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iOS Team: STOP THE ANNUAL UPDATES

whiteshadoww

whiteshadoww

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 14, 2008
372
129
Santa Monica, CA
As die hard an Apple fan as I am, I am tired of the bugs associated with massive annual iOS updates. By the time they work out and fix the newest iteration, we are ready for a brand new iOS FULL of bugs.

I wish Apple would remove the massive annual update associated with the new hardware. I hope the lesson in the slow iOS 8 adoption rate and the fiasco associated with it (8.0.1) is a lesson they will learn from.

We all have so much of what we have wanted for the past 5 years - let's work on stability and reliability Apple. Please.
 
I want more updates. Apple should offer more frequent updates and still make them better then they have been. It's not a time issue, or not only a time issue. There is a competence and attitude problem over there. They just need to stop being complacent and really work harder and better.
 
Annual releases aren't the problem. The problem is trying to force what appears to be a very waterfall style of development on the one-year cycle. They work until they hit "feature complete" or close to it around WWDC, drop it on devs, and then bug fix until their fingers bleed. Not a great way to ensure a stable product at launch.

But I've worked on projects with similar cycles where it is totally doable to have a stable product, and yearly major releases. Apple's just doing it wrong.

antiprotest said:
There is a competence and attitude problem over there. They just need to stop being complacent and really work harder and better.
Click to expand...

Complacency rarely figures into buggy releases like this, and I don't doubt their competency. Attitude and engineering approach? Hell yes.

But telling them to work harder isn't going to improve quality.
 
I actually agree with you for the most part. I don't quite understand why Apple makes the OS and the hardware releases so intertwined.

I think that it would be much better overall if they released periodic feature updates, without OS overhauls. For example if they had release 7.2 with quick reply for messages. Just a simple feature release. Rather than saving up a ton of features for a yearly update that every single year breaks tons of apps and introduces extra bugs.
 
Or you can simply plan to update your devices in January or February instead of October. That way you can enjoy each iOS version for a full year with most of the bugs worked out.
 
I think they need to decouple major updates from new iPhone releases. Right now, the annual hardware releases are driving software updates. Rather than forcing a major version bump each year, release a minor version that supports the new hardware and release the major version when it's ready. If that tends to be every 18 months, that's fine.

So, in this case, we'd have seen, say, iOS 7.1.3 or 7.2 to support the 6 and 6 Plus. In another few months, when it's really really solid, iOS 8.

Alternatively, size the annual major version updates so they can be done to a higher quality level in only 12 months and don't add/change so much in each major revision.
 
I've been thinking the same thing. I think there is so much pressure on the software to make the hardware look good that it is hard for them to do.

I would love though to see them do more small upgrades along the way instead of a big one each year. I feel kinda deflated when something doesn't get improved like I hoped that I would have to wait a full year to have a chance of it improving.

It seems like they might be doing more small upgrades this year, hopefully that's the new plan.
 
clevins said:
I think they need to decouple major updates from new iPhone releases. Right now, the annual hardware releases are driving software updates. Rather than forcing a major version bump each year, release a minor version that supports the new hardware and release the major version when it's ready. If that tends to be every 18 months, that's fine.

So, in this case, we'd have seen, say, iOS 7.1.3 or 7.2 to support the 6 and 6 Plus. In another few months, when it's really really solid, iOS 8.

Alternatively, size the annual major version updates so they can be done to a higher quality level in only 12 months and don't add/change so much in each major revision.
Click to expand...

Yep. They did it with the iPad, which came with 3.2 in April and didn't get iOS 4 until the 4.2 update in November. I was fine with that.

They used to add many more features in minor (0.x) updates. Just check out the History of iOS Wikipedia article.
 
BaldiMac said:
Or you can simply plan to update your devices in January or February instead of October. That way you can enjoy each iOS version for a full year with most of the bugs worked out.
Click to expand...

Yes.
Still an annual update, but a well tested, revised update.
 
antiprotest said:
I want more updates. Apple should offer more frequent updates and still make them better then they have been. It's not a time issue, or not only a time issue. There is a competence and attitude problem over there. They just need to stop being complacent and really work harder and better.
Click to expand...

Now this is funny... and ignorant. I also want more updates, but I'd rather have less if they are of quality.
 
Orlandoech said:
Now this is funny... and ignorant. I also want more updates, but I'd rather have less if they are of quality.
Click to expand...


Precisely what piece of information do you know that I do not that would make me "ignorant"? Can you prove that this piece of information is true? Or was that an ignorant usage of the word? And what is funny about it? Or was that just a funny and ignorant use of the word? If you're just throwing words around, I can probably throw around many more.

