“When Apple first released the iPhone 6, we were struck by the surprisingly persistent and numerous bugs in iOS 8,” Christina Bonnington reports for Wired. “Almost all review units (from any company, not just Apple) are thoroughly tested, vetted, and hand-selected as being the best representation of that product. You don’t want a reviewer accidentally ending up with a blemished, defective phone. Bad publicity. So using an iPhone that rebooted itself and got hung up on the keyboard was surprising indeed.”
“We weren’t alone in that sentiment. WIRED saw similar bugs on the iPhone 6 Plus. Other reviewers pronounced it Apple’s buggiest release yet, and Apple pundit John Gruber wrote ‘it seems like Apple’s software teams can’t keep up with the pace of the hardware teams’ before talking more about getting stuck in an endless reboot cycle,” Bonnington reports. “Turns out it wasn’t just in our heads: Data from app performance monitor Crittercism showed iOS 8’s crash rate was 60 percent higher than iOS 7 during their respective first months on handsets.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: For some perspective (and something curiously not mentioned in WIRED’s report): According to Crittercism, iOS 8’s crash rate is under 3.5% and has never exceeded 4% since release.
More FUD.
Both Wired and ArsTechnica are oftentimes good publications, but sometimes they are prone to cheap, sensationalistic, tabloidish “reporting” for the sake of page hits and fake drama that would eventually somehow generate more money. Not every media is classy, alas.
… And “El Reg”, aka The Register. Wired doesn’t do much for me these days. But if you keep a level head among the blundering and hype, Ars and Reg offer some good daily information coverage. Just don’t use them as the only sources.
“Apple pundit John Gruber” — is that the same guy who lied about Obamacare? Another lie? /sarc
Not completely, my iPhone 6 and iPad Air have repeatedly spontaneously rebooted while I was reading the MDN app. We’ll see if the 8.1.1 update fixes that. No spontaneous reboots since this update, so far.
I wouldn’t be so quick to call it FUD. When I first got my iPhone 6 128GB it would reboot itself numerous times, in some cases all by itself with no direct interaction on my part. But it hasn’t happened since the latest update.
I think a lot of it depends on the phone and the OS coming out at the same time. Last year when I bought a 5S at the same time iOS 7 was introduced I was convinced that iOS 7 was the buggiest system ever created. It wasn’t until 7.1.1 that it settled down and started to behave. So far I’ve had very few complaints about iOS 8 running on the 5S and I think the problems are predominantly due to the concurrent introduction of new hardware and a new operating system.
Yup. From Apple fanboys such as yourself.
Interesting — no problems yet on my 5s
No problems AT ALL on our three MacBook Pros, two iPads and four iPhones – two 4S, one 6 and one 6+.
FUD, FUD, FUD and most likely paid for by Samdung.
My iPad 3 still as wifi problems though for whatever reason less than at first, but i tend to doubt it will ever be resolved so have to resort to the old IT trick of turning wifi off and on and off and on till it picks up again.
I’ve had wifi loss issues on my original iPad mini and on my iPad mini Retina. I even had a Genius replace the retina. One responder in a Appke forum told me the problem is in Airplane mode. The issue is streaky at best, but turning on Airplane usually clears it up for awhile. If that trick doesn’t work I reboot. No wifi issues on my MBP, that remains on wifi when the mini Retina goes down.
I’ve had no issues with iOS 8
Yeah I’m like “what problems?” The only problem I had on my new iP6+ was some non-critical apps were stalled at “waiting.” iOS8.1.1 fixed it. Otherwise it’s been smooth sailing. That being said Apple standard is higher than the rest so the company needs to rise to the challenge to obliterate criticism (fair or unfair) knowing what’s OK for other company’s isn’t good enough for them.
iPhone 5s has all kinds of little bugs, like sound not restoring after turning the ringer back on, apps not going landscape then back to portrait, weird things like that, and a bunch of them! But overalll very few “crashes”
I’ve had a lot of glitches similar to yours and then some on my iP5. Same bugs persist even after replacing the phone under AppleCare.
Anyone who thinks John Gruber and Ars technica are guilty of FUD are just wallowing in confirmation bias.
