Some iOS 16 Users Continue to Report Plethora of Bugs Months After Launch

[I7guy]

It absolutely is NOT fine. The amount of time wasted on a continual basis by what you consider minor bugs adds up on a continuous basis, PLUS the anger they cause me to deal with them one after the next, every day, all day, is a constant assault on me as a thinking being.

I repeat: This industry is a FRELLING DISASTER.

It is fine for me, just works. I do t get tangled up with this type of draining emotion, unless it causes me to go around in circles wasting big chunks of my time of which I have little of.

I wish things didn’t have bugs this way I wouldn’t have to patch my iPhone, tv, router, camera, refrigerator, bios, etc.

 

[dysamoria]

It is fine for me, just works. I do t get tangled up with this type of draining emotion, unless it causes me to go around in circles wasting big chunks of my time of which I have little of.

I wish things didn’t have bugs this way I wouldn’t have to patch my iPhone, tv, router, camera, refrigerator, bios, etc.

I'm glad for you to not feel drained by it. A lot of people are. My tech support jobs made it clear just how many people are bothered by broken tech. It also made clear that most people aren't informed enough to realize that the tech is the problem: there's so much pressure to blame users, and people who don't know the technical details are all-too-willing to go along with taking said blame.

 

[I7guy]

I'm glad for you to not feel drained by it. A lot of people are. My tech support jobs made it clear just how many people are bothered by broken tech. It also made clear that most people aren't informed enough to realize that the tech is the problem: there's so much pressure to blame users, and people who don't know the technical details are all-too-willing to go along with taking said blame.

If you tech support and your universe consists of the entirety of your corporate tech world, windows, Linux, max, iPhone, android and iOt devices. Yep it’s draining.

But we’re discussing iPhones. If in your job you are answering questions like “my airdrop doesn’t work”, there’s something wrong. I can see you answering questions about improperly configured iPhones with an mdm unable to work as intended.

 

[dysamoria]

If you tech support and your universe consists of the entirety of your corporate tech world, windows, Linux, max, iPhone, android and iOt devices. Yep it’s draining.

But we’re discussing iPhones. If in your job you are answering questions like “my airdrop doesn’t work”, there’s something wrong. I can see you answering questions about improperly configured iPhones with an mdm unable to work as intended.

I don’t find airdrop works consistently between my own devices, or myself and my friend’s or parents’ phones. I’d hate to have to support tons of users in an actual workplace. And no, it’s not our fault. The devices aren’t “configured improperly”. It just doesn’t work sometimes and Apple haven’t bothered to make the feature reliable…

….as they’ve failed to do with so many other features. Like the “features” that continue to make text entering and editing a PITA on touch screens.

I’ve been out of the workforce for a while, on disability, and I’m not missing doing tech support in the least. It was depressing and beyond frustrating. There’s no solution to most problems because they’re bad design or broken code. It’s just endless apologizing to users and explaining ways of trying to work around broken garbage.

The best time I had in tech was training people; letting them know when they were NOT the problem. I was able to free a few people from the mindset of “I must’ve done something wrong again! I’m so stupid!”

 

[I7guy]

I don’t find airdrop works consistently between my own devices, or myself and my friend’s or parents’ phones. I’d hate to have to support tons of users in an actual workplace. And no, it’s not our fault. The devices aren’t “configured improperly”. It just doesn’t work sometimes and Apple haven’t bothered to make the feature reliable…

I used airdrop as an example, but I (my friends, family, associates) don't have issues with it as long as airdrop is turned on, on the right settings before the pictures are sent.

….as they’ve failed to do with so many other features. Like the “features” that continue to make text entering and editing a PITA on touch screens.

What features? Why is entering and editing text a PITA? I agree, typing on a glass screen is difficult, for me, but it works consistently.

I’ve been out of the workforce for a while, on disability, and I’m not missing doing tech support in the least. It was depressing and beyond frustrating. There’s no solution to most problems because they’re bad design or broken code. It’s just endless apologizing to users and explaining ways of trying to work around broken garbage.

