Reason for people's problems with OS X

[GermanyChris]

One thing to remember, is that on an Internet forum, people will come and complain in swarms with issues, but when everything works, they are happy. They (usually) don't come just to say, (*switch to cheesy happy voice*) "I'm so happy, everything works exactly as I want it to, without anything special!".

I'm so happy, everything works exactly as I want it to, without anything special! on 10.6.8

I'm so happy, everything works exactly as I want it to, without anything special! on 10.5.8

I'm so happy, everything works exactly as I want it to, without anything special! on 10.4.11



Lion was stable for me, it was just to "heavy" Snow Leopard is not.

 

[thundersteele]

http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/04/apple...due-to-bugs-offers-combined-download-instead/

So, the default 10.7.3 update was removed - now they only provide what is called the "combined updater."

How does this fit into the "it's all user created problems" theory?

 

[wpotere]

http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/04/apple...due-to-bugs-offers-combined-download-instead/

So, the default 10.7.3 update was removed - now they only provide what is called the "combined updater."

How does this fit into the "it's all user created problems" theory?

Apple does no wrong if you drink the koolaid... Want a sip?

 

[Partron22]

I used the combo update when it came out, and had no troubles. Still: Mac OS X 10.7.3 Combo Silently Updated?

I found this goof a little more disturbing:
Rosetta Crashes Resolved with Mac OS X 10.6.8 Security Update 2012-001 v1.1 It sounds as if Apple's security update killed Rosetta in Snow Leopard, and they didn't know it until people started complaining.
Surely Apple is aware that there are people who are staying with Snow Leopard because of Rosetta? Apple should've tested that functionailty before shipping.

 

[beosound3200]

http://9to5mac.com/2012/02/04/apple...due-to-bugs-offers-combined-download-instead/

So, the default 10.7.3 update was removed - now they only provide what is called the "combined updater."

How does this fit into the "it's all user created problems" theory?

it doesnt, but also it doesnt make it less valid

99.9% problems on mac os x are caused by users, their software, their tinkering (trying to make windows out of mac os x)

what you see above is those 0.1%

 

[wpotere]

it doesnt, but also it doesnt make it less valid

99.9% problems on mac os x are caused by users, their software, their tinkering (trying to make windows out of mac os x)

what you see above is those 0.1%

Do you have sources to back those numbers up? I thought not...

I know a lot of people that are having issues that don't post on MR.

Why is it so hard to swallow that Apple screwed up? They are not infallible.

 

[Simplicated]

Do you have sources to back those numbers up? I thought not...

I know a lot of people that are having issues that don't post on MR.

Why is it so hard to swallow that Apple screwed up? They are not infallible.

Because the Kool-Aid is addictive.

 

[SR45]

I have had no issues with the update, and did a clean install again to test this out for a second time, and no issues........

If Apple screwed up, than why are so many more not having issues to those that are ???

Got to be an answer that makes sense as to why, and not just say, its Apple fanboys or cool aid remarks.

Anyone have an answer to this question or are some of you just going to bad mouth me as well, without coming up with something that actually makes sense and not a remark that a 2 yr old would make ??

 

[wpotere]

I have had no issues with the update, and did a clean install again to test this out for a second time, and no issues........

If Apple screwed up, than why are so many more not having issues to those that are ???

Got to be an answer that makes sense as to why, and not just say, its Apple fanboys or cool aid remarks.

Anyone have an answer to this question or are some of you just going to bad mouth me as well, without coming up with something that actually makes sense and not a remark that a 2 yr old would make ??

Happy for ya...

What are you looking for? My partition was damaged by the install and I had to boot into recovery mode to repair it. Oddly it was fine BEFORE the update so it had to be the update that damaged it. Also, had one machine that all apps kept crashing as well. Nothing tweaked on that machine at all, just a normal 2010 Mac that had standard apps on it.

Yeah, you are right, Apple is perfect!

