could never go back to it. I thought they did a phenomenal job with iOS 7-8. Much more aesthetic. It's so much nicer on the eye and the flat icons just POP. It appeals to younger people as well getting them familiar with the devices. Brilliant design. Love that Ive had a big hand in its design. Ive needed to be involved in the software design because he was on the hardware side and others had done the software. Having collaboration on all aspects is extremely important. Forstall was outed for a reason. Execs said he was very political, wouldn't apologize for maps, took credit for others work...sounds like a complete "well I can't use what he sounds like on this forum" 
No amount of software design or development would make up for lack of actual data that the siftware would then need to use.
Well, I think, what the Bug they mention is not simply a certain software bug. They doesn't treat map app as a single app capable of searching, routing and planning route. We say google maps, we often don't solely say google maps app itself provides us correct result according to a search query, or gives us a proper plan of a trip. What I think is, we treat maps app as an app with both function and data, uh, I mean, a combination of data and functions.
According to this, Apple maps app should provide an app with good functionality and sufficient data, to help users find where they would like to go. If apple maps app cannot do this properly, users can say their app has serious bug, because this app provides incorrect or unexpected result.
I agree.
Software can be a simple hello world, doing nothing but print hello world on screen. It can also be a huge system like iOS.
Apple is definitely not ready for releasing an app to replace google maps. This is their fault. I can say, that was not the prime time for them to do this bold move.
Agreed. Perhaps that was one reason he was let go. I remember the Verge running a story titled 'It's Always 73 and Sunny in Cupertino' talking about how stale and behind the competition iOS had become.
One of the problems with maps was Forstall's on stage demo was flawless. But it didn't reflect the product in real life. He basically over promised and under delivered. The question is, did Tim Cook know maps wasn't ready for prime time? Or was that hidden from him?
Until we hear it from the horse's mouth, speculation will never end, IMO. Regardless, that ship has sailed. Scott is out, the rest of the Apple team seem to be happier and better off for it, and Apple will just have to cope with his absence, for better or worse.
You are correct. It's not an a issue with the app itself, it's the backend, hence my explanation of why lack of data was not a bug (when only considering the app).
It's easy to work with a sample amount of data. Heck, that's what we developers do when we're rushing to deliver and present things on time. And the presentation runs smoothly because, well, it's sample data, you're in control, and the audience doesn't have the time to look for edge cases.
The problem is when you've shipped that app to customers...suddenly the 10 use cases you envisioned become 1000, bugs show up all over the place due to that, and the lack of data becomes a bad reality.
Yes. If we only discuss app itself, we may classify this app with few or no bug.
When we consider maps app as a navigation system, lack of data is surely a bug.
Wikipedia defines bug can be something working unexpectedly in a system or a software.
According to the culture characteristics of apple, I expect Tim Cook knows nothing about that extremely terrible map app and the whole navigation system.
I think they needed to cross these rocky roads to deliver a good Maps App that is yet to come.
The best Maps solution out there is far ahead of the competition, and it's Google Maps. Why? Simply because they kept innovating and collected user-feedback since the last like... 15 years ? And they also used scripts to hack their own search engine and look through the entire Internet for addresses, business hours, etc. Other companies on which Apple relies to get the data are serious (TomTom, ...) but the amount and rate of data they collect compared to Google is ridiculous.
Honestly I think Apple's biggest problem with maps was how it was oversold. Forstall needed to be humble on stage. Doing a flawless, flashy demo gave people the impression the product was better than it really was. There would have been no shame in saying 'we're just getting started and we have a long way to go'.
I think Steve Jobs would have been more humble about it. People don't care about perfect flyover from some big city if basic mapping and POI data is inaccurate or missing.
Yes. Data is the heart of map app. Without data, even app itself is gorgeous, users will not like that.
I don't know. Jobs sold every bit quite hard and in at lest some instances things were barely working and just what he specifically scripted was basically set up to work while going even a bit outside the scripted actions would result in crashes or something similar.
Hard to say what call would have been made by him in a situation where Google Maps support was being pulled from iOS and they simply had to have something in place in its place and had to essentially convince people that not going with Google like before was the right thing all around.