Apple must stop updating OS X annually!!!

[aevan]

Every once in a while someone comes to these forums claiming that "Apple has abandoned professionals" and that "the quality of their products is dropping". Nothing new. If you disagree, that must mean you're not "pro" enough or that you're a blind sheep.

I remember when the iMac 5K came out (after a year and a half it still brings a smile to my face when I use mine), people here were horrified that it didn't have a 10-bit display - because you cannot have a pro-level device without it. Never mind the 5K resolution, photo alignment, laminated display and (in later models) DCI-P3 color gamut, no - none of that matters without that 10-bit screen (in a funny twist, later it turned out the iMac 5K in fact has a 10-bit display, so I guess now it's 'pro' though I didn't notice anyone posting about that). When the iPad Pro came out, it automatically became a "toy" because it's screen couldn't be calibrated. Never mind the industry changing stylus that is better than Wacom. Just let that sink in - better than Wacom. No. It was a toy. And so on, and so on.

Same with OS X/macOS. Suddenly, it's buggy and unstable and Tim Cook sucks, but at the same time there are not enough new features, etc. Look - to the OP - I'm sure you can find some data that explains how there were less bugs in Leopard (I think you posted some here). Ok, fine. But, how many new features has OS X introduced since then? Did you ever stop to think that iterrative, year-over-year upgrades are good for productivity and that bug count is not the only metric that measures quality?

1. First of all, the annual cycle is just branding. They could still call this OS X "Yosemite" and present all the upgrades from El Capitan and Sierra as 10.10.x releases. They did that with pre 10.7 as well, this is just a naming scheme.
2. Mac OS is all about iterative improvements. They don't overhaul the entire system each year, they refine it. If they do have more bugs today, I don't think it has to do with the way they name their system updates each year.
3. Apple keeps adding useful features. Perhaps you don't need them and would rather have Apple just do bug fixing. I'm sure that would make your life as a developer easier. That's fine. But you're acting like everyone is the same as you - there are people who actually use these new features.

All I know is that now I'll be able to take my iPad Pro, open Procreate and take my Pencil and have the best tool I have ever tried (and I tried a lot) for art, then take the thing I'm working on, select it, copy it, paste it directly into Photoshop thanks to Sierra and continue editing there, while using Siri to find my files and enjoying the most beautiful OS interface (personal opinion) and still have far less crashes or bugs than on ANY Windows machine I have tried.

I just love El Capitan, I'm sure I'll love Sierra and I can't wait to see what new improvements the next macOS will bring in 2017. You know why? Because, so far, the changes help me do my professional work. You don't have to agree, and I respect your views. But some of us just love how Mac OS is doing. The fact is - I don't want OS X Snow Leopard. I want macOS Sierra.

 

[maflynn]

First of all, the annual cycle is just branding.

Correct, and I think at the very least my contention (and some others) is that marketing was driving the dates and not the developers. Last year (or the year before) there was an article/blog that got some legs. An ex apple developer slammed Apple and Federighi for imposing an annual cycle which was killing the quality. I tried digging that article out and if I find it, I'll link to this thread.

Mac OS is all about iterative improvements.

Indeed, and I think because of the annual update cycle we are seeing smaller incremental updates. An argument can be made that at this time in the life span of desktop computers and operating systems, there's not much major improvements to be made.

Apple keeps adding useful features.

Some can be categorized as useful, others are questionable, YMMV

and still have far less crashes or bugs than on ANY Windows machine I have tried.

Not for nothing, but Windows has come a long way and I can't recall the last time its crashed. I've been rocking with a windows 7 machine in the office and I have windows 10 at home, in fact I booted up my iMac this morning into windows and that's what I have.

 

[smacrumon]

I'm not too fussed about the timeline, but more fussed about product integrity.

Releases can be annual, but the final version must be solid. My view is that recent MacOS' haven't been as solid as older versions.

My view is that too many features are being packed in, but not enough time is dedicated to resolving them. So either 1.5 year releases or 1 year releases with less features and more solid.

How is it that I can update my MacOS and it essentially it destroys the usability of spotlight search -- can't find anything. Spotlight on older MacOS versions worked so well and were zippy fast.

 

[maflynn]

My view is that recent MacOS' haven't been as solid as older versions.

To play the devil's advocate, let me say nearly every major release of OS X had people complaining about the bugs and how they were not wanting to upgrade. It doesn't matter if we're talking, Snow Leopard, Tiger, or Lion. There was a lot of consternation here over how Apple rolled out a product that had issues.

