Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My new iPhone 15 Plus downloaded and installed this update overnight. That reminded me to turn off automatic updates except for the most critical security patches. I thought my old setting would carry over from my 13 Pro but apparently not. Others with new phones who don’t want automatic updates may want to check their settings.

Meanwhile, I am beginning to suspect that every time Apple wants everyone on a new OS, it discovers a zero-day threat requiring an immediate update. And it just so happens that returning to iOS16 is no longer possible. Of course, I could be wrong but it’s beginning to look that way to me. And I’m not one to see conspiracies under every bed.
 
Former software Quality Assurance Director here (now CEO of an app company)... what's you're seeing is called a "regression bug" in the software industry. On the surface, one feature in one part of the software may not seem to have anything to do with a new feature, but most stuff inside all of this software is surprisingly very interconnected. A lot of code bases are shared, including network libraries, UI, basic utility functions, etc. Make a change in one place, it breaks it in another.

QA should be doing regression test passes. Usually these are automated and nightly to find changes in behavior from build to build. They can be black box (meaning just testing the UI like a human would) and white box (testing the code functions themselves with unit testing, etc). There are all kinds of more intricate things you can do as well. QA should also have a stack of test cases built up over time that is essentially a dictionary of every possible scenario you can think of where something could go wrong, per feature. and they write that into your automation script. I guarantee you Apple has people who do all of this.

One of the problems though is that when software becomes incredibly complex, like iOS has, you can't hit or even think of EVERY possible scenario in your testing. It would just take too long to test and write scripts, etc. So that's why we have beta testers out in the wild... people who hit these weird edge cases that they missed or can't quite reproduce internally. Maybe some enterprise has some weird networking setup? Maybe some cell network in Vietnam uses a different non-standard signal compared to the rest of the world? Stuff like that.

I do agree with everyone else though; A billion dollar company like Apple shouldn't be missing some of the stuff they are. And who knows, maybe QA reported the bugs long ago, but they were shoved on a priority list and weren't "showstoppers" as we call them (or 0-day security exploits). Apple needed to get the promised iOS 17 out for the iPhone 15 launch, and maybe pushed these fixes out to a future 0.1 release on purpose. That the entire software team knew, and bugs were filed, but the business side of things pushed ahead anyway. It happens all the time.

We'll never know. But as a former QA guy (which is how I got my career started, my first job in QA when I was 21 at Microsoft in Seattle back in 2000), seeing Apple release a bunch of bugs drives me nuts even though I also understand the business side of why they do it. After all, the point of selling software isn't to make people happy (that's secondary), it's to make the business money. It's a fine balancing act and buggy software is often a result of that.
Appreciate you taking the time to explain this. I understand that all the software is interconnected. It’s just really annoying when you had certain bugs on initial release. Then after months of living with these bugs, they finally get squashed only to have them return in a later software version. I’m very uneasy when my tech doesn’t work properly. It’s the nerd in me lol.

Quick example, my wife and I share our location indefinitely in Find My. When Live location first came out, it never worked reliably. That was finally fixed months after release but now back to square one. I can’t get my wife’s live location to pop up for the life of me. Tried everything I could possibly think of.

For the most part, I truly believe that most partakers of the beta program are so they can get early access to new features. I don’t have proof of this, but I see quite a bit of posts of people complaining on here and Reddit of buggy beta software. They have to be nudged to report it to Apple.

Many bugs vary drastically from person to person so I understand that’s it’s difficult to figure them out. Just annoying when a feature I use daily is buggy for me but not the next person who could live without it. These devices aren’t cheap and I expect them to work as advertised.
 
For the most part, I truly believe that most partakers of the beta program are so they can get early access to new features. I don’t have proof of this, but I see quite a bit of posts of people complaining on here and Reddit of buggy beta software. They have to be nudged to report it to Apple.

Correct.

When I was a teen I did a lot of beta testing (which is how I got into QA in my early career). I'd apply to all kinds of beta programs. I even got to test SNES games at Nintendo of America in Redmond, WA when I was 16, which was awesome. I created MacOS Rumors (the first ever Mac rumor site back in the mid 90's) when I was 15 because I wanted to discuss and get leaks of the latest System 7/8 at that time. Of course... this was 30 years ago. Ancient times now in computer years.

