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New 13.2 Update Bricking Some HomePods [Update Pulled by Apple]

Bazooka-joe said:
Poor quality control and lack of appropriate testing. Add to that, senior management putting the developers under pressure to release products before they are ready and appropriately tested to maximise potential sales and that's your answer.
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Okay, but how much money is this costing the company to take calls, send out replacement units, and deal with the incoming units...all of which could have been avoided? And in this case it wasn’t even a product release, but rather just a software update which could have waited longer.

Apple has REALLY blown it this year:

iOS - buggy and unstable with some things. Mail especially problematic.
IpadOS - same
tvOS - sluggish and had airplay issues
Mac - horrible for some people

And now this. They seriously need to reverse course immediately and start doing things differently because right now they are having software problems across virtually their entire product line with these updates and that is not good. Shouldn’t be happening.
 
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Pepe4life said:
Funny you say that, google literally just bricked many google home mini with a firmware update a few days ago
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The pain of firmware. Phones, routers, other networking gear, watches, other wearables, refrigerators...

I've never actually had a firmware update brick anything and I've even installed some third-party firmwares on older routers. With that said, even since the days of flashing my BIOS, I've always held my breath during the process. "Will this thing wake up in a usable state ever again?"

And I see no shortage of people griping about "quality control." This issue is going to probably continue to get worse for everyone—not better. The more complex soft/firmware becomes, the more unknown states exist that cannot be reasonably tested.

If this is some obvious thing that they do test for, QC is at fault. However, that does not appear to be the case or the problem would likely be more widespread. QC failure at this point would be not making a test case for whatever caused this issue.
 
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That’s both of mine bricked. I started updating about 10 minutes before I saw this article.

edit: phew, looks like I reset them while they were in a download/fail-to-install loop of death, and they both came back up as new HomePods running 12.4 still. Dodged a bullet as I'm living in Ireland now and would probably have trouble getting them swapped quickly.
 
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The answer to all these problems is simple. Quality over quantity. Can anyone really say we’ve gotten any new features in iOS or whatever that we couldn’t have waited 2 years for versus 1? It’s time to kill the yearly cycle.
 
MadeTheSwitch said:
Apple has REALLY blown it this year:

iOS - buggy and unstable with some things. Mail especially problematic.
IpadOS - same
tvOS - sluggish and had airplay issues
Mac - horrible for some people
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Couldn't agree more. Last year's software releases were amazing for me. Almost no bugs and great performance. It just worked. I really hoped that this would build a good foundation for future releases, but nope 😜
 
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cult hero said:
And I see no shortage of people griping about "quality control." This issue is going to probably continue to get worse for everyone—not better. The more complex soft/firmware becomes, the more unknown states exist that cannot be reasonably tested.
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I am not buying that reasoning because we did not see these widespread problems with last year’s releases. Something in their processes have changed in the last year, and not for the better.
 
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chris4565 said:
Couldn't agree more. Last year's software releases were amazing for me. Almost no bugs and great performance. It just worked. I really hoped that this would build a good foundation for future releases, but nope 😜
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I disagree, last year's Mojave was absolutely rubbish for me when compared to the Catalina, it all depends what you use, hardware, programs etc. Just because you seem to be experiencing more problems than previous years, doesn't mean that every one else is as well. Remember, the world doesn't revolve around you. There have always been people who have problems regarding the latest updates, nothing new here. Has the quality control getting worse recently? Nope, it's the same as it has always been imo
 
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Gita be honest. Why the F has Apple not pulled this update by now? This is not “some” but all after a reset it seems.
 
Yeah it is a sh!tshow this year. If Steve Jobs was still alive, he’d probably be dead by now from all of this. Yeah yeah we get it. It really sucks but unfortunately it happens and iOS 14 will probably be a super polished version because this year (like iOS 11) has been quite a ride!

But remember kids, other manufacturers also screw things up. (Exploding Galaxy Note 7‘s, Galaxy S10 fingerprint sensor could be fooled by a cheap screen protector. Microsoft Windows 10 update deletes files, Google bricking Home Mini’s... the list goes on)
 
Meanwhile, Tim is hanging out with celebrities at a premier for an Apple TV+ show.

It’s not his job to test the software, but maybe the operations guy should pay more attention to the operations.
 

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BWhaler said:
Meanwhile, Tim is hanging out with celebrities at a premier for an Apple TV+ show.

It’s not his job to test the software, but maybe the operations guy should pay more attention to the operations.
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To be fair I’d miss my mothers funeral to get some time with either of those two ladies...
 
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tobyx said:
Reminds me of the time an Apple update bricked the Apple Watch. That was quite an odyssey to get Apple to fix it. Isn't it great when the products they themselves break the most with updates are the ones without any way for a user to DFU reset it?
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There are always going to be people who get their iPhones or iPads bricked, you don't hear about this often since you can easily restore the device in question, unlike some of Apple's other devices like the Watch or HomePod.
 
waquzy said:
I disagree, last year's Mojave was absolutely rubbish for me when compared to the Catalina, it all depends what you use, hardware, programs etc. Just because you seem to be experiencing more problems than previous years, doesn't mean that every one else is as well. Remember, the world doesn't revolve around you.
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I said in my post: "Last year's software releases were amazing FOR ME." So I was just sharing my personal experience (as you do, too). Of course everyone's experience is different but judging from this forum it seems like more people have software problems this year than in the past years.
 
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BarrettF77 said:
All 9 of my HomePods are dead. This might be the straw that makes me defect to Microsoft. And after ordering the new AirPods this morning I'm just in utter shock at this point that they allow this to happen.

Where do you even begin in discussing a software update bricking $3,000 in speakers and they offer a certified replacement unit because of their foul up? This is a new record low in my opinion and might move to Sonos if this is what they deem as acceptable. Singlehandledly 5 hours ago turned my smart home into a brick.

@TimApple, unbelievable!!!
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OMG. Why would you need 10+ HomeBricks (aka homepods)?
 
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Newer HomePod owner here. My updates downloaded, but I haven’t installed any of them. Am I okay or will the downloads install themselves?

Is Apple sending out refurbs or new HomePods for the ones the update bricked?
 
BarrettF77 said:
All 9 of my HomePods are dead. This might be the straw that makes me defect to Microsoft. And after ordering the new AirPods this morning I'm just in utter shock at this point that they allow this to happen.

Where do you even begin in discussing a software update bricking $3,000 in speakers and they offer a certified replacement unit because of their foul up? This is a new record low in my opinion and might move to Sonos if this is what they deem as acceptable. Singlehandledly 5 hours ago turned my smart home into a brick.

@TimApple, unbelievable!!!
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You bought 9 of them? lol Bro, next time just go for AAPL instead. Product & software design flushed long ago with Timmy's pipeline.
 
For everyone keeping score...that makes every single device Apple has tried to ship without a port has at some point received an update that bricks it, which could have been resolved easily at home with a USB cable.
 
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