Compare iOS’s crash rate to Android’s and you can see Apple’s got a LOT of work to do to get back to the hardware/software quality I’m used to.
iOS 8 is in Ice Cream Sandwich territory!
http://data.crittercism.com/m/#android-crash-rate-by-version
http://data.crittercism.com/m/#ios-crash-rate-by-version
I suggest anyone who’s interested in this topic and could shed some informed light on the issue take a quick look at their Diagnostics and Usage under Privacy in Settings and report back what they see. My guess is they’ll have much to say about it.
Hmm. Just took a peek. What is a “jetsam event” ???
No issues with iOS 8 on either iPhone 6 or 6 plus
My 4S sucked under iOS 8 until this last update. I use it only as a 40 odd GB music player for the truck (no phone), but was buggy and slow.
Works very smooth now.
Other than using up the battery much faster than iOS 7 ever did, I haven’t had any issues with iOS8 on my 5s.
While any increase in bug and crash rates should be viewed with cancern, there are lies, darned lies, and statistics. If a rate is very low, say 1%, the a 60% increase will take that to 1.6%. While that is undesirable, it is not a disaster. I am confident that Tim Cook takes software quality very seriously, and that this data is not indicative of a long term decline.
That said, while Apple will never be perfect, the company needs to keep tight control over its software and hardware quality. Consumers will continue to pay for Apple quality so long as it is actually present. If Apple were to lose its reputation of ‘just working,’ the competition will grow stronger. Apple has a very loyal fan base, but many of the new Apple customers that were added in the past.few years are not quite as sticky. They might be tempted to leave the Apple ecosystem if the company does not maintain the usability, design, and quality aspects that initially drew them in.
This is not twisted statistics. As I just posted above, in terms of absolute numbers, not % increase, iOS 8 is in Android Ice Cream Sandwich territory.
http://data.crittercism.com/m/#ios-crash-rate-by-version
http://data.crittercism.com/m/#android-crash-rate-by-version
*facepalm*
8 was sloppy QC.
Crack down hard Tim Cook, now.
Apple’s 8.0.1 update will live in infamy, deservedly. But messes in aisle 1 get cleaned up, lessons learned (we hope) and things move on. One happy thing I saw this week is that Apple’s security updates page got a total overhaul, looks great, and was actually up-to-date when the three OS updates were released this week. I haven’t seen that page immediately up-to-date literally in years. So things do improve, eventually.
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1222
Um. I just checked the security page you linked to and the newest thing showing there is from October 22. Maybe they reverted back after you viewed it?
Really? What an annoyance! I was just there again and all the OS updates are listed, which I never see on the day-of. I’ve had a couple people tell me that not all the repeater/mirror servers are updated along with the source server. Without knowing the architecture of how these servers are distributed and updated I don’t actually understand the problem.
Thanks for letting me know. That’s sad. I keep hoping all the sources for a web page will be as swiftly updated as we experience with DNS servers. It’s really lame IMHO that this is NOT the case. 😛
Krioni, I went there an hour ago and all was fine. NOW I go there and see what you reported, all old October stuff, October 22 QT Windows being the most recent. WTF?! This stuff is important AT the moment of release. It’s computer security!
Totally agree. It’s always baffled me that Apple wants to be viewed as serious on security, but then thinks it’s OK to leave everyone in the dark about the contents of security updates.
Now I feel good about posting Apple’s security announcements at my Mac-Security blog. I’m on their mailing list. I thought I was just being redundant to what Apple was posting online. But no! I end up being a resource because Apple still can’t get their act together publishing these announcements on the web. Why they consistently fail to post them I cannot imagine. And this time, they post them then PULL them?!
AND… Now the security docs for the recent OS patches are back again. That’s good!
The whole operations has been very sloppy lately –
iOS 8.0.1 – enough said!
Yosemite 10.10.1 DLed automatically to my daughters 2013 MBA yesterday, when she got home from school the display wasn’t working – only showing a dark screen, Apple logo lit up on lid. Tried getting an appointment at the local Genius Bar – next available time was THURSDAY afternoon!!! It took me about an hour to stumble upon a post in the Apple Support Community site that said to try a PRAM forced restart – that fixed it.