 

[Pentad]

Having read through some of the posts here I wanted to share a few of my thoughts:

Mac OS 9 and lower and Mac OS 10 and above are entirely different OS's. Mac OS 9 and lower was just crap. Look, I teach Computer Science, you can trust me, it was crap from a technical point of view. Horrible FS, no protected memory, a very strange bolt-on multitasking system, memory fragmentation problems, I could go on an on. It may have looked nice but behind the curtain was an old, poorly written OS that was propped up by spit and bailing wire.

Mac OS X and beyond is a true modern OS and has served Apple very well. Having said that, OS X has suffered some with the advent of popularity of iOS and its family of products. While iOS is a derivative of OS X, they are different with different needs. I think it is fair to say that Apple's resources have been diverted towards iOS and less to OS X.

I think this was evident when Leopard was pushed back as programmers were shifted to finalizing iOS key components. I personally feel that Snow Leopard was a great release and with the later patches was one of the best releases Apple has ever put out. Of course, SL was just Leopard refined so that shouldn't be so surprising.

Lion has been a disappointment for so many because going from Leopard to Snow Leopard was so painless and rewarding. Lion is buggy. There is just no getting around it. Lion's initial 10.7.0 release was kind of a shock from Apple given their dedication to perfection. No matter how you look at it, Lion's release was buggy.

Many expected 10.7.1 to fix most of these issues but they did not causing that much more disappointment. Personally, 10.7.2 seemed to start fixing most of the issues I had (wifi and blue tooth) but many more still existed. Even with people submitting reports and publicly complaining Apple sort of ignored it.

To further my point of iOS priority, look at the release of 10.7.3. Not only was in quite late in fixing some pretty outstanding security issues, it was also not fully tested. The sheer amount problems users have been experiences with 10.7.3 points to a fumbled QA testing period. Many developers have stated that they reported the very issues users are experiencing to Apple during beta testing. Yet, it still was released.

Finally, the folks running SL received a buggy security update that clobbered Rosetta performance. Probably the one feature that kept many users on that revision of OS X. How was that not found during testing?

Given my harsh words, allow me to balance a few things out. I do not think anyone is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. Software is the least forgiving science with the widest amount of variables to account for. However, it does seem like the quality of OS X has been slipping with the rise of the iOS devices.

I cannot blame Apple given the money that this new found market has generated for Apple. Though, I think many long time users feel a bit neglected as they kept Apple afloat for such a long time.

The other issue here at MR seems to be the clash between blind fanaticism and users looking for support. Posting issues or opinions contrary to Apple being bulletproof is akin to declaring your intention to disown humanity.

The user above who posted a reference to Kool-Aid is so ironic that I'm not sure they realize the cup in their hand. This dichotomy only causes problems since the frustrated user receives criticism for a problem they have no control over and the fanatics are forced to contemplate Apple's mortal fallacies.

I think the anecdote for everyone is to wait before upgrading to the next version of Mac OS and be more cautious with OS updates. I suspect OS X will be retired as we move into a merged iOS platform. I mean Lion is the king of the cats so where do you go from here?


Just my humble opinions,
-P

 

[beosound3200]

Do you have sources to back those numbers up? I thought not...

I know a lot of people that are having issues that don't post on MR.

Why is it so hard to swallow that Apple screwed up? They are not infallible.

haha why would you need sources to back the numbers up? try your brain

who cares if its 1% or 6%, it doesnt make a difference

the point is, the users/3rd party software are in vast majority the culprit when problems happen

osx has bugs, non disputable, but those bugs are in 1% of cases the culprit of someone's problems

but you need to understand one thing, if you clean install lion on 100% apple machine (no 3rd party ram, hdd, anything) which is connected to apple airport, bundled with apple keyboard and mouse and of course, no 3rd party apps at all, and you still have problems then it is apples fault, in other cases theres 99% chance that the fault isnt apples

 

[Partron22]

Finally, the folks running SL received a buggy security update that clobbered Rosetta performance. Probably the one feature that kept many users on that revision of OS X. How was that not found during testing?

If I were a little more paranoid, I might support the "Apple just fired a shot across the bow of SL users" scenario on that.
Apple really should have caught that one before shipping, if they cared even a little bit.

