That's nostalgia speaking.
Do you have data on failure rates out of the box?
BTW, I remember the Macintosh O/S of the past. It has problems.
I remember when OSX was a new thing, it had problems.
MacBooks were notorious for issues - Butterfly keyboard anyone?
It's not nostalgia speaking at all. I don't have time to list off all of the major bugs, security issues, etc. , etc. , etc. that Apple releases in every single release these days (for a while now). Sorry, this forum isn't my life and I just don't have the time to make a list.
And yes, you're correct. All software will have bugs in it, it's the nature of the game. Older OSX versions did have some issues, however none - at least that I can recall - just kept having bugs and security issues, release after release after release. With each one, just piling on more and more of the "bad stuff" while not really making any strides forward.
You said "I remember when OSX was a new thing, it had problems."
...At this point, "macOS" is definitely
not new. It has been here for far too long to be so buggy and inconsistant and just plain stale.
Damn, as I'm writing this in Safari, I'm encountering a
new bug just right now.
Super annoying(!!!). The window is staying focused and I'm unable to type without tabbing out of the app and back in, which then only does the last action such as pasting and then freezes until I tab out again. Wow.
So yes, talk about bugs - ABSOLUTELY!
What have we really gotten out of the last few major macOS releases? Apple Intelligence? If so, I'm not even counting that. And, I can't really recall any mind-blowing features that have come out in any of the past few/many macOS system versions.
It used to be a VERY exciting day when the next big major Mac OS version came out. I actually remember huge lines at the stores to pickup the systems in a retail box. That's how much of a big deal it was. Major features were in each release.
Now - when Sonoma came out, what did you look forward to, and did it satisfy you when you installed it in some major way? Surely not for me.
And for me, it was the same for Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia and I'm sure whatever tree comes next. Nothing exciting anymore, just bugs and security issues. And more bugs.
Hardware-wise, yes like you said there will always be at least some issue with a ridiculously complex piece of hardware. And I did say that I give Apple a big credit for the whole Apple Silicon lineup, and I own a few of them. And I definitely am not going to just make things up or argue for the sake of it (
especially since I have to keep tabbing out of Safari now to paste anything or change windows - which will hopefully fix itself when I quit, but I have to finish typing this! Annoying bug!). So I'll agree that right now, at least with the hardware that I have, things are pretty good. But I'd sure love a PowerMac tower that wasn't $20k+. I've always had towers with massive expansion via PCI and graphics cards that I could choose, etc. But that's impossible now. Even with thunderbolt 5 and an external PCI chasis, there's not really much that I can do with that. GPUs won't work in there, which limit many other things as I mentioned besides games. AI acceleration would be nice to play with, but that's not doable unless I get a very expensive Studio. But I loved the power of the Towers, the expansion options were ideal for my usage. Now, that is obsolete, which has nothing to do with the form factor - I'd actually be ok with even a mini or cheaper Studio and a PCI chasis,
IF it was able to actually do anything useful other than support a very (very) few PCI cards that aren't of use to me.
Apple as a whole, is just broken. I don't know how you and others don't see it. Look at the marketing debacles (scandals?) they've done with the iPhone 16 and magic Apple Intelligence (I don't own a 16, but am rooting for a class action on that one, it is well deserved). Apple Intelligence = NOT intelligent at all, basically just a poorly written Grammarly that barely works and never produces anything useful. They're SO far behind in that space. And so many others - zero communication between departments, or purely just carelessness.
I don't know if it's a hiring problem with younger generations that are just not learning proper development flows and techniques and implementing testing, or if it is even deeper than that. No idea at all. All I know is that Apple is sliding down a hill, and fast.
Ok, I already spent way too much time writing this. And I'm genuinely curious how many others agree or disagree with my post? Please thumb up or down, I truly am wondering what the general visitor on MacRumors these days feels.
...and I'm not kidding. This new bug I just ran into while writing this post is insane. I'd quit and come back but I can't even copy the text from this field. Even CMD-Tabbing out and back only does so much, and applies the last command or thing I typed. So I'm deducting another massive chunk from the already abismal rating that I already have given them. Super, super annoying. Is anyone else running into this?