Again, if one is corporate support I agree there are many, many moving parts that break down at points.

The best time I had in tech was training people; letting them know when they were NOT the problem. I was able to free a few people from the mindset of “I must’ve done something wrong again! I’m so stupid!”

Like with other jobs, gotta have thick skin in this one. Do your best and go forward from there.

 

[Morac]

But we’re discussing iPhones. If in your job you are answering questions like “my airdrop doesn’t work”, there’s something wrong. I can see you answering questions about improperly configured iPhones with an mdm unable to work as intended.

I would add, if the standard support response to every reported problem is to tell the customer to restore the phone using a computer and set it up as new and not log into iCloud (which it very much is), then something is very wrong.

 

[dysamoria]

I used airdrop as an example, but I (my friends, family, associates) don't have issues with it as long as airdrop is turned on, on the right settings before the pictures are sent.

What features? Why is entering and editing text a PITA? I agree, typing on a glass screen is difficult, for me, but it works consistently.

Again, if one is corporate support I agree there are many, many moving parts that break down at points.

Like with other jobs, gotta have thick skin in this one. Do your best and go forward from there.

I’m sorry, I don’t feel like laying out all my issues again, as I’ve done many times over the years on this forum and others. I’ve reported everything to Apple and almost none of the issues have been resolved. The only major ones that finally got fixed after four major iOS releases was text selection bugs in Safari text edit fields.

Just typing this was enough for me to yell at this piece of garbage several times because of how it forced me to repeat my own efforts and it failed to do basic things it’s supposed to do.

 

[I7guy]

I’m sorry, I don’t feel like laying out all my issues again, as I’ve done many times over the years on this forum and others. I’ve reported everything to Apple and almost none of the issues have been resolved. The only major ones that finally got fixed after four major iOS releases was text selection bugs in Safari text edit fields.

Just typing this was enough for me to yell at this piece of garbage several times because of how it forced me to repeat my own efforts and it failed to do basic things it’s supposed to do.

There are some things the typing engine does really, really well and other things it fails spectacularly.

 

[I7guy]

I would add, if the standard support response to every reported problem is to tell the customer to restore the phone using a computer and set it up as new and not log into iCloud (which it very much is), then something is very wrong.

Or as far as windows goes, reboot your computer.

 

[Morac]

Or as far as windows goes, reboot your computer.

I wouldn’t equate rebooting windows to restoring iOS. That would equate to rebooting the iPhone which I have no problem doing as a troubleshooting step.

Restoring iOS is akin to having to format and reinstall Windows for any issue.

I have the same problem on 3 completely different devices: iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. I had a third level Apple support person refuse to help me unless I wiped all three devices and set them up as new. Yes, including my Mac.

That’s just lazy troubleshooting as if the same problem is happening on 3 different devices, the chance of the OS being “corrupt” on all 3 devices causing the same problem is astronomical. The chance on one device is extremely low too despite how common Apple support thinks it is.

 

[I7guy]

I wouldn’t equate rebooting windows to restoring iOS. That would equate to rebooting the iPhone which I have no problem doing as a troubleshooting step.

Restoring iOS is akin to having to format and reinstall Windows for any issue.

I have the same problem on 3 completely different devices: iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. I had a third level Apple support person refuse to help me unless I wiped all three devices and set them up as new. Yes, including my Mac.

That’s just lazy troubleshooting as if the same problem is happening on 3 different devices, the chance of the OS being “corrupt” on all 3 devices causing the same problem is astronomical. The chance on one device is extremely low too despite how common Apple support thinks it is.

I suppose the standard response to windows is to reinstall also. Weak ally I have reinstalled windows once in many, many years and reinstalled iOS once in 20 years.

There is no way Microsoft can support every windows user as apple can’t support every iOS, mac, iPad, Watch etc user.