But I did all of that for free software and early access and to have fun. It honestly wasn't because I wanted to find bugs and be helpful. I just wanted early access. And that's the vast majority of iOS Beta testers.... most just want early access, and then complain here on MacRumors, Reddit, and elsewhere when betas don't work. Like DUH!

The current company I run makes apps, and there was a bug in iOS 17 betas that caused our apps to stop functioning properly in one area. We got so many complaints from users who were using the public beta of iOS saying we needed to "fix the app" and acted pissed off. And the reality was, it was Apple's bug! It's like people completely forgot they are using a beta iOS version.

That's the biggest problem with beta testing, is that honestly, for the most part it doesn't work very well from a user-reported standpoint. The really benefit is that Apple gets automated crash reports and can see complaints online and get analytics, and can say to the public "well it's in beta so we're not really responsible if you have problems" and they can wash their hands of it. And they know people who use betas are 100% loyal to Apple, so they can get away with nearly any bug.

It's when the final iOS version comes out that Apple really starts taking heat for average Joe users who come into the Apple Store and complain.
 
Last edited:
Former software Quality Assurance Director here (now CEO of an app company)... what's you're seeing is called a "regression bug" in the software industry. On the surface, one feature in one part of the software may not seem to have anything to do with a new feature, but most stuff inside all of this software is surprisingly very interconnected. A lot of code bases are shared, including network libraries, UI, basic utility functions, etc. Make a change in one place, it breaks it in another.

QA should be doing regression test passes. Usually these are automated and nightly to find changes in behavior from build to build. They can be black box (meaning just testing the UI like a human would) and white box (testing the code functions themselves with unit testing, etc). There are all kinds of more intricate things you can do as well. QA should also have a stack of test cases built up over time that is essentially a dictionary of every possible scenario you can think of where something could go wrong, per feature, and they write that into your automation script. I guarantee you Apple has people who do all of this.

One of the problems though is that when software becomes incredibly complex, like iOS has, you can't hit or even think of EVERY possible scenario in your testing. It would just take too long to test and write scripts, etc. So that's why we have beta testers out in the wild... people who hit these weird edge cases that they missed or can't quite reproduce internally. Maybe some enterprise has some weird networking setup? Maybe some cell network in Vietnam uses a different non-standard signal compared to the rest of the world? Stuff like that.

I do agree with everyone else though; A billion dollar company like Apple shouldn't be missing some of the stuff they are. And who knows, maybe QA reported the bugs long ago, but they were shoved on a priority list and weren't "showstoppers" as we call them (or 0-day security exploits). Apple needed to get the promised iOS 17 out for the iPhone 15 launch, and maybe pushed these fixes out to a future 0.1 release on purpose. That the entire software team knew, and bugs were filed, but the business side of things pushed ahead anyway. It happens all the time in what is called a "triage" meeting to set priorities on bugs/features and how they line up with business objectives.

We'll never know. But as a former QA guy (which is how I got my career started, my first job in QA when I was 21 at Microsoft in Seattle back in 2000), seeing Apple release a bunch of bugs drives me nuts even though I also understand the business side of why they do it. After all, the point of selling software isn't to make people happy (that's secondary), it's to make the business money. It's a fine balancing act and buggy software is often a result of that.
Very insightful post. Thank you.
 
Correct.

When I was a teen I did a lot of beta testing (which is how I got into QA in my early career). I'd apply to all kinds of beta programs. I even got to test SNES games at Nintendo of America in Redmond, WA when I was 16, which was awesome. I created MacOS Rumors (the first ever Mac rumor site back in the mid 90's) when I was 15 because I wanted to discuss and get leaks of the latest System 7/8 at that time. Of course... this was 30 years ago. Ancient times now in computer years.

But I did all of that for free software and early access and to have fun. It honestly wasn't because I wanted to find bugs and be helpful. I just wanted early access. And that's the vast majority of iOS Beta testers.... most just want early access, and then complain here on MacRumors, Reddit, and elsewhere when betas don't work. Like DUH!