I would rather have frequent and quality updates.

----------
Krevnik said:
Complacency rarely figures into buggy releases like this, and I don't doubt their competency. Attitude and engineering approach? Hell yes.

But telling them to work harder isn't going to improve quality.
Click to expand...

If they are indeed complacent, it could affect anything and everything. You agree with "attitude", but complacency is an attitude.

Working "harder" is a very general term. It can apply to anything that they lack, not necessarily longer hours.
 
whiteshadoww said:
As die hard an Apple fan as I am, I am tired of the bugs associated with massive annual iOS updates. By the time they work out and fix the newest iteration, we are ready for a brand new iOS FULL of bugs.

I wish Apple would remove the massive annual update associated with the new hardware. I hope the lesson in the slow iOS 8 adoption rate and the fiasco associated with it (8.0.1) is a lesson they will learn from.

We all have so much of what we have wanted for the past 5 years - let's work on stability and reliability Apple. Please.
Click to expand...

Or just not let out buggy software. Sounds pretty simple.
 
My feeling is that this year is worst than last year in term of bugs and that iOS8 was "rushed". To meet the hard deadline of the iPhone 6. Its apparent simply by the fact that they held back some features like Apple Pay and most of continuity stuff (the reason being that they mostly work with Yosemite which is not out yet, but even then features like SMS on other devices could also work with the iPad.)

This year is massive in term of software changes. They made major changes to iOS to offer extensions, widgets, keyboards, healtkit, metal and even two new completely different screen resolution for the new iPhones, all of this while developping a whole new programming language. Add to that Yosemite and the massive visual changes and the new OS for the Apple watch that need to be out early next year, and you get what you have now.
 
antiprotest said:
Precisely what piece of information do you know that I do not that would make me "ignorant"? Can you prove that this piece of information is true? Or was that an ignorant usage of the word? And what is funny about it? Or was that just a funny and ignorant use of the word? If you're just throwing words around, I can probably throw around many more.

I would rather have frequent and quality updates.

----------



If they are indeed complacent, it could affect anything and everything. You agree with "attitude", but complacency is an attitude.

Working "harder" is a very general term. It can apply to anything that they lack, not necessarily longer hours.
Click to expand...

have you ever had a real job?
 
A public beta program like Yosemite would help them massively.
 
Thoughtful posts here. Marketing is driving most of these decisions. Marketing wants the annual release and marketing wants the impressive new feature lists. I like the 18 month plan. Keep the big lists and concentrated launches. And every other launch (either S or non S) still gets to coordinate with the latest phone.
 
Gav2k said:
A public beta program like Yosemite would help them massively.
Click to expand...

I disagree almost entirely. Public betas are useful for rooting out edge case bugs that don't happen to everyone, or even a large number of people.

The bugs in iOS 8 have been apparent to every developer (and presumably Apple) since the very first beta. They just didn't fix them all.
 
WordMasterRice said:
I disagree almost entirely. Public betas are useful for rooting out edge case bugs that don't happen to everyone, or even a large number of people.

The bugs in iOS 8 have been apparent to every developer (and presumably Apple) since the very first beta. They just didn't fix them all.
Click to expand...

Public betas provide apple with a wealth of information how can you disagree with that?

Dev's will generally only report bugs specific to there apps. Think about it in a smart way why would Google report a bug with iOS mail if there is no issue with there stand alone app ;)
 
Gav2k said:
Public betas provide apple with a wealth of information how can you disagree with that?
Click to expand...

Because, as I said before, they can't fix the bugs that they already know about, more information won't be helpful.

Gav2k said:
Dev's will generally only report bugs specific to there apps. Think about it in a smart way why would Google report a bug with iOS mail if there is no issue with there stand alone app ;)
Click to expand...

Google may not, but one of the other thousands of developers likely will. Apple doesn't need more information, they need more developers to fix bugs. At this point they can't keep up with the reports.
 
I thought it was supposed to be a feature as far back as iOS 7 that core apps could be updated just like a regular installed app like Android does or is Apple just not using the feature?
 
I would also prefer a steady stream of stable updates that only make a handful of changes at once rather than packing one major release full of them and spending the next few months waiting for fixes.

If there's an issue with what to present at WWDC, perhaps they could announce the new features as being part of iOS 9.x and explain that they'll be rolled out over the course of ~6 months starting in September.

The fact that they're already testing 8.1, 8.2, & 8.3 right now suggests that perhaps they're moving in this direction.
 
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