“Today’s news about Apple putting new features on the back burner for iOS 12 means that the company will finally be focusing on polishing up its mobile operating system,” Peter Cao writes for 9to5Mac. “After years of interface inconsistencies and frame rate issues, iOS may be getting some much-needed attention on the finer details.”
“While frame rate issues have gone unnoticed by many, prominent YouTuber and entrepreneur Chris Pirillo has been documenting his findings over the years with a public list of issues,” Cao writes. “The most jarring and obvious frame rate issue is when invoking Siri and trying to access Control Center. This is an example of an “unlikely situation, so Apple didn’t check,” which some feel has been Apple’s software mantra with iOS 7 and beyond.”
“While it’s good to hear about Apple shifting focus to zero in on refinements, I would argue these sort of issues should have never should have shipped to begin with.,” Cao writes. “For example, scrolling through the main messages thread in the Messages app is smooth as butter on an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus, but prove to be super choppy on more recent iPhones. This is a head-scratcher considering Apple’s hardware is miles ahead of the competition, especially in its A-series chips… Issues like this are inexcusable for the most valuable and profitable company in the world and they simply didn’t exist in earlier versions of iOS. The issue clearly stems from the major re-design that was iOS 7, and then proceeded to make its way onto OS X after the same redesign was made with OS X Yosemite.”
“Stability and coherency is why many of us started using Apple in the first place, because ‘it just works,’ not because ‘it works good enough,'” Cao writes. “I don’t know what the answer is for Apple, but slowing down may be the first step in creating a beautiful, yet consistent operating system again.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Sounds familiar.
Dear Mr. Cook,
“It just works.” That’s getting tougher and tougher for us OS X and iOS users to say with straight faces lately.
Apple, while certainly still the best when it comes to desktop and mobile operating systems, needs to do better. Our expectations, some of us as users of Apple products since the early 1980s, are not being met when it comes to the quality and reliability of operating systems, software, and services. Used to be, you could pretty confidently install brand new operating systems from Apple. Recently, we’re more inclined to wait for a few point releases than not. It’s downright Microsoftian. Lately, for the past couple of years, your software seems rushed. Is “rush job” really the impression you want to give your customers?
Slow down! Getting it right is far more important than getting it out.
Frankly, we don’t need a new Mac or iPhone/iPad operating system every year and Apple Inc. doesn’t need it, either. Annual OS releases shouldn’t be mandated. What we all really need, customers and Apple Inc., are operating systems that are rock solid and do what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it. Why not just add new features/services to existing OSes with continued point releases that refine and extend the experiences and services you want to deliver? Why not just release new operating systems only when they are rock solid and ready?
In other words, take a step back, take a deep breath, and focus on making sure that what you have now just works. Because too much of it doesn’t (Wi-Fi connectivity for one ongoing, glaring, vexing example). Getting it right is far more important than having two “new” free OSes to release each year. Seriously, nobody outside of Cupertino very much cares. We do, however, care very much that Apple’s software and services work as flawlessly as possible.
We occasionally hear things about the company from Apple employees.
Some of those things lead us to wonder if perhaps you should rethink some aspects of the culture at Apple? Specifically, what really should constitute a badge of honor at Apple? Working all day, all weekend and all night in order to squat out iOS 8.0.1 and then have to turn around and do it all over again, in a panic, to get iOS 8.0.2 out the door in order to clean up the mess? Or taking the time necessary to do the job correctly the first time?
People with proper sleep and lower stress levels do better work. Many major medical studies prove these facts. Shouldn’t quality, not quantity, of hours worked be the utmost badge of honor at Apple?
Working long hours simply for the sake of working long hours is counterproductive. It really doesn’t prove anything except that you have no life and that, despite all of their work on Apple Watch, Apple executives still do not understand basic human health requirements and are incapable of properly staffing their departments so that they can function without requiring sleep-deprived, mistake-prone employees who feel that it’s a job requirement to be able to reply to emails from managers at 2:00 am. That’s idiocy.
Driving too hard, too fast, and for too long leads to accidents.
We speak from experience, albeit at a far, far smaller level than yours. We’ve tried and been exposed to several methods as both managers and employees in the television, financial, and online media industries. Regardless of the size of your department or company, people are people. You can push people to a point that’s very productive, but when you exceed that point, it’s all downhill for everyone involved. It’s not a badge of honor. It’s not an “I love this company!” statement. It’s simply mismanagement. It’s verifiably unhealthy and it leads directly to diminished quality, increased turnover, and productivity declines. And customer satisfaction ultimately suffers. Hence this letter.
Bottom line: We long to again be able to confidently say of our Macs, iPhones, and iPads: “It just works.”
