Apple Briefly Paused Work on New Features for iOS 18 and macOS 15 to Clean Up Bugs

[DownUnderDan]

I just hope they don’t use this excuse to explain why they are not moving fiercely on artificial intelligence. They are too busy fixing bugs.

Indirectly you've just demonstrated one of the key problems Apple has made for themselves. You are now conditioned to expect a yearly update, irrespective of whether that is actually in your own interest. You will take features, over a secure and properly maintained operating system.

 

[HackMacDaddy]

Sonoma seems pretty buggy. It is hard to understand how things got that bad when feature updates are “wallpaper” and “widgets”.

I played around with Sonoma 14.1 on a M1 and within the first 5minutes I had weird UI glitches like icons disappearing in launchpad.

 

[kid1230]

Now that's something new.

they do this every year....... ios 17 will be bug fixes only and here we are c:

 

[DownUnderDan]

This is a good move.

It doesn’t cost anything other than time to fix software.

The people it upsets internally are the marketing and executive teams. The first want to keep the cash cow of yearly updates to hardware and software going and the latter have their bonuses linked to the same outcome.

 

[macfacts]

Honest question because I do not know this answer. How many large companies do that?

All OS manufacturers do that, except for apple because of secrecy.

Android Bug tracker

 

[mansplains]

And maybe... now this is a crazy idea... separate more apps from the operating system? Should mail be OS level? or Contacts? Minor updates for these apps could happen anytime.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

And maybe... now this is a crazy idea... separate more apps from the operating system? Should mail be OS level? or Contacts? Minor updates for these apps could happen anytime.

Contacts yeah should be. Mail though along with Safari should not be IMO.

 

[seek3r]

Snow Leopard was loaded with new features. OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch, these were not 'tiny things' but major core upgrades.

I should have said “under the hood improvements” maybe, it wasnt focused on consumer features, those were developer and system level additions

 

[zakarhino]

what phone? Want to know if I should be on the 👀

14 Pro Max running iOS 17

 

[mansplains]

Contacts yeah should be. Mail though along with Safari should not be IMO.

I would agree in some ways, but there are a couple quick reasons I'd say separate. First off, you can change your default mail client. Also, mail is used highly, it should receive updates more often. I don't like gmail but it has the flexibility of adding new features on a whim.

If not separate from OS releases, have some other update pipeline like Safari through settings, or the appstore.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

I would agree in some ways, but there are a couple quick reasons I'd say separate. First off, you can change your default mail client. Also, mail is used highly, it should receive updates more often. I don't like gmail but it has the flexibility of adding new features on a whim.

I realized my reply was confusing a bit.

I think Mail and Safari should be separate apps and get frequent updates. Contacts I think can remain linked to the OS.

 

[TinyMito]

Thank you, I prefer quality software than pushing bugged features.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Thank you, I prefer quality software than pushing bugged features.

You'll get both!

 

[PlaidHatter]

You’d think they are big enough to have two separate teams, one focused on fixing things and another one developing new things?

I'm sure they do have a sustaining team. But this article says that essentially all developers switched gears to tackle bugs for a week.

 

[pappl]

Apples own forum is full of articles of bugs, which aren‘t fixed for YEARS!

I doubt one week will change anything, the current software development system is questionable imho.

 

[Manzanito]

For better or worse (I think worse) the iPhone-buying public has now been conditioned to expect a new OS and a new iPhone every year. What they've been doing lately is deliberately holding back unfinished parts of that new OS release, and I for one am quite fine with that. Nothing worse than a shiny new feature that doesn't work, or breaks bad enough to make other things not work.

I really don’t mind iOS, it’s macOS I wish would take two or three years between releases.

 

[BKDad]

I think the way Microsoft did it at one time is that they split it so that one would be working on new features for the release, and the other team would be working on fixing bugs from the features they worked on the previous release. Not sure how well that would work here, but just having one team always working on features and the other on just fixing bugs is not a good way to go.

I have no idea how Apple does this.

But, one approach I have seen that works is something like this. Made up Apple example used here, not the ones at the company I worked for. (Which nobody would have any background on.)

~~~

Apple Mail - Three year cycle of major revisions. The same team would work on Mail for the entire cycle, including bug fixes. At some point around maybe the end of year one, a new group would start working on the next revision version of Mail. As the earlier version's work winds up to better and better code, more of this group would transition to the next revision.

~~~

I've been told that a lot of software developers at large companies don't like fixing bugs. No glory and excitement in that. They'd rather move on to the latest and mostest. So, they do. Often, the bug fixers are developers who are considered second tier and are treated that way. Is that a good solution?

To be fair, an awful lot of the customer base is focused on the new. How many would rather have new emojis or a slightly different UI than have more reliable software?

 

[BKDad]

I really don’t mind iOS, it’s macOS I wish would take two or three years between releases.

Apple makes money on hardware, as we all know. Nuthin on os upgrades.

So, I really have to wonder how their sales would be affected if Apple just made an upgrade to Ventura (as an example) when new hardware was released instead of focusing on a new operating system every fall.

What's the strategy here?

 

[mrmister]

I know they can’t just stop releasing new OSes but I would be totally fine with a Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion style release for everything next year. Call it Mac OS “Apple Park” because you’re gonna park your ass in your chair and make all this stuff run perfectly instead of going ok goofy ass trips

I doubt they would do it, but this is actually a great idea for the branding.

 

[spartan1967]

FYI to those unaware, the next time software from any company has zero bugs will be the first time in history a software release has zero bugs.

You're comparing Apple to oranges (no pun intended). iOS 17 as it stands today is terrible & robs people of their full investment & full enjoyment with the hundreds of dollars they gave for the iPhone 15. There is no excuse for this with a trillion dollar company that has more than enough capital to have a team to smash all of these bugs from-the-beginning.

 

[Sippincider]

A one-week scramble to fix quality issues and bugs... sounds like a great way to introduce quality issues and bugs!

As we all know this has been brewing for years. Have a hard time seeing it getting appreciably fixed in a single week. This needs to be a long-term effort that goes to Apple's DNA.

 

[BKDad]

I know they can’t just stop releasing new OSes but I would be totally fine with a Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion style release for everything next year. Call it Mac OS “Apple Park” because you’re gonna park your ass in your chair and make all this stuff run perfectly instead of going ok goofy ass trips

Ahh! Sonoma Leopard! I'd be great with that.

 

[ignatius345]

Apple makes money on hardware, as we all know. Nuthin on os upgrades.

So, I really have to wonder how their sales would be affected if Apple just made an upgrade to Ventura (as an example) when new hardware was released instead of focusing on a new operating system every fall.

What's the strategy here?

More and more though, macOS features are working in tandem with iOS features — and iOS seems to be driven by the yearly introduction of new iPhones.

I do think OS updates drive hardware sales because they tend to make older machines a little slower over time, and drum up interest in new hardware.

 

[Jony Ive and Co.]

2 year software cycles, please.

No way. The current more-than-a-year update cycles for iPad and Macs are already too long. Everything should have annual updates.

 

[chrono1081]

Yes please. The last bug fix release was I think iOS 13. They're well overdue for some bug squashing. Apple is becoming "It sometimes works".