Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Reportedly Overhauling Its Software Development Process Following Buggy Release of iOS 13
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yeah because Scott never released buggy software. What a negative person you are. Don't you have anything constructive or meaningful to say about this article besides sticking it to Apple? It must be so much fun being your friend or wife...
Microsoft rolls out Windows feature updates on a 6-month cadence with no specific criteria on what goes in... until things are ready. There is absolutely no need to rewrite the entire OS every single year; on the other hand, even if they don't rewrite the source code for the lower-level OS services and subsystem, or the components already built several years ago, everything still needs to be vetted properly. What's abundantly clear is that's not being done.
I don’t. I’d rather have new features and I’m prepared to accept a less stable system because of it.Fair enough. However, I remember showing a friend the iOS 12 beta and they reaction was, "It doesn't really seem different". That didn't make them switch their iPhones though. I believe users want stability over features any day of the week.
Because beancounter-Timmy doesn't know what a computer is or why anyone would buy one. He doesn't understand their products at all so it took a very long time for him to get the message, and the company takes direction from him.
Don't forget, he's the "genius" who recently said that nobody needs CS degrees when you can teach someone to code in a month. He doesn't understand anything about tech, so things had to get really bad before he could see anything wrong.
What makes Apple method inefficient? Because the way I see it... no other company has been able to match it? Windows... is out of the phone business (albiet making a come back), Blackberry... non-existent, Palm Pre.. came and went. There's Android, but there update systems have been disorganized.
It's been like clockwork for Apple.. every Summer, there's a new software announcement, every Fall.. the update is released. Why break something that's been working? iOS 13 has been buggy? True. But Apple has been working to fix it through these minor updates...
I wrote a post in the Mac Pro forum questioning how Phil Schiller (and his org) seems to always be let off the hook. Seems to me the software release cycle at Apple is absolutely driven by marketing. Driven by the need to have a big reveal at WWDC and again in the fall when new phones are announced. That’s a problem as it forces the software teams to announce and release things before they’re ready.
You should be able to run developer/public betas, but it doesn't change the fact that golden releases should be as stable as humanly possible even if it's not fully loaded with every possible new feature.
Remember "It just works"? Apple made it to where they are by providing good clean solutions that always worked flawlessly and easily. It didn't matter that they were behind a generation or two on power and features because what they did worked so well.
We used to make fun of Windows because it was so much harder to maintain.
Now you want Apple to release buggy code that takes a lot more effort on the part of the user and offers less stability? That would be throwing away the company's main advantage.
Frequent massive updates increases the likelyhood of ****** releases. Be careful what you wish for!
Riiiiight.... Scott’s the guy who released Apple Maps 1.0 in completely not ready for prime time mode and then refused to apologize and take some ownership in the debacle. He’s also a wannabe Steve Jobs mini me who was in love w/ skeuphomorphism. No thanks. I prefer a person who can actually advance the platform and get stuff properly released and who has the integrity to own up to mistakes.
I think people are forgetting that a company that is the size of Apple is really difficult to manage. They grew exponentially, which will involve more people. More people means more difficult to organize.
We demand more features and more products. Competitors like Microsoft and Google are also developing competing products and features. How do you develop hundreds of new features while working on the next generation OS and test them all and expect no bugs?
I don't think any company has the answer to that question yet.
Some comments I saw suggest TDD. I'm sure Apple is using some form of unit testing as this has been industry standard since the 90s; Otherwise iOS and MacOS would have fallen apart many years ago.
The problem is that unit testing cannot tests all aspects of the application such as user interface. There are also edge cases that are hard to catch which perhaps the developer or team may not have thought of during testing.
This is what makes large scale software development so difficult. There are so many pieces of that one software that different people are working on and at the end they need to glue it together to make it work without bugs.
I would not go as far to say that I would prefer new features over stability. I can't fathom paying thousands of dollars for a phone or computer that doesn't work when I need it most. I would prefer they delay some features in favour of stability.
But to solve this problem, I think there needs to be some innovation in software development as an industry because this problem will plague every tech company once it grows to a certain size.