 

[wpotere]

haha why would you need sources to back the numbers up? try your brain

who cares if its 1% or 6%, it doesnt make a difference

the point is, the users/3rd party software are in vast majority the culprit when problems happen

osx has bugs, non disputable, but those bugs are in 1% of cases the culprit of someone's problems

but you need to understand one thing, if you clean install lion on 100% apple machine (no 3rd party ram, hdd, anything) which is connected to apple airport, bundled with apple keyboard and mouse and of course, no 3rd party apps at all, and you still have problems then it is apples fault, in other cases theres 99% chance that the fault isnt apples

Cool, so what you are saying is that we are now supposed to go the old Windows route and reinstall fresh every time there is a patch?

Or

Remove all applications for fear of it crashing the system during a patch and then reinstall?

As a programmer myself, this wouldn't fly where I work. Apple rolled out a patch and it caused problems so yea, it is Apple's fault.

FYI, this discussion about Lion has been going on forever. I ran a clean install of Lion for over a week with no other apps installed and had three kernel panics. SL runs fine on the same hardware. Can you explain that one?

 

[beosound3200]

Cool, so what you are saying is that we are now supposed to go the old Windows route and reinstall fresh every time there is a patch?

Or

Remove all applications for fear of it crashing the system during a patch and then reinstall?

As a programmer myself, this wouldn't fly where I work. Apple rolled out a patch and it caused problems so yea, it is Apple's fault.

FYI, this discussion about Lion has been going on forever. I ran a clean install of Lion for over a week with no other apps installed and had three kernel panics. SL runs fine on the same hardware. Can you explain that one?

no, im not offering a solution, just stating the obvious facts which, as it seems, are not so obvious

look at the pool in the other thread how many people dont have any issues with the update, so YOUR system is the problem, not apples patch

yes i can, the problem is your hardware, how many people dont have issues whatsoever, probably 80-90 percent, if it werent like that it would be all over the news
its logic in its purest form:

vast majority of people dont have problems on lion
you do have problems on lion
so the conclusion is smth is wrong with lion?

im not defending apple, just stating the obvious, lion doesnt play well with your system, deal with it, either try to find the culprit, or revert back to sl, but you cant find the culprit if you dont acknowledge the fact that your system (hardware or software or both) is the problem

 

[Partron22]

look at the pool in the other thread how many people dont have any issues with the update, so YOUR system is the problem, not apples patch

Nah, Apple sells a variety of different Systems, and users use them in different ways. What with machine specific enablers and all, there's plenty of room for Apple-sourced bugs that show up on one Mac and not another without blame accruing to the user.
Your logic here is simply not valid.


Apple issues updates fixing iPhoto, QuickTime, Lion Recovery and Thunderbolt Mac issues

Should the title of the abov link actually read "Apple coddles Bad users"?
-I think not.

 

[derekamoss]

haha why would you need sources to back the numbers up? try your brain

who cares if its 1% or 6%, it doesnt make a difference

the point is, the users/3rd party software are in vast majority the culprit when problems happen

osx has bugs, non disputable, but those bugs are in 1% of cases the culprit of someone's problems

but you need to understand one thing, if you clean install lion on 100% apple machine (no 3rd party ram, hdd, anything) which is connected to apple airport, bundled with apple keyboard and mouse and of course, no 3rd party apps at all, and you still have problems then it is apples fault, in other cases theres 99% chance that the fault isnt apples

Exactly my point in this post. And someone posted above that developers submitted this issue to apple. Well apple probably forwarded it to the third party company that was causing it and THEY didn't fix it.

 

[thundersteele]

but you need to understand one thing, if you clean install lion on 100% apple machine (no 3rd party ram, hdd, anything) which is connected to apple airport, bundled with apple keyboard and mouse and of course, no 3rd party apps at all, and you still have problems then it is apples fault, in other cases theres 99% chance that the fault isnt apples

Well, by this argument, windows is perfect. Since there is no microsoft only machine, no microsoft wireless router, no microsoft external HD, all possible problems are due to third party hardware.

This update caused problems both for Lion and SL users, at a scale that led Apple to pull some of the updates from their servers. An incremental update should not cause such problems, independent of how much third party software is installed.

