Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi Discuss Bloated Software Accusations, Upcoming iTunes Plans

[JJayguy23]

iTunes sucks. It is so sluggish. Compare it to an app like Spotify. It's comically bad on modern software. Spotify is so refreshingly quick.

 

[jonnysods]

I love Craig he seems like a fun guy and likes to try stuff.

What I'd really like them to try is to not make iTunes such a piggy. Also it's a lot less intuitive than it used to be. I know that's hard when you're selling apps and media content in a one stop location. But they have lost the ability for anyone to pick up their stuff and quickly figure out how to use it, anyone else noticed that? That's what I sold so many people on Macs for, ease of use. Trying to get content on your phone is alright for me, but for my 70 year old dad? iTunes is like hieroglyphics.

 

[MH01]

easy lads, the formula is there, fire up iTunes 9. That just worked.

Now fire up iTunes 10 with Ping and you will see where it all started going wrong.

I'd be happy with a separate music app that did exactly what iTunes 9 did.
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iTunes sucks. It is so sluggish. Compare it to an app like Spotify. It's comically bad on modern software. Spotify is so refreshingly quick.

I just got a 3 month trial for £1 on Spotify and was surprised how good and refreshing the interface was. It's simple

iTunes needs the bloat gone , or be broken down into separate functions.

 

[scottsjack]

I preferred the iTunes of several generations ago when it had the old icon. It seemed more "Mac-like" and was easier to use. I don't stream or use iCloud preferring to buy higher-quality music from HDtracks or CDs from Amazon. For movies either cheepie, used drugstore DVDs or Blu-rays from Amazon are better, more flexible and often cheaper than Apples' versions. I don't store non-Apple sourced movies in iTunes. Why pack up it up with countless huge files?

 

[wilsonlaidlaw]

Current iTunes is horrible compared with the excellent earlier versions. HD Movies seem to have endless DRM issues, which change with every update to OSX 10.11. Please give us back the very useful sidebar not the emasculated one you can get with playlists. Remember the very useful maxim: If it ain't broke - don't fix it!

OSX El Capitan has intermittent networking problems and other Macs on the network sometimes just vanish. Strangely I can usually get them back by switching from the Apple 5gHz wireless network to my Draytek wireless network. Time Machine falls over about once a month and corrupts the sparse bundle - you just know this is going to happen when it is vital to access a back up. Microsoft Office apps now crash regularly and I gather MS is tearing their hair out trying to get them stable on 10.11.X Jump Remote Desktop which used to be 100% stable now crashes regularly.

I would agree with Craig Federighi, Apple have taken their eye off the ball on OSX and concentrate too much on iOS and updating phones every 6 months.

 

[JDW]

I listened to the entire interview and wasn't impressed. John Gruber is not daring in his interview questions, and they are utter lacking in fire. I remember his video interview with Phil Schiller and it was about the same. No hard hitting questions at all. They're all softballs, and when the replies come (standard Apple replies that even you or me could offer up for what we know about Apple as outsiders), Gruber doesn't really press the issue and moves on to the next question.

With that said, I've always liked Federighi. His fun personality, wit, humor and manner is more like a regular person than a mind-controlled, our-lawyers-will-kill-you-if-you-give-out-usable-info Apple guy. Even though neither he or "beat around the bush" Cue offered up much useful info, Federighi was far more detailed in his answers than Cue. Cue just sits there with a sheepish grin conjuring up every positive adjective his bulging brain can muster, all the while ending up saying next to nothing at all. Most Apple guys are trained in Doublespeak, but Cue understands it especially well.