I imagine the level of support goes from inane user created issues to complex software issues, all which take up time and energy of support reps.

 

[Sebalto]

Our family uses the following: 5 iPhones, 4 iPads, 2 Homepod Minis, 2 Apple TV 4K, 2 MacBook Pro (Intel and M1 Pro), 3 Apple Watches and maybe I'm even forgetting something, but you get the gist of it.

We've invested a lot in Apple's ecosystem. We also have iCloud, Apple Music, stuff like that. And a plethora of Homekit accessories.

Ever since iOS 16 came out (mind you, ALL our devices are capable of running the latest OS versions) and macOS 13 as well, our digital life has been ONE BIG HELL!!!

I hope Apple is reading this, because I'm really fed up with this. We're paying premium prices for premium products and a bug here and there is acceptable, but this is absolutely ridiculous and TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

What we experience on a (nearly) daily basis:

• Screen time requests do not come through, either: at all, for 1 of us (at random)
• Screen time requests now come in as iMessage, after 5-10 are in the history of the chat the Messages app gets extremely slow, both on iPhones, iPads and worst of all: MacBooks.
• Screen time request approval on Apple Watch does NOT work
• App approval (Ask to buy) for the kids does NOT work, they can request it from their device, but we never get any notification or way to approve. Have to turn it off, then install locally and then turn on again to prevent them from installing anything else.
• Multiple Apple apps often freeze/hang and then are killed: Find My, Maps, Apple Music, Camera, etc.
• AirPlay video to Apple TVs sometimes only sends out audio, restarting Apple TV or iPhone helps until it happens again sometime later.
• Keyboard doesn't show in lots of apps, app needs to be killed.
• Battery drain is exceptionally high, I cannot get over 4 hours of screen on my iPhone while this used to be easy 5 and sometimes 6.
• Apps and camera often stutter, easily visible that it either goes down to a very low fps/Hz like 10 fps or something and/or it stutters at 1 fps for a few seconds.
• Automations don't work often times. And I know that this is Homekit and not my WiFi or anything else, because I also heavily use Philips Hue and since that is much more detailed in terms of automations for motion sensors (it reads the lux for one) and switches (I can actually configure short and long presses on my FoH switches for turning off/on and dimming) and those NEVER FAIL. Same with the few Aqara specific automations, for stuff that Homekit doesn't support: it's not as robust as Hue itself, but 95% of the time it works. Homekit? It's like 50/50 right now, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Deleting an Automation seems to work, but temporarily.
• Homekit accessories don't respond at random moments. Rebooting the Apple TV seems to help the most, but it's not a given.
• Homekit notifications for cameras are inconsistent. I own multiple Netatmo Presence cameras and to test I enabled notifications from their own app as well. Sometimes the notifications are almost instant for both (Netatmo and HKSV) but 7/10 times HKSV lags behind for at least 2-3 seconds. Sometimes it's minutes later.
• My only AirTag which is attached to my home keys has already started ringing when I picked it up when I was about to leave the house. I had my phone in my pocket, no notification, no way to stop it and simply no idea why this happened. It never was away from my phone during that period.
• My 64 GB iPhone 12 became incredibly slow after updating to iOS 16, found out that it only had 2 GB of storage left, while it was 4.5 GB before! Where the heck has those 2.5 GB gone to Apple?! I rigorously deleted some apps since it was slowing to a crawl with everything from unlocking to even opening apps, it literally felt like I was using a €50 Android phone with stutters, no response, freezes and everything along those lines with literally everything I did. Now I'm hovering at 4 GB and it's back to somewhat normal (apart from everything else above) but a 2 year old iPhone 12 need 4 GB of free storage space on a 64 GB model to run smoothly? Unacceptable. And there's no way for me to remove caches like the 4.1 GB of the Photos app while I have a total of 2.2 TB iCloud storage with Photos enabled in iCloud and not even 1 TB in use with the whole family? Same with Apple Music: I specifically said it to not download anything, I don't have local music or playlists saved (I've got unlimited 5G anyway) and it takes up 1.28 GB?! I don't mind if it does this to smoothen things up, but I find it absolutely STUPID from a company like Apple and an almost €1000 phone that it cannot see that I only have 2-4 GB storage free and stubbornly keeps a hold of over 5 GB in caches in apps that are cloud-based. At least be smart about it, just like the Offload Unused Apps feature (which I want to keep in control myself, thank you very much) or give users the option to specify how much cache can be used, like: 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, etc. Even if that makes viewing my photos slightly slower.