The concern I have (and I'm not saying its valid), is this: Does the annual cycle mean some bugs never get addressed, because they move on to new updates, and versions that require more immediate attention? I hope not, and because Sierra is running on the Yosemite code base, I'm thinking that may not be the case, but I can't help but think that concept has some validity.

 

[steve62388]

Not for nothing, but Windows has come a long way and I can't recall the last time its crashed. I've been rocking with a windows 7 machine in the office and I have windows 10 at home, in fact I booted up my iMac this morning into windows and that's what I have.

I agree. Windows has been very stable since Vista. I think people have long memories and don't update their prejudices.

(Note to other posters: Don't rag on about Vista, that's not the topic of this thread. People forget that Windows 7 was based on Vista, and everybody loves Win7. Vista lost the marketing battle and could never regain the ground. UAC was still present in Win7).

 

[MacGizmo]

Here's my take on pretty much all of Apple's OS updates:

There are millions upon millions of Mac users who have updated, and hundreds upon vocal hundreds complaining about bugs.

My favorite "bug" that appears in every OS release: "the Safari crashing bug"

 

[aevan]

I agree. Windows has been very stable since Vista. I think people have long memories and don't update their prejudices.

(Note to other posters: Don't rag on about Vista, that's not the topic of this thread. People forget that Windows 7 was based on Vista, and everybody loves Win7. Vista lost the marketing battle and could never regain the ground. UAC was still present in Win7).

Crashes, maybe. But I use Windows 10 on several computers and while it's not bad, it still lags behind Mac OS. I have unexplained slowdowns (my favorite is when I right click in a folder and wait around 30 seconds to get the menu first time I click - this happens on several computers, including a modern SSD i7 computer). And not to mention all the issues with apps on hidpi screens.

But look, I'm not saying it's that bad - my point is that in no way is Windows better than Mac OS when it comes to bugs, crashes and issues. In my experience it's worse, but YMMV. And Windows is not on an annual cycle.

Also, every OS has several deadlines, I think this whole "annual release thing" is just more visible to the rest of us than internal deadlines and expectations. For example, Microsoft may not follow annual cycles for Windows, but they probably have the same problems because of various other deadlines (Office, Xbox, services integration, etc).

No software is ever complete or bug free, but good companies organize their milestones and deadlines in such a way to create good products. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think the annual cycle is the culprit for anything. If Mac OS does have more bugs than before (I don't think it does, but even if it is so) it's because of the growing complexity of the system. If that is the reason, there would be no major quality change if they released 2 versions worth of features in 2 years instead of doing in annualy. What you want is less new features, not changing the cycle. And, as I said, these features are important to some.

Either way, Apple and Mac OS are far from perfect, but the idea that somehow they are worse now than before is more a thing of perception than reality, in my opinion. I'd argue we're enjoying Apple at its best, but that's just me.

 

[steve62388]

Crashes, maybe. But I use Windows 10 on several computers and while it's not bad, it still lags behind Mac OS. I have unexplained slowdowns (my favorite is when I right click in a folder and wait around 30 seconds to get the menu first time I click - this happens on several computers, including a modern SSD i7 computer). And not to mention all the issues with apps on hidpi screens.

But look, I'm not saying it's that bad - my point is that in no way is Windows better than Mac OS when it comes to bugs, crashes and issues. In my experience it's worse, but YMMV. And Windows is not on an annual cycle.

Also, every OS has several deadlines, I think this whole "annual release thing" is just more visible to the rest of us than internal deadlines and expectations. For example, Microsoft may not follow annual cycles for Windows, but they probably have the same problems because of various other deadlines (Office, Xbox, services integration, etc).

No software is ever complete or bug free, but good companies organize their milestones and deadlines in such a way to create good products. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think the annual cycle is the culprit for anything. If Mac OS does have more bugs than before (I don't think it does, but even if it is so) it's because of the growing complexity of the system. If that is the reason, there would be no major quality change if they released 2 versions worth of features in 2 years instead of doing in annualy. What you want is less new features, not changing the cycle. And, as I said, these features are important to some.

Either way, Apple and Mac OS are far from perfect, but the idea that somehow they are worse now than before is more a thing of perception than reality, in my opinion. I'd argue we're enjoying Apple at its best, but that's just me.

I totally agree and you wrote very eloquently.

 

[aevan]

I totally agree and you wrote very eloquently.

Thanks!

 

[squarebreathing]

I'm going to have to say that I love the "new" annual release cycle.

When I was younger in the early 2000's, I purchased a Power Mac with Cheetah on it (ughhhh) and really didn't care for it so I returned it and picked up a Windows XP machine. While that OS and Computer lasted me about 8 years, I would see on tech sites that every Mac OS upgrade was hundreds of dollars. Financially I was very thankful for going with Windows XP, especially when the Power PC/Intel switch happened.