If I were interviewing Apple, I would have kept asking the questions over and over until I got a decent answer that provided real info. To reply with "We love our customers and are always making our stuff better" is expected from the mouth of "I hate to give a straight answer" Apple, but the bottom line is that such stupid remarks dodge the question rather than answering it. If I were interviewing them about software bloat, for example, I would wait until they gave me their standard verbal dodge, then I would whip out an older iPad3 and the iPad Pro, both running iOS9, then show how they compare. The Pro should win, and it would, and the iPad3 would be really, really slow in comparison. Then I'd whip out another iPad3 running iOS6 and show them how fast it is, rivaling the iPad Pro in many UI operations. It would be the same iPad3 hardware, but a night-and-day performance difference caused only by the iOS version. That would be an in-your-face example that no Apple guy could effectively escape from. iOS 6 is much faster on the iPad3 than iOS9, even though Apple praises iOS9 endlessly on all compatible devices despite the bloat that slows it down on older devices. Could Apple come out with an iOS9 that runs fast on older hardware (as fast as iOS6 runs)? I think so, yes. But it would take more time and effort, which Apple doesn't want to do. They'd try their best never to admit that in public, but as someone interviewing them, I'd try my darndest to get them to admit that truth. And an iPad3 side-by-side would force them to say something. Why pressure Apple? Because you can't solve a problem until you admit it's there. Apple is turing a blind eye to it willingly. I love Apple and their products. I only state this truth because their products could be so much better. They may still worship the memory of Steve Jobs, but the fact Jobs is no longer at Apple physically eliminates the much needed PRESSURE that was once on them in the past.

I think Apple keeps giving Gruber these interviews because they know he won't ask hard questions, and when Apple gives their lackluster answer, he'll just back off and move to the next question. Overall, that interview was more of a waste of time than anything truly informative. And all the while, AAPL keeps going down, iTunes stays fat and bloated, and no earth-shattering innovation comes out of Cupertino, except perhaps for their spaceship building, which is shelter, not a product. I can't help but feel depressed.

 

[alexgowers]

I seriously think apple has put music in the back seat, all apple music playing software has become a joke.

iOS is the worst music app ever written! iTunes is just plain weird, has multiple weird ways to stream and download and move music over to your iOS device and is just a shambles.

I really feel like apple should just start from scratch with their idea of music and do it again cos they f'd up.

You music and the files you choose to sync should be a different app to apple music. I don't like this approach but i feel apple has lost it's intuitive way with differentiating the two, they just stink right now, one tab in iOS to play your own music but 4 for things that you need a subscription to use!!!!!!! WTF?

Playing just a genre of music in iOS is not simple, you have to click the picture of the genre not the genre? who thought that would work?

I have a list that is so long as to why apple needs to realise they are making crap apps right now.

They took the wrong route with so many things recently software wise it's hard to believe it's actually apple we are talking about.

The only app that is pretty good right now was the one they were slated for... Maps. it's actually pretty good and intuitive and works well now. Every other app has suffered so badly from the deskeuromorification (not a word) of iOS and OS X.

I was glad to see the felt and metals and glass go but damn i miss LABELS under things and ICONS that make some kind of pictorial sense. I hope there are plans to improve all these failed designs but i fear apple already thinks they're great.

 

[WaxedJacket]

To me iTunes as a music organizer is still one of my favorites. I only use it for that and syncing with my iPhone. So it's not as daunting as Mossberg makes it out to be. I do feel they need to spilt up some of the tacked on features into separate apps. I'd be fine with a dedicated iDevice syncing app.

 

[thekeyring]

Doesn't excuse the dumbass decisions Cook has made such as buying Beats or firing Scott Forstall. Apple has changed its ethos, they're more concerned about market share than making great products. It's more about quantity than quality as well as trying to do much instead of focusing on improving the core products while introducing meaningful additions. In particular, the iPhone and iPad lines have definitely seen the most bloating. The Mac line isn't too far behind but the entire lineup needs some major streamlining. That was one of the first things Jobs did when he returned to Apple: he cleaned up the product lineup but now under Cook, it's back to the fairly bloated mess of the 90s. You know Apple is in trouble quality-wise when they have too many products being sold. That's because you have a CEO who cares more about profits than upholding Steve's standards.

You've no idea what you're talking about. "Back to the bloated mess of the 90s"? There were dozens of models and no clear reason why you should spend more money and pick one over the other. Now we have clearly distinct product.

Buying Beats was hardly a "dumbass decision" - they've built a streaming service and have a large chunk of the music industry on side because of the Beats founders connections.