And there's lots more, but this has already become a novel almost.
Don't get me wrong: apart from this, I still love Apple hardware and software. But we specifically decided to go all-in on Apple and things like Homekit, because it would make our lives easier. We're a busy family with work, school, sports and a social life, like most families I suppose, so we just want stuff to work. I don't mind paying a premium, I don't mind subscriptions (there is a limit, I'm not paying for a calendar app or something), but then stuff should work. And right now it's a complete **** show from Apple. I bought a Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Android phone just to test it out, it was just €230, not even a Black Friday deal or anything, and that works much more bug-free than my iPhone 12 right now. Yes, the camera is **** (but that's what you pay for as well, or not in case of the Xiaomi) and it's slightly slower than most recent iPhones when they perform as they should, but it's performing consistent and definitely not slow at all. For my son I even tried out Genshin Impact which is a huge game and it runs flawlessly. I've literally been using it side-by-side with all the exact same apps installed as on my iPhone and it gives me over 7 hours on-screen time. The only difference of course being Homekit not running on there and some apps I had to swap out to an equivalent.

In short: I know for example that my iPhone 12 with 64 GB is too much on the limit, so I need a 128 GB phone next time, I wanted to buy the 14 Pro, but I'm waiting to see if Apple finally fixes this **** show with 16.3 or something. My son's iPad 6th gen is also getting slow for some of his games, so a new iPad is on the wish list, just as replacing the 2nd Apple TV 4K with the same one as in the living room (with Thread support), but right now I'm not buying anything until this is fixed. And I'm a patient person, but if even iOS 17 doesn't fix this, then I don't give a **** about how much pain it will cost me and my family to move away, but that would straight away mean that I would sell everything from Apple and go full in on Android+Windows+Google Home. I used to not want that, partly because of privacy, but I rate working products and services higher than my privacy (to a limit of course), especially when paying premium prices.

Let's end with a bold statement: Apple has lost it, their teams have become too big so they can't handle it and either need to go back to the drawing board on how they work or at the very least stop releasing a new iOS version every year. Just focus on getting things to actually work, then nobody will mind waiting 2 years in between major releases.

I gave up on iOS 16 and traded my iPhone SE 2020 in for a Pixel 6a and paid £140 difference. I cant believe that as an avid user and defender of Apple for the last 10 years that Android is now actually more stable and easier to use than iOS. And I used to HATE Android!

 

[Technerd108]

I gave up on iOS 16 and traded my iPhone SE 2020 in for a Pixel 6a and paid £140 difference. I cant believe that as an avid user and defender of Apple for the last 10 years that Android is now actually more stable and easier to use than iOS. And I used to HATE Android!

I don't know what Apple is doing? I really like iOS and iPhone but I agree with you.

I actually ditched my iphone too. I will wait until iPhone 15/16 and hope that they will have resolved the software bugs.

Apple makes some of the best hardware and software but when they lose focus on stability for new features they are making a big mistake. Everyone who has used iPhones for any length of time in the past always enjoyed the stability and sometimes you didn't have as many features but you always knew what you had would work really well and now that has changed and at least for now they have lost my trust.

I believe they will eventually right the ship but I don't know what they are doing with software development? They have tons of people and tons of money and relatively few devices to focus on all with their own custom hardware yet Android is running on tons of devices with tons of different hardware yet it is more stable??