The current company I run makes apps, and there was a bug in iOS 17 betas that caused our apps to stop functioning properly in one area. We got so many complaints from users who were using the public beta of iOS saying we needed to "fix the app" and acted pissed off. And the reality was, it was Apple's bug! It's like people completely forgot they are using a beta iOS version.

That's the biggest problem with beta testing, is that honestly, for the most part it doesn't work very well from a user-reported standpoint. The really benefit is that Apple gets automated crash reports and can see complaints online and get analytics, and can say to the public "well it's in beta so we're not really responsible if you have problems" and they can wash their hands of it. And they know people who use betas are 100% loyal to Apple, so they can get away with nearly any bug.

It's when the final iOS version comes out that Apple really starts taking heat for average Joe users who come into the Apple Store and complain.
In all honesty. I don’t touch the stuff. I always wait for public release of software because I can’t be bothered with critical bugs.
 
This release also fixed an issue that was messing up PWA apps. I use PurpleAir to monitor air quality and when launching PurpleAir from my home screen app, almost everything was blank and the app seemed to be working very hard because what did work was running very slowly. Going to the website continued to work fine though.

After I installed 17.0.3, the PWA app on my home screen started working fine again too. The app is also pretty snappy now and things don't take forever to come up.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pinkyyy 💜🍎
New release software will always have bugs. Software on new hardware will always have more bugs.

If you're really sensitive to bugs, don't upgrade your software right away. Don't buy a new device on release day. Don't freaking install betas either, for crissake.

Using bleeding edge new release software/hardware and complaining about bugs is like leaning on a freshly painted wall and complaining about your shirt's new stripe.
A new software release can definitely be produced without bugs. Does not mean it always happens, but definitely can be done. Many techniques exist to guide and control this type of software development. Throwing it against the wall and seeing if it sticks is not one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pinkyyy 💜🍎
Many techniques exist to guide and control this type of software development. Throwing it against the wall and seeing if it sticks is not one.

So… they may always seem to miss some significant bugs, but be real. Apple isn’t just winging it. Software is hard.
 
So… they may always seem to miss some significant bugs, but be real. Apple isn’t just winging it. Software is hard.
I certainly have no first hand knowledge of the Apple software development process, but being an owner of HomePod(s) all these years. . . 😏 My main point was with proper scope limits, together with a rigorous enough systems engineering process, bug free can be done. Trade-off in longer time and more money, together with the needing the right organization talent, and culture/teamwork. Most important in my experience was an iron-clad understanding of the business process the hardware/software was supporting, followed up by rigorous QA/QC and other factors - but it can be done!

Software became hard when these required attributes were ignored, schedules moved to the right by fiat, QA/QC issues squashed, etc. etc. Theoretical physics is hard, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant is hard, but not by design.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pinkyyy 💜🍎
Hoping for a years old bug to be fixed.
In Shortcuts, when asking Siri for two or more routines, the second will always be stuttered.
E.g. When stopping an alarm then let Siri tell the date and time first (works) and then the weather forecast (stuttering).

Happens mostly when Siri is set to a non english language like german.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pinkyyy 💜🍎
The fundamental problem is that they don't spend time on stability and fixing bugs. Instead, they make a half-baked product and quickly move onto something else.

By way of example, look at the macOS release cycle: My 2019 16" MBP and it came with Catalina 2019. Since then, I've seen Big Sur 2020, Monterey 2021, Ventura 2022 and now upcoming Sonoma 2023. This is getting ridiculous! I wish that idiot of a CEO would focus on fixing bugs rather than creating a new OS every year. This lack of stability is making me want to move to Linux Mint!

View attachment 2288986
Agile has been the worst thing that has ever happened to software, and I’m tired of pretending that everything is fine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mity and rchornef
My 14 pro keep calender app keep sending out invitation even i upgrade it to 17.0.3.

"The Calendar app will no longer resend invitations to all participants after accepting or declining an Exchange event invitation."
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.