Steve Jobs said that Apple had got into trouble because it had not tried to expand its market share enough, and now you're saying that Tim Cook wanting to ensure good market share is wrong? It's hardly as if Tim Cook's Apple has started selling iOS to third-party vendors to increase market share, or lowered their prices to make the iPhone "cheap".
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IOS and OSX pops up a message asking to update every friggin day until you finally pull out your last hair and say, "ok." So yah, everybody is on the latest software. I actually purchased a snow leopard machine a few months ago and using it is like heaven. The interface is far superior to what we have today. Unfortunately it doesn't have some of the necessary features that El Capitan has so it is hard to make it a day-to-day workstation.

For goodness sake... I wasn't making the point "new software is good, that's why people are upgrading" - In the podcast, Craig says because more people get onto the newest software, more bugs are discovered.

Has no one in this forum actually listened to the podcast? Can no one wait to just jump in, bitch and moan? What's wrong with this place?

 

[griffrawk]

I really hope someone has reported this and that Apple is working on it. Seeing iTunes jitters like that has the potential to ruin someone's day.

It happens for me in either of the Album or Artist views when Recently Added is switched on. It won't focus on the currently selected playing track, instead skipping to the top. Switch Recently Added off and it remains 'stable'. And yes, reported ages ago in 12.2 IIRC.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Yes but Steve Jobs when he appointed Sculley was not the Steve Jobs who bought Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy.

Also, Apple doesn't seem to have changed its ethos. It isn't growing in profit by blindly adding to the product lineup. They aren't cashing in by selling OS X to PC vendors.

The main change is that Steve Jobs isn't on stage selling us these products. Remember when he introduced FaceTime and everyone says 'they invented video calling!' like Skype didn't exist, and ignoring the necessity of WiFi.

When Tim Cook says 'you can take calls on your watch! I've been wanting to do this since I was five years old!' the response was 'yeah but you need an iPhone...'

Secondly, Steve Jobs is no longer taking credit for other people's ideas. For example: Jony Ive was shown multitouch and wondered if you could create a software keyboard and have the user type on a multitouch glass display... At all things D, Steve Jobs told the story like it was his idea. How do we know which ideas were his and which ideas were his and which came from team members like Tim, Jony or any of the others?

Apple has been involved in tax avoidance strategies. Apple has been involved in stock price manipulation. Apple has products that have failed, and exposed their users to electrocution risks.

It's not Steve Jobs' Apple anymore. Jobs would be horrified over the screw-ups. I had a powerblock plug fall apart on me! Thank Ford it wasn't fully plugged in when it failed. That's just stupid design, and stupid quality control.

'It's just the plug' isn't a proper response when the whole device is important.

 

[sofila]

Huge scoop for Gruber. But he has been talking with several Apple execs over the past couple years, such as Federighi was on the Talk Show to talk about Swift a few months back, and when he had that show (maybe at WWDC) with Phil Schiller. I always mention on here that people need to listen up when he talks, because he often has the inside view compared to many other tech journalists/bloggers out there. He's an over the top and often polarizing personality, but well sourced.

His inside view will last as long as he continues to skip daring questions. He is just another puppet whose main income depends on not hurting Apple's PR machine

 

[furi0usbee]

iTunes has a run-away RAM issue. It got up to 1.2 GB of RAM used the other day. Apple needs a MUSIC app. Period.

 

[thekeyring]

Apple has been involved in tax avoidance strategies. Apple has been involved in stock price manipulation. Apple has products that have failed, and exposed their users to electrocution risks.

The tax issue in Ireland was set up when Steve Jobs was CEO. It's also had products that have failed. What about the iPods that could catch fire randomly?

https://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/2...porters-investigation-of-ipods-catching-fire/

Of course it's not Steve Jobs' Apple anymore, the man died. But it's not like the company was handed over to a stranger. Before it was Steve Jobs' and Tim Cook's Apple. Now it's just Tim Cook's Apple.

 

[kkishfy]

Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi spoke with John Gruber in this week's episode of "The Talk Show," where they commented on recent opinions that Apple's software isn't up to snuff and offered some details on a new version of iTunes coming in OS X 10.11.4.

Last week, Re/code's Walt Mossberg wrote a piece entitled "Apple's Apps Need Work," pointing towards a "gradual degradation" in quality in several Apple apps and services like iCloud, Mail, and Photos. iTunes for the desktop was one of the most heavily criticized apps, with Mossberg saying he "dreads" opening it because it's "bloated, complex, and sluggish."