We demand more features and more products. Competitors like Microsoft and Google are also developing competing products and features. How do you develop hundreds of new features while working on the next generation OS and test them all and expect no bugs?
I don't think any company has the answer to that question yet.
Some comments I saw suggest TDD. I'm sure Apple is using some form of unit testing as this has been industry standard since the 90s; Otherwise iOS and MacOS would have fallen apart many years ago.
The problem is that unit testing cannot tests all aspects of the application such as user interface. There are also edge cases that are hard to catch which perhaps the developer or team may not have thought of during testing.
This is what makes large scale software development so difficult. There are so many pieces of that one software that different people are working on and at the end they need to glue it together to make it work without bugs.
I would not go as far to say that I would prefer new features over stability. I can't fathom paying thousands of dollars for a phone or computer that doesn't work when I need it most. I would prefer they delay some features in favour of stability.
But to solve this problem, I think there needs to be some innovation in software development as an industry because this problem will plague every tech company once it grows to a certain size.
I'm glad he got rid of him. We don't need the stupid, "You can tell it's a note app because it looks like an actual note" BS.
All those Apple "Fanboys" don't want to read this article! To them this is the BEST OS to date from Apple. Guess the truth hurts. IOS 13 has been a complete sh{#show and looks like it will continue for another 7+ months.
Also, WHY WAIT for IOS 14 to implement these testing strategies??!? Apple, haven't you put your users through enough BS with IOS13? If you were actually serious, the change would happen TODAY!
And to the gentleman above DEFENDING apple because it is such a "Big" company? Cmon man......... enough already
Also, WHY WAIT for IOS 14 to implement these testing strategies??!? Apple, haven't you put your users through enough BS with IOS13? If you were actually serious, the change would happen TODAY!
And to the gentleman above DEFENDING apple because it is such a "Big" company? Cmon man......... enough already
Just what are all those AAPL software engineers doing in there comfy spaceship?
Seems to me with a vast army of engineers and testers AAPL should not have buggy software released
Well I give them credit for realizing they need to make changes in procedures and hopefully the better for all of us users
Seems to me with a vast army of engineers and testers AAPL should not have buggy software released
Well I give them credit for realizing they need to make changes in procedures and hopefully the better for all of us users
I'd be very happy with a non yearly update and more to an update as needed model. I would imagine that would result in a much better experience for all.
Apparat from the os changes that needs to be done to accommodate next years (almost certain) 5G modem inclusion, but jea basicly I agree with you
I was thinking the same darn thing. IMO, many of the flaws of current software is due to a generation believing that MVP is good enough. ("Release now. We can fix it in the update.")
OS X development has been a disaster for ages. Remember when they announced Snow Leopard? Or had to scrap the iPhotos app, or re-wrote iMovie in a way that wasn't even fully backwards compatible? Apple has always been about marketing, lick-ability, and smoothness. Often Apple will compensate poorly written software with over-spec'd hardware (e.g. check out how well an HDD works to boot OS X).
Naturally, but possibly not everywhere. Microsoft revamped their development process following the Vista debacle, and while they're heavily invested in testing, not only are some things not written test-first, I've heard that some (very) legacy configs don't even have tests.
Amazing what happens when their sales start to drop huh?
Especially for macOS this is true. Apple please stop torturing us with mew Emoji, Animoji and XYmode releases. I don't care about your "now with 64bit only - your old software doesn't work anymore" approach. I don't want to be forced to notarize apps - by the way does this mean any application used by HongKong demonstrates won't be notarized?
Just make a rock solid OS. If you want 64Bit only for whatever reason give users the possibility to keep using 32Bit Software using container technology. A solid update every three years is enough.
Don’t worry, we’ll all be using cloud-based OSes in a few years. Pay your subscription fee and access the delicious dog food. The Future — yum yum.
Other than the Mail issues, what other problems are people having with Catalina?
This just reinforces my belief that they need to separate all apps from the OS so problems with apps like Mail don't give the OS a bad rap.
Yup, Mojave has been fantastic for me.