 

[beosound3200]

Nah, Apple sells a variety of different Systems, and users use them in different ways. What with machine specific enablers and all, there's plenty of room for Apple-sourced bugs that show up on one Mac and not another without blame accruing to the user.
Your logic here is simply not valid.


Apple issues updates fixing iPhoto, QuickTime, Lion Recovery and Thunderbolt Mac issues

Should the title of the abov link actually read "Apple coddles Bad users"?
-I think not.

oh my god, did i ever wrote that mac os x (or any other apple software) doesnt have bugs?

your logic isnt valid if you even think that someone can be so stupid and brainless to think that software (any kind, any company) doesnt have bugs

i was merely saying that the vast majority of problems on mac os x exist because of users/3rd party

----------

Well, by this argument, windows is perfect. Since there is no microsoft only machine, no microsoft wireless router, no microsoft external HD, all possible problems are due to third party hardware.

This update caused problems both for Lion and SL users, at a scale that led Apple to pull some of the updates from their servers. An incremental update should not cause such problems, independent of how much third party software is installed.

well, windows is 'different' in this regards because it is designed to run on everything while mac os x is designed to run only on apples hardware, see the difference?

apple is responsible only if every condition is met: apple products with apple software

and yeah, it shouldnt, thats called a bug, it happens, 1% of the time

 

[wpotere]

im not defending apple, just stating the obvious, lion doesnt play well with your system, deal with it, either try to find the culprit, or revert back to sl, but you cant find the culprit if you dont acknowledge the fact that your system (hardware or software or both) is the problem

Then you clearly don't get it. Apple designed Lion so that it would work with my system and it doesn't so you are saying this isn't Apples problem it is mine? What kind of logic is that? As for defending them, it sure looks and sounds like you are.

As a software engineer, if I told people that couldn't get the software I designed working on their systems that it was likely their problem I wouldn't last long in this business.

You also don't read a lot of tech articles that have already pointed out that Lion had a lot of bugs in it and you haven't read the release notes that also stated that they were patching BUGS!

So, your facts are actually nothing but your opinion.

 

[beosound3200]

Then you clearly don't get it. Apple designed Lion so that it would work with my system and it doesn't so you are saying this isn't Apples problem it is mine? What kind of logic is that? As for defending them, it sure looks and sounds like you are.

As a software engineer, if I told people that couldn't get the software I designed working on their systems that it was likely their problem I wouldn't last long in this business.

You also don't read a lot of tech articles that have already pointed out that Lion had a lot of bugs in it and you haven't read the release notes that also stated that they were patching BUGS!

So, your facts are actually nothing but your opinion.

do you have any 3rd party hardware in your system? if you dont then you should definitely contact apple because lion should work...

how many people have installed lion so far? how many do you think have problems? you think it wouldnt be all over the news if lion was in fact a disaster?

the fact remains, and its the base of my claims, you are in vast minority, a negligible minority not worth mentioning and thats why i think the problem is in you/your software/your hardware, it really isnt so hard to come to that conclusion
if 1 million people installed lion on macbook pro 2010 with 8gb ram and i5, and only 1-2% have problems, whose fault it is? turn the brain cells on

im not defending apple, its pure logic, statistics, plain as it gets, a 5 year old could come to that conclusion

if your software couldnt run on 50-60% pc it would be a problem, how about 1-5%?

lion has bugs, snow leopard has bugs, again, i never said that bugs dont exist, i only said that 99% of the problems on mac os x are users fault (hardware, software, you name it), theres no such thing as bugless software

please links to those reviews, i've only read the one from anandtech, they are one of the few trustworthy and professional tech sites, and are very thorough, but didnt mention that lion is buggy

and here you go, a survey, how do you explain this?
https://forums.macrumors.com/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=8418

and beware, this is on a forum, imagine if all lion users could vote, i think it wouldnt be so far from that 1%-99% i mentioned earlier

 

[chrono1081]

I also heard that if you never use the computer, it never has any technical defects and no bugs and no security issues.