During the podcast, Gruber asked Eddy Cue about Mossberg's opinion, prompting him to give some background on how Apple wanted the iTunes experience to work. iTunes, Cue said, was designed at a time when people synced their devices via cable, so offering a centralized place with all of a user's content was key. With Apple Music, Apple decided on a design that would put music front and center while also integrating cloud music with hard copies purchased through iTunes.

"We decided in the short term that what we wanted to do is really make it when you're in music and iTunes, all you see is music," said Cue. He went on to explain that Apple is continually re-evaluating iTunes, and there are plans to release a refreshed version alongside OS X 10.11.4 next month.Cue and Federighi went on to talk about the issues that arise whenever Apple makes major changes to software, as there are always people who prefer not to see significant changes. According to Federighi, there's a "tricky balancing act" with software updates.The two also highlighted the immense scale that Apple is working on, with more than 1 billion active devices and 782 million iCloud users. More than 200,000 iMessages per second are sent at peak times, and there are more than 750 million transactions per week in the iTunes Store and the App Store. Apple Music has grown to 11 million subscribers and more than 2.5 million errors in Maps have been fixed, a number presented as evidence that Apple is continually working on its software.

"I would say first there's nothing we care about more," said Federighi, speaking on Apple's software and services. He believes Apple's core software quality has improved significantly over the course of the last five years, but pointed towards an ever-raising bar that pushes Apple to keep evolving and implementing new features. "Every year we realize the things we were good at last year and the techniques we were using to build the best software we can are not adequate for the next year because the bar keeps going up," he said.

Federighi and Cue's full discussion with John Gruber about the state of software, the desktop version of iTunes, and Apple's efforts to expand its public beta program, can be listed to over on the Daring Fireball website.

Article Link: Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi Discuss Bloated Software Accusations, Upcoming iTunes Plans

The iTunes and iPhoto of yesterday were so much better than the apps of today. I'm an Apple software supporter and don't like to use non-apple software. Apple has not been progressing on in the area of Photos and Music app interfaces, so I have actually started to look for a legitimate "iPhoto" replacement for my 5K Retina iMac. Unfortunately, nothing out there (that I have tested so far) works well on my computer, even the latest version of Lightroom is slow on my system. The enjoyment that I used to have with my music and photos has been taken away.

iTunes: ever since the merging of Apple Music with iTunes, it's so slow and pokey. In addition, I do not want to mix my own CD-quality ripped music (AIFF format) with Apple Music tracks that I don't own. No thank you. In my opinion, Apple Music needs to be a completely separate app or, somehow completely separated from the rest of the music that "I own" via a tab or button, ect.. if I am to ever consider using Apple Music. I also miss the days of seeing nice large album artwork in the bottom left corner of the app when playing my music. The iTunes of that time was so enjoyable to use and worked so well.

Restore the fun Apple! While you're hard at work re-developing, consider giving us the option of "Dark" interface. If I can choose a Dark theme for OS X, why not for Photos and iTunes? Especially Photos! I, and I imagine many others, dislike looking at all of that "white space" when browsing our photos. Cant really understand why you would take that option away. Photo thumbnails and app interfaces always look nicer against a dark background. It's why you use it for all of your Pro apps, right? Hoping for some major changes to both of these apps in the near future.

 

[Traverse]

Please just stop ramming Apple Music in our faces, even when we've unchecked it and have shown no interest in it whatsoever.

Your actions, Apple, are no better than a pimp.

Please sack Cook and Cue, too.

And they destroyed the ios music app. After you disable AM, the bottom bar has only 3 items. THREE! My 3.5" iPhone 4S had six under iOS 6, and my 4.7" iPhone has only three? And on OS X and iOS I get random ads for Apple Music. I've had to uncheck "Show Apple Music" on OS X multiple times for whatever reason. Why wasn't this feature an add on instead of a center stage integration.

60% of my music isn't on iTunes, AM offers little utility to me.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

The tax issue in Ireland was set up when Steve Jobs was CEO. It's also had products that have failed. What about the iPods that could catch fire randomly?

https://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/2...porters-investigation-of-ipods-catching-fire/

Of course it's not Steve Jobs' Apple anymore, the man died. But it's not like the company was handed over to a stranger. Before it was Steve Jobs' and Tim Cook's Apple. Now it's just Tim Cook's Apple.