Sincerely,SEE ALSO:
Apple delays planned 2018 iOS features to focus on reliability, performance – January 30, 2018
Why Apple desperately needs a new Steve Jobs – January 29, 2018
At Tim Cook’s Apple, Steve Jobs is long gone, and so is the ‘it just works’ ethos – December 19, 2017
The Washington Post: ‘Why doesn’t Apple make its devices as carefully as it’s making Apple Park?’ – December 11, 2017
Apple Park estimated to cost upwards of $5 billion to build – December 9, 2017
What to do about Apple’s shameful Mac security flaw in macOS High Sierra – November 29, 2017
Apple started working on HomePod in 2012, so why are they so late to the smart speaker market? – November 21, 2017
Why Apple’s HomePod is three years behind Amazon’s Echo – November 21, 2017
Under ‘operations genius’ Tim Cook, product delays and other problems are no longer unusual for Apple – November 20, 2017
Apple delays HomePod release to early 2018 – November 17, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook: The ‘operations genius’ who never has enough products to sell at launch – October 23, 2017
Apple’s Mac Pro debacle: Failure and future – May 8, 2017
Why is Apple’s next-gen Mac Pro taking so long? – April 18, 2017
Apple’s desperate Mac Pro damage control message hints at a confused, divided company – April 6, 2017
Who has taken over at Apple? – April 5, 2017
Apple’s embarrassing Mac Pro mea culpa – April 4, 2017
Who’s going to buy a Mac Pro now? – April 4, 2017
Mac Pro: Why did it take Apple so long to wake up? – April 4, 2017
Apple sorry for what happened with the Mac Pro over the last 3+ years – namely, nothing – April 4, 2017
AirPods: MIA for the holidays; delayed product damages Apple’s credibility, stokes customer frustration – December 9, 2016
Lazy Apple. It’s not hard to imagine Steve Jobs asking, ‘What have you been doing for the last four years?’ – December 9, 2016
Apple is misplaying the hand Steve Jobs left them – November 30, 2016
Apple delays AirPod rollout – October 26, 2016
Apple delays release of watchOS 2 due to bug – September 16, 2015
Apple delays HomeKit launch until autumn – May 14, 2015
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
Apple delays production of 12.9-inch ‘iPad Pro’ in face of overwhelming iPhone 6/Plus demand – October 9, 2014
Tim Cook’s mea culpa: iMac launch should have been postponed – April 24, 2013
When I’m at home and listening to the radio, I often ask “Hey Siri, what’s that tune?” and of course Siri tells me.
However when I’m in the car and listening to the car radio, asking Siri about the tune immediately silences the radio.
It would be nice if Siri were smart enough not to silence the thing I’ve asked her to listen to.
Now, to be fair, this is only because Siri is a retard.
She is dumber than shit
Siri Sucks…
I never use it because it’s just stupid compared to the competition.
On my car at least invoking the bluetooth connection and the car’s own microphones automatically mutes/silences the in car audio.
So I guess Apple learn nothing from several years ago when they also focused on the software and no new features. Wasn’t that not only two or three years ago? I guess all that work on the saucer ship made them forget
It was probably that fancy coffee book that costs an arm and a leg that caused them to forget…
As far as the iOS portion of Apple is concerned…I miss Scott Forstall. He might have been a jerk with some people but at least he knew how to manage better than some of the other managers that are at Apple.
ROFL Chris Pirillo still does teach vids? I stopped watching him after he turned his main tech channel into a VLOG channel.
If you don’t have time to do it right you must have time to do it over.
I remember when OSX Snow Leopard 10.6 was launched. It was basically a refined version of Leopard 10.5. A few new features but a rock solid mainly bug free upgrade. To this day Snow Leopard is the best OSX version Apple ever launched. It rarely crashed, I never needed to reboot and the beach ball was a novelty more than the norm. I wish all versions of OSX were as stable and pleasant to use as Snow Leopard. It looks to me as if this is the thinking behind iOS 12, hopefullly it turns out to be a bullet proof, super resource efficient iOS11 in the same vein as Snow Leopard was to Leopard. There are many really annoying bugs in iOS 11, I’ll gladly forfeit new features to have a smooth as silk easy to use, super efficient, reliable OS.
I’d like to know why Maps has such outdated images. My own neighborhood is going on 5 years of no updated imagery. Google is only 6 months behind current state. Why can’t Apple get semi-currents imagery? Plus, why doesn’t the Map in Find My Friends app have active Points of Interest icons? I remember when you had the option to open location in Maps. That’s been gone for quite a while. Also, the imagery in FMF is different than the actual Maps app imagery. What’s the reason for not just using the actual Maps app for FMF. It seems as though is just a PDF layer with no active links.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8080156?start=0&tstart=0
FIX THIS ISSUE!!!!!
Ok, it’ll be fixed — but only if you add more exclamation points.
/s
Thanks for he smart @ss reply. Maybe you enjoy your devices deciding what time it is. But people that travel have been extremely inconvenienced, late, misled and lost revenue. The Apple Watch and phone combo cannot be relied upon if you cross time zones.
How about the idiotic clock app where you set a timer but keep the app visible and when the timer is done, a sheet slides down which you need to dismiss before you can access the screen of the clock app… which you are already in. What is even the fucking point of a Sheet is you’re in the fucking app already? Hello Apple, are you lot gone brain dead since Steve Jobs does?
You presume that Tim Cook has a brain.
I just noticed that in High Sierra that whatever your have entered in the calculator in the notifications/today bar gets wiped out if you close it, this didn’t happen before. Alongside the missing coverflow view for email attachments and the fact that I can’t get 10.13.2 or 10.13.3 to install (“some updates failed to install automatically”), I hope Apple returns to being detail oriented. There’s probably a direct correlation to the amount of time spent on emojis/iMessage trivia at a given keynote and the dropoff in performance and reliability for Mac OS.