This morning pre-orders not delivering from iTunes. They DL then don’t load into library – hours wasted trying to figure this one out. Tried finding iTunes phone number to call support (I have done that in the past to resolve issues with iTunes) – they no longer have a contact number. Only email support, with an auto response that says they’ll get back to me within 48 hours.
Starting to feel like things just DON’T work!
I’ve had the pre-orders problem with iTunes. Restarting my iPhone fixed it. Felt like I was in some alternate universe where I haven’t been a Mac user for over 20 years and I was getting a taste of the control-alt-delete hell of my Windows-using friends.
I also love how, when an iPhone running iOS 8 is booting, it shows the Apple logo and then, for about 10-15 seconds, a completely black screen before showing the lock screen. Why make us think the boot is failing?
The iTunes issues are on my Macs, not iPhone / iPad related.
I just checked Apple Support Community, and apparently I’m not alone with this issue. They must have pumped out a bad file for Guardians of the Galaxy this morning … not like that isn’t going a be a big seller, and maybe someone should have made sure the right file was ready to go!!! It’s iOS 8.0.1 all over again, but at least this time this isn’t going to brick my new iPhone!
I think that 10.10.1 8.1.1 have gone a long way to quell my concerns regarding the quality of these new systems. I actually had Apple place my week old iPhone 6 because of BlueTooth issues. I should have perhaps waited for the updates. All seems excellent now.
REplace, of course!
Actually, I agree with this article. I have updated my iPhone 5s to ios 8.1 and I am still annoyed with the bugs in ios 8. For example, on my phone when I go into the photo app to look at my photos, I always see my status bar above the pictures. even when zoomed in. I have reset the phone numerous times and this does not fix the problem.
Also, messages constantly gives me grief when I am trying to forward a text to someone else. Many times the forward button will not appear and I have to manually close out messages and restart the app.
These two annoyances are just 2 examples that I deal with quite often, about once a day.
Sorry guys, but I am not happy with iOS 8’s bugs either.
often times these bugs are perpetuated in the iCloud backup/restore. A clean reset (without ICloud backup) may fix it.
You have to tap the photo part once to make it go away. If you tap the photo twice or the bar it will not go away. If this does not work than do a hard restart. That fixes most problems, it is the first thing Apple Care will ask you to do, and is a good practice to do about once a month even if you don’t have problems.
iOS 8 did screw up my iPad 2, however there were warnings not to do it. If you don’t have a 64 bit device I suggest don’t upgrade. However it gave me a good excuse to trade it in for a new Air 2, love it.
iOS Vista.
No, this isn’t FUD and its time for you unmitigated apologists to stop apologizing – iOS 8 was easily (and continues to be) the buggiest and least stable iOS that Apple has released so far — granted, getting better ever revision, but out the gate having issues like completely broken copy and paste when dropping below a certain level of free memory; intermittent unexpected reboots; a combination of memory leaks and bad memory management; (not to mention the initial iOS 8.0.1 fiasco).
This isn’t just hardware outpacing software – this is plain and simple bad quality control, coupled with a lack of oversight and micromanagement.
Basically, it feels like no one in Cupertino actually uses iPhones and iPads, lately.
These bugs, along with iPhone 5s frequently not rotating back from landscape to portrait, iPad 4 suffering from terrible performance problems (photo taking 3-4 seconds to open and display after tapping the thumbnail – really, Apple) – these issues are on my iPad 4, iPhone 5s.
Seeing as how iOS 8.0.1 addressed performance issues on iPad 2, it is frustrating that issues of a similar ilk aren’t addressed on a much newer model.
Typing out long sentenc s like this will often cause safari to freeze. Better stop now or…
Exactly. That’s another bug (mostly prevalent in Facebook). I now type everything in notepad and copy and paste – that is, if copy and paste works at that time, and if safari hasn’t reloaded the page I was on, losing everything on that page.
So, yeah, there’s a lot of problems which no one in Cupertino appears to be aware of or care about.