I wasn't aware of the flaming iPod syndrome.

Yeah, it's not Steve Jobs' Apple, but it never actually was, no matter how hard he tried to control everyone and everything.

It's just sad to see such issues coming up so close to each other, and having the powerbrick plug failure happen to me.

 

[driceman]

Craig is a pro in this interview. He's polite, funny (as always), and responds honestly to John, whether the question is favorable or unfavorable to Apple. Eddy is exactly what ticks people off about executives: he dodges questions and gives Apple lip service every second he can.

I mean, nothing wrong with liking the company you work for, but if your customers are giving you feedback it's really in your best interest to listen and not just blow it off. It's an interesting point they make that a lot of the supposed quality issues have to do with the scale they're playing at, and it has to be a vocal minority that complains about it (otherwise they wouldn't have literally a billion active devices). But not listening to your customers when they have problems is the quickest way for things to do a 180 and for Apple sales to start dropping every year instead of rising.

 

[jamescobalt]

No one wants to open 10 apps.

How would breaking iTunes out into multiple apps require you to open 10 apps? How often do you decide to watch videos, listen to the radio, and buy a mobile app all in the same session? And why would you want all of these tasks to use the same UI?

 

[sofila]

I see quite a good number of long time users noticing a decline in Apple's software reliability and concreteness, a thing that is true in my opinion, with the effective recognition that problems and software always coexist and that in the "good old days" not everything worked as expected.
There is also a new "generation", well consistent and large given the millions of units sold, whose expectations are clearly based on a lower level and seem to digest more easily glitches, inconsistencies and workarounds. Curiously most of the "mine works perfectly" pundits come from Apple's latest releases, not older than 4/5 years ago (I know 4/5 years are AGES in modern times).
For me some good habits are difficult to forget. I'm probably, surely too old.
For this reason i keep a 2006 iMac Snow Leopard stuck on iTunes 10.7 for managing large music libraries. The sidebar departure happened on 10.8 sounded like an alarm bell to me, and things for iTunes went badly since then in my opinion

 

[jamescobalt]

I just got a 3 month trial for £1 on Spotify and was surprised how good and refreshing the interface was. It's simple

Just saw that the Spotify player handles your local library too. Tempting. With Instacast and Downcast offering synchronized mac apps, the only thing holding me to iTunes is AirPlay. I do have AirFoil, but it's just not quite as convenient or reliable as native AirPlay, which is saying something, because AirPlay is another function Apple has basically left dead to rot, riddled with bugs.

 

[navaira]

Just saw that the Spotify player handles your local library too. Tempting.

Careful here.

You can't search your local library by album. If you have an album that's not in Spotify library the only sensible thing is to make a playlist with it. Otherwise search results will include fifteen tracks from the album, and randomly you will be able to find "all saints pure shores best of" or "all saints get down" or "get down pure shores" or just look up "get down" and hope the right song shows up in search results. You can't click album title in local files. If you search local files on an Android phone (not tested on iOS) and click a song title, Spotify will stop playing music no matter whether you were listening on a desktop, phone or something else.

I am doing my best to switch to Spotify only but this is a side effect:



This is one of the reasons I am pissed off with Apple Music. Because Spotify don't give a flying duck about bugs and some of them have been around since 2012. And Apple Music doesn't seem to be fixing theirs either. Surely someone should be able to create a service that Just Works and that someone should be Apple with their billions.

 

[pier]

I listened to the entire interview and wasn't impressed. John Gruber is not daring in his interview questions, and they are utter lacking in fire. I remember his video interview with Phil Schiller and it was about the same. No hard hitting questions at all. They're all softballs, and when the replies come (standard Apple replies that even you or me could offer up for what we know about Apple as outsiders), Gruber doesn't really press the issue and moves on to the next question.