Fast Forward to 2009 and the Macbook Pro refresh and the announcement that Snow Leopard was only $29. This was a huge reason for my switch. I am even happier now that the OS is free. It's a huge motivating factor to never go back to Windows with their weird pricing schemes.

Overpriced Operating Systems are a thing of the past and for good reason.

 

[grahamperrin]

… Does the annual cycle mean some bugs never get addressed, because they move on to new updates, and versions that require more immediate attention? …

Not quite. I'd like to explain further, but (with respect to confidentiality etc.) I shouldn't go too far. It's fair to say that some things are exceptional.

 

[maflynn]

Not quite. I'd like to explain further, but (with respect to confidentiality etc.) I shouldn't go too far. It's fair to say that some things are exceptional.

I have no idea what you mean by this post. Sorry, perhaps its because I've not had my full compliment of coffee but how does "some things are exceptional" come into what I was saying about bugs not getting addressed in lieu of rolling out the next major version of OS X/mac OS?

 

[grahamperrin]

In winter 2016 I was invited to feed back about some of the bugs that I reported before the autumn 2014 release of Yosemite.

… Does the annual cycle mean some bugs never get addressed, …

Neither addressing, nor reporting, was associated with a periodic cycle.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

In winter 2016 I was invited to feed back about some of the bugs that I reported before the autumn 2014 release of Yosemite.

Are you a time traveller?

 

[Feenician]

Are you a time traveller?

It's astonishing to me that an ostensible adult would not be aware of the differences between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. (Though it may also have been a typo)

 

[Takuro]

{Deleted, moved to own thread}

 

[dsjr2006]

Are you a time traveller?

I'm confused as why one would need to be a time traveler?

 

[32828870]

Just revisited this site/thread after a few days; I didn’t expect such a [welcomed] discussion. I noticed the poll changed from a few days ago; most preferred pre-10.7 and now it's about split down the middle. That seems a fair representation based on the general thread comments . Personally, OS X 10.6.8 still remains my favourite pre-10.7 OS X release with macOS 10.12 beta so far the best post-10.6 release. I’ve been impressed with it thus far; the first beta was fairly solid.


It seems many of us agree on one factor: Apple's success and multitude of Mac products since the Intel switch and iPhone have been challenging for development. Admittedly, during the PowerPPC years there were less Mac’s with customizable options that required intense debugging. Now OS X development has to account for a plethora of Mac’s with many different hardware components. I'm just glad Apple hasn't ditched OS X (macOS) and hope it only gets better (don't switch to ARM processors, please, stay with Intel now that they've - hopefully - worked out their processor release cycle).


PS does anyone know why macOS Beta 4 Safari and Safari Technology Preview won’t spell and grammar check? I have to copy and paste posts in TextEdit to check before posting just in case. Lol

 

[cyman83]

I'm confused as why one would need to be a time traveler?

He said winter 2016.

 

[Feenician]

He said winter 2016.

It's astonishing to me that an ostensible adult would not be aware of the differences between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere

 

[grahamperrin]

OK, in winter 2016 in the UK (northern hemisphere) I was invited to feed back about some of the bugs that I reported before the autumn 2014 release of Yosemite. I can't be specific about the 2014 dates because the Mac that's available to me can not access the encrypted sparse bundle disk image where I archived my AppleSeed content. As I can't be specific about the 2014 dates, there was not much point in being specific about the 2016 dates but since the previous lack of specifity raised questions about people's understandings of hemispheres: the 2016 dates were in February.

tl;dr periods of more than eighteen months.

 

[Transeau]

Where is the poll option for "Every Quarter"? As much as I hate Facebook, Their app release cycle is great. Every month a new version with more bug fixes and maybe a new feature.

 

[DaveOP]

Where is the poll option for "Every Quarter"? As much as I hate Facebook, Their app release cycle is great. Every month a new version with more bug fixes and maybe a new feature.

Apple already does exactly this. 6 updates from September of last year, to July of this year. Some of these releases were 1-2 months apart.

 

[grahamperrin]

… Some of these releases were 1-2 months apart.

The 'release cycle' in the opening post refers to more significant changes to the operating system.

For example: 10.6.x to 10.7, or 10.10.x to 10.11.

 

[maflynn]

Apple already does exactly this. 6 updates from September of last year, to July of this year. Some of these releases were 1-2 months apart.

We're not talking about updates, but upgrades, i.e., Yosemite to El Cap, to Sierra, which is on an annual cycle.

Yes, Apple continually rolls out updates, which is a good thing, as they work on bug fixes, but those updates rarely have major features as those are left for the upgrades.