Big version jumps in the OS, like SL to Lion, only happen every other year. They will break stuff, that's hard to avoid, and people should carefully evaluate their setup before upgrading. I also agree that a clean install of a new OS is the best way to avoid problems.

On the other hand, small patches for an OS version that fix e.g. security issues should have as little impact as possible.

This.

My Mac Pro in my sig runs both Snow Leopard and Lion. I use Lion for programming so I can take advantage of ARC, and I use Snow Leopard for all of my creative stuff because I know Maya, Houdini, ZBrush, Corel Painter, Photoshop, Unity 3D, etc etc all work fine with Snow Leopard. (Yes they work with Lion too but I don't trust Maya until I see it listed on Autodesks site).

It amazed me how many people claimed to be "pros" yet upgraded to Lion immediately after launch then cried because program x doesn't work.

 

[derekamoss]

This.

My Mac Pro in my sig runs both Snow Leopard and Lion. I use Lion for programming so I can take advantage of ARC, and I use Snow Leopard for all of my creative stuff because I know Maya, Houdini, ZBrush, Corel Painter, Photoshop, Unity 3D, etc etc all work fine with Snow Leopard. (Yes they work with Lion too but I don't trust Maya until I see it listed on Autodesks site).

It amazed me how many people claimed to be "pros" yet upgraded to Lion immediately after launch then cried because program x doesn't work.

Competent people will continue to not have problems. Incompetent people will continue to blame Apple for their mistakes. It's not that hard to say to yourself, hmmm maybe this application is causing problems.

I miss the day when the boards were "like 10.2.1 messed up ichat" and the response was "that sucks man, did you find a way to fix it? or "I had the same problem and this is what I did."

Instead of It's all Apples Fault that this happened!!!!

When I first switched to Mac OS 10.0 I had a lot of learning to do on the differences of Apple vs Microsoft.
When I had a problem, I came to these message boards to ask for help and people replied friendly about how to solve the problems instead of just posting a link to thread and such. I guess it comes with Apple's Consumer growth.

 

[cubbie5150]

Cool, so what you are saying is that we are now supposed to go the old Windows route and reinstall fresh every time there is a patch?

Or

Remove all applications for fear of it crashing the system during a patch and then reinstall?

As a programmer myself, this wouldn't fly where I work. Apple rolled out a patch and it caused problems so yea, it is Apple's fault.

FYI, this discussion about Lion has been going on forever. I ran a clean install of Lion for over a week with no other apps installed and had three kernel panics. SL runs fine on the same hardware. Can you explain that one?

Very similar experience to mine, especially when it comes to video playback (either via Flash in a browser, or videos played through QT-Perian/VLC/M PlayerX regardless of codec). It does no good to bring those issues up here. It just results in getting accused of being incompetent, or a troll.

 

[derekamoss]

Very similar experience to mine, especially when it comes to video playback (either via Flash in a browser, or videos played through QT-Perian/VLC/M PlayerX regardless of codec). It does no good to bring those issues up here. It just results in getting accused of being incompetent, or a troll.

You just said it yourself, it was flash or other video codecs that caused the problem, which YOU installed. Apple didn't make you download Perian/Divx/VLC. Those programs screwed up the update, not Apple.

 

[wpotere]

Very similar experience to mine, especially when it comes to video playback (either via Flash in a browser, or videos played through QT-Perian/VLC/M PlayerX regardless of codec). It does no good to bring those issues up here. It just results in getting accused of being incompetent, or a troll.

Exactly... Clearly some of the folks above don't get it. I don't know how many times I have said that I have a base stock system that was running SL with no problems only to install Lion FRESH and have multiple issues.

Yeah, I'm to blame and I am incompetent even though I have already troubleshot the system.

Of course this is Apple's problem, not mine. As for taking it to them? Yeah, that isn't going to happen because I know for a fact it is crap drivers and issues with their software. There is no reason for me to take it in to a store and have some "genius" that has 1/25th of my background tell me it is acting like it should and charge me for it. My hope is that Apple will release yet another patch to fix the rest of the errors and I am sure there will be another patch as there are still bugs.

Good thing I have Windows 7 running on bootcamp, it is more stable than Lion.