With that said, I've always liked Federighi. His fun personality, wit, humor and manner is more like a regular person than a mind-controlled, our-lawyers-will-kill-you-if-you-give-out-usable-info Apple guy. Even though neither he or "beat around the bush" Cue offered up much useful info, Federighi was far more detailed in his answers than Cue. Cue just sits there with a sheepish grin conjuring up every positive adjective his bulging brain can muster, all the while ending up saying next to nothing at all. Most Apple guys are trained in Doublespeak, but Cue understands it especially well.

If I were interviewing Apple, I would have kept asking the questions over and over until I got a decent answer that provided real info. To reply with "We love our customers and are always making our stuff better" is expected from the mouth of "I hate to give a straight answer" Apple, but the bottom line is that such stupid remarks dodge the question rather than answering it. If I were interviewing them about software bloat, for example, I would wait until they gave me their standard verbal dodge, then I would whip out an older iPad3 and the iPad Pro, both running iOS9, then show how they compare. The Pro should win, and it would, and the iPad3 would be really, really slow in comparison. Then I'd whip out another iPad3 running iOS6 and show them how fast it is, rivaling the iPad Pro in many UI operations. It would be the same iPad3 hardware, but a night-and-day performance difference caused only by the iOS version. That would be an in-your-face example that no Apple guy could effectively escape from. iOS 6 is much faster on the iPad3 than iOS9, even though Apple praises iOS9 endlessly on all compatible devices despite the bloat that slows it down on older devices. Could Apple come out with an iOS9 that runs fast on older hardware (as fast as iOS6 runs)? I think so, yes. But it would take more time and effort, which Apple doesn't want to do. They'd try their best never to admit that in public, but as someone interviewing them, I'd try my darndest to get them to admit that truth. And an iPad3 side-by-side would force them to say something. Why pressure Apple? Because you can't solve a problem until you admit it's there. Apple is turing a blind eye to it willingly. I love Apple and their products. I only state this truth because their products could be so much better. They may still worship the memory of Steve Jobs, but the fact Jobs is no longer at Apple physically eliminates the much needed PRESSURE that was once on them in the past.

I think Apple keeps giving Gruber these interviews because they know he won't ask hard questions, and when Apple gives their lackluster answer, he'll just back off and move to the next question. Overall, that interview was more of a waste of time than anything truly informative. And all the while, AAPL keeps going down, iTunes stays fat and bloated, and no earth-shattering innovation comes out of Cupertino, except perhaps for their spaceship building, which is shelter, not a product. I can't help but feel depressed.

Indeed. Those interviews are just Apple approved PR acts.

I miss the Steve Jobs Apple.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

Craig is a pro in this interview. He's polite, funny (as always), and responds honestly to John, whether the question is favorable or unfavorable to Apple. Eddy is exactly what ticks people off about executives: he dodges questions and gives Apple lip service every second he can.

I mean, nothing wrong with liking the company you work for, but if your customers are giving you feedback it's really in your best interest to listen and not just blow it off. It's an interesting point they make that a lot of the supposed quality issues have to do with the scale they're playing at, and it has to be a vocal minority that complains about it (otherwise they wouldn't have literally a billion active devices). But not listening to your customers when they have problems is the quickest way for things to do a 180 and for Apple sales to start dropping every year instead of rising.

Makes you wonder why Craig wasn't given the CEO job in the first place. Of all the executives, he was more professional and able to get the point across.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

The iTunes and iPhoto of yesterday were so much better than the apps of today. I'm an Apple software supporter and don't like to use non-apple software. Apple has not been progressing on in the area of Photos and Music app interfaces, so I have actually started to look for a legitimate "iPhoto" replacement for my 5K Retina iMac. Unfortunately, nothing out there (that I have tested so far) works well on my computer, even the latest version of Lightroom is slow on my system. The enjoyment that I used to have with my music and photos has been taken away.

I remember the older iTunes app before it got radio and AM added in. It was simple and easy to work with. Plus, it was far more focused at the time. But adding in Beats radio and AM to iTunes was a stupid move and should've been a separate app. In fact, they shouldn't have bought Beats in the first place so that they can rely on them to figure out today's generation for them without diving in.

To me, buying Beats was an expensive shortcut. I suspect the execs were out of touch and didn't know a way to reach the right audience and using Beats saves them time and bs to do so.

These guys need a reality check. A massive one.