Just discovered that cannot drag an attachment from Mail, into a folder on my MacBook Pro, with the last update. It had been “laggy” previously, but no longer works, and rebooting at this time is not something I’m prepared to do.
They never wrote anything about Windows 8 being buggy. And they didn’t quite say shit about Microsoft skipping Windows 9 like it never happened.
When it comes to Apple though, it’s a whole new ballgame. A comparable story wouldn’t be off the front page for several weeks and would also have hundreds of pages of hostile comments.
Apple has iOS and OS X on a yearly schedule. You can’t put operating systems on a schedule. They’re done when they’re done and shouldn’t be released until they’re relatively bug free. When releasing operating systems on a schedule, your customers become unwilling beta testers, and I’m sick and tired of it.
EXACTLY!!!
I am a huge Apple supporter!
Anyway who says iOS 8 isn’t the buggiest release yet is either lying or LYING.
I even have make to attempts to write this reply because system hung up (while entering my info) switching the name box to the email box.
Perhaps I didn’t have reboot…. But I had to close the page and reopen.
So when MDN talks about system crash rates being low, he is purposely ignoring all of the little hiccups in the software…..
The software engineers need to hire a few more team members….. Apple no longer can laugh at Microsoft… Apple’s work has become sloppy.
The first string sign of this was their maps/nav software….
Shame on them!!!!!
For disclosure, I’ve been a solid stockholder since ’99. That still doesn’t stop me from telling it like it is.
We use .05 % as our rate of failure acceptable over that. It’s an outright fail. If my company can do that why can’t apple?
Only one weird crash, and it’s due to a crappy app. This app (the Cracked Reader, if anyone cares), has a habit of crashing when switching from portrait to landscape. Under iOS7, the app would crash and you’d find yourself back at the menu screen. No biggie. Under iOS8, it crashes the entire iPhone. Screen goes blank, phone reboots. I didn’t even know that was possible.
——RM
Oh come on, gosh look at the country of origin for the online magazine and you’ll get the idea of how big of a grain of salt you have to take it. Heck they could probably write “It’s Official There are Weapons of Mass Destruction at Such and Such a Place” and people would believe them. Heck they might be stupid enough to actually invade the place, because after all “It’s Official.”
That’s the way they are there. Fortunately it’s not that way in the free and civilized world. Oh the papers publish the same sort of crap but people are intelligent enough to discern fact from fantasy.
DON’T DON’T UPGRADE. IN PAGES ALL FILES WHERE TAKEN OUT OF FOLDERS. And you cannot create Folders to return files to Folders on iPhone 6
NUMBERS OK
Anyone know of a solution???
Regarding PAGES taking files out of folders.
I didn’t see the folder problem until hours after using the phone. I just turned off my phone and turned it back on. And all the folders have reappeared.
Any idea why this happened?
Absolute fud !
We have several ios 8 devices at our place.
Not a single problem or crash or hanging up.
Bogus report bribed by competition !
I wish it was just FUD, but I’ve had the worst iOS experience yet. I don’t like to admit that my beloved Apple didn’t nail it on this release. That said, there’s simply no denying that more people have had issues than the previous OS. Hoping 8.1.1 stabilizes things.
Just because YOU haven’t had problems doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Case in point, Messages froze on me just after making the previous post. Had to force quit. Could be the Swype keyboard extension.
REALLY don’t want to do a clean install, but maybe that’s the best way to go. Ugh.
The lesson for me was, for iOS, do not upgrade right away, because you cannot revert. For OS X it is OK, if you clone your HD first, that way you can revert. So for iOS 9, I be awaitin’ awhile…….
It’s not FUD. My three-year-old iPad, my iPad Air and my iPhone 5 were are all hamstrung by the initial release of 8. WiFi response was the equivalent of swimming through yogurt. The emergency software release was a marginal improvement at best.
8.1.1 seems to have cleaned up the mess that the original release of 8 created. I’m grateful for the update but it was about time. I don’t care if only four or five per-cent of users experienced problems. I did and I didn’t like it.
I hold Apple to a high standard. They should do better next time.